Late Heroics

“Gavin, I’m so sorry.”

Grace rushed to his side and began untying him. She started with his feet, bending down to pull out the knot, the young teen feeling instantly more comfortable when he was able to move more freely. Circling around him, she moved to untie his hands, still apologizing over and over for her mistake, feeling so completely guilty that she found it hard to even give an excuse or explain. Before she could fully release him from his bonds there was a loud chunk and the light came on. Seconds later, in came rushing Trent and Brandon, much to both Grace and Gavin’s shock and surprise.

“Get away from him, you bitch,” Trent said, brandishing the tire-iron above his shoulder. He’d never hit a woman in his life, and this was more of a threat than an actual attempt but a sudden burst of hate surged up in his chest so strongly at that moment that he thought he might actually have been able to do it.

Dropping the rope from her grasp, Grace backed away and held her hands up, surrendering. Brandon turned to her, after having given the place a thorough once over with his eyes, and asked, “Was Shawn just here?”

“H-how did you know that?” she asked, still not quite understanding the correlation between the morning’s events.

“I was followed you from Oh Henry’s,” Trent boasted, feeling pretty good about himself for having foiled the plan of someone as smart as Grace Smith. “So, don’t lie. I saw him come in here.”

“I wasn’t going to lie,” she huffed, puffing out her cheeks. “He was here, but he just left. Like a minute before you got here.”

“Which way?” Brandon asked, already on the move. She pointed to a door on the other side of the warehouse.

As Brandon ran off, Trent lifted his tire-iron and pointed it at Grace’s face, silently re-issuing the threat for her to stay back. He leaned over and looked at Gavin, his eyes bouncing between the teen in the chair and Grace, making sure the brunette didn’t move. His eyes widened as he saw Gavin properly for the first time since they entered, noticing the blood on his face and his fat, purple lip. Part of him wanted to just drop the tire-iron and check to make sure the other boy was alright, but he didn’t trust her not to pick it up and clobber him over the head with his own weapon.

“You alright, man?” Trent asked.

Gavin nodded, and said, “It was just a couple of punches.”

The punches he could handle. It was the cum-swapping kiss that had been the most humiliating, but Gavin decided that Trent didn’t need to know about that. No one needed to know about that. Fortunately for Gavin, Brandon returned then, changing the subject back to Shawn.

“Nope. He’s gone, and his motorcycle is gone,” Brandon informed them, amidst an exhale of frustration.

“Fuck, I knew you took too long to get here. Five minutes earlier and we would have had the bastard,” Trent growled as he looked again at Gavin’s face and wished he could have caught Shawn to return the favor.

“Fuck you,” Brandon snapped back. “I want to catch Shawn as much as anyone, but I couldn’t have gotten here any faster. Especially not with your shitty directions.”

“Whatever,” Trent said, dropping the iron as he knelt behind Gavin. “Watch her while I untie him.”

“Really? She’s like half our size,” Brandon remarked, looking her up and down, her petite frame reminding him of another small statured girl who’s body he used to admire daily. “She’s hardly a threat.”

“She knocked out Gavin and brought him here to Shawn, didn’t she?” Trent reminded him as the rope began to loosen.

“It wasn’t like that. I wanted to ask him about what happened to Victoria, because it was my program and my algorithm that he used to spread those pictures. But he didn’t tell me that beforehand,” Grace insisted, irritated at how this Trent guy was making her out to be as bad, or even worse, than Shawn himself. “But I didn’t think he’d agree to meet unless I brought him Gavin.”

“He said something about me being the second part of the arrangement,” Gavin said, as Trent finally freed him from the ropes. He brought his hands back in front of himself, the very act seeming abnormal after having them pulled behind his back for so long, and rubbed his wrists where the coils of the rope had left imprints upon his skin.

“Yeah. When he posted the notice, it was two-fold. A hack that could allow him to covertly replace photos in a project with photos in a hidden folder and to track down Gavin Westher for him,” Grace revealed, looking between the three men. “On the last point, I wasn’t actually supposed to physically bring him Gavin, just a means to track and follow him. But when you just walked right into the Underground, it was like the perfect opportunity just fell into my lap.”

“How can you even defend yourself?” Trent asked, pointing his finger at her. “You knew he was up to no good. It was sketchy as hell, and you still went along with it. “

“I admit it seemed a bit stalkerish, but honestly ninety percent of the work I do is for people spying on ex-boyfriends or wanting to keep tabs on someone they don’t trust. It’s not that unusual, but I was also blinded by my own…feelings towards Gavin,” Grace replied defensively, though Gavin noted that she didn’t specify hate. Trent noticed the ambiguity too. “I don’t want to have to do this job forever. Part of me just wanted him to stop stealing my thunder.”

“So, what was the plan after you brought him Gavin if it was just a means to get a meeting?” Brandon asked, barely following, not sure why there seemed like there was a rivalry between Grace and Gavin, why Grace was even involved in this line of work or why Trent seemed to loathe Grace so suddenly.

“If he was a piece of shit like he seemed, well, I was going to threaten to leak the correspondence between us, in his name, where he agreed to pay me for the algorithm. I could have done it anonymously, but then Shawn found out my real name.” Grace glanced at Gavin, but didn’t mention exactly how Grace had gained that nugget of information. “I had no way of burning him without him burning me right back. Any way he ends up in the police station, also ends with him telling them my involvement, which isn’t just bad for me, but my whole family. My dad would probably disown me for bringing disrepute upon the Smith name. And if he burns me first and I try to retaliate, it only incriminates me further. He’s only the client after all. I’m the big fish here.”

“Shit, yeah, he had you by the balls…metaphorically speaking,” Brandon admitted, as he rubbed his chin. “Did he make you do anything? He fucked Victoria and…my sister, when he had the chance. He didn’t do anything like that to you?”

“Just a blowjob. Nothing else,” she said hastily, glancing sideways at Gavin, too embarrassed to tell them about the kiss either. “Well, that and who knows what else is to come. He’s still holding it over my head.”

“Then we’ll just have to take you with us too,” Trent demanded, moving to grab her. “So that we can be sure you don’t do anything else for him.”

“What? No way,” Grace said, jumping back, out of his reach. “Didn’t you hear me? If I don’t do what he says, he’s going to expose me to my family, the police, everyone. I don’t think he’s going to care if I can’t. He’ll just release the information anyway. So, until we figure out a way around this, I’m going to have to keep doing what he asks.”

“So innocent people are just gonna keep getting hurt, just to protect your family name?” Trent said angrily, but a hand from Gavin made him stop.

“Let her go,” he said, and spat on the floor, his saliva whiter than usual.

“You’re just going to forgive her?” Trent asked, surprised. “You really could have been hurt.”

“It doesn’t matter. A lot of things could have been done differently, but we are where we are. And it’s better if we’ve got someone on the inside, don’t you think?” He said as he pushed himself up from the chair. His body was shaky, still a little out of sorts from being tased and tied to a chair, unable to move. He stumbled but Trent moved forward to catch him. “Just one favor?”

“Anything,” Grace said, thinking that she couldn’t very well go denying him a single request after what they’d gone through together.

“You helped Hannah out recently, didn’t you? You encrypted her laptop to protect a video, but you made a copy for yourself.” Gavin said, watching Grace’s face drop.

“Shit, you know about that?” she said, wondering if this meant to Ravers would be coming after her as well.

“Yeah. I need you to delete that video,” Gavin insisted as Trent put his head under his arm, propping him up. “It needs to be erased from existence.”

“Consider it done.”

“Then go.”

She gave Trent a smirk of triumph as she turned and walked out, her hips swaying as she walked. All that was left for the three guys was to leave too, heading back out the way they came, with Trent half carrying Gavin all the way to the car. Gavin protested, but Trent insisted until he gave in, as Trent ignored the tingling feeling below his stomach when he felt the other boy’s body heat on him, ignoring the fact that, after just a few steps, with bodies pressed tight against each other, moving, grinding, rubbing against the other, Trent was rock hard.