White Shadows

Chapter 12 - Life During Wartime

***LUCA***

The room rumbles like we're having a small earthquake. Clenching his fist, Paul says, "I remember you. You're the one who attacked us at Grad Nite!"

"Regrettable, yeah," Jasmine says, backing away slightly, "but I had to do it to maintain my cover."

"Which, if it exists, you're freely breaking now," Kensi says.

"What's your game?" Mattia asks, narrowing her eyes.

Jasmine gives no response. Eventually, I step up and show her my flaming fist. "What she said," I say, tilting my head in Mattia's direction.

"The only 'game' of mine," Jasmine says, holding her own fist up and nearly blinding me with her light, "is me putting the kibosh on my father's plans."

"What the hell is a 'kibosh?'" Gideon asks. "No, don't tell me," he adds when Jasmine opens her mouth again. "I don't wanna know."

"Give us one good reason to believe you," I say, screwing my eyes shut to try and block out the worst of her light. I must look like James Franco right now.

"If Russell were here," Jasmine says, "that wouldn't be such a problem."

"Well," I say. "Howsabout you help us bust him out of jail, then? Maybe that way you'll prove your loyalty."

Checking an imaginary watch, Jasmine says, "Hold on, let me clear my schedule..." After an extended pantomime of reading through a ledger and making notes with a pen, she says, "Okay, I might just be able to squeeze in a jailbreak."

I lower my hand and let my flames die down. "You know I was kidding, right?"

"Of course," Jasmine says, "but I'm not when I say that we need all hands on deck. Including Russell's." She sighs, then kicks a dusty barstool. "I should've realized something was wrong when he didn't retweet my 'Fire Code' post."

"Social media spycraft," Paul chuckles. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."

Jasmine sighs again, then reaches around the side of the espresso machine and cuts something with a pair of shears. "Finally," she says. "No more bomb."

"You can defuse a bomb with barely a glance?" I ask, flabbergasted.

"I've worked with these things long enough," Jasmine says. "In fact, I promised myself if this was all over and my dad was defeated, I would get myself hired by the bomb squad."

"A noble goal," Mattia says.

"Too bad you're far from noble yourself," Paul scoffs.

Our words visibly hurt Jasmine, but she presses on anyway. "I don't have time to prove myself to you," she says. "You'll just have to trust me." She pushes past us, stalking over to the stairs. "I know what I'm doing. I promise."

"You better," I say, following her up the marble steps in spite of myself.

Mattia's quick to follow me, but Paul, Gideon, and Kensi, likely because of their past experience with Jasmine, hang back. "Are you sure about this?" Gideon asks.

Stopping for a second, I say, "I don't like it either, but come on. What else can we do? Russell's our mastermind, and without him, this one's the best we've got."

"Russell may be your mastermind," Jasmine chimes in, "but I'm his." She rounds the corner, then calls down to us, "Come on! We don't have all day!"

Up the stairs, through the lobby, out the door...and that's when an unmarked black car pulls up to the curb. I almost want to think it might belong to the cops, or perhaps the FBI. However, that's not the case. Emerging from the passenger seat of the Chrysler 300 is a guy we saw earlier - Mayor Frank Garza himself. And in the backseat is Russell.