The Taken

Chapter Eleven

All Grif wanted was a drink. The headache that’d been dogging him was regaining force, despite the shut-eye he’d managed to squeeze in once he finally convinced Tony to let Kit into the fishbowl. Though that had been another headache altogether.

“C’mon, Tony. She won’t break nothing but your heart,” he said, edging in and putting out the dogs himself. Tony protested, and Kit took it as a compliment, both of which caused Grif to shake his head as he made for his room. The last thing he heard before slamming the bedroom door was her blue-jay voice asking her reluctant host for Internet access.

Of course, he knew why his headache wouldn’t abate. Ol’ Kitty-cat had gut-punched him with the news that he was the prime suspect in Evie’s death. As if anyone who knew him, or them, could think such a thing. At least now he knew why Tony initially asked if he was there to kill him, and why he seemed unsure of Grif still.

Five hours later, zipping down Charleston in Kit’s foreign tin can, Grif had figured a few other things out. Whoever had offed him in the bungalow all those years ago had immediately moved his body and set him up… though knowing that didn’t make it any more palatable. He was still dead. So was dear Evie. No wonder Grif’s soul couldn’t move on. No wonder his head pounded like the ocean crested inside of it.

It was only when Kit sighed next to him that he realized she’d silenced the car. Lifting his head, he caught her gazing at a pink neon sign, her face turned up so that her profile damn near glowed. His breath caught, and another pulsing began inside of him, this one lower.

I promise to protect you, he thought, as if speaking aloud. He watched her chest rise and fall with the breath she was entitled to because she was good and innocent and in his charge.

I won’t allow another woman to die because of me.

It was as if she heard him. Slowly, she turned her head, and the warmth in her eyes was like a spotlight, centered on thoughts so deep and feelings so acute that Grif could almost feel them.

“Frankie’s Tiki Room,” Kit said solemnly. “The only twenty-four-hour tiki bar in the country.”

Grif sighed.

“Nic’s favorite bar.”

Grif canvassed the parking lot for danger, though he relaxed his guard as soon as they entered the bar. The whole joint has been marinated in 120-proof rum.

Lighted blowfish and miniature tiki huts were pinned to a ceiling covered in fishing nets, with a poker-playing tiki god positioned dead-center of the entrance. The bar was directly across from that, wall-to-wall bottles broken up only by a screen at either end, currently showing what looked like old black-and-white Hawaiian porn. To get there, though, you had to cross an expanse of walls made of woven grass mats, bamboo spears, and carved tiki masks. The ceiling was black lava. The music was James Bond.

This was where they were going to celebrate a dead girl’s life?

“Kitty!” A high-pitched voice reached out from the crowded room to grab Kit’s attention. She waved back, and set off in that direction. Edging cautiously around the tiki god, Grif shot the statue and its base of faux flame an uncertain look, and followed Kit to the bamboo bar. Waiting for him was a coterie of women so brightly dressed and painted that they looked like exotic birds tucked into the tropical environment. Grif had to clench his teeth against the racket of their chirping voices until the greetings were over.

“Girls,” Kit said, when the ruckus had died down. “This is Griffin Shaw. Grif, this is Fleur Fontaine, Lil DeVille, Merrily Monroe, and the knocked-up one is Charis.”

Charis gave a little wave, then pointed at a car seat next to her. “This one is mine, too. But I figured out how it’s done now, so there won’t be a third.”

Kit put her arm around Charis’s shoulders and squeezed encouragingly, then turned to Grif. “Along with Nicole Nouveau-whom you knew as Nicole Rockwell-we are the Pretty Kitty Posse.”

The five women beamed. The miniature one in the safety seat-outfitted in a black dress dotted with white skulls-gurgled. Grif frowned. “Don’t any of you have normal names?”

“Just Kit-Kat,” said Lil, flicking a hand Kit’s way before straightening the collar on her blue-and-white sailor’s dress.

“Only because I have to play it straight for the byline,” Kit said, wrinkling her nose like that was a bad thing. It was then that it finally came together for Grif. The girls were corner pieces in a puzzle that set the whole picture to light: the furnishings in Kit’s house, one where Grif felt perfectly at home. Her car, her clothes, her friends and their hairstyles-the likes of which he hadn’t seen since he was alive. Even this place, Grif thought, studying the woven grass-mat walls. It was a modern nod to kitsch, to Vegas’s heyday, to the South Seas and the world war he remembered… yet his time wasn’t modern anymore.

“Let me get this straight. You all dress up like you’re from the fifties? You-what’d you call ’em, billies?-live your lives in the past?”

“We live nostalgically,” Merrily corrected. Grif looked at her, eyes catching on a cherry tattoo peeking from the sleeve of her right arm. “It’s fun.”

“Fun,” Grif repeated flatly, pulling his gaze from her inked arm, only to have it fall on Fleur’s, who also had two cherries seared to her arm. They were integrated with a horseshoe, and a row of flaming dice. What the hell?

“It’s not just women,” Fleur said, amusement lacing her tone as she shifted, revealing more ink. A mermaid flicked its blue-green tail Grif’s way. “Plenty of men live the rockabilly lifestyle, too.”

Grif looked around, realizing she was right. There were as many men here as women, all greased and suited up, either playing an electric guitar or dancing to one.

“And it’s not only the fifties,” Kit put in, “though that’s my favorite, too.”

“You just like crinoline,” said Fleur.

“I do,” Kit admitted, with a small shudder. “And the capris, the knit sweaters, the cupcake dresses…”

“The boys with pomps and high-waisted jeans,” Charis said dreamily, chucking her baby under her chin. The little girl smiled.

“Nic loved the music,” Kit said. “She always said it was so alive.”

They were all silent for a time after that. Grif, feeling the pressure to stave off some serious waterworks, huffed and crossed his arms. “Yeah, but none of you really lived it.” His assertion was met with dumb silence. “I mean, it’s swell that you’d romanticize an entire era, but you don’t know what it was really like.”

“Excuse me,” Fleur said sharply, hands on her hips, “but that’s a straight-razored do, if I’m not mistaken, and I can see the pomade greasing each strand. What brand do you use?”

“Pluko.”

She smirked, red shiny lips twisting knowingly. “That and no other, I bet. And those are vintage Stacy Adams wingtips, am I right?”

Grif looked at his shoes. She was. But Grif was also the original owner.

“Taking the retro-P.I. thing a bit far, aren’t we?” she teased, with a raised brow.

“No such thing,” Kit said, mistakenly thinking Grif needed rescue. “I personally find it a refreshing change from all the greasers and swing kids.”

“So do I,” said a new voice, directly over Grif’s shoulder. The faces of the women in front of him soured and he turned to find a platinum blonde poured into leopard print. Long black lashes winged from doe-soft eyes, and her red lips were cushioned in a pout rather than a sneer.

“Bombshell” was the first word that came to Grif’s mind. “Calculating” was the second. She edged between Fleur and Grif like the giant cat she was fashioned after. “Though I prefer the pinup period. Neo-burlesque is my poison. Perhaps because I do it so well.”

“Grif, this is Layla Love,” Kit said, and though she hadn’t moved an inch, her voice was tighter than it’d been moments before. “Layla, Griffin Shaw.”

Layla’s mouth twitched as she inched closer so that her arm was touching his. “So. I hear you’re Kit’s knight in shining armor. A real hero.”

“Not exactly,” Grif said, taking a full step back. The woman smiled like it was some sort of battle won.

“A protector, though.” She tilted her head, and sent long blond waves swinging. “Like some sort of guardian angel?”

“I wouldn’t say guardian.”

“Good,” she said, and her hand closed over his, and squeezed. “Then Kit won’t mind if I borrow you. I love this song. And I’m always looking for a new partner.”

Layla commandeered the crook of his arm, but Fleur intervened, and her touch-laid over them both-was less gentle. “There aren’t really enough boys to go around, but since my man is busy rocking out, I’ll dance with you, Layla. You know how I love to Lindy.”

Layla edged back toward Grif. “Well, I don’t-”

“And this was Nic’s favorite jive,” Fleur added with a sigh, and even Grif could tell there was nothing Layla could say to that. They turned arm in arm, Layla shooting one final glance at Grif over her bare shoulder, but tension left the bar like a giant exhalation. Charis promptly groaned. “Good Jesus, look what else the cat dragged in.”

“You mean, coughed up,” Merrily muttered into her tiki mug, staring at the entrance like she wanted to open fire.

Before Grif could turn, Kit rose from her barstool, putting a staying hand on his shoulder as she edged around him. “Will you excuse me?”

“Who’s that?” Grif muttered, and this time it was his voice that was tight as he watched Kit approach a man who was tall, well dressed, and so good-looking he was almost pretty.

Merrily read his mind. “Oh, that’s Pretty Paul,” she said, painted mouth curled in distaste.

Charis tsk-ed. “Don’t let Kit hear you say that.”

“Why?” Grif asked, feeling something in his belly grow claws as the two drew close.

“Because digging on him is old sport and she’d rather have moved on to the new.” Charis looked at Grif pointedly, then jerked her head. “Paul Raggio is Kit’s ex-husband.”

Grif did a double take, and the clawed thing in his stomach also grew fangs.

Kit headed toward Paul as if forced at gunpoint. She was annoyed with him for reasons she couldn’t name-even though he’d tried to call her back, and she’d been the one to respond with silence. She was also annoyed with herself for being annoyed. Nothing he did should matter to her anymore. He’d made that clear enough last night. “Hello, Paul. Slumming?”

He didn’t correct her. Instead, he quirked a perfectly waxed brow and dug a deeper hole. “Can we talk outside, Katherine? The colors in this place are making me nauseous.”

His automatic turn toward the door, and unspoken assumption that she’d follow, didn’t endear him to her any further. She planted herself next to a wooden island warrior with far more personality than her ex-husband would ever have. “It’s Nic’s wake, Paul.”

He glanced over at her sharpened tone, caught the way her arms were folded over her chest-let his gaze linger, too, on the flare of her hip-then predictably honed his own voice. “I know. I had to convince Marin to tell me where it was.”

Considering the way Paul and her aunt felt about each other, it was a lot of trouble. Kit softened, giving him a short nod. “Well, Nic would have been glad you came.”

“Oh.” Paul’s brows pulled low. “Yeah.”

Kit’s hard exhale hugged a silent curse, and she shook her head and turned away. Paul lunged, his hand tense on her forearm. “Hey,” he said. “You’re the one who wanted my help, remember?”

Yes, she remembered. She remembered begging him to stay with her. She also recalled being left alone to face a night that could easily have been her last. That, she realized, was why she was miffed. He’d walked away again. He’d left her vulnerable. Again.

“Well, I don’t need your help anymore,” she said, surprising them both. She yanked her arm away, but he held on tight. “Grif and I are working on it.”

“Who’s Grif?”

“I am.” The voice rose over her shoulder just as the shadow stretched over Paul. Kit’s back warmed with his body heat, though chills raced over the front of her body-either pleasure at the way he leaned into her or satisfaction at the way Paul straightened. Probably both.

“Griffin Shaw,” she introduced, without looking back. “Paul Raggio. Paul, this is Grif.”

Paul spared Grif the same look he gave all her billy boys, offensively dismissive until Grif also placed his hand on Kit’s arm, causing Paul’s to fall away. “Who are you supposed to be?” Paul asked, eyes narrowing at the way Grif tucked Kit close to his side. It felt like she was nesting there. Like she fit, and was safe.

“Whoever she needs me to be.”

Usually Kit would have worked to smooth over the awkward silence, but Paul’s normally placid face had gone puce in the torchlight. His expression also hardened, not dissimilar to a tiki god about to rip the top off of a volcano. But it was Grif who really held her in thrall. His hands were shoved into his pockets, a casualness belied by his wide stance. And he was too still. Like he was waiting. Like he was hunting.

Paul waved Grif away with manicured fingers, and reached around him for Kit again. “Well, can you give us some privacy, please?”

“No.”

Paul froze. Grif remained still, keeping him in his sights. Kit wished desperately for popcorn to go along with the show. Alas, Nic’s wake was no place for a scene. Sighing, she told Paul, “I was attacked last night after I got home from work.”

He was suddenly listening, which was something, but Kit wanted more, and so she added, “Grif saved me.”

“Jesus, Kit. Why didn’t you-” He stuttered, because she had called him. He lifted his chin, and stood taller. “Well, you can fall back now, Shaw. Katherine doesn’t need protection from me.”

“But she needs it all the same.”

Paul, slightly taller than Grif, stepped forward. “And you’re the man?”

Grif squared up. “I’m just the man.”

Kit sucked in a deep breath and held it, slightly high from all the testosterone. But she should stop this.

In a moment.

“Fine.” Paul blinked first, sniffing before looking at Kit. “I just wanted to tell you that Caleb Chambers is having another ball.”

“You came all the way down here to tell her about a party?”

This time Paul ignored Grif completely, though Kit stayed him with a hand on his arm. It would do no good to push Paul to petulance. Experience had taught her that much. Still she left her hand on Grif’s arm. His warmth and strength and presence had butterflies cannonballing into her gut. “You could have left me a message.”

“It’s a Valentine’s Day benefit for children in need of heart and lung transplants,” Paul replied, like that explained everything. “Most of the players on your list will be there. I can get you a ticket.”

“You’ll have to make it a pair.”

Impatiently, Paul turned and looked Grif up and down. It was challenging, but Grif didn’t wilt. In fact, he seemed to grow two feet under the scrutiny, like a cobra flaring its hood.

“It’s a charity ball,” Paul clarified, his pretty face twisting in an ugly way.

“Oh.” Grif frowned. “Then she probably should go with you.”

Kit snorted before she could help it.

“I’ve already got a date,” Paul said tightly. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“I think we’re free. Thank you, Paul,” Kit intervened again, but hoped that somewhere, in some other realm, Nic could see Paul getting cranked up about his ex-wife and some moody stranger.

“So have you learned anything else about the list?” Paul asked abruptly.

“Thought that’s why she gave it to you, ace.”

Though she didn’t want to, Kit put a hand on Grif’s arm. “Grif, would you give us a minute?”

“Yeah,” said Paul, like he’d won the moment.

“Sure. I can do that.” Grif nodded, and began to turn away, but paused halfway to level Paul with the same stare she’d first seen, when he’d been bounding from the shadows to beat another man to the ground on her behalf. “By the way,” he said, “her name isn’t Katherine. It’s Kit.”

And, mouth half-open, Kit watched him stalk to the bar, noting the way the women there opened up to him, reacting as instinctively to that coiled maleness as she did. He glanced back to make sure she was fine, and Kit shivered. She already knew he wasn’t a man who normally glanced back.

“What the hell is up with that guy?” Paul said, face twisted like he’d just eaten something sour. But Grif’s eyes were still trained on her, even with Layla chatting him up, and suddenly Kit didn’t want to talk about him with Paul. In fact, watching Layla gesture animatedly, she wanted to keep him all to herself.

“Do you want to hear about the list or not?” she asked impatiently.

Paul held out his hands, like he’d been waiting for that all along.

Kit chided herself for ever thinking he’d come because of Nic. “I’ve winnowed it to one name.”

Paul’s brow rode high. “In one day?”

“The man who attacked me last night is on there, Paul. His name is Lance Schmidt, but he’s not a politician. He’s a cop.”

Paul frowned. “How’d a cop get on that list?”

That was his response?

“I don’t think you heard me,” she said tightly. “Schmidt attacked me, hit me, and I believe would have killed me if Grif hadn’t been there to stop him.”

“But he was,” Paul said blandly, glancing at Grif like he was the one under suspicion. “Why?”

Oh my God, Kit thought, jaw clenching. How could she have forgotten. It was always, ever, about him. “What time does the damned ball start?”

“What, now you’re pissed?” He put on his wounded pout, then gave an eye roll when she didn’t answer. “Seven sharp.”

“Can you get two tickets or not?”

“Sure,” he said snidely. “Though I can’t promise any cops… outside of security, that is.”

“No, Schmidt will be there,” Kit muttered, staring past him at the bamboo entry. “I know it.”

“Whatever,” Paul said, turning away. “Just dress appropriately. Chambers lavishes his woman with jewels. And tell Joe Friday over there that it’s black-tie only. If he’s got one.”

And before Kit could form a retort, before he so much as mentioned Nicole’s name or death, Paul exited into the night in the exact way he’d exited their marriage. Glancing back only once to make sure she didn’t follow.

Grif watched Kit talk with Paul, wondering how she’d ever gotten mixed up with a piker like that. He was a swaggering suntan. She was a mysterious moonbeam. Their marriage must have been a terrestrial collision.

At least the rum was dulling his headache. As was Charis’s second rescue of him from that wildcat, Layla. Though Charis had told the other woman she needed to speak with him privately, and commandeered a low table in the lounge’s dimly lit corner, he still glanced over to make sure he was out of Layla’s sights before hunching over his weird tiki mug.

“Don’t mind her,” Charis said, one hand rocking the baby in the seat next to her as she caught his look. “She’s a cougar. Or, if you’re being era-appropriate, a minx.”

“And I bet she’s always era-appropriate.”

“About the only thing I like about her,” Charis grudgingly admitted, leaning forward to tuck a blanket beneath her little girl’s chin. The baby immediately pulled it off. “Though she came into a bundle of money, so that helps.”

“A little princess, huh?” he said, meaning Layla, not the pixie next to him.

“Oh, no. She worked for it. Not yet out of her teens and she married a man well into his eighth decade.”

Grif winced.

“Don’t worry,” she said, rocking again. “He died within the year, and Layla’s not shy in talking about it.”

“Doesn’t look shy about much,” Grif replied, and Charis laughed.

Kit had been right. He liked her flighty hens. But Kit herself was too far away for his liking, too close to the front door. Grif had defied fate in saving her, and now anything could happen. If his gut was right, it would also happen fast. But Kit had asked for some space and he’d respect that.

Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

Leaning back, Charis rested a hand on her belly. “Did you sense a bit of tension between her and Kit?”

“Yeah. I got that.” He sipped some more. Rum… not his first choice, but it was strong. He could appreciate it for that alone.

“Well, that’s why,” she said, jerking her head toward Pretty Paul. “Five years ago, when they were still hitched, and Layla’s lawyer was still wrangling with her deceased husband’s family over his estate, she saw that young Paul’s career was on an upswing. Also saw that he’d stopped doting on Kit the way he used to.” Her lined brows lowered, and her mouth twisted with the memory. “We all saw it. But Layla hit on him, thinking that if it was a billy girl he wanted, any billy would do.”

“And Kit didn’t hit back?”

“You clearly don’t know our Kit.” Charis shook her head, but the smile on her face now was warm. “She’s never as curious about what people do as why they do it. It’s the questions that intrigue her, the mystery. So she sat Layla down, bought her a drink, and ‘interviewed’ her about her behavior. Learned that despite a marriage that left her wealthier than all of us put together, Layla believed she was never given a fair shake in life.”

“Who has?”

“Said she had to work for everything she’s got.” Charis huffed, too.

“Who hasn’t?”

“And said she had to raise herself to be street-smart. Told Kit she has a ‘back-door’ education.”

“What’s that?” Grif asked, sipping.

“My guess? Something her first boyfriend talked her into.”

Grif choked.

Charis waited until he settled again, and continued with a smile. “Anyway, long story short, Paul didn’t want a billy, and he didn’t want Layla… but he also didn’t want Kit anymore, either.”

“So what, he just walked out on her?” Grif squinted at Charis’s responding nod, then glanced again at the former couple. “And she can just give him a hug? Chat like nothing happened?”

“That’s Kit,” Charis said. “She tries to see the best in people, even when they don’t deserve it.”

“Are you hinting at something, Charis?”

Charis leaned forward to check on her baby. The child’s eyes were drooping despite the decibels ricocheting in the air. She sat back. “It’s not a hint. Don’t mess with her.”

Grif frowned. “I don’t mess with people.”

“Don’t mess with this, either,” she said, waving around at the room, the people in it. “You were asking us earlier why we live the rockabilly lifestyle, but it’s not that hard to understand. Living nostalgically is just one more way to pretend that death isn’t going to happen to us. Don’t you see? Instead of deferring it with technology, or defying it with babies,” she nodded down at her child with a half-smile, “we celebrate the past, keep it alive by reliving the best of it.

“But staying alive, being alive, is time mostly spent trying to stave off the Reaper. We work out, take our vitamins, keep looking for the fountain of youth. We choose lovers and careers based on who we want to be in the future, and where we want to go.”

“You’re not guaranteed a future,” Grif pointed out.

“The way Nic died proves that.” She looked at her baby and frowned, as if trying to read the future across the child’s soft, unlined brow. “You want to know the most horrifying thing about it? Her death wasn’t indicative at all of the way she lived. That violence just doesn’t fit with… all this.”

Grif knew what she meant. You expected violence to touch only those who dealt in it. But when it claimed people like his Evie? Like Nicole and Kit? It meant that even if you sucked the marrow from life, your future could be snuffed out at someone else’s whim.

“Kit lost the people closest to her at a young age, so she surrounds herself with things that make her feel alive, and yeah, that includes the past. You do, too.”

Grif shook his head. “I don’t got much left from my past.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant you also make her feel alive. I can see it.”

“Oh.” Grif shifted in his seat, face burning at her words. He looked at Kit, again wished her nearer, then cleared his throat. “So what about you? How do you cope with a cloudy future?”

“I’m Mexican. Same as Fleur and Lil over there. So we were raised Catholic.” She pointed to herself. “Under the iron fists of Sister Mary Francis of the Immaculate Conception School. So whatever I do, I do it with unwavering discipline and relentless guilt.”

Grif smiled, and clinked his tumbler against her sad-looking water glass. “I’m a product of St. Paul’s myself.”

Charis sipped, smiling back. “When I was little, I even aspired to become a patron saint. I could recite the Mass verbatim, and Hail Mary myself into a coma. And I saw God everywhere.”

Grif narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

She nodded and leaned close. “We were actually pen pals. I’d write Him letters in Latin and leave them in my closet.”

“Why the closet?”

She shrugged. “Because He didn’t appear after I set my front yard’s bushes on fire, so I decided He was shy.”

Grif laughed so deeply it stretched his lungs. He realized that despite his recently removed celestial state, this was the most overtly religious conversation he’d had in a long time. Charis shrugged, and resumed rocking her baby one-handed, the other hand draped over her belly.

“Wanna hear a secret?” Charis lowered her voice and leaned close. “A few weeks ago I was dying of hunger. I mean, this little bean inside of me was taking all my energy and nutrients for itself, and I was feeling so hollow I thought I could eat my young.”

“Ironic.”

“I know, right?” Her eyes flared wide. “Anyway, I was eating a bag of Cheetos, the whole damned thing, mind you, and I saw a Cheeto that, I shit you not, looked exactly like Jesus Christ.”

Grif stared at her.

“With his head bowed in prayer.” She shrugged when Grif just kept staring. “But smaller. And cheesier.” She frowned. “And a snack food.”

Grif signaled for another drink.

“Anyway, the point is, I couldn’t eat it.” Charis shook her head like it surprised her. “I just couldn’t bite Jesus’s head off, you know?”

He frowned. “So what’d you do with the Cheeto?”

“Oh, I put it up on eBay. Someone might buy it as a relic.” She rocked her baby with a dismissive shrug before stilling suddenly, mistaking his silence for disapproval. “Hey, I’m not crazy, okay? If I don’t at least get enough to pay for shipping, I’m just going to feed it to my kid. She’ll eat anything.”

They both looked down at the Savior-eating child. She was smacking her lips on air as she pacified herself to sleep.

“Hey, can you stay with her for just a second? I really have to… you know.” She widened her eyes as she stood.

Grif jerked back. “Oh, I don’t know. Me and kids-”

“I’ll be just a sec, I swear.” And she waddled off before he could reply.

Grif realized his head was beginning to pound again. He rubbed the base of his neck, thinking he’d just ignore the little thing. She was sleeping easy, anyway. Why rock a steady boat?

“Cheers,” he whispered to the dozing child, before returning to his distant vigil over a woman celebrating the life of someone who was already dead.

Charis took her damn time.

Sipping some more rum, Grif stole another glance at her slumbering child. She looked vulnerable lying there, chubby-limbed, with mere tufts of golden hair giving the aspect of a plucked bird. Yet somehow all the promise of the human race was wrapped up in those fat, milky cheeks, and pretty bow mouth.

Glancing at Kit, back at the bar and hugging Lil, Grif thought of what Charis said about the way Kit surrounded herself with the things that made her feel alive. He could see that. She was trying to recapture a time when things seemed simpler, more stable. He wished there was a way to tell her that even in the fifties nothing was really what it seemed.

The thought sharpened in his mind to the point of discomfort. Instinctively he dropped his head, but the pain struck full-out then, stabbing his skull and severing his thoughts. The left side of his face tingled, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Biting back a cry, he clenched his head, arm brushing against the rocking car seat. The sleeping baby startled.

“Shit.”

The child’s cries syncopated with the pounding in Grif’s head and light sparked like fireworks behind his eyelids. So when the voice sounded next to him-“Hey, Shaw”-he didn’t even try to respond. Instead, he rocked himself and the baby.

“Shh… don’t cry,” he said, not exactly sure which of them he was talking to.

“Oh, I’m not the one who’s gonna be crying if you don’t pull it together. Sit up.”

And the pounding miraculously ceased. Lifting his head, Grif realized no one had moved. The girls were still jawing at the bar. The band was still swinging like Jerry Lee was crooning. Charis was still busy in the can.

But the baby was staring at him, eyes large, dark, and hard in the sweet cherub face. Grif leaned closer and the toothless mouth twisted. “Sarge?”

“Who else?”

The words sounded funny when gummed, but Grif didn’t laugh, and the blades between his shoulders pulsed, reminding him he lacked wings. “Is the kid going to remember any of this?”

The child’s brows lowered so that she really did look like Sarge, though the voice was still undeveloped, making the angel channeling it sound like he’d sucked helium. “Relax. This’ll add ten years to her life and five hundred points to her SATs. Now what the hell are you still doing on the mud?”

“I’m sorry,” Grif said lamely. “I couldn’t allow it. Craig’s a good woman, Sarge. She didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“It’s not about deserving, Shaw.” The baby’s face hardened further. “And you haven’t changed anything. All you’ve done is prolong the inevitable. Every action she takes, every connection she makes with another person on the Surface is now something we have to work to unravel on this end. It’s not natural. She is not supposed to be there.”

Grif glanced up. Kit was leaning against a carved post, rocking slightly to the upright bass. The thought punched through Grif’s brain: Yes, she is.

He was the one who shouldn’t be here. He’d screwed up. And now a woman who lived in the past and dreamed of the future was going to die because of it.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, peering into the seat. The baby grunted. “Am I really mortal again?”

“Look down, Shaw,” the baby shot back. “You are wearing the-”

“ ‘The sinful flesh.’ ” Grif nodded dismissively, but rolled his aching shoulder blades again. “Yeah, Anas told me. So I have free will again, right? I can make my own decisions as long as I possess mortal breath?”

The baby’s eyes momentarily narrowed, and smoke roiled in their depths. “Don’t forget what else comes with that divine gift.”

And another shock of burning pain seared the core of Grif’s brain. His eyes crossed and tears rolled down his cheeks, but then the pain flashed cold and was cauterized. Yet the first thing he saw when his vision returned was Kit. Talking to her girls. Gesturing animatedly. The brightest spot in a color-saturated room, and exactly what Grif needed to regain his focus.

Eyes glued on her bittersweet smile, he waited for the pain to abate.

“I have blunted the pain of mortality for you,” Sarge was saying. “Even now, while what little of your brain is tearing itself apart, I am shielding you from the worst of it. You’re not supposed to be alive, and that knowledge lives in every cell in your body. You know those times when you can’t catch your breath?”

Grif gave a short nod.

“Well, I’m the one who gives it back to you. You’d spend every moment gasping like a landed trout were it not for me. And you know the flashback you had upon landing on the Surface? That’s your memory awakening along with your senses. The longer you stay there, the worse those’ll get. But I’m the one who allows you to wake. I alone can keep another from coming your way.

“Now if you want me to stop protecting you from these things, if you want to feel your mind tearing itself apart all the time, then by all means keep disobeying orders. But the only way to find true divine peace is by returning to the Everlast where those unfortunate human emotions are blunted. God is your balm and solace.” The baby’s eyes narrowed. “But you gotta go through me to get to Him.”

“So if I let her die, I can return to the Everlast?”

The infant gave a small nod. “If you walk out and leave her right now.”

Grif’s gaze returned to Kit. “No incubation?”

“No incubation.”

So Grif could go back to the way things were before. Back to working on his guilt over Evie’s death in a place where he was safe, protected, and with his mind intact. He’d continue to assist people into the Everlast so they could heal from their stolen, unknowable futures, knowing that eventually every one of them would enter the Gates, and Paradise. To God. To their true home.

The baby put a chubby fist to her lips, looking wise as she squinted up at Grif. “You can’t alter fate, Shaw. Katherine Craig is going to die. The best you can do now is help her cross into the Everlast.”

Like he’d helped Nicole? Was that really the best he could do? “Listen, Sarge-”

“No, you listen. Defy me again and I’ll send you dreams you’ll never forget. Keep defying me and I will send you a living nightmare. But leave now and all will be as is fated.”

“Sarge-”

“Walk out now, Shaw.”

Grif tried again, but the Pure was gone. The chubby limbs lost their dexterity, and with a blink, the eyes were once again as light as a robin’s egg.

“Oh, look, she’s awake.” Charis returned, smiling, and lifted her baby with an exaggerated movement, rubbing her nose with her own. “Everything go okay?”

“Sure,” he said quickly. “She’s, um, a smart one. Might want to aim for Yale. I think she’s got a shot.”

The infant gurgled agreement, then dribbled spit from the corner of her mouth. Charis wiped it away with a readied cloth and gurgled right back. “That’s so sweet of you to keep Mr. Shaw company. But is my little Boo-Bear ready to go home? Ye-es… How about just one little dance first? A tiny swing around the room. Gotta show off your onesie… everyone loves black skulls and red cherries.

“And,” she said, nodding her thanks to Grif, “Nic loved this one.”

Whirling away, she held the child high over her other baby bump, still whispering lovely nonsense into the tiny ear. The baby, though, kept her wide eyes on Grif the whole way. She gave him a look that said he could change nothing. That he shouldn’t be there at all.

It was a look that said leave while you can.