CHAPTER THREE: THE NEW GIG

“Hey, Danny. Sorry it’s been radio silence for a bit,” Abigail says, phone to her ear as she walks the streets of Astoria. It’s been a few days since she returned home from the Rokuku’s, and progress on finding her mystery person has been nonexistent. “I haven’t found him yet, and I think I might have blown my only lead.”

“Oh my gosh! It’s okay! What happened?” Danny cheerfully responds. 

“Uh, long story short? I found the people who tried to kidnap your cousin, and things went south. Took them down, but they did a number on me.”

“Damn. Damn. I bet they weren’t the chatty type.”

“Oh no, plenty chatty. Just not about anything pertinent. Or sane. At the very least, I did learn that your savior was a man. And the crazy folks, the Rokukus…they weren’t his biggest fan. Guess what he did to save your cousin really pissed ‘em off.”

“Ha! Okay, that’s better than nothing! That’s enough for me, really, don’t get yourself hurt for my sake though, you -”

“Please, please. I have a personal stake in this now, I’m going to see this through. Thanks for lookin’ out.” 

“Okay. Alright. I really appreciate this.”

“No problem. I hate to ask, but now that I’m out of leads…anything else you remember about this guy?” Abigail asks, turning to make her way into a coffee shop. She sees Carlos Dumaresq behind the counter, and shoots him a smile. While Abigail and Danny continue their call, Carlos mouths out “the usual?” and Abigail gives him a thumbs up. 

“Agh. Okay. I’m sorry, I really don’t remember much - “

“I don’t need anything too specific. Even if you remember any colors, that’s something.”

“Hmm. I might be able to do colors. Everything was blurry, mind you, so I don’t know if it’ll help..”

“Hit me.” 

A moment of pause as Danny thinks. Abigail slinks down into a chair, rolling her right shoulder in a circle to ease the painful pressure building up in the joint. 

“I don’t know if I have a color, but I do kinda remember his hair being shaggy. All over the place. The vibe I got from him was ‘unkempt’.” 

Abigail can’t help but laugh. “Unkempt is certainly a vibe.” 

“You know what? Bright hair. I don’t know what color exactly, but not a brown or black or nothin’ like that. Kinda like yours.”

“Okay! Alright! That’s good! Something warm, then?”

“Yeah, yeah. Definitely a warm tone.”

Abigail feels her smile widening. This wasn’t much to go off of, but it was a start. “Anything else?”

A silence returns to the line. It goes on a beat too long for Abigail’s liking. 

“...Danny?”

“Hold up - “ Danny says, voice half leaving the phone. “You said he what?” She asks, to someone else in the room. “Huh? Okay. Sorry, Abigail. My cousin, Reagan, she’s here, she said she saw somethin’ else. A really quick, really bright flash of green.”

Abigail raises her eyebrows. “Green? Huh. Okay. From what?”

“From what?” Danny asks Reagan in response. “She says she doesn’t know. It was just for a second.” 

Carlos brings Abigail her coffee, and lingers for a moment beside the table, awkwardly waiting for a moment, before heading back behind the counter. Abigail gives him a quizzical look, and he responds with a hand wave of “we can talk later”. 

“Okay…well, okay, cool. Warm colored hair and a green flash. I’ll take it. Thank you both so much, I hope I can find this guy soon.”

“Happy I could help! Thank you again so much, Abigail O’Hare.”

“Cheers.” Abigail says, hanging up the phone. 

She leans back in her chair, giving a long sigh of thought. What do I really have here? Warm hair. Does blonde count? She said bright like mine…so orange? Red? Natural hair or dyed? And then a green flash. Maybe him activating his Calling…? Lea’s hands flash, so maybe…

She leans back forward to have her first sip of coffee, and motions to Carlos. “What’s up, Carlos?” She asks, turning in her chair to face him. 

Carlos shrugs. “Slewin’ some brew.” He says, exaggerating each of the syllables. 

Abigail smiles and gives a head nod of “c’mere”. Carlos happily obliges, leaving the counter and standing next to her table. “What’s up, Carlos?” She repeats. 

“Eh. Had kind of a weird past couple of days. Been feeling kinda…I dunno.” He responds. “You got anything going on tonight?”

“I was probably just going to bug Lea at Magnolia. You wanna join?”

Carlos lights up. “Oh hell yes, I could use some O’Hare time to help clear my head.”

Abigail raises an eyebrow and gives a crooked smile of sympathy. “Must’ve been a doozy of a past couple days. You could’ve called, yknow?” 

“Uh…” Carlos says, motioning towards Abigail’s still-bandaged arm, “that whole situation seemed more important.” 

“Lea give you the scoop?” Abigail asks.

“Kinda, she called me the other day and said you were hurt and needed help with Miki. But I - “

“Carlos, we’ve got a line forming.” A woman’s voice says from behind the counter. It’s another barista at the shop, a girl in her early 20’s with straight bangs, triangular glasses, and a medusa piercing. “Oh, hey, Abigail.” 

Abigail gives a wave. “Hey, Charlotte.” 

“Shit,” Carlos spits, moving to get back behind the counter, “I’m off at 6, meet at Magnolia at 7?”

“Sounds good,” Abigail says, getting up and throwing a few bucks into a tip jar as she leaves with her drink. 

As she exits, Carlos takes a quick glance up at her, and flashes back…

He’s back in the Gift Shop, four days prior. He’s at the counter, head laying in his hands, eyes half-open. God, this place blows, he thinks, his frown growing across his face. He looks over to the church across the street, and then blinks heavily a couple times before looking away. What the hell was that all about earlier? She went to the church, flew up and down, and then just left. He thinks, scratching his head. Even that seems more fun than this. As he’s deep in thought, the door to the gift shop opens, the bells on the door jingling in a welcoming tune. It’s a man walking in, with shaggy, unkempt red hair. 

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the inside of a house in the suburbs of Coastal Astoria, a couple is anxiously waiting in their living room. Tom, the husband, is pacing back and forth across the room, taking a few steps past the ends of the long rug on the floor. Their TV is off, and the room is silent. Tom looks toward Ginny, his wife, who is sitting on the couch and tapping her leg nervously. Their tension is broken with a knock at the door - they both snap to attention and head to answer together. Upon opening it, they find a short, slim orange-haired woman waiting for them. 

“Good morning,” Abigail says, cup of coffee in hand, “I’m Abigail O’Hare.”

“Abigail. Thank you so much for meeting with us on such short notice -” Tom says, voice shaky and awkward. 

“It’s the nature of the game, sir. Most of my calls are on short notice.” 

Tom gives a light laugh in response. “I suppose so. Please, come in.” He says, both him and his wife taking a step back and welcoming her in. 

Abigail takes a step into the home, and can immediately feel something in the air. It’s thick with emotion and the palpable pressure of stress. She eyes around her immediate surroundings - to her left and right are twin staircases leading to a loft upstairs, and in front of her the foyer leads straight into a living room, adorned with a couch and a TV on a bookcase filled with movies and books. A few pictures here and there, but nothing too much - this is a newlywed couple, she thinks to herself, Must’ve just moved in here from an apartment.  

“How long have you two been together?” Abigail asks. Simple questions always diffuse the tension. 

“Seven years now,” Ginny replies, her smile clear in her voice but not on her face, “Just got married a couple months ago.” 

Abigail smiles. “That’s wonderful! How’d you meet?”

“College. He was a science guy, and I was an artsy girl taking my Sci 101 and not doing well. He started tutoring me, we both turned out to be real anime geeks…the rest is history, really.” Ginny says. She looks over to Tom, who gives a smile in response out of habit - but he’s too stressed out to feel sentimental. 

“Ms. O’Hare,” he says, voice quivering in an attempt to not sound like an asshole, “we really need your help.” 

“Tom - “ Ginny begins,

“It’s cool.” Abigail finishes. She can’t help but feel her smile grow wider. Yeah, he’s the science guy alright. Always getting to the point. “Just got married, so I’m guessing you guys just moved in recently?” 

Tom nods. “Gin’ got a promotion at work, she’s a hot-shot with her own studio now, so we could finally afford it. When we found this place, we thought it was gonna be our dream house.” 

Ah, he’s a sappy scientist, Abigail thinks. 

“I guess we should’ve noticed a few things, but we were so excited…it was a steal for a house in this location, the neighborhood is nice, we’re close to the city…but there’s…well, let me show you.” Tom says, shaking his head in a “follow me” motion, and leading the two women through the kitchen and to the laundry room. He motions towards the wall opposite the washer/dryer, and sighs. “I guess I should’ve asked what this door was.”

Abigail looks down, and raises her eyebrows when she sees, indeed, a small little door on the bottom of the wall - it looked like there had once been locks on it, but they had been smashed off. “What in the world? Was it locked when you found it?” 

Ginny gives a half-laugh. “Yeah. But we got real drunk our first night here, and then we found this locked-ass door in our new house! We were like, ‘it’s our house now, we can open any door inside it!’” She says, her smile turning into a frustrated grimace. “But that was a mistake.”

“Ever since then, things have been weird here. It was slow at first. Sometimes a remote would be somewhere weird, or its batteries would be flipped. Lights flickering and such. I know it sounds dumb, like some ghost movie - “ Tom says, getting frustrated with himself as he speaks, “But I promise it’s really happening. Things have been escalating. We’re hearing shrieks and screams at night, doors slamming….”

“And I’ve seen something moving around at night. Maybe even during the day, I’m not sure. But it feels like there’s always something here. And it’s pissed.” Ginny adds, suddenly refusing eye contact. 

Abigail frowns. Poor guys. They’ve probably been through the rigamarole trying to figure this out. “So you’ve got a ghost problem.”

Tom sighs. “Look, if you don’t believe us -”

“Who said anything about that? That’s a diagnosis,” Abigail states, her eyes swapping focus from Tom to the little door in front of her. She opens it up, but finds that it just leads to a small hole in the wall. She cocks her head in thought, and takes a step back from the wall. “You read over the entirety of the contract you signed, correct?

Tom and Ginny both pause, taken aback. 

Abigail sighs. I’m never good at this part,  she thinks to herself. “What I mean is…well, I can solve this, but in order to do so, I have to use my Calling.” She says, keeping her gaze on the couple. “Do you remember reading that part?”

Tom and Ginny look at each other for a second, and Tom responds. “Yeah, what about it..?”

Abigail gives a half nod and looks away. “My Calling,'' she says, putting her hands together gently, “is controlling Fire.” Her hands separate, a delicate purple flame dancing between them. “I’m going to use this fire in your home, but rest assured that nothing will be burned. I need your permission before I move forward.”

“What..are you going to do….exactly…?” Ginny asks, the purple light reflecting off her eyes. 

Abigail stares at her fire for a moment before responding. “Fire is inherently destructive. It burns, it spreads, it consumes. It has no motives and it has no reasoning. It’s just doing what it’s designed to do. But…destruction can be harnessed.” She says, looking up at the couple with a light smile. “It was the start to bringing meaning to a dark world. Burn something safe for light. Burn something raw for nutrients. Suddenly, night time wasn’t as scary - because harnessed destruction creates something new. It creates connection.” 

She widens her hands, and the fire expands with it, creating a sparkling haze of flickering flames, like snowflakes of dust flying in a beam of sunlight. “I want to spread this fire across your home, and it’ll act like a searchlight. The flames are all flickers of ignitions - it’s harnessed destruction.” She says, finishing her explanation, her smile now wide and confident. “Do I have permission to move forward?”

The couple is quiet for a moment, but Tom is the first to break the silence with a laugh. “Will it work?”

He’s the science guy, alright. “It works every time.” 

Ginny and Tom look at each other again, and a shared look of fascination is shared between them. “Go for it,” Ginny says. 

Abigail nods, and expands her hands further, small jets of flame shooting from each of her palms, which melt into a cosmos of flames and plasma. The starlight of fire begins to grow, and then flashes, the entire house filled with the interconnected cloud-web of sparks and flame. Abigail closes her eyes for a moment, feeling the entirety of the home. Love, she thinks. There’s so much love here. There’s care, and comfort. And…. Her eyes open, and her gaze gently drifts upward. “Gotcha.” Fury. She closes her hands back together, and the expanding galaxy of flames collapses back into her palms. “You two stay down here. I’ll be right back.” 

As she ascends the stairs, Abigail takes a quick glance down to see the couple slowly inching along behind her. She chuckles to herself and keeps going - some people are too curious for their own good. She crosses the final step up, and her left hand begins to glow purple. “Hey, whoever’s up here.” 

The cosmos of flame still lingers upstairs, focused in a cluster in front of her. Abigail places her hand on the cluster, and it begins to form into a person - a young woman, maybe early twenties, with silver hair ornately organized into a bun and the whites of her eyes a deep red. She’s wearing a long, delicate dress - but the colors are impossible to parse as the bottom begins to fade into transparency. Her face is twisted into an angry snarl, but the anger feels complicated. “Wh-wh-wh….who-who are y-y-....you…?” The phantom says, barely able to speak. 

Abigail smiles and lowers her hand. “My name is Abigail O’Hare. I want to help you.”

“H-h-h-he….? M-Me…?” 

“Mmhmm. But first I need to know a couple things about you, okay? You okay with chatting?” 

The phantom twitches restlessly, as it peeks past Abigail and sees the couple at the bottom of the steps behind her. “Th-Th-th…they-y-y….w-h-why…?” 

“Hmm? Those two? Why what?” Abigail asks. 

“...here…?”

“Why are they here? They kinda live here.” 

“Th-Th-Th-they…they l-liveehere? My home?” The phantom asks in response, voice becoming clearer. “Its…it’s my home…? Is this my home?”

Abigail lowers her head. “It’s complicated. What do you remember?”

The phantom’s angry face has faded into a more confused desperation. “R-Remember…? My…? My home..?” She creakily twitches her arms in front of her, but can’t seem to process what she’s seeing. “Iss…is me?”

“Yeah, that’s you. You’re looking at you.” Abigail replies, noticing how the phantom’s arms fade off at the end as well. 

“Oh…” The phantom stares for another moment, and then back up at Abigail. “Not here.”

Abigail shakes her head sadly. “Not here.” 

“Where?”

Abigail raises her hand back up, and places it gently on the phantom’s cheek. She leans next to the phantom’s ear, and whispers something the couple can’t hear. 

The phantom reacts sharply at first, but something begins washing over her. Her eyes soften, and then close as she starts to cry, falling to her invisible knees. 

Tom and Ginny stare in disbelief at what they’re seeing. The phantom sobs for a moment, and then stands back up, softly, slowly, precisely, sniffling the whole way up. It looks at the couple, and then back at Abigail. “Thank you.” 

The fire goes out, and the phantom is gone. 

Silence fills the room. 

Abigail stands motionless at first, and then gives a long, shaky sigh. She turns and gently pushes past the couple as she makes her way down the stairs, and b-lines straight to the tiny door in the laundry room. 

“Ms. O’Hare…?” Tom asks, suddenly cautious of this sharp change in tone from Abigail. “Is everything alright…?” He and Ginny follow her down stairs, and hear a loud crashing sound on the way. They pick up the pace and find Abigail sitting in front of the door, which has now been ripped from its hinges - but the tiny hole in the wall was now much bigger. 

“Call the Peacekeepers,” Abigail says, her voice now sharp. “And I strongly advise you not to get any closer.” 

Ginny is the one to ignore her advice, and she immediately freezes upon seeing the bloody, torn up top half of a corpse sitting inside the wall. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just past 7:00pm in Coastal Astoria, Magnolia Street is starting to pick up steam for the night. The store closes on the weekdays from 4:30pm-6:30pm, to allow for a more proper transition from a bar that’s mostly a nursery, to a nursery that’s mostly a bar, and there’s typically a few regulars there waiting for the doors to open back up. Today, a different, but very welcome, face was among the regulars, and he was already a drink and a half in when Abigail arrived. 

“Abigail!” Carlos shouts as she enters, “You made it!” He adds as she slides into a seat next to him. “Oye, you look like shit.” 

Abigail looks back at him with a playful frown. “Good to see you too, jerk.” 

Lea makes her way over to the two, and shakes her head when she sees Abigail. “He’s right though.” 

Abigail shoots her a look, but she knows they’re right. Her eyes are extra dark underneath today, and her makeup was reluctantly and hastily removed, without time to reapply. “It wasn’t a great day today.” 

“Nothing an LIC couldn’t solve, right?” Carlos asks, patting Abigail’s back. “Sorry it was a shitty one. What happened?”

Abigail stares at Carlos for a moment, and then her eyes drift to Lea. “Long Island Coffee, please ma’aaaaammmmmm.” 

Lea smiles and nods. “Of course, dear customer!” She shoots back, turning to work on Abigail’s drink. 

“Got called by this really sweet couple. Just bought a new house or whatever, but turns out, place is haunted.” Abigail explains, resting her head in her hand and staring straight forward. “I always get emotional when phantoms are involved.” 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours ago…

Back at the couple’s house, Abigail stands outside, leaning against the side of the home and chain smoking cigarettes. The Peacekeepers are in the middle of talking to the couple - a couple of faces Abigail doesn’t recognize, but Michael was with them. She wasn’t particularly excited to have called them, but they have powers and connections that she doesn’t. Once the conversation wraps up with Tom and Ginny, the Peacekeepers start to make their way toward Abigail, but Michael waves them off and goes over alone. 

“O’Hare,” Michael says with a nod. 

“Michael.” Abigail replies. 

“Appreciate you giving us a call. Turns out this sweet couple accidentally bought a house with a Reach.” 

Abigail raises an eyebrow. A what now? She thinks. Her confusion was more evident on her face than she wanted.

Michael chuckles. “Man, Freelancers really don’t know squat. Think of it as a teleportation device, but it only goes one way, one time.” He explains, looking up at the sky. “Obviously we don’t have an ID on that girl you found in there, but she was murdered by someone, somewhere, who sent her body to a random place. In this case, inside the wall of a home in Coastal Astoria.” 

“So it arrived, what, when these guys moved in? It was just shitty timing?” Abigail asks. 

“Might’ve been. Hard to say until we get more information. They said that door was already there when they toured the place, but the body has barely rotted.” 

“Is a Reach a thing? Or an action?” 

Michael raises an eyebrow. “It’s harnessing the power of The Void to move things. So, an action?”

Abigail nods, and looks down at her cigarette. It’s just about completely finished, so she combusts the entire thing and pulls a new one from the box in her pocket, lighting it with her finger as she thinks. “You deal with phantoms much, Michael?”

“You sure are chatty today.” Michael says, but Abigail’s silence in return piques his interest. “Not often, but it’s not rare either. Maybe once a month or so. Why?”

“Same.” Abigail says, pulling from her smoke. “You know, back before Obscurus, people dealt with phantoms back then, too?” 

“No shit?”

“Mmhmm.” Abigail replies. “But it was different than today. You couldn’t catch a ghost on video, y’know? Mostly turned out to be bullshit, or electronic signals messing with people’s heads…but now, phantoms are just…a thing. The Void made such a bizarre crossing between fiction and reality that we can capture a phantom in a photograph. You can speak to them, they have thoughts and emotions. But people still act like they’re fiction. Why is that?”

Michael thinks for a moment, and just shrugs. “I dunno. Same reason people just keep on living after a sea serpent or crazy Called Upon attacks the city. The Void asks a lot of questions that are hard to answer, you know?” He says. 

Abigail nods, looking around at the neighborhood as she smokes. “Do Reaches always leave physical evidence?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, sometimes. Depends, I guess, on what’s being sent and where it goes. Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a door show up, though…” Michael says, trailing off. “What’re you getting at?” 

Abigail combusts her cigarette, and then moves to leave. “I’m just trying to make connections.” She says, walking past Michael, pausing, and then looking back. “Thanks.” 

Michael gives a sigh of a groan. “Yeah. Sure.” He says, turning away as well to meet back up with the Peacekeepers. 

“Oh, and Michael?” 

“Yeah?” He says, turning back to face her - he freezes when he does, and finds himself staring right into her eyes from 15 feet away. 

They’re flooded with purple, bubbling tears.

“Her name was Michonne.” She says, trying to look at Michael, but all she can see is a cosmos of flame in front of her, displaying the echoes of a memory - a first person view of Michonne being hacked to pieces by someone she held a great affection for, in some form or another. “That’s all I could get.” She barely manages to choke out, before turning and leaving the house. 

Tom and Ginny start to approach, but her feet ignite into a purple jet flame as she soars away. The couple stare in confusion, and then walk to Michael. 

“Mr. River? Hey, you know her? She flew off before we could pay her.” Tom asks, eyes darting between Michael and the smoke left behind from Abigail’s getaway. 

And that’s where Michael’s gaze is fixed as well. 

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back at Magnolia Street, some time has passed. Abigail has been telling the story of her day to Carlos, and both have been enjoying the spirits of Magnolia. 

“Good lord,” Carlos says, voice getting slurred from booze, “So there’s people who can just…put things somewhere else?”

Abigail shrugs, sipping on her drink - a shot of espresso mixed with a half shot of most major liquor categories, her usual call for getting messed up, quickly. “Void is some weird shit, man.” 

“So did you make any?” Carlos asks. 

Abigail stares at him for a moment. “....Make any what?”

“Connections? About the Reachy and the Ghosty? Isn’t that what you said?” He follows up, flailing his hands around as he tries to fully remember the question he just asked. 

“Hmm? Oh. Oh. Eh.” Abigail replies, sighing and staring into her glass. She sees a flash of Michonne’s final moments again. “Phantoms are a thing we don’t really understand. They can’t just be people who died tragically, because people die in terrible ways all the time.”

Carlos can’t help but laugh. “Okay, right. Jesus. Yeah, guess that’s true. Maybe they just got lucky? Or, well, unlucky, to be, killed, but lucky, they -”

“Like they died in the wrong place at the right time?”

“Bingo.” Carlos says, clapping his hands together. “I guess we can’t ‘bingo’ something that morbid.”

Abigail chuckles. “But what makes it the right time?” 

Carlos shrugs. “I dunno, somethin’ to do with the Void, yeah?”

“But what, exactly?”

Carlos laughs and raises his hands in surrender. “Abby, you know I don’t have a damn clue. What do you think it is then?”

“The Reach. That Asshole said it left a mark, but he never saw a door before.”

“The hell kind of answer is that?” Carlos asks, his hands now landing behind his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Play along…” Lea interjects, taking away their glasses and bringing both waters.

“Okay….” Carlos says, thinking for a moment. “Oh….you think that’s the main usage for a Reach? Body disposal?? Void connection??? Which makes Phantoms???? Is that the connection?????” Carlos asks, getting excited. 

“Nah. Whatever this “Reach” thing is, it’s something new. Michael was talking about it like it was some big thing, but he seemed unsure about it.” Abigail replies. “Which leads me back to this. What is a Phantom?”

“Huh?”

“A cry for help.” She says, reaching for her water. “This is just speculation, but however a Reach is done…she…Michonne didn’t die from getting hacked to pieces. She died because of the Reach. But as she went through the Void…”

“It heard her cry.” Carlos says, eyebrows raising. “And instead of the Reach leaving a mark…”

“It left a door. An opening. A way for someone to find them. The Void answered her Call.”

Carlos suddenly slams his arm onto the counter. “SHIT, ABIGAIL. That’s so cool man, I mean - shit, you’re totally right! That’s gotta be what happened, right?” 

“Like I said. We don’t really understand Phantoms that well.” Abigail says, suddenly freezing. “Shit. Carlos. I’m so sorry.”

“Ehhh? About what?”

“You were the one having a weird couple days. That’s why we did this, and I’ve just been - shit, man, I’m sorry, I made it all about me - “

“Are you kidding me?? Abigail! You know what my version of a shitty day is? Like, a ton of asshole customers or my manager being a dick or whatever. Your bad day was dealing with a ghost and solving mysteries!”

“Well, that wasn’t really the shitty part -”

“You know? Ugh. It’s just…the other day, something weird happened, and I just…I’ve been looking at my life, and I…I’m not doing anything!”

Abigail shoots her eyes to Carlos. Huh? “Don’t you work all those jobs for your family…? That’s doing something!”

Carlos groans and slides his face into his palms. “Yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, it’s important…but what am I doing? Who am I in all this? Just a bartender at one place, a barista at another? Some…sales guy at a failing gift shop? Nah. I’m so done with that.” 

Abigail and Lea are both staring at Carlos now, and then they share a glance. They’ve both been friends with Carlos for most of their lives, and this type of meltdown was a rare sight. “Dude…what happened?” Abigail asks, but she’s taken aback when Carlos swings his body up, and his face is close to hers. 

“First. Abigail. We’ve known each other for how long now?” Carlos asks. 

Abigail stammers for a moment, caught off guard. “Uh…Long time? Fifteen, sixteen years?”

“Right. And you’d say we’re pretty good pals.” 

“Uh-huh…?”

Carlos just stares at her for a moment, contemplating his words. 

“Do you trust me to make the right decisions?” He asks, softly. “Like, with my life, or whatever?”

Abigail’s eyes turn gentle with a caring conviction. “More than pretty much anyone.” 

Carlos slowly nods. “Hey Abigail?”

“Yes Carlos?”

“Are you hiring?”