White Shadows

Chapter 14 - We Used To Be Friends

***LUCA***

At least the café in the library's basement is deserted - which makes it the perfect place to take Jasmine's would-be kamikaze brother and have a little chat with him. (Not in a euphemistic sense, I hope.)

Garza, however, has other plans. "This kid killed my guards," he says, gesturing at the still-bloodstained front door from the top of the basement steps. "We need to take him to a more secure location."

"Where do you propose we do that?" Jasmine asks.

"I'm not a kid," Lincoln chimes in.

Ignoring the snide comment, Garza instead turns to Jasmine and answers her. "Miss, uh, Holly, is it? Anyway, if we can't guarantee our safety in a public place-"

"Maybe we can," I say. "What if we're in a place so public, he doesn't dare try and attack us? Or anyone else?"

"Did you forget why he's here?" Jasmine asks, looking askance at me. "One misstep on our part and he could, I dunno, slip out of our grasp. Then, next thing we know, there's another gas pipeline explosion in a San Castiel neighborhood on the six o'clock news."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask.

"The San Castiel explosion didn't happen in this dimension," Russell says. "They don't know about it around here."

"It happened on Earth, though," says Gideon. "I was really little when it did, but I still sort of remember it."

"Oh." Jasmine blushes. "Sorry. My mistake."

"But her point still stands," Garza says. "First, we need to search him. Make sure he's got nothing to hurt us, or himself, with."

"I volunteer," Russell says. He starts patting him down roughly as he steps into a new character - sadistic TSA agent.

"Yeah," Lincoln says, "I really like you grabbing my ass like you wanna rip it open."

Cupping his hand around Lincoln's crotch, Russell says, "Don't tempt me, buddy. You look enough like Jasmine that I might actually enjoy it." He turns to Jasmine and mouths, "Not really, though."

She responds by wiping imaginary sweat from her forehead and mouthing, "Whew! Thank goodness!" Complete with expert eye-rolling, of course.

The only things Russell finds in his search are a wallet full of cash (but no ID) and a keychain with a plain metal ball dangling from it. "If you've got one ball of steel," I say, "why not take another?"

"It's not steel," Russell says. "Feel it - it's too light. Too ultralight."

"What does that mean?" I ask, weighing the ball and keychain in my hand. They don't feel heavy at all - or, at least, not as heavy as they look.

"It means," Jasmine says, squinting at my hand as I look closely at the ball, "that you're holding an ultralight bomb."

Paul snickers. "Isn't that a Kanye song?"

"We named our weapon before that tool named his song," Lincoln says with a wink.

"So," Russell says, "unless you really do wanna nuke your face off, I'd give that back to me right now." To that end, he gently takes the little ball away from me and pockets it himself. "Okay," he says to Garza. "What safe place are we gonna take this guy to?"

"My office," Garza answers. "I can't think of any place better. Um...but we don't need to bring all the kids along for the ride, do we?"

"Excuse me?" Mattia asks from somewhere behind Connors. She and Kensi are standing on the mini-landing where the stairs turn left towards the café, and the latter has her arms crossed. Mattia points between herself and Kensi and adds, "What are we, chopped liver?"