Lacey, Ben, and Travis' tattoo, made by meag516 and I love it so much

Lacey.

Two birds were cawing back and forth to each other, filling the silence between Josh and I. It wasn't exactly surprising, seeing as Josh seemed particularly on edge with Travis hovering beside me and I was annoyed that Travis didn't even let Josh walk into the house. Or, more accurately, he wouldn't let Josh step on the porch. So Josh and I were seated on the steps to the porch. We were situated on the same step while Travis was a few above us. I wanted to kick him a little bit.

He had been there. Travis had been right in the car while Ben and I not only planned Josh coming to visit, but spoke to Cameron on the phone about it - on speakerphone! We asked Travis if he was okay with it and if he thought it was a good idea. He said yes. And when his voice sounded off, like he was lying and I asked him two extra times if he was really, really sure, he said yes, Lacey.

I had mentioned it casually to Ben and Ben seemed to think it was a good idea. I didn't understand why until he made me call Cameron and put it on speakerphone so that Ben could talk to him. Cameron and Ben both agreed that bringing Josh out to the farm house was a good way for Josh to see that we weren't doing anything illegal anymore or...yet. Because even though our records were clear, that didn't mean that Josh and the other cops would necessarily stop looking for things that we were doing wrong. Cameron said it only took one slip up for them to jump down on us.

Cameron also claimed it said that we didn't have anything to hide, especially if we were letting him right on our property like that. And when I argued that it would be perfectly fine for me to just meet him at the café like I had originally planned or a café in the next town over, Cameron dismissed the idea.

"No," he had said through the phone. "I want them to know where we are and think they're in control on their end. It'll leave less surprises if something goes wrong."

I didn't exactly want anything to go wrong. Ever. But I didn't voice that. Ten minutes later, Cameron had texted us Josh's number that Ben had saved in my old phone still and I called him.

I had expected Travis to throw a fit about it when we asked him initially and then I expected him to throw a bigger fit when Cameron insisted upon it. But he didn't say a word about it then or once we arrived back at the farm house. I anticipated him bringing it up when we went to bed that night when it was just the two of us in the cocoon of covers but he hadn't and that worried me.

The day Josh was supposed to arrive, I was a nerve wreck. I was anxious about whatever was bothering Travis that he either didn't realize or didn't want to admit. I was also concerned with trying to talk to Josh and thank him for what he did while I had an audience. If he didn't try to bring a fleet of cops with him and try to arrest us all first. I didn't know what version of Josh was going to show up and instead of watching Finn, Travis, and Cameron explore the rotting barn, I went on a run to burn off some of my anxiety.

That is, until Ben found me and told me Travis was about to murder Josh.

Now, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say to Josh and I really wanted to get Travis alone to figure out what was going on with him. And I didn't know if the others wanted to talk to Josh or how this was supposed to go.

"Josh," I started but was immediately cut off.

"Uh uh," Travis snapped, not even looking at either of us.

My brow creased as I looked at Travis. "You-"

He shushed me, even going as far as putting his hand up in a stop motion.

I narrowed my eyes and whispered, "Shush me again."

Travis looked at me finally but he didn't look like himself. Not saying anything, which was probably best for his own well-being, he raised a single finger up to his mouth to tell me to be quiet.

Our moment of silence was interrupted as Hannah hopped up the steps between Josh and I and scooted around Travis. "Hey y'all," she greeted us without stopping on her way inside the house. I could hear her call Ben's name from the inside and a few seconds later, Ben came to stand on the porch behind us.

Annabeth stood at the bottom of the steps with her arms crossed, staring at the three of us. I felt incredibly boxed in and I had no idea why.

"Hi." Josh's tongue practically fell out of his mouth.

A hard glare was sent Josh's way by Annabeth.

Movement near the old barn caught my attention. No longer up on the barn's roof but on the ground, Finn started marching over to us and for once, I didn't see sunshine pouring off of his face.

Cameron intercepted him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and tugging him back. Cameron held onto Finn's shoulder and ducked his head in closer to Finn, like whatever he was saying was just for Finn, whether or not anyone else was around. They were too far away for me to even try to hear. Cameron jostled Finn's shoulder for a minute and then turned, walking toward us. Finn walked away from us toward the nearest treeline.

"Want to show me what's in your pockets?" Annabeth asked.

Josh glanced once at Finn, who was standing with his back turned toward us as he leaned against a tree, before nodding eagerly. "Sure." He pulled out his cell phone, a pack of gum, car keys, his wallet, and a pair of wireless headphones, a small notepad, and a pen out between the pockets in his jacket and in his jeans.

Annabeth walked forward and grabbed his phone, looking at it for a second before tossing it over our heads to where Ben was.

"We need to search you," she said as Cameron reached us.

Josh stood up without a thought, despite Annabeth not even smiling or sugar coating her words and with Finn nearby. His crush on Annabeth was going to cause Finn to shove a firecracker down his throat.

Instead of Annabeth, Cameron stepped forward and started to run his arms along Josh's sides, chest, and legs.

"Don't get too excited," Cameron said and I had to turn my head to the side so Josh wouldn't see my face. It wasn't often Cameron made any type of joke.

After Cameron searched, Ben returned Josh's phone and I wouldn't be surprised if a few things were different on it now. Josh sat down, no longer as happy now that it wasn't Annabeth that had put her hands all over him, and started putting everything back in his pockets.

Annabeth went up the stairs past us but dragged a few of her fingers through the top of Josh's hair as she passed. Correction: Annabeth was going to be the reason Josh got a firecracker shoved down his throat. Ben opened the door for her and the two of them disappeared into the house.

Cameron followed Annabeth up the steps and I moved slightly to get out of his way. However, unlike her, he didn't go inside but stayed at the top of the porch.

"Go hang with Finn," Cameron told Travis.

My boyfriend ignored the request, which I wasn't really surprised about.

Cameron whistled loudly and grabbed Finn's attention.

"Are you done?" Finn screamed. "Travis!"

Travis aimed his glare at the blonde.

"I need your help!" Finn paused and took a few steps closer from where he was near the tree lines. "Can he hear me?" Finn put his hands up to cup his mouth, lowered his voice a little bit, and yelled even louder. "Travis! I am your father!"

The horrible Stars Wars impersonation must have been enough to get Travis' focus because he yelled back, "I'm not helping you dig any more holes unless it's your grave."

"I should really not be hearing this conversation right now," Josh looked up at the sky, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Cameron smacked Travis' head.

"Ow," Travis grumbled, grabbing the back of his head.

Finn laughed but the noise was muted with the distance, "Come help me or I'm waking you up every morning for a month, you little shit."

Travis looked personally offended by Finn's nickname, as if Travis himself didn't throw words like that around on a daily basis. He stood up and stomped down the steps right between Josh and I, each step heavy. Before reaching the treeline or disappearing from our line of sight, he stopped and crossed his arms. Finn said something quietly and as Travis gestured over toward Josh and I, Finn grabbed him by his arm and tugged him away. There was an onslaught of cussing being yelled by both Finn and Travis after that but neither reappeared out of the trees.

The door to the house slammed shut and when I looked behind me, I saw that Cameron had also gone back in the house. Josh and I were alone and I should probably say something, I just wasn't sure where to start.

I looked at the floorboards of the steps as I asked, "Which version of you is here today?"

"What?"

"Are we on the record?" I asked. "Is this cop Josh or my friend Josh?"

Josh reared back slightly. "Off the record. I don't...Are you kidding me? Carson, I got recruited into an actual agency that knows what the hell they're doing. I'm legit now and none of that would've happened without you giving me the chance. Is this on the record, are you crazy?!"

I shrugged. "I just need to make sure..."

He slapped my arm. "I can't believe you. I didn't tell anyone where I was going, I said I had to go visit my mom. I mean, I know I said I'd arrest you and I sure as hell will, when you start doing something that needs arresting but I'll at least give you a grace period so I can thank you."

I smiled then and before he could stop me, I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his neck, squeezing him into a tight hug because even though he was a narcissistic asshole that made me want to punch him in the gut half the time, he was part of the reason we were even here right now. Josh, never shy of physical affection and often not exactly knowing the concept of personal space, tensed up.

"Carson, let go," he whispered. "He's going to shoot me. I said I wouldn't touch you."

I frowned and pulled away, alarm running through my body along with the urge to make sure he wasn't wearing a wire again even though Cameron thought he was okay. "Who?" I asked.

"Trav-is Mil-ler," Josh said slowly, almost in awe as he pronounced each syllable of my boyfriend's name.

"He won't shoot you."

Josh's eyes widened. "He said he would if I touched you."

I waved my hand in the air. "You've seen him how many times now and he hasn't yet has he?"

Josh looked back to where Finn and Travis had gone off to with unease.

"He won't do anything unless I ask him to," I tried to reassure Josh but it seemed to do the opposite.

Josh didn't exactly look scared but he definitely looked uneasy.

"If I promise no one will hurt you and I hug you again, will you hug me back?" I asked.

He looked back to the treeline once before nodding. I wrapped my arms around him and this time, he did the same.

"Thank you," I whispered. "You saved our lives."

While I didn't know if we would've died in the jail or if we would've died if we had tried to escape without Josh clearing our names or showing up, I know that Lucky would've come after us and if that had happened, we would've had a much harder time getting somewhere safe. The cops, Lucky's people, and the people Lucky worked for could've all come chasing after us. We never would've had a real life ever again, constantly on the run.

I pulled away and wiped at the stray tear that had fallen.

Josh scrunched up his face. "My thank you was so much better than yours and I didn't even cry."

I rolled my eyes and blinked my eyes clear. "I'm serious. You don't know how much you saved our asses. I saw that you were arresting people in Melkin, too."

Josh shrugged, "It's because I'm the best."

"Was it hard to get our names cleared?"

"Nah, the Judge seemed to like Cameron Casey. I don't know why. From what I've seen, the guy looks like he's got a porcupine stuck up his ass and likes it and that scares me, Carson."

There was a noise from inside the house that sounded a lot like laughter and I palmed my forehead.

Josh didn't hear the laughter or didn't care because he continued on easily, "But the Judge just signed it and bam, done. The hardest part was probably getting to the jail because half the roads were just dirt and I didn't want to get lost and screw things up. Which, I need you to tell me everything that happened while you were there. Off the record, one partner to another because I was in every single room of that jail and that place was a sty. Have you gotten your shots? I walked out of that place feeling like I needed a tetanus shot."

I wanted to laugh but I was too focused on the most important things. "Did you find Lucky? Did you find the other Caseys?"

"Yeah," Josh said enthusiastically and then thumped my leg with his hand, holding onto my knee and shaking it eagerly. "You weren't kidding! He had every single pattern I could think of on his outfit. I'm not a fashion dude but even that hurt my eyes. Who was he peacocking for?"

That time, I did laugh with Josh. "Was he alive?"

"No, he was dead. Him and a few others that were identified as working with him were found dead. We found the other Casey members in individual jail cells and they pointed us to the section that had the cells you guys were kept in." He squeezed my knee and looked at me seriously. "Don't lie to me. Are you okay?"

I thought about it for a moment before smiling. "I am now, yeah."

He studied me for a moment but didn't say anything. I hadn't been lying. Not all of our days were okay but they were all better than they used to be and I was happy and with everyone I loved and safe.

"What's going to happen to the ones you arrested?" I asked.

"Well, the Caseys we found technically had pending charges on their record and we made a deal with them that said if they testified against the others that were arrested and told the Judge everything they told us about what those assholes did to everyone, we wouldn't press charges."

"Will that be enough? Do you need more people to testify? Josh, the things they did...they can't, please tell me they don't have a chance."

He shook his head, "They don't have a chance. You can testify if you want but honestly, with everything against them already, you don't even need to. It would just be extra at this point."

I let out a breath of relief because the people who deserved to be punished were and we didn't have to relieve those moments in front of a courtroom full of people. And my friends, who had done nothing but try to live their lives, were finally-hopefully- able to put the past behind them.

"And you arrested some of the Dacostas? Right? I saw that on the news," I said.

Josh nodded, "It's a lot easier to do things when you have people more competent than Dylan and Owen in charge."

"What about Caseys?"

He gave me a sly grin. "I can't find any. I think they left town."

I couldn't tell if he really couldn't find any and the Caseys did leave town because Cameron had technically told them to, or if Josh was just turning a blind eye to them.

Josh got comfortable on the steps. "Tell me what happened in the jail. I want to know everything so I know how much of a savior I was to you guys. I'll figure out where I want my larger than life statue to be placed afterward but right now I'm thinking I want it there," he said, pointing to a spot directly in front of the house.

I rubbed the sides of my head. "I didn't miss you at all."

Despite his obnoxious side coming out, I went over some of the details from the jail. I didn't tell him everything like I didn't think he needed to know who killed Lucky or Vik, who put that bullet in Lucky's hand, or what they had Travis doing most nights. But I did tell him they regularly drugged Travis and assaulted us. I told him they wanted us to help them out and went to great lengths to try to get us to agree. And that I thought they were going to kill us at the end because we wouldn't help so they'd have no use for us, right before we managed to call him.

"Carson," Josh said and put both of his hands on my cheeks, pushing them together and smashing up my lips. "I would never admit it to my bosses, but I'm glad you're okay. And please tell me you got a tetanus shot."

I grinned but it was distorted thanks to Josh. "Yeah. Hannah's a doctor. She checked over every inch of us to make sure we were okay."

Josh let go of my face, confused. "Hannah?"

I pointed to the door. "The girl that walked in the house first."

He raised his hand, using his thumb to point at the door similar to how I had a moment ago. "Hannah?"

"Yes."

Josh tapped the step he was sitting on with each word for emphasis. "Hannah? Hannah Martinez? Hannah Martinez as in the same one we saw owned the Casey house?"

What I wanted to do in that moment was look toward the door of the house just to see if anyone was listening in the window. Or even tell Josh to hold on a second so I could go inside and see what they wanted me to tell him. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a very slim chance that Cameron or Annabeth weren't sitting somewhere on the other side of the door or near the windows listening and watching what was going on. Especially Cameron. I knew he didn't trust that easily and the whole point of him letting Josh come here was to make Josh and his co-workers eventually think they were in control and in the know.

And I knew Cameron well enough by now to know that if he had an issue with the question Josh had asked, especially considering it involved Hannah who was previously his best kept secret, he would stop me from answering or cause a distraction so I didn't have to answer. I didn't think a person could keep another person secret for that long without knowing how to distract and lie when needed.

So I said, "Yeah, that Hannah."

The house was silent and Cameron wasn't coming to kill me so all was good.

That shocked Josh into silence, which was a hard thing to do. After that, he asked question after question about the Casey gang but I refused to answer questions about any of the others. Josh stuck to asking questions about me and my home life and how long I had been lying to everyone for.

Eventually, the back door to the house slammed like someone opened it but couldn't see anyone come around so I ignored it. A little later, a small pink blob was spotted running around in the grass, stopping every now and then to eat some of it.

"You have a pig?" Josh asked.

"Finn does. Her name's Arson," I said.

"You have a pig named after a felony," he stated and then groaned. "Awesome."

In the distance, Annabeth walked over to Arson which meant it was probably Cameron sitting on the other side of the house door listening in.

We watched Arson stop and eat what must have been some good grass for about a minute before Josh spoke up again. "Hey, Carson?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you even have a cat or was that a lie?" he asked.

I looked at him, confused.

"When we first got assigned the mission, you said you blanked out on everything Mr. Tuft was telling us because you were too busy worrying about who was going to take care of your cat."

Josh's memory was always the most frustrating thing about competing against him on written tests.

"I've never had a cat," I admitted. "Mr. Tuft showed me the video of Travis and Cameron getting caught in the building that came down and my mind couldn't move beyond that. I still have no clue what else he said."

His face fell. "God, I feel like such a dumbass for never catching on."

There was a pop sound that came from the treeline and then deep purple smoke started to pour out of it. Seconds later, Finn and Travis came out of the middle of the purple smoke, covering their faces and coughing. Purple coated them from head to toe. Travis shook his hair as he ran away from the trees. He stopped, took off his ruined jacket and shirt, and turned the shirt inside out to wipe off his face.

Finn had his hands on his stomach and his head was thrown back in a loud laugh. Travis stopped wiping his face and started gesturing to something with his hands, making a big circle in the air. He didn't look mad or annoyed and then I heard the trickle of his laugh which made me smile.

"Everyone here seems so different than what I expected," Josh admitted. "But still just as scary. It's very unsettling. I don't know what to think."

"You don't have to think of them in any way. They're just normal people," I said and glanced over at the pig. "In their own way."

Thoughts on Josh now? Like/hate him more than you did with last week's update or are you the same?

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