Burton Guster considered himself to be an expert of many things. For starters, there was his expertise of coins. He could tell you who was on almost every coin ever made around the world. He was also an expert on zip codes and area codes. That had been a fun one to learn and it often came in handy during his and Shawn's cases. Gus was an expert with words; not the way Shawn was but certainly just as important. He took pride in his vast array of knowledge, much like anyone else who could be accurately described as a human encyclopedia, would.
But Gus wasn't an expert with life or death situations. He wouldn't even call himself an amateur. There was never a moment in his life when he thought, 'Hey, maybe I should learn to equip myself with skills to get out of danger if I'm ever kidnapped'. It just didn't seem like a practical skill. Even the times when he came face to face with death, it had never crossed his mind.
Gus looked around the empty, dark room. No. This, he wasn't an expert on. Definitely not.
"Look who decided to wake up?" A voice spoke softly from one of the corners. It was too dark for Gus to see anything but the man's silhouette.
Gus squinted and tried to imagine what Shawn would do in this situation. Of course, Shawn always saw things when he squinted. Gus didn't so he gave up trying and relaxed himself against the chair. He supposed that as long as the man stayed in his little corner, Gus would be fine. Taking deep breaths, Gus looked down at himself to see both of his feet tied against the legs of the chair, but that was all he could deduce. Shawn would have already figured out the man's entire life story. Frustrated, Gus looked up again.
The man walked into view and Gus started shaking. Gus showed his fear, while Shawn hid it and Gus hated it. He spent his entire life trying to be less like Shawn but the one time he needed to mimic Shawn, he couldn't stop shaking long enough to try.
The large man chuckled. "Don't worry, I don't have time to torture and kill you too. I just need your friend."
What would Shawn do?
"I think what you really need is a breath mint." Gus commented, scrunching his nose up slightly. The pleasure he felt after adequately imitating his best friend soon faded when his chair was pushed backwards, sending his head into the concrete floor. He coughed a little before muttering, "or maybe a sense of humor."
"You think this is funny?" The man asked, his voice eerily calm. Gus shut his eyes and tried to level his breathing. Perhaps now wasn't the time to mimic Shawn's snarky behavior. He'd save that for later. Reevaluating the situation, Gus sighed and opened his eyes.
"Not really." Gus answered honestly, finding the man standing over him. Gus tried his best to focus despite the pounding headache he now had.
The man bent down and lifted Gus up so the chair was once again standing on all four legs. Gus' head slumped slightly but he made the effort to raise it so he could look at the man again. He looked familiar.
"That's the problem with you and your friend." The man started, interrupting Gus from his thoughts. "You think everything is a joke. You stumble across dead bodies and happenstances and you laugh about it."
"Well, you know what they say, 'laughter is the best medicine'." Gus quipped, earning a glare from the man. That was a Shawn thing to say and despite the fact that he decided not to emulate his friend, he found it hard to stop. Gus was angry with the whole situation. He had a route that if left incomplete, would be the reason he didn't have a job anymore. Shawn never hid his anger and Gus was seeing now that maybe it was because if you were angry, you never had time to focus on the fear.
Gus made the executive decision to keep being snarky.
The man seemed unphased by Gus' retort. Maybe he was a little annoyed at the interruption, but he was still calm. Gus wasn't sure if that was something he should worry about, but ultimately decided against it. Calm was good. Calm was better than boiling rage.
"Even this, you think is funny." The man observed and Gus shook his head. He didn't find this funny at all. "Maybe I don't have to make the trade."
Gus narrowed his eyes slightly as he thought over the man's words. "The trade?"
"You for him."
"Me for who?"
"Your friend."
Gus nodded his head. That made sense. Shawn was the one who solved the crimes, or at least that's what the newspapers seemed to think. Gus was the assistant. Still, Gus was insulted. He knew he shouldn't have been, but he was. Just because Shawn was the 'psychic' didn't mean Gus didn't work just as hard to solve the cases they were assigned.
Gus was the assistant.
"They're not going to make the trade." Gus said, mostly to himself even though the man was close enough to hear him. "I'm not important enough and technically Shawn is a civilian. They're not going to make the trade."
The man nodded calmly, again worrying Gus. "I thought that too but you see, that psychic is a very defiant person, isn't he? He's going to be there whether the police are behind the decision or not."
That was true. One of the things that made Gus like Shawn so much was that despite being a leach and a pain, Shawn was beyond loyal. He'd do anything to ensure Gus and the rest of his friends were safe. He'd risk his life to make sure someone he cared about survived. It was Shawn's fatal flaw and apparently everyone knew it.
Gus just hoped that Shawn was thinking through whatever plan he was coming up with.
PsychPsychPsychPsych
Shawn was finding it hard to think straight. He was currently walking along the dock, waiting for someone to try to throw a sheet or something over his head. Despite how dangerous this mission was, the Chief was behind him one hundred percent.
There were five undercover officers pretending to be having a barbeque on one of the boats. Lassiter and Juliet were in a van parked as close to the docks as they could get. They could communicate with him through the earpiece Shawn was given. He also had a bulletproof vest on and a gun hidden in his sock. Shawn wasn't really sure how, in the face of danger, he could reach his sock in time to grab the gun and fire it, but it was cool nonetheless.
He truly felt like one of Charlie's Angels.
Shawn looked around the dock at each of the boats in view. One of them was the one already mentioned with the police officers on it. Another one was covered in slime and dirt. Shawn scrunched his nose before turning to glance back towards the city. The lights were starting to shine as the sun was almost below the horizon. Waves splashed around him and despite everything that was happening, Shawn allowed the sound to relax him.
"Where are they?" Lassiter questioned and Shawn could almost picture the older man's frown.
Shawn started to look around again. There was nobody out here. It was too cold and late for anyone to risk going out on the water, which Shawn figured is the reason the man chose the docks.
Shawn groaned and turned to face the city again. "Nobody is stupid enough to come sail right now."
"Nobody is going sailing, Spencer." Lassiter muttered, annoyed slightly at the man's voice. Shawn rolled his eyes.
"He's waiting for the dock to be clear."
"The dock is clear." Lassiter urged, earning another eyeroll from Shawn.
Juliet spoke up. "No it's not."
"We're not getting rid of the cops. Chief Vick was very specific that-."
"She was also very clear when she said we should do all we can to save Gus." Shawn urged as he slowly began to walk back towards the city. The group of undercover policemen turned to watch him. "This is stupid. We need more time."
There was a loud buzzing noise coming through Shawn's earpiece and he instinctively brought his hand to his ear. "Jesus, what is that?"
Juliet took her earpiece out of her ear as she watched Carlton do the same. This was all too familiar and it made the hair on her arms stand up straight. Carlton was the first to move towards the van's door to open it. It was locked. This wasn't right. Juliet swallowed the lump in her throat as she turned back towards the screens.
Shawn was standing on the dock turning around in circles in a panic. Juliet wasn't sure why he was so nervous. Nothing appeared to be wrong on the screen, until she saw the blood coming from the boat where the cops had been partying. That wasn't right either.
"Carlton." Juliet voiced, pulling the man's attention away from trying to get the door open. She heard him come up behind her and breathe out a string of curse words.
Within seconds, a man in an all black outfit came out of one of the boats. Shawn turned towards him and Juliet watched in horror as the man pulled a gun out and fired it at Shawn's unprotected leg. Her friend fell to the floor, his hand raised in surrender.
Shawn had been shot before and he hated it so much he decided to try his best never to let that happen again. Granted, that wasn't necessarily under his control at all, but it was a goal he vowed to keep. The first time he was shot, he passed out shortly after. This time, though, he was fully alert as he watched the man start walking towards him. The pain in his leg wasn't subsiding any time soon so rather than try to fight, Shawn put his arms in front of him in an effort to make the man see that he wasn't going to try anything.
"Shawn Spencer." The man uttered, a small smile creeping onto his face. Shawn fought the urge to roll his eyes despite the man's stereotypical actions.
There was something not quite right about this, besides the fact that everything that had happened in the last minute had gone completely against the plan. Shawn couldn't decide what it was. Maybe it was the fact that the man he had seen in all of those pictures was never on or near the water. Or maybe it was the fact that Dan Capelli couldn't have been any more than 30 years old yet the man standing in front of him had to be at least 35 years old.
He didn't have time to say to do anything with this information because within seconds, the man conveniently dropped some sort of metal on Shawn's head and his world went black.
PsychPsychPsychPsych
Yay! So I updated within 7 days, which would have been impressive had I actually made an attempt to do my chemistry homework. I actually finished this chapter yesterday but apparently there was some sort of glitch on the site so I couldn't. Luckily, it's fixed now, so here's chapter 3!
I'm going to try to have an update for you by Monday but don't be sad if I don't update then! I really like writing this story.