All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(96)

“What?”

“You’re vulnerable. I don’t know why, Vie, because you know who he is, and you know what he is. He’s going to use it against you. Or he’s going to hurt you, and I mean really hurt you. Hurt you in a way I don’t know if you’ll ever come back from.”

“So that’s what you think of him, huh?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject. I heard you. I’m not worried about it. There’s nothing Emmett can say or do to hurt me that he hasn’t done. Anyway, I’m with Austin, so it’s not even an issue.”

Becca’s thoughts were printed in capital letters at the back of her eyes. You’re wrong, they said. You’re so terribly wrong.

I blew out a steaming breath and turned towards the glass.

“Vie—”

“I’m going to see what this ghost wants. Let me know if Emmett texts anything important.”

She bit her lip and nodded, and I paced away until I’d reached a safe distance. A few minutes later, Salerno chugged into the glass doorway. He looked gray now, almost washed out.

“Well?” I said. “I’m giving you a minute. Say whatever you need to say and then shove a rocket up your ass. I’ll even light the fucking fuse for you.”

“You’re all sunshine,” Salerno panted. He struggled to straighten himself, shaking out the gold chains and sucking in lungful after lungful of air. I wasn’t sure why he was so out of shape or, for that matter, why he needed to breathe. But I was too mad at Becca—and, irrationally, at Emmett—to care. Salerno glanced at an angle in Becca’s direction, but I refused to follow his gaze. “Like a fucking brick shelf, that one. She—”

“You want to talk to me, talk to me. Otherwise I’ll figure out a way to get you the hell out of here. I bet I can do it if I’m angry enough.”

“Yeah, all right. You might, at that. But you’d be shooting yourself in the foot, kid. I’m here to do you a favor.”

“And why is that? Why are you here? You beat the shit out of me. You tried to kill me.” An elegant couple, the man in a heavy wool coat and the woman in black fur, whirled past me, and I lowered my voice. “What the hell makes you so goddamn interested in my well-being?”

“Revenge,” Salerno said. “That’s all we dead guys think about, if you can believe it. Oh, sure, some will tell you it’s justice. Some will tell you they just want to see their families. But revenge, that’s the real shit. They’re just ashamed to admit it.”

“Gee, your insight into the eternal afterlives of countless humans is so sophisticated and nuanced.”

“Hell, kid. I wish I could get you again. Right under the ribs. Remember how that made you gag? Jesus, I thought you were choking on your own heart. Good times, right?”

“Bye, Salerno.”

“Wait.” The frantic note in his voice made me stop. “I wasn’t shitting you, not about revenge. Not at all. And I can help.”

“Yeah? All right, start helping. Who’s working for Mr. Big Empty? Who killed you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Kid, I’m telling you, I don’t know. The last broad, the one you helped, she couldn’t tell you either. Am I right? We can’t—we can’t tell. I don’t know why, but we can’t.”

I knew why. It was the same reason Samantha hadn’t been able to tell me who had killed her. Mr. Big Empty wasn’t empathic like me. He couldn’t communicate with the living or with the dead. Instead, he was like a puppeteer. I was starting to realize his power worked on the dead just as it did on the living. Maybe it worked even better on the dead, now that Mr. Big Empty was barely more than a ghost himself. “Why are you here? Why not River? Why not Frankie? God, for that matter, why not DeHaven?”

“Jesus, kid. I’m here because I’m the only one that could come. Your buddy Frankie is all tied up. Somebody’s got him wrapped up tighter than a Christmas present. And DeHaven—I’m telling you, if he ever comes to visit, you better run, kid. He’s crazy, and he’s dead, and that only makes him crazier. So it’s me or nobody.”

“Mr. Big Empty stopped Frankie?”

“Bingo. And he is not happy you’re here. Not happy at all. He’s decided to make sure it stops right here, right now. And he sent somebody to stop you. I wish I could see Lawayne’s face when he realizes, because he’s in for a hell of a surprise, but I’ve got news for you, kid: I wasn’t the only one the Biondi had watching him. I was the just the guy out in front.”

“The Biondi? What do they have to do with Mr. Big Empty?”

“You want to jaw and get the back of your shaved off?”

I scrambled for what to do next. “So it is a trap.”

“No, kid. It’s a hunt.”

Something in the way Salerno said it made me turn. I met Becca’s eyes, and she must have read the fear in my expression because she tensed. I kept turning, scanning the crowd. This was a busy street at a busy time of day. Men and women rushed past me in every direction, like rivers of black clothing crashing together, except—

Except cutting through those streaming crowds, a helmet of blond hair was just barely visible as it bobbed towards me. Lena. At that moment, she broke loose from the swell of people, and her eyes widened as she saw me. Her arm swung up, and she aimed a pistol at me. Someone screamed, and a white square flashed across my vision and struck Lena in the face. She flinched as she pulled the trigger. An enormous boom ran through the crowd, so loud that for a moment I thought I was deaf. Then, through the thunder, I heard screams and the tinkle of falling glass.