The door is flung open when a young girl dashes in, eager to see her grandfather, and just as swiftly, I pick the young girl up and grab the Goofy head.
“Your grandpa is busy, but I know magic. Do you like magic?” I ask as I flop the Goofy head back on while I hold the girl close. It’s a wonder how she can simply trust a strange man all because of the outfit I wear.
“I DO!” she says.
“Put her down,” Raul hisses.
“We’re just going to do some magic tricks. We’ll be in touch, Raul. Please, don’t bother moving… it really wouldn’t be for the best,” I say as I make a knife appear in front of the girl before making it disappear. She’s mystified by how I did it and Raul is forced to sit there, unable to do anything while Henry and I make our escape.
I carry her downstairs and right into the middle of the party. There’s no way Raul’s going to shoot me here and risk killing one of his precious family. I set the girl on the ground and wave to her friends. “You go get your friends and prepare yourselves for a magic show!”
She dashes off and I usher Henry over to the tent we’d first entered through. We push into it and shed our beautiful outer bodies before hurrying over to where we find Tavish and Cassel waiting.
“You guys got the stuff you needed, Cassel?” I ask.
“Sure did. Did you accomplish anything?”
“Absolutely not. There was not a lick of accomplishment during any part of that,” I say, quite soured by the whole thing. I glance at the house where Jackson and Everly were trying to get the code out of the guard and see something that catches my eye.“I’ll meet you guys at the vehicle.” And then I dash for the house Jackson and Everly were in.
I find that they’re leaving just as I arrive.
“I’m glad you’re safe. Let’s go,” Jackson says when he takes note of me.
“Honey… your hands are empty,” I inform him.
“They sure are. You do not need that gun. We need to go.”
“It’s just…rightthere. Right inside the door. It’ll actually make me run back to the vehicle faster.”
“Leland, you don’t need another gun. How are you even getting it home?”
“I’ll get it home, that’s no worry at all,” I say as I slip inside the house.
I glance at the spot where I’d left the gun, but it’s gone. Though let’s be honest… I didn’t come back into the house for the gun.
Instead, I start up the stairs and watch the way blood runs down them. Droplets drip down each step, and I have to be careful not to step in it. Ensuring I keep my shoes clean, I edge around the body of the man that Jackson and Everly surely did not kill, and onto the second floor.
“You just going to follow me everywhere?” I ask.
The masked man is already facing me as I reach the final step and look at him. “That’s it?” he asks, a quake of irritation tearing through his voice. “That’s just fucking IT?” His voice rises to a yell. “You are supposed to kill him. You’re the fuckingSANDMAN. You are ruthless, you are the thing people are afraid of. You are untouchable. But instead, you are acoward.”
Anger eats at me. “You seem to believe you know everything about me, but you don’t. You might have heard of all of the people I’ve killed. You might have me up on this fucking pedestal, but that’s because you’ve only ever heard of my results. You think people hear about all of the steps I took along the wayto stop a person? You think they hear about the days or weeks of following them, watching them, creating a schedule for them? What it’s like to maneuver everything into the perfect situation so that when I finally close in, it’s done with perfection? No, they hear about finding him with a bullet in his head. This isn’t something that’s just immediately done and over with. It takes time. It takes planning. And you don’t seem to want me to do either of those for some fucking reason!”
He shakes his head. “You have let them fuck with your life. Are you even fucking deserving of that title anymore? If people saw the real you, they’d never fucking fear you.”
“What is it that you want? Did Raul destroy your life, and you want me to kill him?”
“You have turned into a coward. You have turned into a fucking coward,” he growls as he turns toward the window where I see he has the rifle set back up.
“I don’t care what you think of me, but stay out of my fucking life, do you understand?” I hiss. “Don’t fucking touch that trigger. Shooting Raul is not the answer. Let us destroy the entire organization?—”
“Too fucking late,” he says, and I know that whatever is going on between us, it’s about to get really fucking messy. “I did it for you. I blasted a hole right in his fucking head so you don’t have to keep being the disappointment you are.” He knocks over the gun and moves toward me. “What a joke. Such a joke. You’re a fucking joke!”
“Stay out of my life or I will make you,” I order.
“The Sandman is no more,” he says as he starts down the stairs. He stops when he sees Cassel at the bottom of them.
“You going to shoot me in the head?” he asks with a chuckle. “Go ahead, now. Pull the trigger. But tell me, what exactly have I done wrong? I’ve simply done what that coward could not do.”
