Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

Without using her hands, she pushed back from the sturdy glass door, her image again superimposing itself on the chaos outside. It was rare that she didn’t care what she looked like. Kit believed a person’s way of moving about in the world spoke volumes about them, and to her it was an art.

But she didn’t judge herself tonight. Forget the curve of her hips, a too-wide flare in a heroin-chic world. Forget even the clothes that marked her as a devoted lover of another era. Tonight she was the odd one out because of one thing alone: she was still breathing. She was still alive.

That was a relief, right? So why, as she stood there, exhausted and alone, was she thinking that it’d be nice if the wind could reach inside her homey tomb and whisk her away as well?

Living requires being known by another soul.

So why the hell was she here? Because the woman who’d known her best was dead, and the man she’d stupidly wed didn’t even know how to live. And for all her big talk about the ability of the press to change lives, and the power of living deliberately to give meaning to one’s own, Kit was still standing here alone.

Take away this sad woman across from me, she found herself thinking, focusing on her dark, wind-whipped eyes. Put her in a different place entirely. Please… just make her disappear .

The first thing Grif noted as Katherine Craig broached the room was the shadows under her eyes. He could see her clearly, though he was altogether invisible to her from behind the folding screen. Plasma moved tellingly behind her in a faint shimmer of silver-gray that threaded the room, inching her way. Despite that, all he could focus on were those telling circles, dark as bruises above the apples of her cheeks, as if the day had gone and punched her square. Then his gaze flickered, and he caught a real movement behind her.

And here comes tonight’s knockout blow.

But first, the shower. It gave the intruders, which soon materialized as men, time to position themselves in the hallway, not that time was a factor anymore. They’d entered the home almost as soon as Craig left the kitchen. Grif had felt the invasion like a worm burrowing under his flesh. This woman was already dead, he thought, even as she disappeared under the water.

Nervous, or perhaps just impatient, one of the men stepped forward as if testing the room. Grif jolted. It was the blond he’d seen through the gas station’s security camera, the one who’d taken Craig’s notebook after Rockwell was murdered. He looked to be in his forties, older than Grif if you didn’t count death years, but still strong enough that muscles fought against his turtleneck as he moved.

There was a hiss from the hallway, his partner cursing, and a gloved hand appeared, gesturing him back. Instead, the blond slid along the wall in total silence, almost like he was wandering, to disappear in the darkness of the corner opposite Grif. There was nothing after that, and he knew the rest was already planned. The two men were like sparring partners, waiting to come together at the clang of the bell.

Grif felt a headache growing behind his eyes, and forced himself to relax his clenched jaw. He tried to control his breathing, but felt like he was waiting for a bell, too. He needed a corner man to talk him down, help him shake it out, get his head right. If he could just talk to Sarge, he could make him see that this wasn’t right. Not for Grif. Not for the woman, Craig, either.

And what about these men? Why couldn’t someone talk sense into them? That was one thing Grif had never been able to wrap his gray matter around, crimes against women. To him, it was like lifting a babe from the carriage and smashing its melon on the sidewalk. Easy destruction, just for the sake of it.

And forget about premeditated violence, the unstoppable train that was just minutes away from Craig’s station. Even a random, careless act-even bad luck-was too much for most females to handle. After all, wasn’t the way Grif had bumped into Craig’s life random and careless?

But it was physiology that was really at fault. Even the big girls were easy to put down. Craig wasn’t big or small, but right in the middle where a woman should be. She was like that roller coaster he’d loved at Coney Island as a kid, made up of long slopes and wide curves, built for thrills. Something wild, he thought, but also something that made a man just want to let go.

You’d think that kind of natural wonder would engender a sort of awe in all men, but some were the moral equivalent of a smoker’s cough. They were a black noise let loose in the world, a cloud heralding illness and death. The two men entering this room were like that. Walking cancer. Destruction, just for the sake of it.

The shower droned on. He glanced down at the wristwatch Evie had given him on their second anniversary, latching on to the memory for distraction. He remembered the way she’d bitten that sweet lower lip of hers, watching him unwrap it, though she’d waited until it was fastened around his wrist to tell him it was a knock-off. Like he cared. Point was, Evie had been thinking of him even though he hadn’t exactly hung the moon for her in the previous twenty-four months, and he was both touched and secretly relieved that she still celebrated being his wife. That she still believed in him.

So he accepted the watch, and wore it religiously, never telling her he thought timepieces were silly affectations, never saying that he believed nothing really started until a person got there anyway.

But everyone’s here now, he thought wryly, lifting his head as the shower snapped off. At least for fourteen minutes longer.

You’re going to bring that poor girl’s soul home. You’re going to offer her guidance.

But I don’t want to, he found himself thinking as the plasma moved like a panther in the air. It peeled away from the hallway, padding silently through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

Propping one creamy, pale leg at a time on the vanity stool, Craig began toweling off. The limbs appeared disembodied from where he stood, but the blond cancer-man could see everything from his corner, and Grif knew he’d be the one to add violation to death.

I didn’t cause this, he almost said aloud, and realized desperation had somehow turned the thought into a prayer.

Nicole Rockwell did this, he said silently to whomever was listening. Frank did this, because he was allowing it.

God did it .

There was no reprimand. As with any prayer, no answer at all. Instead, the wind just continued howling outside, while another minute dropped away within.

Bricks, thought Grif, squeezing his eyes shut. Twelve minutes, and this will all go away.

Time enough to change your mind, Sarge, he thought, feeling panic rise, making itself known as an ache in his chest.

A white robe whirled and was wrapped tight. Grif’s boxing robe had always been white, too. He’d loved the feel of it, the scent of bleach against the stiff terry-cloth. Not that it ever stayed white for long.

Plasma swirled, wrapping around Craig’s legs like shackles as she rubbed her hair dry. Grif wanted to close his eyes.

Then she stepped into the room. The shower had relaxed her, and the booze piggybacked her fatigue so that her empty tumbler hung from two fingertips. But instinct-prey’s or woman’s-had her suddenly stiffening. She whirled, eyes wide, but the cancer-man in the hallway, faceless beneath a ski mask, was already on her. Grif had already seen this on the TV, but the sound hadn’t been turned up then. His death senses were firing like rockets now, and Craig’s knifed gasp jolted him. The slap of flesh was a shot fired. The man’s growl was feral as he pounced.