The Acceptance

“You said the woman said sick things to you. Do you recall any of it?”

“She . . . she told me I’d need my strength.” Saying it aloud leeched more color from Bliss’s face. “That’s it. I can’t remember nothing else.”

“Did she have an accent of any type?”

“She sounded really happy. She was almost giggling. That scared me more than anything.”

Luther touched her shoulder. “One witness said he saw a woman driving away from you, but he didn’t see anyone else. He didn’t see a boy.”

Bliss shook her head. “Maybe it was just a woman, then. But I ain’t sure. I’ve been trying and trying, Luther, I swear. But I can’t picture him or her or nothing. I can’t picture no one.”

Again, Bliss cast an unsure glance at Luther, then leaned in closer to Gaby. “I remember knowin’ what would happen to me. But I don’t know how I knew it. I just . . . did.” She chewed her trembling lips, looked at Luther, then away. “There’s a room . . .”

An eerie sliver of dread snaked down Gaby’s back. “A room?”

“I sort of . . . saw it. But I didn’t.”

Gaby leaned closer, cautious and curious. “It’s okay, Bliss. Just tell me what you saw.”

“It was awful, Gaby. A room full of stuff to hurt people. Places to tie them down. Things to use on them. Like a dungeon maybe.”

“In a house?”

“I think so, but I ain’t sure about that. I just . . . well, I know the room is there.”

Gaby sat up a little straighter. Did Bliss have the curse, or was it just her reverence of Gaby that made her believe such things?

Aware of Luther standing beside the bed, frozen in disbelief, Gaby tried not to give herself away. “Can you tell me what it looked like, specifically? Concrete walls, or paneling, or plaster? Painted walls? Lights?”

“It’s a big room.” Bliss closed her eyes. “Dark wooden walls with fancy trim on everything. Really bright lights. Blood and flesh and . . .” Her eyes opened, stark with horror. “A lot of people have died there.”

Looking like a thundercloud, Luther stared at Gaby, then at Bliss. “How would you know this, Bliss? Did the woman maybe say something?”

“No.” Bliss continued to fret. “But I remember seeing it real clear, and knowin’ that’s where she wanted to take me.”

“It’s okay,” Gaby told her. “A lot of people have special sight in a situation like yours.”

“Special sight?” Luther repeated.

Gaby ignored him.

So did Bliss. “I also knew you’d come to help me, Gaby.”

“I’ve been your protector—”

“No,” Bliss said. “Somehow, I knew that if I got outta that car, you’d come to help me.”

Luther went rigid.

Gaby squeezed Bliss’s hand. The poor girl shook all over. It was a dilemma to be solved later, she decided. For right now, with Bliss so muddled and afraid, she wouldn’t draw any conclusions.

Except that . . . “Luther, I wonder if it’s the same boy.”

He looked relieved for some sound logic instead of psychogenic phenomenon. “The same kid you were chasing when I found you again?”

“Could be.”

“I guess that depends on why you were chasing him, doesn’t it?”

Allowing Bliss to retain her death hold on her hand, Gaby settled more comfortably on the side of the bed. “I sensed he was up to something. That’s all.”

“Murder? Torture?” Luther scoffed. “You sensed he was up to that?”

“If I had, he wouldn’t have gotten away from me.” In no mood for Luther’s lack of faith, Gaby smoothed back Bliss’s hair. “I’m going to take you to Morty’s for a while. You’ll be safe there, and it’s not too far away, so I can visit you whenever you want me to. What do you think of that?”

Bliss said nothing.

She’d fallen back to sleep, her hand still clutching Gaby’s.

“It’s a strange coincidence,” Luther said, thinking aloud as he paced the small room. “For you to be after a boy, and for a boy to be after Bliss.”

“Tell me about it.” Gaby only wished she had a sound connection to share. But she didn’t.

Was it the same kid? She wasn’t sure. But she didn’t believe in coincidence.

Luther rounded the bed to stand in front of her. “Where did you know him from?”

“I didn’t. Until that day, I’d never laid eyes on him before.”

Hands on his hips, Luther said, “So you just saw a kid, disliked him on sight? What the hell would you have done if you’d caught him?”

“He was where he shouldn’t be, and I didn’t like it.” She thought about that, about her intentions that day, and her dead certainty that something was wrong. “Until he ran, I’d only planned to talk to him.” Gaby loosened Bliss’s hold, then pulled the sheet up over her. “But he did run, which seems real suspicious if you ask me.”

“Me, too.” He nodded toward Bliss. “At least now it does.”

“I’ll know him if I ever see him again.”

“That’s a start.”

And a dead end. Knowing Luther wouldn’t let it go, Gaby stood without touching him, brushed Bliss’s cheek one last time, and walked out of the room. Though her hands were steady, vengeance and rage commingled inside her.

Freed from the confines of Bliss’s room, Gaby breathed in the cool hospital air and drooped against the wall, eyes closed as she waited for Luther.

When she heard the quiet click of the door and felt him beside her, she said, “I want to kill someone.”

“I know.” He smoothed her hair. “Me, too.”

He knew. Gaby looked at him. He hadn’t remonstrated with her for her bloodthirsty desire. He’d . . . commiserated.

“You want a truth, Luther?”

“That’d be nice.” His fingers continued to play with her hair. It was something Gaby had noticed early on, this strange fascination Luther had with her unkempt, mostly forgotten hair.

“This is hard for me.”

“I know. Me, too.”

She shook her head. He didn’t get her meaning. “No. I’m not like you, Luther. I’m hardwired to react.” Fisting a hand, Gaby pressed it against her abdomen. “Here, inside me. Everything that is me is screaming for me to do something.”

“But you don’t yet know what to do?”

She put her head back again and squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“Me neither.” Luther’s hand left her hair and instead curved around her neck.

His palm was hot, a little rough. Exciting.

Lost in a vortex of extraordinary need, Gaby opened her eyes to look at him. “Sucks, huh?”

“It’s frustrating.” He crowded into her space, big and powerful, sharing his heat, his scent. “If we’re patient, if we work together, we’ll get it figured out.”

“Being patient means someone else could die.”

“That’s an impasse cops face often. It takes persistence to solve a problem, but all the while, you know someone’s life could be on the line.”

Gaby trusted that eventually she’d get the one responsible—but how many women would be hurt first? The only thing she knew with any certainty was that the bastard who’d tried to take Bliss would act again.

And again.

Somewhere along the way, he’d screw up and then she’d have him. God willing, that’d happen before another woman was tortured and murdered.

“Gaby?” Luther now had both hands on her neck, his thumbs stroking along her jawline.