Dead Endings Book 2 (Dead Leads): Chapter 6

“You gonna call Ev?” Cailen asked once they’d emerged from the subway.

Gabriella hesitated.

“You’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t~” Cailen singsonged.

“Fine. You’re right.”

Gabriella pulled out her phone and punched in his number. As usual, Everett answered almost quicker than it could ring.

“Hey,” Gabriella said. “Where you at? Billy just messaged. Conner’s at The Laundry. We’re headed there now.”

Everett said something that made her stop walking. Cailen waited patiently while Gabriella listened.

“Okay, okay. That’s good, actually. Just stay put and make sure he doesn’t leave. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Cailen shook her head wonderingly. “What, he’s already there? I swear to… Are you sure he’s not psychic?”

Gabriella laughed. “No, no. Poor guy is there because of the ‘deal’ you got him with Indira. He’s working on the soda machine.”

“Ah. Guess I’ll buy him a drink, then.”

“Please stop corrupting the youth.”

Cailen almost had to jog to keep up with Gabriella’s ground-eating strides. They had barely covered another block when the woman’s phone jangled.

Annoyed, Gabriella yanked it from her back pocket.

“This is the advantage of a flip phone that barely works,” Cailen said with a grin.

Gabriella stuck her tongue out. “You just never get any calls because you don’t have any friends.”

“Touché.”

“Hello, hello,” Gabriella said into the receiver. As she listened to the reply, her pace slowed, and then she stopped all together.

“…What? You’re kidding.”

Cailen looked longingly into the window of a Thai restaurant across the street. A woman at a table by the door had just been handed a bubble tea.

“Okay. We’re a block away. Just…just don’t let them kill each other!” she snapped and jammed the phone back into her pocket. Cailen tore her eyes away from the glistening beverage.

“What–hey!” Cailen yelled after the woman as she belted down the street.

“Move it, Delaney!” Gabriella bellowed.

Cailen cursed under her breath and broke into a loping jog. A minute later they were through the utility closet of The Laundry and down the stairs. They burst past the door. A pair of men stood in the center of the bar floor while a smattering of curious patrons looked on.

“Say it again!” Everett snarled.

Conner shrugged and tossed blond curls out of his eyes. “How many ways do you want me to put it, newbie? Col. La. Ter. Al. Dam. Age.”

Everett lunged and grabbed the man by the shirt.

“That guy is dead! I don’t know what you showed the kid, but it set him off, and now that guy’s dead!”

Conner sighed. “Yes, I heard you the first five times. Like I said, wrong place, wrong time–act of nature kinda thing. The kid couldn’t have known it would happen. Are you saying the kid planned it? That he wanted that guy to bite it? Pretty cold of you, corpse-sniffer.”

“That’s not what I–rrrrrrgh!”

“Hey,” Conner called, turning his head toward Billy. “You gonna do something about this?” He gestured at Everett’s vibrating form.

The bartender was drying glasses, seemingly disinterested in the confrontation. He raised a bushy eyebrow.

“Soon as y’all start making a real nuisance of yourselves, I’ll toss you both out. Till then, you fight your own battles, Conner.”

“Whoa,” Cailen whispered to Gabriella. “I didn’t know Ev had an aggro setting.”

“Me neither,” Gabriella said. She started forward. “Everett, let him go. He’s not worth it.”

Both men started at the sound of her voice. Everett released Conner’s shirt, embarrassment pinking his cheeks. He stepped away and self-consciously smoothed his hair.

“Gabriella,” Conner said. “How nice of you to show up and collect your dog.”

Gabriella walked until she was almost toe-to-toe with Conner. They were nearly equal in height, and her eyes bored into his.

“What’s your game, Conner?”

Cailen watched with interest as his hand curled into a fist by his side. She wondered if he was actually the type to throw a punch. He’d played it cool when Everett had him by the shirt, but Gabriella’s mere proximity seemed to provoke him.

Go ahead, Cailen thought. Make a move. She’ll have you on your ass before you can blink, and you know it.

The fist relaxed into an open hand. Maybe he was smarter than he looked, after all.

Conner shrugged. “Games are for losers, Gabriella. This is just business.”

She leaned in until they were almost touching noses. “And what kind of business do you have with a kid who’s shredding spirits, turning them geist? Hurting people? What could you possibly gain from it?”

He laughed. “That’s so you, Gabriella. The one who already has everything doesn’t get what’s to be gained by a kid who can make ghosts pop loud enough for normal people to hear. Hilarious.”

Gabriella frowned. “What the heck are you talking about?”

Conner raised his hands in a defeated gesture. He twisted around, addressing the bar patrons, many of whom were doing a poor job pretending not to listen.

“You hear that? Fists-for-brains can’t imagine why it’d be nice for the world at large to know about the supernatural. Why some of us,” he looked pointedly at a woman who Cailen remembered from their last visit as Sarah, the late-night TV fortune-teller, “would be better off with a little acknowledgement.”

“What? I don’t care about that!” Gabriella protested. “I have no problem with people knowing. I’ve never once hidden what I am!”

“Because you don’t have to,” Conner spat back at her. “You, with a power that glows like the fucking sun, never has to convince anyone of anything. Do you think the rest of us can just snap our fingers, say ghosts are real, and have people actually believe us? We have to claw and fight for that, and even then, sometimes it just gets taken right out from under us…”

Gabriella, bristling, seemed to grow even taller. She practically loomed over Conner as she yelled back.

“You little creep! Nothing was ‘taken’ from you! You lost that job because you stole from the people you were supposed to be helping! You’re not some sad case who’s been wronged. You’re pathetic.”

Conner’s face flushed an ugly shade of purple. Both Cailen and Everett took a half-step forward, expecting blows. Even Billy had set down his drying rag and had a beefy hand on the counter.

“Lies,” the blond man hissed. “Those brainless parking-meter readers…!” He clenched his jaw, biting back whatever else he wanted to add, and took a deep breath. His posture relaxed. “It doesn’t matter,” he said more calmly. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

Gabriella folded her arms. “Like heck you don’t. You’re not on some noble mission to make things better for sensitives. You just want things better for yourself, and you don’t care about anyone else. But that kid is a walking bomb. Don’t you get it? You already pulled the pin once and look what happened!”

“Whatever, Gabriella. All I wrote was ‘Show me.’ I didn’t make him to do jack squat.”

“He’s a kid! What did you expect was going to happen?! He needs to be shut down before it happens again!”

“Who made you judge, jury, and executioner?!”

“You did,” Cailen interjected coolly.

Silence descended on the bar as Gabriella and Conner stopped yelling at each other and looked at Cailen. She nodded at Conner.

“However you want to paint it, that kid’s gone from a brat with a bit of power to a full-blown deadly weapon thanks to you. He’s escalating, and he damn well might do it again. Who’s going to stop him if he does? The police? Those ‘brainless meter readers’? Right. So yeah, you did it. You made this problem something that can’t be ignored.”

Conner’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile.

“And his name was Julian Ortega,” Cailen added.

“Who?”

“The ‘collateral damage’ you don’t seem to give a shit about.”

The twisted smile disappeared.

Billy coughed. “We done here? People’d like to drink in peace, if y’all don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” Conner said, shouldering his way past Gabriella. “We’re done. Just remember, Benitez. I don’t need your permission to act. Mind your own business and stop harassing me.”

As he passed Everett, he slowed slightly.

“You don’t even belong in here,” Cailen heard him hiss in Everett’s ear as he strode by.

Cailen watched him depart in silence. Soft chatter once again filled the bar.

“Well!” Cailen declared. “I need a beverage! Billy! A beverage!” She walked purposefully up to the bar and sat on one of the stools.

“What’ll it be?” Billy asked.

Cailen glanced back at Gabriella and Everett, who were still looking at the exit where Conner had left.

“Mmmm, not sure,” she said, “but whatever it is, it had better be strong, and I think I’ll need three.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Billy replied.

To be continued in Chapter 7.