She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. You did the same thing years ago. Drove me nuts. I couldn't decide if it was me you didn't trust or yourself, and every time I tried to find out, you did your classic avoidance thing and managed to distract me. Somehow."

Dani glanced at him. "Was that what I was doing?"

"Hell, you've known the right buttons to push with me since you were about seventeen."

She cleared her throat. "You probably shouldn't tell me that. I might take advantage."

"Feel free."

It was at least the second time he had said something like that, but more than his matter-of-fact tone made Dani choose not to go down that path with him. Here and now, at least.

She knew damn well she was too tired for that. Plus, her head was still throbbing dimly, at least in part because she was trying to shield her mind and wasn't at all sure she could even manage the unfamiliar bit of psychic protection.

That voice. That damn voice. She never wanted to hear it again. And she was terrified it was somehow connected to some part of her deeper than her thoughts.

As if he hadn't expected her to respond, Marc continued, "I was certain it had to do with trust. Then we had that shared experience in one of your vision dreams, and I thought I knew for certain. Because you were gone within a week."

"It wasn't you. I mean, it wasn't about trust."

"Then what was it about?"

Dani wondered vaguely why this seemed easier to talk about as they walked slowly along, not looking at each other. Was that it? Or had everything up to now just made this possible?

"Some things have to happen just the way they happen, Dani. And when they happen." Miranda shrugged. "No matter what we see or what we dream, the universe has a plan."

"Dani?"

Was it just a matter of timing? She hesitated, then said, "It was about… those monsters I see. Evil people doing terrible things. Horrible events I can't stop. I… didn't want to be that girl, not to you."

"That girl?"

"Cassandra." She heard a shaky laugh escape her. "The voice of doom. I never see good things, remember, Marc? I never see happy things. Happy endings. I just see monsters."

"Dani-"

" Paris said that's why I left Venture. That I thought I could take the monsters away with me. All the monsters. So the people I left behind here would be… safe. But that's not what happened. Your mother still died of the cancer I saw-we saw-take her. And other monsters I saw, like Danny, stayed here. I guess some were always here and always will be. But…"

Marc waited.

"But then I came back. And I'm afraid… I brought this monster here. Somehow. I brought this evil to Venture."

Marc stopped and turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. "Bullshit."

She heard another unsteady laugh escape and hoped it didn't sound as out of control as she felt. "Yeah, that's all I needed to hear, one good, resounding bullshit. That'll fix everything."

He was smiling faintly. His hands tightened on her shoulders. "Listen to me. You are not Cassandra. Not the voice of doom. And you did not bring monsters to Venture when you came back here or take them away when you left. The monsters just are, Dani. Part of life. The darkness most of us try to keep at bay. The difference is that sometimes you can see them coming, that's all."

"And what good is that if I can't change what I see?" she asked, even as a part of her wondered if that was, for some reason she had yet to fathom, actually happening this time. If she was changing what she had seen, had maybe already changed it.

If she was even making things worse than she had seen.

"The monsters keep winning, Marc."

"Dani-"

"What if this one wins too?"

Saturday, October 11

Roxanne really did like dogs but knew her brother had been right in advising her not to wake the neighborhood with her postmidnight visit, so she took care to be as quiet as possible as she moved toward the abandoned textile mill.

Defunct. The word is defunct.

"And every time you say it," she whispered, "it sounds weirder. But never mind that. Take a gander at the neighborhood and tell me if you sense anything wrong."

Okay, hang on a minute.

She waited in the shadows of what had once been a small gas station of the cozy type seldom seen these days, wondering again why this seemingly prosperous little town could boast so many abandoned buildings. So many defunct businesses. And why it didn't seem to bother anyone to leave the structures standing as is rather than tear them down or re-purpose them.

She wasn't quite as suspicious by nature as Gabriel was, but anomalies nagged at her, and this was the biggest one she'd seen in Venture.

Well, barring the serial-killer thing.

I'm not getting anything. In fact, it's damn quiet for a Friday night.

"Saturday morning now," Roxanne pointed out softly as she moved from the shadows and continued on her way.

Either way, it's a bit strange, if you ask me.

"We've both seen most of what there is to see of this town, Gabe, and I didn't notice any nightclubs or bars." She continued to whisper, her voice hardly more than a breath of sound.

They have a multiplex at that mall out on the highway. I guess everybody's there.

"Postmidnight shows? I sort of doubt it, but maybe they're having a film festival or something. Anyway, if that's where they are, let 'em stay there. I don't need anybody's headlights-"

Speaking of. Duck.

She took cover on one side of a tall hedge, just seconds before a quiet car passed her position and turned at the next corner.

Roxanne waited in the shadows through a slow count of ten, then continued on her way. There were streetlights in the area-sort of. Technically, she supposed, since the lights were clearly industrial and likely belonged to the region's power company. But these lights tended to be beside or behind the homes rather than out on the streets, as they were closer to downtown.

So there was plenty of darkness for her to skulk in.

Investigate. Plenty of darkness to investigate in.

"Neither of us is very grammatical." Roxanne paused briefly to get her bearings, then made the final turn that would take her to the hulking building that had once housed a textile mill.

Never mind grammar. You really need to be careful now, Rox. Remember who you're hunting. What you're hunting.

"I know."

Just look for signs, that's all. Find something, and we call in the cavalry. Right?

"Stop worrying. I'm not at all anxious to run into this monster,, believe me. Not that I'm his type."

Judging by the victims here, that's not a problem for him anymore. He's making these women into the woman he wants them to be.

"He's sticking to the same body type, though. I'm way too tall." She found the main entrance to the mill-on the other side of a padlocked gate. "Damn. This place has two big steel doors and absolutely no windows; why put a fence around it too?"

Old security. Like everything else abandoned around here, nobody's bothered with it since the last one out locked the gate. Padlock?

"Yeah, big one. Can you get it?"

Of course.

She waited for the telltale click, then removed the open padlock and hooked it on the chain-link fence. Then she paused. "You know, it just occurred to me that since textile mills are filled with big, heavy machinery, they tend to be built on slab foundations. Solid concrete. No basements or underground structures of any kind."

Huh. How about that? I never would have-

"Goddammit, Gabe. We're going to have to have another little Come to Jesus talk, you and me."