Vicki Pettersson - The Given

“Let me guess. You messed with the time-space continuum and stopped her.”

“That’s what you did,” she pointed out, like that made it okay. Grif pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “There was a six-month-old baby in the next room,” she said defensively.

“So, what, you bound your soul to hers while it was still in her body?” That was how Grif had helped Nicole. There’d been just enough blood pumping through her veins that, with the help of his angelic energy, she had time enough to change her clothes and tidy her hair—or half of it—before totally bleeding out.

Nicole shook her head. “She was alive, and too jumpy for me to make a decent connection. So instead I lined up my chakras with her dead husband’s body and animated him. It was gross, too. He was a smoker. There was tar in his veins.” Tilting her head, Nicole grimaced. “He also had a big wad of chewing gum for brains.”

“He’d just been shot ,” Grif pointed out. “His thoughts were likely a bit scrambled.”

Nicole scoffed, which caused her wings to flare behind her in a downy white cloud. Their tips were threaded with silver and sparkled prettily as they settled. “No, my thoughts were scrambled when I died. This guy’s mind was a book of pornographic mad libs.”

By this time, the screaming from below had been replaced with ominous silence. Someone had taken control of the situation. Grif made out the sound of sirens in the distance, though they were too far away for the humans yet to hear.

“Oh, right,” Nicole said, picking up the sound with the strength of her celestial hearing. She glanced back over the ledge, but her Take was apparently still trying to work out that he was dead, because she just sighed and crossed her legs. “So I get in his body and I’m sorting through this briar patch of mental bullshit until I finally find a memory that doesn’t make me want to puke. It was one of those before-memories. Before . . . before . . .”

“Before whatever happens between two people who love each other that makes them want to kill each other.”

“Yeah,” Nicole said softly, and frowned. “And it’s beautiful, you know? He’s not as gross, and she’s beautiful, all filled with love and hope, and so I say the words—through his voice box, of course—that are attached to the thought so that his wife can hear them. And maybe not do what she’s going to do.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Margarite, you are the only good thing in my life that I never ruined.’ ”

“Cheery.”

“Hey, she was shoving a smoking pistol down her throat. It was the best I could do.”

“So, lemme guess. She latched on to that good-ish memory, put the gun down, and ran into the other room to hold her baby, thanking God for her life.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “No, she came over, and kicked her husband’s corpse in the balls as she screamed that she knew he’d been fucking her twin sister all along. Then she shot him in the skull again.”

Grif stared.

“That shit hurts, by the way,” Nicole added, rubbing her forehead. “Nothing should ever touch your third eye.”

Grif was starting to regret he’d followed Nicole onto the rooftop. “So, this is your punishment for interfering? You gotta watch all your Takes die just like I do?”

Nicole shrugged, and one golden-white feather fell to the rooftop. She was molting. “Father Francis is a stickler for the rules.”

Yes. Frank was.

Just then, a transparent hand appeared on the ledge next to Nicole. The Take had finally found his way to the rooftop. Instead of offering to assist the dead man up, Nicole shifted to one side and sighed. “I don’t really mind. Being back here, I mean. Seeing mortal turmoil and struggle. It’s helping me remember.”

And that was the problem. Grif frowned. “It’s supposed to help you forget.”

“Yeah, but I’m remembering the good parts,” she said, looking up at him, sadness etched in her face. “I remember everything from the first bite of chocolate ice cream on a hot day to laughing until your sides hurt. I recall what it’s like to want something that isn’t totally unattainable. Of having choice and chance. I remember how it feels to still have hope for the future, your life laid out before you like an unopened gift. You know?”

Grif nodded as the Take threw his leg over the ledge and fell gasping—sans air, of course—onto his back.

“I want more.”

Nicole’s words were so soft that Grif almost didn’t hear them, but when he shifted his gaze back to hers, her eyes were moist with unshed tears.

“That’s not really how it works,” he grumbled, looking away. He wasn’t very good with tears.

“Hey . . . hey, guys!” The newly deceased began waving his arms in the air. Like he was easy to miss.

Ignoring him, Nicole stood and crossed the rooftop to square up on Grif. “But it worked for you. You came back. You get to search for whoever killed you fifty years ago. And you found love again.”

So she did know about Kit.

“That’s different,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a . . .”

He was going to say “mistake,” but it wasn’t that. The love of a woman like Katherine Craig was nothing short of a miracle.

“Hey!” The dead man began stumbling their way.

“That’s all I want,” Nicole said, arms out, like Grif could help her. “I died before I could fall hard, you know.”

“Maybe your Take could teach you something about that,” Grif said, as the man joined them.

“You know what I mean. I died before I knew what it was to love someone unconditionally . . . and now I never will.”

“Hey!” The man reached for Grif, screaming when his hand slid right through him. “What the hell is going on?”

Grif shifted slightly and cocked one eyebrow. “Son, you are not going to get very far in the Everlast with that kind of language.” He turned back to Nicole. “Look, maybe you’re lucky. Once you know love, you also know loss.”

Nicole shook her head as the dead man turned to her. “Don’t give me that ‘Woe is me’ bullshit, Shaw. You got a second chance with a woman worth more than a thousand lifetimes, and then you ruined it all just because you couldn’t get over your past.”

“Goddamn it! Would somebody listen to me?” The dead man grabbed Nicole’s arm—now that they were both transparent, he could do that—and she immediately shifted and reversed grips, yanking so fast he fell forward. She grabbed him and held him down by the scruff of his neck. Even Grif had a hard time seeing the speed of her movement.

“Don’t touch a woman unless and until she asks you to,” she growled, and stars burned in her eyes. “Got it?”

Grif snorted. “Gee, what a shocker that guys weren’t crawling all over you. Oh well. Better luck in the Everlast.”

Her eyes narrowed, extinguishing stars. “You know what, Shaw? I’m not just here for a Take. I actually have a little something for you, too.”

Grif shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy suit and lifted one eyebrow. “What?”

“It’s a gift from me to you.” Nicole smiled coldly. “For breaking my best friend’s heart.”

And she whirled with the speed of light, rapping Grif’s skull with the bony arc of her beautiful left wing. Sunbursts exploded as his eyes rolled back in his head. He could do nothing to stop his fall, but as the rooftop rose to meet his face, he did have time for one fleeting thought.

Thank God I didn’t know this broad while she was still alive.

The nightclub possessed the sultry warmth derived from quickened breaths and writhing bodies, along with the irresistible pulse of a rockabilly beat. Yet chills still shot along Kit’s limbs as she walked, keeping to the edges of the dark room while she squinted through stage light and smoke, searching for what she’d lost. There. A glimpse of a broad-shouldered man just before a handful of couples, swinging to surf guitar, obscured her view. Shifting, she spotted him again, wearing a Sinatra suit and a skinny tie, a tilted fedora and beneath that, if she wasn’t mistaken, a smile just for her.