Page 82 of Sunflower

We all looked up to stare at the glass wall where the voice was coming from. A scruffy man that looked like he was in his late twenties walked past, wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket that was draped over a baggy white t-shirt that had something of an image on it, but I couldn’t tell what it was from this angle. His five o’clock shadow had well and truly ventured into stubble territory, and I couldn’t tell if his well-overdue-for-a-cut hair was artfully tousled or unkempt because he simply didn’t give a shit.

Behind him, Leland Buckner, the man who wanted me to call himthe Agent, was being pushed forward by the biggest, most ferocious looking man I’d ever seen in my life. His height and width were both enormous, but what was truly frightening were the many tribal tattoos all over his face. His hair was buzzed short, which, along with his pale brown skin, seemed to make his tattoos pop even more, and a necklace made of small bones hung loosely around his thick neck.

His clothes softened his brutal look by being fuzzy and just as messy as his colleague’s clothes. Loose and grease-stained light blue jeans were matched with a long-sleeved black undershirt and what looked to be a hand-knitted, and rather frayed,brown and cream sweater with a hood that rested on his broad shoulders and upper back.

“That’s Boogeyman and Hellhound. Tama and Bailey, our heavy hitters.” Callum relaxed next to me, letting out a sigh of relief that seemed to come from his soul. “They caught the son of a bitch. They actually got him.”

As I watched the tattooed giant manhandle Leland down the corridor, I murmured, “What are their powers?”

“Bailey, the first guy? He’s a normie,” Callum said, leaning into me and resting his chin on my shoulder and watched them walk by. “Tama, the second guy, he’s the one with the power. He’s incredible. His is an illusionary power, the type that can warp reality for whoever he’s touching. He can manipulate people’s minds to make them see whatever he wants them to see.”

A shiver went down my spine at the thought of what he could do. No wonder he looked so terrifying. Hewasterrifying.

“His power comes in handy when you need to take someone down quickly,” Callum continued. “All he needs to do is touch someone, and they’re toast. I wish we had more like him. Don’t let his size or the tatt’s fool you. He’s a giant teddy bear.”

With Leland continuing to holler and curse, I kept my eyes on all three until they disappeared beyond the limit of the glass windows before I turned around to face Callum. “But how does he get close? He’s huge.”

Leaning back slightly to let me move, Callum chuckled. “That’s Bailey’s skill. He might be a normie, but he’s been trained in a variety of martial arts since he was a kid. There’s a very good reason why his code name is Hellhound.” He grinned evilly. “Tama might be a giant teddy bear, but Bailey’s earned his code name. He might not look nasty, but in some ways, Bailey’s more frightening than Tama. When he arrives on a scene, Hell always comes with him.”

I shivered. No wonder Callum had called them their heavy hitters. They sounded like they were the perfect working couple for this line of work.

“That was our first issue,” George said plainly to the quiet room. “That was Boogeyman and Hellhound bringing in the man that has recently put most of the lives in this room in danger.”

Erin quickly spun in her seat to stare at George with suspicious eyes. “Explain.”

George pressed his lips together in thought, but before he answered Erin, he focused on Pippa. “Pippa, can you check on Bailey and Tama? See if they have everything that they need to keep our guest… comfortable?” A distinct edge of malice entered his voice that I hadn’t heard before. “Leave your maps. We may still need your services before the night is through.”

Pippa glanced around the room, nodded once, then pushed back from the table and left, softly closing the door behind her.

It wasn’t lost on me that the only people left in this room were my family and George. Getting the distinct impression that now was the time the shit was likely to hit the fan, I tensed and squeezed Callum’s hand.

He squeezed back, just as ready for battle as I was. We both looked at George, assuming, or rather hoping, that he wanted to explain. Everything would probably sound better coming from him than either of us.Right?

George looked at us before rolling his eyes and sighing, resigned to his fate. “Six weeks ago, Callum was the victim of a home invasion.”

Erin gasped and stared at her son, aghast, while Dad frowned and chewed his bottom lip in thought. He’d been mostly quiet up to this point, likely still lost in his own thoughts about his new reality, but he was quicker than Erin on the timing. “Is that why you came home?”

Callum nodded. “We thought it might be the best way to get whoever it was off my trail.”

It was Erin’s turn to frown. “What do you mean,off your trail?”She swung her focus back and forth between Callum and George. “It wasn’t a random attack?”

“No,” George admitted. “The perpetrator, who we now believe to be the man you just saw being brought into custody, left something for Callum. The way it was left led us to believe that he knew what Callum’s powers were.”

“What do you mean,the way it was left?”she asked, her eyes narrowing further. “What did he leave?”

“He left a polaroid of Callum sleeping,” George said, this time to the alarm of Dad, who reached across the table to take Callum’s other hand while Erin’s focus remained on George. “Callum couldn’t get any sort of read on it at all. It was entirely void of human contact.”

“That’d do it,” Erin murmured, mostly to herself before she rallied. “Well, obviously, you found him. Do you know why he was targeting my son?”

Both George and Callum winced and looked down at the table. Slightly amused at how similar they were in mannerisms, I coughed, which brought everyone’s focus to me. “We think he was using Callum to get to George.”

Erin’s eyes narrowed further while she tried to put the pieces together. It was Dad that asked, “Why would he think targeting Callum was a good idea? Why not go after George directly?”

Figuring this was something Callum needed to answer, I looked at my boyfriend and gave his hand a quick squeeze. He glanced at me, his eyes pleading with me to answer for him, but I just nodded towards Erin. “Go on. They deserve to know everything.”

Resigned, he huffed a sigh before he pulled his ID tags and placed them slowly on the table in front of us. “Because I was a new agent. He thought I was an easier target.”

He ignored Erin’s furious squawks and promptly threw me under the proverbial bus with him. “Until he followed me out here, discovered I was dating Joey, and figured he was a better target.”

---