by Tracy Sharp
“Fun balls?” the little girl asked, her voice sleepy.
Poor thing. She must’ve been up half the night. “Well, they’re called fun balls, but they aren’t for kids. They’re very dangerous.”
“To get bad guys?” The little girl regarded her with hopeful eyes.
“Exactly for bad guys.” Robyn smiled at her as she pulled the seatbelt harness around her and buckled her in. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“May. ‘Cause that’s when I was born.”
“That’s a pretty name. His name is October.” Robyn tilted her head toward Toby, who was returning to the truck, a fun ball in each hand.
“’Cause that’s when he was born?” May asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll ask him. Okay?”
“’Kay.” May settled into the seat, leaning her head back.
All the little girl wore was a pair of light pajamas. Robyn reached across the seat and draped her jeans jacket over May.
“Thank you,” May said.
“You’re welcome.”
Toby climbed came around the passenger side and placed the fun balls carefully on the floor. “Not the safest place for them, but it’ll have to do in a pinch.”
The flamethrowers were stowed in the bed of the truck, under the bed cover. Robyn just hoped they didn’t end up in an accident. The truck would explode like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Robyn smiled at May. “You doing okay?”
May gave her the okay sign with her thumb and forefinger.
“Great. We’ll get moving.” Robyn closed May’s door.
As she turned, she noticed a woman staggering out of the bar, a large, tattooed man with a shaven head shouting after her.
“That’s Spider. Let’s go,” May said. “Please? Let’s just go.”
Robyn turned to see May’s face. Wide, panicked eyes. Quivering bottom lip. That clinched it.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said to Toby, who was watching the couple through the windshield.
Toby watched the bald guy, his mouth a grim line. “This is kidnapping, you realize.”
“Right now I don’t care. Go.”
He turned the key in the ignition. The truck roared to life.
Robyn saw a shape out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see a tall, thin teenage boy with a shock of red hair, eyes wide and glazed, just as he yanked open her door. His fingers dug into her arms as he pulled her out of the truck. She fell onto the pavement with both hands, her feet knocking a fun ball onto the ground. It rolled toward her.
Without thinking, she grabbed at it as the kid lifted her off the ground.
Damn it! I need to get him away so I can use this thing. She lifted her knee and felt it connect with his groin. He didn’t react.
Toby came around the truck and punched the kid in the head. His head snapped back but he didn’t let go. His face came toward Robyn, his teeth snapping at her. He growled and snarled, his teeth gnashing.
A flame shot out next to Robyn’s head, catching the kid in the face. Flames caught his hair. Still he wouldn’t let go of Robyn’s arms. Robyn caught sight of Zed lowering his flamethrower.
“Jesus Christ!” Toby breathed. “He won’t let her go.”
“Oh he’ll let her go,” Zed said. “Grab an arm.”
Zed and Toby each grabbed one of the kid’s arms and pulled back. The sound of snapping bones echoed in Robyn’s ears.
Finally the kid’s hands moved off her arms, but his fingers were still clutching for her. She looked at her skin where they had been digging at her. Deep gouges glistened under the parking lot lights.
She stood and glanced at May, who was silently watching, fist in her mouth.
The kid would never be the same. “It’s okay,” Robyn said to her, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. “We’ll be fine.”
May nodded slowly.
Robyn turned back to see the kid jerking across the parking lot, enveloped in flames, broken arms jutting awkwardly at odd angles, fingers still clutching. “Don’t look, honey. Turn the other way.”
May turned her head, her fist still pressed against her mouth.
Robyn aimed a fun ball a small distance ahead of him and whipped it at the ground in front of him. The kid walked over it just as it exploded.
Zed turned to her, smiling his approval. “Good deal. Now can we get the fuck out of here?”
The couple had staggered backward, shouting and gawking.
The woman looked at Toby’s truck. “Hey.” She started toward them. “Hey. That’s my daughter. May?”
Even from this distance, Robyn could hear the drunken slur in her words.
“Please go,” May begged. “Please go.”
Still looking at the staggering couple, Robyn reached her hand toward the door handle of the truck. Something glimmered out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head toward the glimmer. Ash had fallen, was still falling, from the burning teen. It sparkled and shone under the parking lot lights.
“Let’s go,” the little girl begged.
“Just a second, honey.” Robyn headed toward the sparkling powder. Sparkling and glowing like the powder in the vial the mysterious man had given her.
“Leave it, Robyn. You don’t know what that shit is.” Toby was looking at her over the roof of the truck.
“I know what it is.” Robyn kneeled and peered down at the powder. It was no longer hot, by the looks of it, shifting under the gentle night breeze. She scooped enough to hold in her palm and shoved it into her pocket as she straightened and headed toward the truck.
“Please. They’re coming.” The little girl began to cry again.
Robyn climbed into the truck, slamming and locking her door. She heard the click as Toby pressed the button to lock the rest of the truck’s doors. He backed out, narrowly avoiding the flaming kid.
The woman—dressed in a super-short, red miniskirt and spiked heels—staggered toward the truck, apparently not concerned with the fireball that was moving toward her. She shouted at the truck. “That’s my daughter!”
“Now it’s real,” Toby said, steering them away from the parking lot and heading down the highway. “If we weren’t in shit before, we are now.”
“Don’t stop, okay?” May begged from the backseat. “Don’t stop until we’re far away.”
“We won’t,” Robyn said. “We’ll go as far away as we can get.”
With the cops and the collectors after them, she didn’t know how far that would be.
“What are you going to do with that stuff in your pocket, Robyn? Study it? Put it safely away, like you did last time?” Toby glanced at her, his jaw set.
Robyn looked away from him, stared out the windshield. She knew what she shouldn’t do with it.
I won’t snort it this time. I really won’t. I just want to know why it does what it does.
A craving almost shook her insides, making her grip her seat as she stared out into the night at the empty road ahead.
Chapter 10
Bad shit. Robyn stood at the hotel bathroom sink, avoiding her image in the mirror. She poured the powder from her pocket into a dry, empty water bottle that Toby had lying on the floor of his truck. I should really just ditch it.
But she wouldn’t.
She tried to ignore the clenching of her stomach as she turned her pocket inside out, shaking the rest of the powder loose onto a paper towel.
She felt Toby’s presence behind her before he even spoke.
“I know why you’re doing this. It’s a really stupid idea.”
“Really?” Robyn shook the remainder of the powder from the funneled paper towel into the bottle. “Why am I doing this?”
“Because you’re an addict, and you’ve talked yourself into keeping it around under the pretense of some idiot rationalization.”
She turned and faced him. “Do you think it would’ve been a good idea to leave it out there in the parking lot for some kid to scoop up?”
“Oh, yeah, th
at handful you grabbed made a huge difference. The wind would’ve scattered it far and wide in under a minute. Nobody would’ve found it.” He paused, looking at her sadly. “Even knowing that it’s made up of the charred remains of some devil’s minion, you want it in your body?”
She held his eyes for a long moment, refusing to argue, because he was right, and any argument that came into her head did sound like a rationalization.
She wanted that powder. She needed it.
Which is why she should flush it down the toilet right now.
She turned and eyed the bottle. Her gaze flicked to the toilet.
“Now you’re thinking,” Toby said. “But you won’t do it.”
Robyn stared at the toilet bowl. At the water within it. All she had to do was pour the powder into it and flush. Problem solved.
“Why don’t you just take it from me?” Her voice sounded small to her own ears. She cringed inwardly.
“I want to see if you’ll do the right thing. If you’re strong enough to let it go.”
Hot tears filled her eyes. Her vision blurred as she looked back at the bottle. How could an inanimate object have such power over her?
“I want to,” she whispered, not sure if he’d even heard her.
“Badly enough?”
A lump formed in her throat as her stomach clenched again. Just having it in the same room with her was doing a job on her.
“It’s an addiction, Robyn. The same addiction that almost killed you—that did kill you—once already. It’ll kill you again. Trust me. But this time you may not find your way back. I don’t think those chances are handed out all that generously.”
She said nothing. Watched his hand. The one that was resting on the sink. Close to the bottle.
“This death wish of yours,” he began, waited until she met his eyes, “it’s like you’re spitting in God’s face. Or whoever it is that runs the show up there.”
She nodded, still watching the bottle. Finally she lowered the toilet seat and sat down, resting her elbows on her knees and covering her face with her hands. “I know.”
“There isn’t just you to think of now. There’s a little girl sleeping out there. She needs you. You insisted that we take her with us. We’re responsible for her. You’re responsible. Do you care?”
She looked up at him. “Of course I care. Jesus.”
“Then act like it. Flush that shit.”
She paused, watching him look right into her. “It’s some kind of window.”
“What is?”
“When I snorted it last time. It opened some kind of window to a… creepy… netherworld.”
He waited for her to continue, his brow furrowed.
“There was somebody there. It was like… he saw me right away. It’s a dark, shadowy place, and this… guy saw me and started coming toward me.”
“Oh, shit.”
“There was a huge, white bird that saved me. Wrapped its wings around me. I was scared of it at first, but it was protecting me. I think that’s what broke your window.”
“How could it? You mean it came through to this side?”
“Yeah. I heard the battering of wings against the window while I was there, on the other side. When I came out of it, the window was broken.”
“So that bird is either from this side or that, and it can cross over from one side to the other.”
Robyn nodded. “Just like the collectors can.”
Toby’s gaze moved to the bottle. “Just like you can.”
†
Toby came back into the bathroom. “It’s hidden.”
Robyn looked up at him, her hand shaking at the thought of it. Where? Where had he hidden it? God, please don’t let me find it.
As if reading her mind, he said, “You can find it if you try, but considering that we have that little girl with us, I don’t recommend it.”
Robyn said nothing. Her bones ached. Her cells ached. Christ, even her hair hurt with the need for the stuff. For that pretty, pearly powder.
“Dangerous shit, Robyn. You’ve got a monkey on your back. I don’t know how to help you get rid of it. I know what it’s like. I went through a bad patch a while back. Part of the job. Nature of the beast. I did it on my own, locking myself away in my cabin in the woods. Somehow it worked, but it wasn’t pretty.” He paused, watching her. “We have a kid with us now, and we don’t have the luxury of time. So I don’t know what you’re planning to do to stay off the shit, but you’d better do something. You can’t just fade away when you want to escape now. It’s life or death.”
A flash of a snowy evening came back to her. The figure in the road.
She shivered.
Toby stepped closer to her, knelt down in front of her. “What happened to you?”
Robyn bit her bottom lip. The words were at the back of her throat. They would spill over her tongue and through her lips if she’d just let them out. She’d never wanted to tell somebody so badly.
“Why do you think you deserve to die?” Toby reached out and caressed her face with his fingers.
“I’m not a good person, Toby.” Her throat tightened around the words.
He barked out a short laugh. “Are you kidding me? You’re not a good person? You risked your life for a woman being attacked in the park. You took her place.”
Robyn stared at the floor tile. Studied the tiny squares that made up the pattern.
“You scooped up that frightened little girl before any more damage could be done to her from her drunken mother and her boyfriend.”
Her eyes burned with unskilled tears. “It doesn’t begin to make up for what I’ve done. Not even a little bit.”
“Look at me.” He gently lifted her chin. “Whatever you’ve done, you’ve made up for it. In spades. Okay?”
She shook her head and a tear escaped, rolling down her cheek. “No.”
Toby wiped the tear. “Can you trust me enough to tell me what happened?”
She paused, tried to find the words. “Once upon a time I was in college. I had an affair with one of my professors.” She’d begun the story, but it wasn’t too late to back out.
Toby lifted his eyebrows. Chuckled. “Lots of people have affairs, Robyn. You don’t deserve to die because of that.”
“I broke it off. He thought if he’d leave his wife that I’d go back to him. I wouldn’t have.”
“Okay.”
“But he told his wife he was leaving her one night. Told her all about me.”
Toby watched her, his face growing serious.
“She thought she had nothing left to live for.”
“Oh Christ. She killed herself?”
“She planned on it.” Robyn’s voice cracked. Her chin trembled. “But not before killing her husband and one-year-old daughter. And me.” The last part came out in a whisper, her voice failing her.
“Oh Christ.”
Robyn wept silently, covering her face. It was out. He could hate her now if he wanted to. Now he knew what he was defending. Maybe he wouldn’t want to defend her anymore.
She felt his hands on her shoulders. He was pulling her toward him. He now sat on the floor, pulling her onto his legs and moving her head to his chest. “It’s okay.”
“No. It’ll never be okay,” she said against the soft fabric of his shirt.
She felt his hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair.
“You couldn’t have ever known it would turn out like that. You didn’t know his wife was a nutcase, Robyn.”
“I should never have had the affair in the first place.” She lifted her face to look at him. “I knew he was married. I knew he had a daughter. Toby, I’d run into them at the mall before we’d even started.”
“You’re human. You made a mistake.”
“I was weak. I was lonesome and weak, and he paid attention to me and praised me, and I was a sucker for it all.” She felt self-disgust curling in her belly. “The worst part is that I wasn’t the only one he’d had an affair with. I fou
nd out at the trial that he’d had affairs with several students before me. He became obsessed with them all. He’d left her before. She thought having a baby would keep them together. He crushed that hope.”
“Jesus. What a scumbag.”
“I was nothing special. They died because I was a stupid, weak idiot.” She let out a shaky breath. “Him… his daughter…” She took a long, shuddering breath. “His wife came after me.”
“What happened?”
“He’d told her everything. She knew he had a class that night, and that I was in it. Right after she murdered Graham and their baby daughter, she waited for me on the road.”
“Jesus.”
She continued. “There was a blizzard. It wasn’t bad when I started out for class.”
She paused, remembering the swirling show. There had been warnings of a snowstorm. She’d wondered if classes would be cancelled. She hadn’t received a call. But then, she figured that Graham wouldn’t have called her to cancel if he’d thought she’d show up. It would be a chance to try to talk her into coming back to him.
She’d felt worn and weary of the entire thing. But it was far too late to drop the class. She couldn’t just stop going. As stressful and distracting as it would be, she’d have to keep going to his classes. She needed the course to complete her journalism degree.
She hadn’t lived far from campus. It was a pretty, twenty-minute ride along a winding, lakeside road. She hadn’t made it very far into the trip before the figure stumbled out onto the road in front of her car, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Robyn almost hadn’t been able to stop.
“Her car was back a ways. I noticed it, and I was looking in my rearview mirror and almost hit her. She’d waited on the side of the road, hidden behind some trees. She didn’t want anyone to see her and stop before I came by.”
Robyn paused, remembering. A chill made her shiver. “I knew who she was, of course. But I didn’t know that she knew about Graham and me. I remember feeling really ashamed. I had trouble looking at her.”
Robyn took another shuddering breath, remembering. “She knew my car. She’d seen me get into it a few times when she’d come to pick Graham up after class sometimes. She said to me, ‘Robyn, right? Thank God you came along. I left my cell phone on the counter and I didn’t want to get into a car with just anyone.’ She asked me to drive her home. Said it wasn’t far. I knew the area they lived in, but not the exact place.” Robyn shook her head. “I believed her.”
