“Son of a llama!” Malcolm shouted out as he smashed Grim’s resignation letter onto his desk. “Did you see this coming?” He glared up at Hakim.
Hakim sat across from him smugly, his nose twitching ever so slightly. After Malcolm had come down on him for his plans failing, he felt vindicated seeing Malcolm’s own plan crash and burn. “No sir,” he lied with a pleasurable grin.
Malcolm scratched the inner corner of his eye as he sighed heavily. “Grim has been working with my family for generations. How could this possibly happen?” He fumed.
“Well — the Scott family is —“
“That was rhetorical, Hakim. I don’t need you spouting at the mouth about things you clearly don’t understand.”
Hakim cleared his throat as a look of annoyance jetted across his face. “With all due respect, Malcolm, I clearly do understand. Jarrett Scott played me too.”
“He’s obviously a mastermind,” Malcolm frowned. “There’s no other way to explain it. I underestimated him. That socially awkward persona he puts on is all just an act.”
Hakim shifted in his seat. “So what’s our next move? Trap him in a basement until he begs to be eaten by a cowplant?”
Malcolm cocked his head to the side. “Hmmm… that’s tempting,” he responded. “But no. If Jarrett Scott is the brains of the operation, we need to cut him off at the legs.”
“You want to kidnap his son instead?”
“No.”
“Curse his wife with poison?”
“No,” Malcolm said dryly. “Well, not yet anyways.”
“Then what? I feel like we’re running out of options.”
Malcolm stood up and walked away from his desk, pacing the floor. It was humiliating enough that Grim had resigned from their team, he couldn’t afford another error in judgement. Think, Malcolm. Think. What would mom have done?
He rubbed his forehead furiously as the anger built up inside him. He could feel his plumbob turning a deep shade of red. He bent his head to each side, cracking his neck, trying to relieve the building tension.
“I need everything we’ve got on the Scott Family,” he said shooting Hakim a glare. “We need to copy their playbook. Jarrett Scott didn’t come after me. He came after the Motherplant. Chloe. Summer. All of the evil minions in this town. To beat him, we need to work from the bottom up too, instead of trying to destroy the ringleader straight out of the gate.”
“That sounds great boss, but we really don’t have much on the rest of the family,” Hakim shrugged.
“Did I say I needed your commentary?”
Hakim shook his head. “No, no sir you did not,” he leaned over and hit the intercom on Malcolm’s phone. “Aubrie, please bring in every file we have on the Scott family.”
As his finger released from the button, Aubrie came strutting in, her heels clinking against the floorboard. “Here you go, big bro,” she said handing Malcolm a sheet of paper.
He looked at it flabbergasted. “This is it? This is all we have?”
Aubrie shrugged before spinning on her back heel and waltzing out of the room.
Malcolm flipped opened the file, skimming his eyes along the page. “Well. You were right. We really don’t have much intel on any of them, do we?”
Hakim shrugged, keeping his lips sealed.
“I said, do we?” Malcolm fumed.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were being rhetorical again,” Hakim twitched his eye.
Malcolm’s eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t be smart with me. We are in the middle of a war and we have nothing!” He crumpled up the paper and threw it at Hakim.
Hakim rolled his eyes as the white jagged ball fell into his lap. He opened up the paper, gently, trying to avoid ripping it. “Well, this list doesn’t have much—“
“We already established that, thank you.”
“—but it does list every member of the Scott’s family.”
“So? We already know their army is huge and growing by the day! We need more,” Malcolm threw his arms in the air.
“Exactly. I think instead of focusing on destroying the Scott’s, we focus on learning about them. The more we know, the easier it will be to take them down.”
Malcolm stopped pacing and looked at Hakim, his eyes glistening as a spark of ideas wafted over him. “I like where you’re going with this. Keep talking.”
“I say we build the file. Continue to learn about each of the Scott’s until we find their weakest link,” Hakim moved his index finger along the paper. “We already know Jarrett Scott is the ringleader. But what about these other family members? Caiden? Carter? Annabelle?” He paused. “Casey?” Hakim looked up with a devilish grin. “Check this out, boss.”
He stood up and walked over to Malcolm, holding the paper in front of him. “It says here Casey Scott dropped out of university and is living in a haunted house with his brother, Carter, while attempting to finish his first semester of university for the second time.”
“You’re saying he’s the family’s superhero? A ghost hunter?”
“No. I’m saying he’s the family loser. This says nothing about him succeeding in fighting these ghosts. In fact, their house is only getting more and more haunted,” Hakim shrugged. “I mean, check this out boss. His bank account is low and he has no career opportunities. The chances of him ever graduating are slim to none. He’s clearly the family’s weakest link.”
Malcolm grinned. “You’re thinking we smash his knee caps?”
“I’m thinking — we recruit him.”
Malcolm glanced down at the file as a smirk crossed his face. For the longest time, he thought destroying the Superhero Scott Family was their only option, to stop them from making the world a better place. But this plan… recruiting them. How diabolical, he smiled.
