And here's the fifth chapter. I'm so, so very sorry for the delay guys: and I would never thank you enough for your support (your favs speed up my ego like nothing else). The sixth chap is well on its way (fore real, this time), so I'll try to update rather quickly. Moreover, on Halloween I'll publish a little Psych madness I deeply enjoy writing (and that I hope would be enjoyable for you too). Now, about the present chap, we are back with Lassie and the mysterious girl. I stopped several times squeaking "Oh Gosh poor little cutie" while writing, but being emotional with my own stories is a fancy talent.

If you like, I've made some Psych fan arts on my DA profile, and an alternative OOS cover. Check it out.

P.S.: The gun and bullet' names are totally fictional.

V - Clari Loci

(The Clear Places)

During the night at the hospital, Carlton Lassiter discovered three things.

First, he couldn't touch anything, on pain of a sickening feeling of frosty bugs crawling on his arm and little to no effect. Second, he couldn't pass through the walls, yes he had been dumb enough to try.

Three, O'Hara had sit in the same place for almost the whole time.

He had watched her from the corridor, through the shutters of his room's window. He had seen her eating half an M&M's packet, threatening a sleepy newbie on the door and collapse on the chair at the room's corner. She had ended up snoozing with her head at the most painful angle ever and a trick of drool down the chin. It had been the most harrowing thing he had ever seen.

He had also talked with the girl; better, she had talked. She had said her name was Francesca Ermete; she was Italian but her parents had recently transferred to Los Angeles, so that explained the strange articulated stress she talked with. She was twenty, well-mannered and with the strangest way to mix crudity and Latinisms in the same sentence. She didn't say anything else about herself; Carlton had to confess he was not in the spirit to investigate further.

After the touch, no Lassiter don't think about it focus focus, they had just sit there for some time; simply content not to be alone and that the world had not collapsed in a twirl of clouds and madness. But like shock bewilderment has a finite vita, after which a human mind just stuffs the incredible in her archive and keeps working; deciding that if it doesn't hurt it could be managed.

So, it was mostly mechanics what made Carlton asking what he was supposed to do now.

You're not dead, but you're stuck, Detective Lassiter. Something is preventing you from passing the line.

Line? Is it just a line?

Yes, why not. Death is not flossy, detective.

So, he had looked hard at the vending machine and thought why he didn't die properly. He had wondered if it was because he didn't bid farewell to some important persons in his life. The girl had laughed, saying that if every loved person wouldn't pass away then the world would be a big Starbucks for ghosts. There should be something unresolved, a lapse that for some reason was intolerable.

He had thought about O'Hara's bars, Shawn's stereo receipt still crumpled in his trousers pocket. He couldn't speak for thirteen seconds.

You should reach down in your memory, detective. Thinking about a place, a person, a light. Anything that could still have a piece of you.

And when I'll find the lapse what would happen?

You. You'll be free.

No one of them had the bravery to look at the other.

So, now he and he girl were at the warehouse, and dawn was casting streaks of light on the burned concrete. Francesca had said the best place to begin was the one when he was alive, really alive, for the last time. Rewind time, see the crime scene to know the victim. It made sense to him.

Carlton took a step forward, around a large chunk of plywood gnarled by the fire. His men had wrapped the walls in crime scene tape, bright yellow against the tangle of pipes and bricks stretching toward the sky; Francesca was digging one foot under a misshaped framework, a rain of ashes blurring the ground. He tried not to watch the blood stain on his left.

He didn't want to die. Not like this. He had understood, after years of maimed rookies and terrified corpses screaming in the void and sturdy detectives crying and puking blood on him, that you couldn't really be ready to die; but you could at least say that you had fought till the end, that you didn't even realize the defeat. He had always asked nothing but that. Nothing but leave in the middle of the battle, not at the end nor at the beginning.

And now, now he was helping death to take him. He was trying to die. And he was so scared and yet he couldn't but follow the goal because at least it was something to do, something to think about.

Something that was not the defibrillator. The leather jacket running away.

What a bad day, O'Hara.

He let out a shallow laugh.

-Is everything okay, detective?-

The kid's head shot toward him. She was funny, with warm chestnut eyes and the most tousled hair he had ever seen.

She didn't seem an executioner.

-What? Oh yes, sure. Everything regular. -Crazy terrifying regular yes fucking regular. -What , what exactly are we looking for?-

-There's nothing specific.- She shrugged. -It could be anything. A thing, a memory. You'll recognize it, I suppose.-

He stopped midstep. Felt a surge of anger, fought to suppress it. -You suppose? Are you joking with me, girl?-

Please say no.

She stopped, scowling lightly. -No, I'm not joking, detective. But it's not an exact science. It's more, how do you say? A gut's feeling. And I'm only trying to help.-

Help me die. But her words had been blunt, and that was something he could respect.

He closed his eyes, swallowed.

-Mmm. I, I understand. Sorry, I've been unfair.-

-I think I could understand too. Shall we begin?-

-Yes. Let's begin. Wait, where, where are you going?-

-To that side. I thought it would be better splitting.-

He nodded numbly, as the girl turned and hopped around the West corner of the building, her red raincoat bouncing around her. Carlton asked himself what the Hell he should do. Dead.

Calm down. He closed his eyes. Somehow not being seen made him feel blurry, faker. Pinched to the page with old glue, a jolt and you're torn off. Oh, he was so not good with that stuff. Spirit, intuition, heart feels. Anything implying to follow the stream and other eerie things people never truly defined.

And if I don't find the lapse, and I fail, what then?

No. Calm down. It was true, he was not good at perceiving things; but he did knew how to look for things, and that was not so different. It should not be so different. He was good at it, and it had always felt right, and was better than staying there feeling fake. Feeling like old glue. So he shook his hands, bit his lip and did the only sensible thing possible.

He watched as a cop.

The building was a Sixties warehouse of a fishing company closed years ago. 49 for 26 feet, two windows on each side, one gate on the front and two secondary exits. They had gotten in at three point five p.m., to find and possibly stop Pocofov. He was an old acquaintance of his, an half-Russian thug who managed to annoy the PD to no end without ever becoming a real deal. Fairly good shooter, too emotional. They got there and Carlton kicked the others behind the guard box, because Pocofov was a good shooter. O'Hara called backup, Spencer talked nonsense and gave them the time not to get him shot. Lassiter spotted three men behind a stock of freezer containers, gave their boss the Firm Cop Talk, as Shawn so indecorously named it. But then Pocofov raised his his gun and he shot to the wall, because Pocofov was also emotional and he didn't think that the place was a wreck and the gas meter could be damaged and it would fry half the place. Then, then Carlton should have gotten up, and he should have also lift his Glock and go forward, and then fire fire roaring in his shoulder and screams all around and nothing. And everything. And nothing again.

Let's check that side, shall we?

He walked past the corner, stepping carefully over a bunch of concrete. He wondered vaguely if he could still trip. There was sand along the walls, squashed by footprints, and he almost thought to recognize O'Hara's stilettos: there were less than two women in the force wearing those things. Maybe those were Shawn's sneakers, but no, it was foolish. There were too many prints, too many people. He bit his lip harder.

Spencer, stupid, ungrateful Spencer.

He kept walking, taking a look around. On his left he saw the second entrance, the door twisted in a strange maggot-like heap; next to it the oilcloth of one of the window cracked under the wind, half torn from the was a wire net running along the south side of the parking lot, hovering over the empty lot behind it. Nearer him Heineken bottles, graffiti dripping over the churned wall, and.

Wait a moment.

Black streaks ran from the building toward the street behind them, way too smooth to be random. He knelt down, brushing the signs. Pneumatic prints. Distanced : truck, maybe a pick up. He had supposed the idiotic ruffian had died, but maybe he had not. Maybe he had sneaked out taking advantage of the turmoil. The secondary exit was almost whole. It made sense. Crap. He tried hard to remember if he had seen any car, cursing himself both for trying and not making it.

Oh yeah, sure, Carlton. To who would you say it, anyway?

Carlton was starting to grumble, when he spotted something else. Five or six steps from the window, on the inside of the building lumped the misshaped mouth of the gas meter, cables spourting over red plastic.

He pulled himself up.

-Are you finding anything?- the girl's voice floated from the other side.

-Ah, I don't think so.- He answered. -My guys had yet to pass, but there is not much I could, could use...-

He slipped through the door, heading right to the meter. Yellowish light poured across the tendrils of roof still in place, flooding the floor, the dust in the air.

Don't think don't remember just watch.

He reached the red box, examining it. Pocofov's shot had carved an ugly hole in the upper half of the metal shell, and Carlton found himself wondering with a jolt of annoyance if he could at least pulled out it to check the wires. Another reason why you're supposed to stay dead or stay alive, he lazily thought. But despite himself, his hands had already begun to roam around the evidence; to let it talk against his touch. The hole. A large crack gashing it, large enough for a human hand.

And there, there something.

Seven inch deep. Metal shining against the bottom. He scowled, and his eye was pushed against the opening before he could realize it. Cables he had no idea what for, the series of little levers that indicated if the thing was on or off, and under it, the faint glow of a bullet. Oh, hold on a second. Carlton squeezed his eyes. The levers, there was something wrong with the levers.

They were turned on. In a deserted warehouse.

Wait a moment wait a moment wait a moment. He closed a fist, feeling the pieces sliding in place, crayons outlining the dark. He leaned again on the break. The bullet, here, he could see it. Long, sleek.

The world slowed.

Francesca looked up again from the umpteenth stack of melted crap, blinking. -Detective Lassiter? Still everything okay?-

No answer. Seconds passed. -Detective Lassiter?-

-I'm here.-

She frowned, starting to walk around the facade. Carlton could hear her sneakers. He didn't move.

This changes everything. How stupid we were. How stupid I've been.

-Have you, have you found something interesting?-

Carlton swallowed. Slowly, he straightened. The idea ringing and stinging somewhere in the chest.

-The gas meter. It was working. It was not broken.-

-Duh. So that's why it exploded so suddenly, right?-

-Yes, but this is unimportant.-

He could almost see her frowning. A cop would have understood, O'Hara would have understood. -I still don't see the point.-

-The gas meter was up, during the shooting. It was up before the gun shot.-

The girl got nearer, brushed absent-mindedly the metal box. -It was up? So it was working? You think- she abruptly stopped, turning to him. She sucked in through teeth. -Cazzo. You think they knew it. You think they did it on purpose. Cazzo!-

He merely nodded, not averting his gaze from the bullet. -Francesca, could you pull out that bullet?-

-Sorry? We weren't...-

-Pull it out, please.-

Breathe think oh fuck O'Hara oh fuck.

She hesitated for a split second, but then her hand reached out in the red thing, peering through the rough crack. Carlton followed it silently, all the world sucked in that single dot.

And here it was. Small. Sleek. He remembered it perfectly, because he had hold one identical years ago, and he almost never forgot the weapons he touched, the ones he loved. O'Hara said that he remembered them way better than people.

-It's a Marcury.-

-I don't see...-

-It's the bullet of a Mercury. Good weapon, but too heavy. They stopped the production in the late sixties. There are only two people owning one of them in Santa Barbara.-

He tried to touch it, remembered suddenly that he couldn't.

-One of them it's me.-

Francesca blinked slowly, licking her lips. Her words were still there but he wasn't really hearing them, because Carlton's head was swirling. There was a pool of quiet at the center of Carlton's stormy temper, a place of clarity where the world became variables to calibrate and anger became fuel, and he slipped there with the good clack of a trigger.

- What does it mean, detective?-

-It could mean everything.-

He took a step forward, was running before he realized it. Check the gun. Check Pocofov. Possible revenge, his old cases, warn O'Hara and the chief and Spencer. Stop the bastard. World was chaos, and at the center of it Carlton knew perfectly what to do.

-Where, where the heck are you going now?- The girl's patter rang across the spoiled walls of the warehouse. -I may sound pessimistic, but I don't think that you are supposed to march in the Great Light.-

-I'm going to the PD. They need to know what we saw.-

Saw what? Not important not important. They need to. I need.

Her shriek was a disturbing mix of O'Hara and Guster. -What? Whoa, wait, you, you can't do it.-

He was at the door. -No one knew about the X. I don't have anything grounded yet, but damn me if it's a coincidence.-

-Okay, I understand.- The girl popped out of the secondary exit a second after him, muttered a curse when her foot hit a metal sheet. -This thing seems big and you are angry and you worry for the others, but you can't. You are, well, not alive.-

-Hardly fundamental.-

She growled. -You don't understand: you're not alive. You are no longer part of this world, although you did not leave it. Therefore you can't intervene on it anymore. There could be consequences. There could be side effects.-

-You don't know it.-

-Maybe, but I don't want to be the one that messed up the cosmic order. I can't let you do it, and you can't do a thing about it.-

- Very well. So I'm going alone.-

-Going to do what? To say what?-

- I know how to do my job.-

She stopped. And she accidentally broke his heart.

-Carlton-

-Don't call me like that!- He turned sharply, gritting his teeth. The voice was shrieking, even shrill, God was that his voice? -I'm Lassiter, Head Detective Lassiter. I'm a cop. I have a duty, I have a partner and I have information for a case that could put in danger both of these things, so I'm going to do my job, and you will not stop me.-

-Ehy!- The girl looked at him wide-eyed. Wide chocolate eyes, eyes that knew death, eyes that knew death. -Calm down, okay? I'm just trying to help here.-

-You're trying to get rid of an inconvenience.-

Her face twisted. -I'm trying to make you ready... I'm trying to do the right thing.-

-Oh, sure, and you are what?- He sneered, but his voice was trembling. - Some dark-ish spoiled brat that talks with ghosts?-

-You don't understand.-

-You don't understand! I'm not ready!- Carlton shouted. Feeling bitter and fierce and terrified. -I don't want to be ready. You don't have to come, and I don't know wha is happening but I, I'm going. This is not how I'm going to die.-

She backed, setting her jaw. He straightened his back, pointedly ignoring that there was no shadow under his feet. Seagulls squeaked in the distance as they waited for the other to move. Something old and hard flamed on Francesca's face for a moment, and then it disappeared again. She sighed.

- Okay. Okay, we're going. I don't want to be an executioner, detective. Despite what you may think.-

She started to walk before he could say anything.