The Taken

that muscles fought against his turtleneck as he moved.

There was a hiss from the hallway, his partner cursing, and a gloved hand appeared, gesturing him back. Instead, the blond slid along the wall in total silence, almost like he was wandering, to disappear in the darkness of the corner opposite Grif. There was nothing after that, and he knew the rest was already planned. The two men were like sparring partners, waiting to come together at the clang of the bell.

Grif felt a headache growing behind his eyes, and forced himself to relax his clenched jaw. He tried to control his breathing, but felt like he was waiting for a bell, too. He needed a corner man to talk him down, help him shake it out, get his head right. If he could just talk to Sarge, he could make him see that this wasn’t right. Not for Grif. Not for the woman, Craig, either.

And what about these men? Why couldn’t someone talk sense into them? That was one thing Grif had never been able to wrap his gray matter around, crimes against women. To him, it was like lifting a babe from the carriage and smashing its melon on the sidewalk. Easy destruction, just for the sake of it.

And forget about premeditated violence, the unstoppable train that was just minutes away from Craig’s station. Even a random, careless act-even bad luck-was too much for most females to handle. After all, wasn’t the way Grif had bumped into Craig’s life random and careless?

But it was physiology that was really at fault. Even the big girls were easy to put down. Craig wasn’t big or small, but right in the middle where a woman should be. She was like that roller coaster he’d loved at Coney Island as a kid, made up of long slopes and wide curves, built for thrills. Something wild, he thought, but also something that made a man just want to let go.

You’d think that kind of natural wonder would engender a sort of awe in all men, but some were the moral equivalent of a smoker’s cough. They were a black noise let loose in the world, a cloud heralding illness and death. The two men entering this room were like that. Walking cancer. Destruction, just for the sake of it.

The shower droned on. He glanced down at the wristwatch Evie had given him on their second anniversary, latching on to the memory for distraction. He remembered the way she’d bitten that sweet lower lip of hers, watching him unwrap it, though she’d waited until it was fastened around his wrist to tell him it was a knock-off. Like he cared. Point was, Evie had been thinking of him even though he hadn’t exactly hung the moon for her in the previous twenty-four months, and he was both touched and secretly relieved that she still celebrated being his wife. That she still believed in him.

So he accepted the watch, and wore it religiously, never telling her he thought timepieces were silly affectations, never saying that he believed nothing really started until a person got there anyway.

But everyone’s here now, he thought wryly, lifting his head as the shower snapped off. At least for fourteen minutes longer.

You’re going to bring that poor girl’s soul home. You’re going to offer her guidance.

But I don’t want to, he found himself thinking as the plasma moved like a panther in the air. It peeled away from the hallway, padding silently through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

Propping one creamy, pale leg at a time on the vanity stool, Craig began toweling off. The limbs appeared disembodied from where he stood, but the blond cancer-man could see everything from his corner, and Grif knew he’d be the one to add violation to death.

I didn’t cause this, he almost said aloud, and realized desperation had somehow turned the thought into a prayer.

Nicole Rockwell did this, he said silently to whomever was listening. Frank did this, because he was allowing it.

God did it.

There was no reprimand. As with any prayer, no answer at all. Instead, the wind just continued howling outside, while another minute dropped away within.

Bricks, thought Grif, squeezing his eyes shut. Twelve minutes, and this will all go away.

Time enough to change your mind, Sarge, he thought, feeling panic rise, making itself known as an ache in his chest.

A white robe whirled and was wrapped tight. Grif’s boxing robe had always been white, too. He’d loved the feel of it, the scent of bleach against the stiff terry-cloth. Not that it ever stayed white for long.

Plasma swirled, wrapping around Craig’s legs like shackles as she rubbed her hair dry. Grif wanted to close his eyes.

Then she stepped into the room. The shower had relaxed her, and the booze piggybacked her fatigue so that her empty tumbler hung from two fingertips. But instinct-prey’s or woman’s-had her suddenly stiffening. She whirled, eyes wide, but the cancer-man in the hallway, faceless beneath a ski mask, was already on her. Grif had already seen this on the TV, but the sound hadn’t been turned up then. His death senses were firing like rockets now, and Craig’s knifed gasp jolted him. The slap of flesh was a shot fired. The man’s growl was feral as he pounced.

Craig strained forward, but it was useless, and only had her robe falling wide. She turned instinctively to close it, and spotted the blond man already reaching for her flesh. But Craig-Grif’s Take, his case, the woman-looked away from that oncoming train for a split second, and, with a mixture of shock and horror, focused on him.

She screamed, and this time it didn’t sound like static from a television. It sounded like a woman. It sounded like his Evie.

It sounded like a bell ringing, calling him from his corner.

Grif rocketed forward, clambering over the bed like he was bounding the ropes. As he entered the ring, he thought he heard an announcer’s voice in the static buzz of adrenaline coursing in his veins. It was an audience’s far-off roar, and it swelled when Grif rounded the S-curve of Craig’s white, naked hip and caught the man holding her, hard in his ribs. The blond stuttered in surprise, allowing a backward step that gave Grif space to pivot, just as the hallway man shoved Craig to the ground.

Rage had him going for the man’s throat. There was no training driving him now; the rust of death-years had softened the one-two, one-two-three-four of his youth into an uncontrolled flurry, but Grif knew just what to do when he caught the chin. He might not have wings, but he still had fists.

Fear entered the hallway man’s eyes, but then Grif connected… and the swirling plasma parted like the Red Sea.

Sure, a part of Grif still knew he was wearing a watch with marching minutes, that fate wouldn’t allow a knockout blow. But something had snapped inside him, that same howling something the Everlast had failed to heal, and he half-believed that if he punched hard enough-if he could just send his award-winning, no-holds-barred southpaw hook directly through the back of the cancer-man’s no-good skull-he could prevent what was already done. He could turn his timepiece into a stopwatch. He could halt Craig’s death.

The murderer’s feet caught air, out for the count before he hit the wall. Grif pivoted through the motion and turned, pulling back one of his mitts and letting loose a fist that wiped the What the fuck? right off the blond rapist’s face. The blow struck home, and Grif was suddenly there. Solid on the rock, square on the Surface, sure-footed in the mud, knuckles singing, breathing deep of the polluted air.

The awareness cost him. A fist came out of nowhere to deaden his nose, and he gagged as blood filled his mouth. The blond man loomed for a moment, but then there was a flash, a white tide rolling his attacker to the other side of the room.

Not a tide, Grif thought, staggering. A different kind of natural wonder. He broke through the shock of tasting his own blood just in time. Pushing Craig aside, he took the blow meant for her, and bled some more, but it didn’t matter. The blond was suddenly gone, reduced to a shadow dragging his sparring partner from the room. Grif tripped on his own legs before realizing he didn’t need to follow. The air was curiously cancer-free. It was also clear of silvery-white plasma, naked but for shadows that loomed in black and grays.

So Grif just bled. Chest heaving, stinging knuckles bunched on his knees, breath straining in lungs that creaked, he squinted at his watch. Then he looked back up at Craig, who stared back at him with open-mouthed horror.

“Ten seventeen,” he said, and offered her what had to be an unsettling, bloody smile. But unbelievably, miraculously, time had just proven his long-held theory right.

Nothing really started until a person got there, anyway.