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“I see a senior citizen who needs medical attention. Are we taking her to the hospital, or am I calling an ambulance?”
Cassidy straightened and opened his mouth. Then he stopped. After a moment, he grinned: big, wide, perfect white teeth shining.
“All right, Leah. Go on and take Ms. Weis to the hospital. You and Rodney go on and take her. I’ll stay and deal with this situation.”
Jem shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He was surprised, distantly, to discover Tean was trying to shoulder him back.
“Chief,” the redhead—presumably Rodney—called. “Somebody’s coming.”
Headlights bounced down the road, and slowly the car took shape like smoke congealing into silver: a black Mustang. Jem couldn’t make out John-Henry or Emery inside, but he recognized the car. It rolled to a stop behind one of the cruisers, and Emery got out from the passenger side, already shouting up toward the house.
“Is Jonas in there?”
Cassidy’s head swiveled toward the sound; Jem wasn’t sure if he could see anything, not from where he stood inside the room, but it was clear from his face he recognized the voice.
“Jonas,” Emery bellowed, “get your micropenis out here. What kind of redneck carnival of fuckups are you running? Kid,” this last word was directed to Rodney, “get the fuck out of my way.”
Rodney didn’t get out of his way, and through the open doorway, Jem watched as Emery barreled past him. The kid tried to stop him. Instead, he bounced off Emery, stumbled, and landed on his ass. John-Henry, who had barely managed to get out of the Mustang by that point, winced.
“Sir—” Leah barked at Emery.
But Emery kept coming. Cassidy moved over to Heather, who was still trying to cover her bleeding lip with both hands. He took her wrists and pulled them behind her back—not gently, but not inappropriately this time either—and the cuffs snicked shut. He was standing in a straight line with the door, and he looked up and grinned as Emery stepped into the house.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Emery asked, giving Heather a single, considering look and then turning his attention to Cassidy. “I knew you were incompetent, and stupid, and sexually underdeveloped, and I knew you were a dirty motherfucker.”
“That’s verbal abuse and public disorder and—”
“So I suppose it should come as no surprise—” Emery said over him—shouted, really. “—that you’re also a thug and a bully who’s only capable of obtaining an erection by making victims of people not strong enough to fight back.”
Cassidy took Heather by the arm and started to steer her toward the door. He cast a quick glance back at Tean and Jem, and then he called out to his officers, “Leah, Rodney, arrest the four of them.”
18
It was ten in the morning by the time they were released, and exhaustion blurred Tean’s vision as he, Jem, Emery, and John-Henry stumbled out of the Auburn police station. The offenses they’d been charged with had been misdemeanors, but they hadn’t been able to bail out until the morning.
The day was bright, the air above the asphalt already starting to shimmer, and Tean swore he could smell the tar patches starting to soften. He shaded his eyes and tried not to groan when he saw North, Shaw, Auggie, and Theo waiting in the Audi. They got out, and Tean was surprised—no, never mind, no longer surprised by anything—to see that Auggie slid out of the Audi backward so he could keep his camera trained on Shaw.
“—and that was how I got my seventh ingrown testicle hair extracted,” Shaw said with a note of what might have been pride, “and I did it by myself because North wouldn’t help me.”
“Because it wasn’t ingrown,” North growled. “Because no one has ever, in the history of the world, had an ingrown ball hair.”
“And my next ingrown hair—wait, how long have I been talking?”
“Twenty-three minutes and fifty-three seconds,” Auggie said.
“Did I do it?”
“Close. You’ve still got a hundred and twenty-three days and change to beat the world record for a livestream.”
Shaw seemed to consider that for a minute. “Ok, then instead of telling you about the other ingrown ball hair, I’m going to tell you about when North wanted that CBD cream—”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” North said.
“—for his, quote, ‘creaky ass.’”
North’s face was almost purple as he rounded on Shaw.
“Auggie,” Theo said.
