Okay, so next chapter. The scene at the station is a bit weak I think. I tried to get back to the humour that Psych is famous for.
I love it when a plan comes together!
"So, you have a plan, right?" Shawn asked. He was leaning heavily on the Detective as they made their way across their makeshift prison.
"Me? You're the genius." Lassiter replied, good-naturedly.
"I bet three days ago, if I'd told you that you were...mmph... going to call me a genius, you wouldn't have believed me."
"You're probably right." Lassiter smiled. They were bantering gently with each other, trying to take their minds off their pain.
"I should be insulted. In fact, I think...ah... I am insulted."
"Hey, you should take it as a compliment. Who knew you were... ngh... that good an actor?"
"You okay?"" Shawn asked, all joking aside at Lassiter's grunt of pain. While Shawn had been grunting and groaning almost every step, the Detective had been stoically silent in regards to his pain thus far.
"Oh, I'm just hunky-dory." Lassiter ground out.
"Dude." Shawn gasped. "Hunky-dory? What are you, like, ninety?"
"You're the one who's hobbling along like an OAP!"
"Well, I'd be happy to walk by myself. I'm only leaning on you so you'll feel better. Ah." He winced and groaned a little and took a moment to catch his breath. "To give you something to do."
"Oh, yeah. I'm sure." Lassiter replied in mock sincerity.
"MMMMMMMMPH!" Came from behind them. They turned as one. It seemed their former captor, current captive, was awake. The sight of George Truman tied up, with the tattered remains of Shawn's t-shirt stuffed in his mouth as a gag, and his pants still around his ankles was unreasonably comical, and Shawn couldn't hold in a bark of laughter.
"Oh, shut up." Lassiter said irritably, waving the bamboo switch he still held in his hand. The bound man flinched and fell obediently silent. He glared at them from where they'd left him, curled on the floor in the corner of the barn.
They made their torturously slow way outside and crossed the wide yard towards the house. They knew they had to take out the bad guys, and call for help. There was no way they could evade recapture in their state, it would be like a one legged turtle trying to evade a pack of hyenas, as Shawn put it.
"Ah!" Shawn cried suddenly, lurching into Lassiter, making them both fall sideways.
"Spencer! What the hell?" Lassiter whisper-shouted.
"Sorry, Lassie." Shawn muttered. He didn't want to tell him that a Raccoon had jumped out at him from behind the trash cans, scaring the crap out of him. The two men lay silent for a moment.
"I don't think they heard." Lassiter whispered, getting up. He pulled the younger man to his feet, frowning at the fresh trails of blood on his back. "Maybe you should just sit out here."
"You're kidding me, right?" Shawn tried a smirk. "You're almost as hurt as I am. We only have one chance here, and we have to take it together."
"Come on, people! Give me something! Anything! Our people have been in those psychopaths hands for hours!" Vick corralled her people.
"Chief." Juliet said in a clam measured tone, she walked up and took Karen by the arm and walked with her into the office.
"Take your hands off...!"
"That's the fourth time you've yelled at us to find Shawn and Carlton in the last half hour. We love them too."
"I know. I'm sorry." Vick sighed and sat down. "I have Henry on my back, and I want to find them as much as any of you."
"We will find them."
"I know. We have to. But this... it's my fault." Vick said quietly, showing rare vulnerability.
"What? How is it your fault?"
"My people are my responsibility. I went back over the files. Ellis had a questionable psych report, but I hired him anyway. I was sure it could be worked out. Maybe it could have, he was fine until his wife died. When Drimmer went bad, we looked into the rest of his unit. We found that Truman believed everything he said about Shawn and Carlton and he seemed unduly concerned with the idea that the Detective might possibly be gay. As for Colby Randolf, that man has more complaints for undue force and illegal searches etcetera than any other officer in this precinct. So, I could have prevented this. If I was just paying attention."
"Okay, so the warning signs were there, but it wasn't your fault. Shawn should have come to you as soon as they started harassing him." Juliet was hard wired to support anyone who got upset, and the Chief was upset. It was not a surprise in that the Chief always did what she could to look after her friends, but the personal nature of the Chiefs sadness showed Juliet that whatever Karen Vick said, she was a friend to O'Hara, Lassiter and Shawn.
"Okay, O'Hara, chick-flick moment over. Get back out there and find our boys."
Shawn and Carlton had finally made it over to the house and looked in through the one lit window. The three police officers had set up travel lamps and had lit a fire in the old grate.
"They're asleep?" Shawn asked incredulously, looking at the lumps in the sleeping bags.
"It looks like it. But we can't be sure." Lassiter frowned. "We need a plan."
"Leave me here."
"What?"
"I'll create a distraction, you go around the back and get the jump on them. Classic pincer movement."
"That's not a good idea. If they come out here with guns blazing, you could get very dead before I could stop them."
"Then what's your idea, Detective Smarty-Pants?"
"You stay here, don't do anything, don't say anything, and don't touch anything. I sneak in, and get hold of the weapons. Hopefully I'll be able to grab one of their phones."
"Bad idea, you'll be totally open to attack."
"Okay. So, what do we do?"
"Plan B, grab the fish and run?" Shawn suggested whimsically, making a reference that no one ever seemed to get.
"What?" Lassiter asked, confused.
"How about this?" Shawn offered quickly. "I hide and make a noise. You hide behind the door. Bad guy comes out to investigate the noise and you whack them over the head. I grab the second gun. We get the drop on the second guy and aim our two guns at him. He surrenders peacefully and we call for help."
"That sounds good."
"Or how about this?" A cold voice came from behind them. "You two could talk away right outside the window, giving me plenty of time to come up behind you and get the drop on you." It was Colby.
In the farmhouse, John Ellis rolled over in his sleep muttering.
"Oh, I don't know." Shawn laughed nervously. "That doesn't sound like a good plan to me."
"Oh, really? I think it's working out fine." Colby laughed; a long dark cackle.
"Seriously? An evil laugh? How long did you practice that in front of the mirror?" Shawn grinned. He was hurting and tired and he just wanted to go home, but if he could keep the mask up, everything would be alright.
Colby had his gun against Shawn's back. Lassiter looked at his friend, and then at the man behind them. He looked down at the gun in his own hand and then at the one in his enemy's hand. He wasn't sure he could get the gun away from Colby before he could pull the trigger. Shawn caught his eye, and then held out his hand. One finger.... two fingers.... three! They span together, Shawn grabbing Colby's wrist and twisting viciously (Henry's self defence lessons had not been in vain). The crooked cop dropped his weapon, as Lassiter raised his. He aimed the gun he'd recovered from Truman at Officer Randolf's head.
The evil officer might have dropped his gun, but he could take Shawn easily in hand to hand, since Shawn was in such a weakened condition. He deliberately struck at Shawn's injured back and the younger man flinched away with a choked cry.
"Randolf! Freeze!" Lassiter said, going into his shooter's stance, legs shoulder-width apart, two handed grip on his weapon. Colby didn't do as he was told. Instead, he lunged for the gun that Shawn had made him drop. Lassiter knew what he had to do and pulled the trigger once, twice, three times.
Reviews are like chocolate coated almonds! (Chocolate and almonds both contain phenylephylamine which is the same hormone the brain triggers when you fall in love, so chocolate covered almonds are a double dose of love hormone! Peas also contain this hormone). Yeah, that review comparison kind of got away from me. But, I think it does show how much I love reviews.... maybe?
