The Taken

Chapter Twenty-Two

Grif was wrong. Danger didn’t lay in his arms, but in Kit’s dreams.

She heard the voices raised in argument in the kitchen, and thought for a moment she was really awake. But no, Grif’s voice rattled like pebbles in a tin can, and the other curled around syllables like wind, a rise and fall that held a threat of fury.

“What did you think would happen, Shaw? One night in a mortal woman’s arms is supposed to erase fifty years in the Everlast?” A laugh, the wind gaining force before dying down again. Kit froze. She recognized it. The woman from the Chambers estate. The one who’d handed her the Bible and told her to go home.

“You might have your precious free will while walking this mudflat in human flesh, but you’re still a creature of the Everlast, just like me.”

Kit edged closer, and peered around the corner to find Grif with his back to her, staring out the small window over the kitchen sink. “What does that mean?”

The woman paced behind him, circling like a wolf. “It means that every day, at four-ten in the morning, you will return to your exact state of death-that clothing, that watch, the loaded gun at your ankle. Four bullets. And, of course, the photo of that pretty little wife tucked deep into your wallet.”

“You leave her out of this,” Grif said lowly.

The woman smiled, and Kit saw fangs. “You can strip it all off again in the next minute-you can put on a top hat and tap until your feet fall off for all I care-but everything will be back twenty-four hours later. Same as when you died. Same as what happened just now.”

Grif said nothing.

“You can’t escape it, Shaw. And, no matter what you told yourself while burying your flesh in that female, you will never unknow being dead.”

“Are you done?” Grif asked, voice tight.

“I won’t be done until I’m home again,” the woman said, echoing what she’d told Kit at Chambers’s estate. Kit frowned.

And the woman turned with blue smoke swirling in her eyes. “Oh. Hello, dear.”

Kit jolted awake. “Jesus,” she said, placing one hand over her thumping heart, the other automatically searching for Grif in the bed. But he wasn’t there.

Biting her lip, Kit wrapped the sheet around her body, and slowly stood. It was just a dream, she told herself. Her mind’s way of trying to make sense of everything that’d happened in the past few days.

But she headed straight to the kitchen anyway.

He was leaning over the kitchen sink, arms splayed wide, head down, and yes, fully clothed. He must not have heard her come in, because he jolted when she wrapped her arms around his body.

“Shh,” she said, as he’d done with her, but he shivered despite her warmth, and didn’t press back into the embrace.

“Want to hear something amazing?” Kit said, trying anyway. Her voice was only a little strained, but she forced it lower, huskier, like it’d been when she cried out in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t let one bad dream sully all that had come before it. “It’s something I forgot in the chaos of the last few days. Especially last night after… you know.

“When I first saw you, when you saved me from Schmidt. You zigzagged from the shadows, and for a moment I imagined I saw… well, wings. They were black, like an onyx river falling from your shoulders. They flare like rising smoke, right? And dissipate the same way at the tips?”

Now Grif did turn. “How did you know that?”

One corner of her mouth had lifted with the telling, but now it fell. Shit. She thought indulging his angel story would make him laugh and bring them closer. Instead, though he’d joked about it during their night together, he was again serious. Dead serious. “I don’t know anything. I told you, I was just seeing things.”

But his expression had grown far off. “Because you were so close to death. Because you were supposed to die.”

Kit retreated a step, pulling the sheet tighter around her. “Well, that’s what angels do, right?” Kit tried again, with a forced laugh. “Protect the innocent from a wrong, untimely death. Knowing that, knowing you did just that for me, I feel… different this morning. Like I might just get through this, you know?”

Grif met her gaze, and for a moment he looked like he was going to touch her. But then he turned away, and there was no danger of them touching at all. Not looking at her, he said, “We made a mistake.”

Kit’s pulse jumped in her chest. “No, we didn’t.”

“You slept with me because I fit in with your rockabilly lifestyle.”

“No, that’s why I was first attracted to you. I slept with you because… because…”

“Because?”

Because you said I was beautiful and strong. Because you said you saw my soul, and because I’ve always believed that life requires being known by another soul.

She refocused her gaze on Grif. “Because I’m an idiot.”

Grif looked down, and shuffled a foot against the peeling linoleum floor.

“What are you doing?” Kit’s low, husky lover’s voice was gone.

“I need to tell you why I’m really here, Kit. I am a Centurion. I really am an angel. I meet murdered souls in the moments after their death.”

Wrapping her arms tightly around her body, she jerked her head. “Don’t do this. You know my best friend was just murdered. And my ex-husband.”

“Nicole was my Take, Kit. I was the one who was supposed to see her home.”

The dream-woman’s voice popped into Kit’s mind again. I won’t be done until I’m home again.

“Stop it,” Kit hissed lowly. “This isn’t funny.”

But then the thought of Nicole and Grif caught hold, and the blood drained from Kit’s face. “You were there,” she whispered. “I saw you in the window. I… I saw your hat!”

She saw him consider lying, but Kit knew what she’d seen. Like Tony himself had told her, she knew what she knew. It had been Grif.

“Yes,” he finally said, voice clipped and hard.

“You killed her.” She backed up, knocking into the kitchen table.

“No.” Grif took a step forward.

She held out a hand, like that could keep him from coming near. “I saw you up there. I saw your silhouette! You were there.”

He shrugged impatiently, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I already told you that. But I didn’t kill her.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why should I believe you?”

“I saved you, didn’t I?”

It was a good point, and Kit tilted her head. “Did you talk to her?”

“Nicole?” Grif nodded, but Kit waited for more. “She said you were supposed to go to a bonfire last weekend. And some bar of beauty.”

The Beauty Bar. All her girlfriends met there once a month. Tears blurred Kit’s vision, and she hastily wiped them away. “Why are you doing this?”

“I can tell when death is coming from someone,” he said, pressing on with his crazy, horrible story. “I can smell it like a hound scents blood in the air. I can see the plasma of world matter, of fate, gathering in the moments before death, marking the end of that soul’s Surface time.”

“Like Paul?” she asked, one brow lifted in challenge.

But Grif continued to lie. “Yes.”

A harsh laugh ripped from her chest. “So you knew he was going to die? And you did nothing?” She shook her head. “What kind of angel is that, Grif? What kind of person is that?”

“It was fated,” he replied quickly, defensive. “There was no stopping it. Besides, he wasn’t my Take. I was with you.”

Kit thought for a moment, tried another angle. “All right. What about Marin?”

Grif didn’t even blink. “She’s got a stew of drugs inside of her that’ll probably have her outliving all of us.”

Oh, he was good. Lying with such a straight, sincere face.

“She’ll be happy to hear it.” Kit crossed her arms. “So what are you doing here, Grif? You don’t want me, that’s obvious-”

“Kit-”

“So who’s your next so-called Take?” She made finger quotes in the air, and nearly lost her sheet. She grabbed it, angry, and spun to leave… but froze. Stilling, looking at him, she asked, “Who is your next Take, Grif?”

Clearing his throat, he held out his hands. “Look, I screwed up. I did something I shouldn’t. I helped Nicole extend her life by minutes after she was already dead. She circled Schmidt’s name in your notebook, and that changed everything. Schmidt found it, and that’s why he’s after you. I let that happen. I… killed you.”

“I’m right here.”

“But you’re not supposed to be.”

“You saved me,” she pointed out. That had to mean something.

“I only prolonged the inevitable.”

“What? No…” She looked around the kitchen like it was the moon, frowning and shaking her head, then zeroed back in on him. “Bullshit.”

“What?” Grif drew back.

“I call bullshit on your black-winged angelic ass, that’s what.” Securing the sheet, she placed her hands on her hips, advanced on him like she was the one who was dangerous. “You’re just scared. You allowed yourself to feel something for me that you hadn’t felt in a long time, and it spooked you. You’re… chickenshit.”

“I’m in love with another woman!” he roared, causing her to flinch. “The woman you’re researching. Evie… Evelyn Shaw. She was my wife. They… they killed her. Right after they killed me.”

“You have had a total psychotic break with reality,” Kit said evenly.

“Really?” Grif used his anger as a counterpunch. “You’re the one who said you saw wings on my back. Tell that to your shrink.”

“They were shadows, I know. Don’t change the subject.” Don’t remind her of what she thought she saw during their lovemaking. It’d be just her luck if crazy was catching.

“So you don’t believe me?”

“I don’t even care!” she yelled, and then pulled at her hair in a way that probably made her look crazy. Grabbing at the sheet, she yelled, “All I know is that you’ve been there for me in the biggest shitstorm of my life, and there have been quite a few, Shaw! But you’ve stuck with me and helped me and we just made love for an entire day, and there’s something real between us and don’t tell me you didn’t feel it, too!”

Breathing hard, he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Yeah, he’d felt it all. She took it as a concession, and moved close, forcing him to look her in the eye. “Look, I understand about losing someone. There’s no real getting over it. No one can replace a mother or a father or take a wife’s place in your heart. Those places forever belong to those you first loved. But you can carve out new places for new people. Love matters. It’s greater even than your Everlast.”

“The Everlast you don’t believe in.”

Kit crossed her arms. “Honestly Grif? I don’t care if you play the harp and shit stardust. But even if I did believe you, and you were a legitimate blast from the past, your Evie is long gone.”

“Not to me.”

She shook her head. “This is not cheating.”

He flinched like he’d been slapped, and Kit knew that of all the thoughts roiling in his mind, that was the one he hadn’t allowed to bubble up. “I am here because I want to know who killed me and my wife. That’s all.”

“You need to move on, Grif.”

Turning his back, he pressed his palms against the tiled countertop. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“What wouldn’t I understand?”

“You don’t just dispose of love, Kit. Not this kind.”

Sucker-punched, Kit was silent for a long moment, then let out a gutted exhalation. “Wow. That hurt even more than hearing that I’m destined to die.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, turning to her. But of course he had. “Look, this is the only thing I’ve cared about for the last fifty years. And she’s the only woman I cared about before that. If pain can go on throughout lifetimes, then love can, too. When I get this information, when I find out what happened to Evie, and where she ended up, then and only then will I move on.”

But Kit was done talking, listening, understanding. “Jeez, Grif. The way you talk about her you’d think she was the fucking angel.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“You’re a dick.”

“I told you that.”

“Not that kind of dick.”

“Hey, I’m helping you.”

“Your help hurts!” she screamed, bent over herself, holding the sheet tight. Then she growled, whirling away, whirling back, all her anger turning in and around on itself. Finally, eyes stormy, she pointed at Grif. “I don’t want to hear another word about your wife and your wings and your lying mid-century ass. You’re just another man who’s afraid of commitment. Truth is, Grif, you don’t have any thrust!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m calling bullshit on your pseudo Lois Lane rockabilly self. How about that?” he shot back, then hit himself in the chest so hard that Kit winced. “Because I was there, I know what it was really like, and it wasn’t all Lindy Hop and circle skirts. It wasn’t different from anything you’ve seen in the past few days. It was just more of the same. Evie was the only good thing I had in that life, so-”

“Oh Evie this and Evie that…” Kit blew out such a hard breath the curls lifted from her forehead. “I swear to God if I hear one more thing about the perfect and precious Evelyn Shaw, I’ll kill myself!”

Grif stared, then narrowed his gaze. “You’re not going to have to hear another word about her, Kit. Guaranteed.”

“Get out!” Kit pointed to the door.

“It’s not your house.”

“I meant, get out of my life!”

And Grif stared. And then he turned.

And then he left.