Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

Lightning cracked through the ceiling to arrow between him and Anne. For an eye’s blink, Grif caught the origins of the unnatural fire bolt. Through the rooftop, past ozone and sky, a grainy membrane lay ripped like skin. A tangle of color rested behind that-the rainbow God unfurled onto the Surface, bunched up like ribbon in a box. Anne’s cry ripped the seams of God’s promise, allowing an even briefer view of what lay on its other side.

Paradise .

Grif’s cry joined Anne’s at the sight, and he reached up toward the wonder, both everything and an abyss. Every element of the universe was mashed together in undulating effervescence; flame burning behind frost, velvety clouds roiling over gold sheets of evaporating water, peaceful pockets of darkness, inflamed and full, like bulging black hearts. Grif listed toward it like a sailor toward the siren’s call. Yearning rose in his chest like a wave, followed by an ache that crashed in to lay him flat.

All of his losses-his life, Evelyn’s, the unknown future of their doomed past-they all reached from inside to choke him. Yet the beauty above spoke to him, as if only to him, and his mouth opened to form a reply from his heart. Across from him, Anne was speaking in tongues. Even with tortured minds and broken spirits, even bound to the Surface, they ached for God’s presence. It would be like being drawn back into the womb. It would be rest. It was the only real redemption there was.

It took Grif longer to recover from the sight of Paradise than it did from the attack. But it left Anne even worse off than before. After she’d stopped screaming-mending the rainbow, sealing the membrane, stitching the sky, raising the roof-the beautiful chaos disappeared, and the world was normal once more. But Anne was curled around herself and looking about blankly, wide-eyed at the room, as if she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there.

Then, azure eyes blazing mad, she said, “Kill her.”

“No.”

A bolt shot into Grif so quickly he was smoldering before he realized her fiery wings had flared. Now he was the one forced into the fetal position, but she didn’t allow him to remain there, curled around his burning belly. A long arm forced his gaze up and the dusty scent that had stalked Paul, as well as tonight’s attacker, blew into his lungs as Anne hissed.

“Then I leave you both to your fates.”

And she hit him so hard his mortal senses fractured, and darkness spun to claim him, and the blue-eyed Pure was instantly gone.

Y our love should have saved me.”

“I know.”

It was that old dream, Evie and Grif in the ’fifty-six, racing through the bleak Mojave, except that this time they weren’t. Evie wasn’t there, the car was missing, and there wasn’t even a sense of space, much less the expansive desert around him. Grif was alone, and the surrounding darkness was matched only by the nothingness in his heart.

“You weren’t strong enough to save me.” The sweet voice turned into a hiss.

He answered as he always did, his words reverberating into the void. “I don’t have to be strong. I’m dead.”

“Not anymore,” Evie’s not-voice returned, altering the script. “Better wise up, tough guy, or you’ll have to feel it all over again. I told you to keep your head down, but no. Look where it got you, wearing skin again. And look where it got me.”

Grif squinted, searching for her. “Where, Evie? Where did it get you?”

“Same place as you, Griffin,” she shot back, tone as glittering and hard as a gem. “In the dark. Alone. In this cold place where no one comes, no one sees me. No one cares.”

“Evie, I’m trying to get to you. I want to help. But I need to know where you are.”

“That’s rich, Griffin.” A bitter chuckle rose up to choke him. “Because you don’t even know where you are.”

And Grif tumbled out of the darkness, rearing into wakefulness in time to see a woman’s approaching shadow. His first thought was, Evie, but he knew her body like his own, and this wasn’t it. Anne, he realized, as a room began to take shape around the approaching form. He could label the objects-couch, table, light-but the names were devoid of meaning, attached to shapes his spinning thoughts couldn’t hold. Fear reared as the woman reached his side, and he fell back, trying to escape.

“Grif.” Kit touched his arm. The room flipped, and suddenly he knew which way was up. His greedy gasp for air was what told him he’d forgotten to breathe, and he tried to make up for the lack by sucking in great gulps of air. Meanwhile Kit perched next to him, palms cool on his face and neck.

“It was another nightmare, sweetie,” she said, treating him more gently than he had any right to be treated. Swinging his feet to the floor, he braced them there like that would anchor him firmly in this time and place, but the movement had Kit’s hands sliding away, and the darkness threatened the edges of his vision again.

Growling, Grif punched the couch. “Damn it! Why can’t I locate myself on this rock?”

“Shh,” Kit soothed, and reached for him again. Her palm against his forehead had the room stilling. The other lay supportively at his back. “You bumped your head. You’re not making sense.”

But despite the bump and the fading dream, everything suddenly made perfect sense. Schmidt knew where he and Kit were staying. Anne, crazed with the need to return to the Everlast, had attacked. People were still dying.

And it was all his fault.

“Where’s Tony?” he asked, just before he noticed the glass wall was once again erect, as thick and indestructible as before. A sidelong sweep of the foyer told him that was cleaned of blood splatter and wreckage, too. The red eye of the alarm showed it was engaged. No wonder Kit was so relaxed. Anne had cleaned up before she left.

How thoughtful of her.

“Haven’t seen him,” Kit said, handing Grif a glass of water. He accepted it with a murmur of thanks.

“Yeah, he has a reputation for disappearing when things get rough,” he said, sipping.

“So, what happened?” Kit asked, propping herself on the coffee table in front of him. He wished she was closer, then immediately wished that thought away. “One of his old cronies come by and try to shake you down?”

He almost told her. She’d met Anne, so she might believe him. Then again, she might not, and he didn’t want her open expression to close to him. And it would, the moment he said the word “angel.”

“How are you ?” he asked instead.

“Oh…” She deflated a bit, like lifting his spirits was the only thing keeping her up. Circles rode undercurrent beneath her eyes, and her shoulders sagged as she nodded. “I’ve been better. Paul’s parents were kind, though. I think they were too shocked to blame me for his death, though I don’t doubt that’s coming. His mother blamed me for a lot of things.”

“The divorce?”

“The marriage,” she answered wryly, then shrugged. “For now she needed a shoulder to lean on.”

And Kit had given it, Grif saw, even knowing it would take something from her.

And because of that, Grif reached out slowly and took her chin in a light grip, fingertips sliding over her jawline. Kit froze, caught by the intensity of his stare. Then she finally shuddered. “Grif-”

But he took her mouth, and her, by surprise. What surprised him was how gentle the kiss was, and that he suddenly wanted it so much. Yet if her touch had grounded him before, it unraveled him now. All the senses he’d tried to bury flared like fireworks. She was so warm, so soft. So alive.