Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Nice with the Star Wars quote,” Dylan said with a chuckle.
“I’m going to murder you all myself,” Sam yelled.
I had no doubt he would, but at the moment, I was slowly driving down to the side exit Dylan knew about. Once we were back out on the street, I stayed with traffic and made it to the federal building. I got us parked, and it was good to breathe, because now that we were standing on the sidewalk, I started shaking.
“You were great,” Aja soothed me, rubbing my back as I bent over.
At that moment, the two unmarked SUVs that had been chasing us pulled up at the same time that Ian and Eli came jogging toward us with some others I didn’t know.
One of the men reached for Dylan, and I straightened up and grabbed her, yanking her in tight against me.
“On your knees!” the guy yelled as Ian stepped between us.
“These people are wanted and—”
“We all have our badges out, because I know you ICE guys get confused and arrest federal marshals sometimes.”
Fucking Ian. He had to go and bait the bad guys.
“You’re interfering with—”
“Oh fuck off,” Eli snapped, which was so wildly unlike him, I stared. “I’m so sick of you pricks being here I could puke.”
Ian’s face, as he looked at Eli, was the best thing I’d seen in a while. He was both surprised and amused.
“If you don’t stand down—”
“Back off,” Ian ordered him. “You’re ICE, and I know that because you’re all wearing masks, you won’t show your faces, and you have no badge to show me.”
“Also, there are remnants of glitter on you,” Eli pointed out. “That’s like herpes, man. That shit is never coming out.”
Another guy tried to take hold of Aja, and one of the marshals, a woman, shoved him back so hard he almost stumbled.
“Do not touch her,” she warned, and her tone brooked no protest.
“They didn’t stop for us,” the guy complained to Ian.
“You have an unmarked vehicle. Why would they? You could have been anyone. How would they know?”
“We—”
“And now that we’ve determined that you’re not CPD, and the only thing they’re guilty of is running some red lights, I—”
“I didn’t run any red lights,” I assured Ian.
“Really?” Eli asked me.
I nodded.
He did a slow pan to the ICE agents. “Get off our lawn.”
“There’s no lawn here,” one of the other guys said.
The guy in front groaned, but suddenly Ian’s smile was both evil and big. “You should run before our boss gets here, because you know how he feels about you guys. There was a press conference where he said he would support CPD and the FBI in taking down dangerous fugitives wanted for violent offenses but stands with the city of Chicago in the protection of all our citizens.”
“Yeah, but immigrants are—”
“Please don’t make me give you a lesson about Native Americans and who is and isn’t actually an immigrant. I’m tired, it’s late, so just walk away.”
“We—”
“Nothing’s going to change here,” Eli told him. “Whatever you think is going to happen is not. So go before I send someone upstairs for the glitter gun.”
“We have rainbow,” the marshal, Lopez, I remembered, told them.
There was more posturing, and one of the agents ordered Lopez to show him her ID.
She scoffed, one of the men took a step forward, and that was it. Ian put him on the ground so fast that no one even reacted for a moment.
“You have threatened a federal agent and will be taken into custody.”
“Wait,” the first man said, just as we all heard squealing tires to the side of us, lights flashing, and suddenly there was Sam, striding toward us, breathing fire.
“Get the fuck away from my building now!” he roared, and that was it.
The man on the ground scrambled away, because Ian allowed that, and the others basically turned tail and ran. Sam had been clear about what the marshals would and would not do when he stood with the governor and the mayor and the superintendent of police. The marshals were about community inclusion and protection of all, nothing else.
“Thank you,” I said to Ian and Eli and everyone else as Sam reached us.
Both Aja and Dylan echoed my words.
Grabbing me, Sam hugged me tight, kissed my forehead, and then held me out to arm’s length, checking for any injury. Next was Aja, and finally Dylan. He then directed Ian to go upstairs and write up a quick report of the incident, as well as Eli.
“I’m so tired of all this,” Eli told his boss.
“We can only stay true to our purpose and protect everyone we can while still doing our jobs,” Sam told him. “And thwart the forces of evil at every opportunity.”
He thanked all his people, we all shook hands, and then the three of us were alone with Sam, who was breathing in through his nose.