“Oh… I don’t know if she’s ready for this yet. Thankfully, she was okay after the attack. She called me super brave.”
“Did… did you do anything? I’m pretty sure Deus and Ellison were the only ones doing things,” Landon says. “And August was over there lookingmightyfine.”
“He is a very fine specimen,” Baker agrees. “Very symmetrical.”
“Uh… thank you?” August replies.
I look up as Asmodeus crawls over two rows of seats to hang over the back of one. “While your father’s lap is very pleasant, I feel quite left out,” Asmodeus says. “Where shall I sit?”
“Does it look like there’s room?” I ask.
“Fine, I shall hang here and observe with my ass in this woman’s face.”
“I’ve had worse in my face,” she says.
Asmodeus nods approvingly. “A mighty fine compliment.”
“Does anyone know where we’re going?” I ask.
“Somewhere fucking magical,” Patricia yells from the front.
“She told us that once before dropping us off with some people she claimed were our aunt and uncle before going to Disney World without us,” Landon says. “They weren’t even related to us. They were about to call child services until I used my telekinesis to finish some shit they were working on in their backyard while Brandon hauled heavy things around for them.They loved us after that and decided to keep us until our parents came back for us.”
“We had so much fun,” Patricia shouts back.
“Why is it that your parents are extremely evil… but in a peculiar way? Like if my mother did that, everyone would be like ‘dear god, that’s awful,’ but everyone here just thinks it’s funny?” I ask Landon.
“Dude, beats me. My parents are top-tier strange, but I also know that they’d tear the world apart to look for me. They did that once. I was just at the library and they began telling everyone I’d been kidnapped. There was a search party and everything. The thing is… Brandon had gone with me and forgot where he left me.”
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Like seven. Scarred me for life. I credit it for why I am the way I am.”
“Oh honey, no. That would very much be when your father tried swapping you with another child because he couldn’t remember which one was you.”
“Excuse me, what?” Landon asks. “You… Youswappedme?”
“Of course not,” Patricia says. “I told him to look for the birthmark on your hip.”
“I don’t have a birthmark on my hip!” Landon cries.
“Huh. Ah well, you’re ours now!”
“Was I switched at birth? Mother!”
“Oh honey, it wasn’t at birth, you were like two.”
Landon’s even more shocked now. “I wastwoand Dad didn’t know what I looked like?”
“Oh honey, you went through a spell of wearing masks all the time. It was so cute. You wanted to be a supervillain so badly that even I forgot what you looked like.”
“Did you neverbathe me?”
“That’s what Nolan was for. He did all of that stuff. We just did the fun stuff with you.”
“I was switched at birth. It finally makes sense,” Landon decides.
“You and Nolan have too many similar facial features. You must have gotten switched back at some point,” August says.
