What did that leave her with? Zilch.
When she met Blake, she couldn’t help noticing that he looked a lot like that kid on YouTube who’d signed a big record deal recently. Maybe she could leverage that. Tag the singer’s name, or something. She pictured the blog title: Friend of Tai Simmons Look-alike Gone Missing. That’d garner a few hits on an otherwise boring post, wouldn’t it?
“Ari,” she said to herself, “you’re really stretching it this time.”
She was about to set the phone down when two sets of lights blazed in her eyes, illuminating the interior of the Caddy for a moment, virtually blinding her. She held a hand up to block the light. A jacked-up vehicle with its high beams on, including large yellow fog lights, had just turned onto the street. The driver probably had no clue how obnoxious that was. Or maybe he did. Guys who drove rigs like that dug the attention—good and bad. It was swagger on wheels.
Something darted out in front of her car. A cat. It paused in the middle of the road, staring at the oncoming vehicle.
“Move, little kitty.”
But it didn’t. Not one inch. The poor thing was paralyzed in place, its body a dark silhouette against the lights.
Oh, no, the fog’s too thick.
The Jeep probably couldn’t see it. She jumped out of the car to shoo the cat away, but before she could, the vehicle seemed to speed up, its engine revving louder. At the last moment, the cat shot into the bushes at the side of the road, narrowly avoiding becoming roadkill.
Anger surged inside her. Clearly, those jerks had seen the cat. What kind of idiot would purposely try to run over an animal? She glared into the windows of the Jeep as it drove past, wishing her eyes were daggers. She expected to see a car full of joyriding losers—hats turned backward, liquor bottles being guzzled, but instead she saw two guys in the front seat wearing sunglasses—what the hell?—and staring straight ahead.
They even looked like assholes. Identical ones. There should be a law against trying to run over someone’s pet. She should report them to … to … someone. Remembering the camera phone in her hand, she took a few pictures as the vehicle’s red taillights disappeared into the fog. Like that would make any difference.
Assholes Almost Run Over Garfield
Men in Black Attempt Kitty Killing
Making up ridiculous blog titles for imaginary posts always gave her a small sense of power over circumstances beyond her control. In fact, she had a monthly feature where readers would vote for their favorite outlandish blog-post title. Unfortunately, it hadn’t won her many friends with the other paranormal bloggers. Seemed OSPRA was always on the list. Hell, she’d make her own list with those ridiculous titles.
She sighed and climbed back into the car. Everything always came back to her blog. Maybe she’d skip a day or rerun an old article. People did that all the time. Other than a little ad revenue, it wasn’t as if she was getting paid to do it. She was the boss and if she decided to skip a day, well, then she should be able to do so and not feel guilty.
A slash of light from the apartment building on the other side of the road cut through the darkness. She looked up to see Krystal stepping onto the porch. The teen waved goodbye to her friend, slung her backpack over one shoulder and skipped down the steps.
Finally.
Arianna reached over to unlock the passenger door then opened her camera phone. She couldn’t wait to show Krystal that one picture of Blake. Would she think he looked like—
Movement behind Krystal drew her attention. Two shadows she hadn’t seen before seemed to separate from the darkness alongside the building. Confused, she scanned the area, but saw no one. Just shadows.
Was the fog playing tricks on her? She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision. Then the shadows began to advance. Straight toward her cousin.
Arianna’s throat tightened, strangling her airways. She wanted to scream at Krystal, tell her to run, but the sound was stuck in her throat. Just like what happened with her mother twenty-two years ago when the shadows had come alive. But she couldn’t move a muscle—she was frozen. Just like that stupid cat in the road.
The dark forms got to the minivan parked in the driveway and split up, with one going around to the other side. Then, at precisely the same time, they took shape. Gone were the shapeless, shadowy figures. These were flesh-and-blood men.
With their hands in their pockets concealing God knows what, they wore long, dark trench coats that grazed the tops of their boots and although the muted light from a streetlamp cast angular shadows on their faces, their identical expressions were devoid of any emotion. A pair of macabre robots on a mission, just like the two who took her mother.
Something inside her snapped, jerking her to action, and Arianna jumped from the car. “Run, Krystal!” Her voice cracked like a prepubescent frog’s.
“What are you talking about?” Her cousin had been about to step off the curb, but instead, she skittered sideways, looking at her feet as if expecting to see a snake.
“Those men. Behind you. Come on.”
Krystal spun around, dropping her backpack in the process. “What men? Ari, you’re freaking me out.”
How could she not see them? They were less than twenty feet away, coming toward her from both sides of that van.
Arianna felt helpless again. That same little girl hiding under a skirted table at the street fair.
One of the men spun a finger in the air, signifying a wrap-up, and the other nodded. They’d obviously done this sort of thing before. In a flash, they were on Krystal like a pair of jackals, lifting her off her feet and whisking her down the sidewalk.
Arianna tried to scream—surely someone would hear and come help—but she couldn’t catch her breath. It felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. They moved faster than humanly possible, their trench coats billowing behind them. Her cousin struggled, arched her back, but it was no use. A ninety-pound girl was no match against two men.
And neither was a five-year-old girl.
Something stirred inside. She couldn’t just stand here and watch her cousin being taken away by the men from shadows the way she had with her mother. “Put her down!”
In unison, they snapped their heads in her direction as if they were just now noticing they had a witness, but it didn’t halt their stride. She fumbled with her phone, attempted to dial 911, but the picture app was still displayed on the screen, and she ended up pressing the wrong buttons. Shit, shit, shit.
They rounded the corner and disappeared behind a sprawling cedar, its lower branches stretching out across the sidewalk.
Without thinking, she sprinted down her side of the street, past a few parked cars. She thought about going for help, but she didn’t want Krystal out of her sight. If she waited for the police to come or banged on the doors of any of the buildings on this block to get help, no one would believe her when she told them what happened, and her cousin would be long gone. Her only hope was to get some photographic evidence of the vehicle and license plate then call for help. When she got to the corner, she saw them trying to stuff Krystal into the back of the Jeep.
Her cousin managed to kick the shorter one in the face. Arianna heard him grunt. Krystal braced both hands on the door frame, but the other one came up behind her