Trading Lives

They send six more to 12th before they do anything else.

Leanne takes them without a speech. Olivia stays. Jaz stays. Grant puts Paige on the roof with Riley. The dock chain gets a second loop.

Mary watches him do all of it.

“You’re stalling.”

“I’m not leaving the food sitting out again.”

“You said after the store. This is after. Two girls and a TV, Grant.”

He knows. The two blanks have not moved.

“Bus stays here. We walk. Eve, Mary, Zoya, Magdalena. That’s it.”

The brick building still has a dentist sign hanging off one bolt. Front door unlocked. Lobby smells like old carpet. Two blanks, second floor, to the left. Nobody else in range.

The TV is a cooking show. Under it, two women arguing about whether the bus people are gone.

He knocks.

Both hearts jump. The TV goes silent.

“I know you are in there. We heard the TV that you just turned off.” Grant says in a calm tone.

“Go away,” one of them says. “We will scream.”

“You can scream,” Eve says. “It won’t help. Open the door or we open it for you.”

They run for the window instead.

Grant is in the apartment before the latch turns. A lamp comes at his head. He swats it away, grabs a wrist, and she tries to knee him between the legs. He steps aside and she misses.

“I’m not going to hurt you. There is no need for this.”

“Fuck you.”

“I claim you. I’m Grant.”

She stops cold. Then she is his.

“Gia. I’m so sorry. She went out the fire escape.”

The second girl is already on it. Grant catches her on the next landing and has to ease his grip so he does not leave a mark.

“Don’t touch me—”

“I claim you.”

“I’m Maren. I was going to jump. I’m glad I didn’t.”

Fifty-eight. No new upgrade.

He is pulling her back inside when the map lights up in his head.

Not here. Home.

The penthouse cluster is wrong. Too many of his in the foyer at once. And blanks. Not one. A mess of them, high and low, some in the building, some in the street.

Then he hears the pans.

The crash is small from this far and still exact. A vase. Lily swearing. A man who does not belong there.

Grant is already on the stairs.

“Somebody’s in our place. A man with a lot of unclaimed just showed up. Go go go!”

Mary does not ask how he knows.

Jose drives like he finally understands the bus can hit things. Grant stands in the aisle and keeps the map open until it hurts. The man is in the second penthouse. Noor’s point is moving closer to him. The new blanks are stacked in the stairwell and the lobby.

The lot looks almost normal. Explorer in its spot. No grocery van.

The stair wedges are broken.

Lily is on the foyer floor looking hurt, but alive, reaching for him.

“He went through the hole. He has Noor. He said if we come near him he cuts her.”

Grant finds them without looking.

A man at the terrace glass. Arm around Noor’s throat. Kitchen knife. Noor is still, eyes on Grant, waiting for an order even like this.

The man is not one of the two from the grocery lot. Older. Calm. His heart is not doing what scared hearts do.

“Don’t walk in here giving a speech,” the man says. “I followed my guys. They came back bleeding and talking about some asshole on 12th who threw one of them on the ground. That you?”

“That’s me. He attacked first. Now let her go.”

“No. Put the rifle down. I’m not kidding. I will cut her.”

Eve does not lower the rifle until Grant nods. Then she does.

“Okay. Good.” The man glances at Mary. “You tell him not to do the speed thing. My guys already told me he’s fast. I am too so don’t get any ideas.”

“What do you want?” Mary says.

“Right now? Him to stand still.” He jiggles the knife just enough that Noor’s breath catches. “You slammed my people over a grocery store. That made it personal. I don’t need your store tonight. I need you to understand the math.”

“What math?” Grant says.

The man actually looks surprised Grant asked it straight.

“If I grab her, she’s still yours. I know that. Everybody who isn’t stupid knows that. You don’t steal a claim. You want somebody else’s girls, you kill the guy they’re tied to.” He shrugs like he is talking about parking. “So I didn’t come here to touch her and hope. I came here to kill you. Once you’re down, every woman in this building is up for grabs.”

Mary’s face goes white.

Noor does not look away from Grant.

“You have a lot of women downstairs,” Grant says. He can hear them on the stairs now. Shoes. Breathing. Not blanks — wait. Blanks are mixed in. “And unclaimed.”

“Yeah.” The man tips his head toward the glass, almost friendly. “Stopped a guy on the way here. He had a pack. I ended him in a garage off Third. His girls dropped loose the second he did. I claimed what I could on the street. The rest I herded here. Figured I’d finish you, claim them, then take whatever falls out of this penthouse.”

That is the part that lands.

The blanks in the lobby are not a coincidence. They are freshly ownerless. Free until somebody claims them.

And if Grant dies in the next minute, fifty-eight more join them.

“Let her go and we walk downstairs and talk,” Grant says. “You kill me in this room and you still have to get out past everybody I claimed. Sure, you might claim one or two quickly, but there is a good chance some of them fight back and kill you first.”

“I know.” The man smiles a little. “That’s why she’s against the knife.

You have two options.

You can do the speed thing, I do the simple thing, and then it’s a war zone in this fancy apartment. There will be casualties.

Or, since you obviously care about these bitches, you instead stand down, we walk to the elevator together, and I only take the store and a few of your pretty ones after I kill you. I let most of the others go free. I’m a fair man after all, but I’m not a patient one.”

Noor swallows against his arm.

“Grant,” she says, steady. “Don’t you dare freeze because of me.”

The man laughs once.

“See, I like her. That’s why she’s the example.”

The stairwell fills up.

Blanks and claimed that are not Grant’s, mixed, coming up fast.

Eve’s hands are tight as she glances at the rifle on the floor.

Mary is looking at Grant like she already knows he is going to do the dumb thing anyway.

The man tightens his arm on Noor’s throat.

“Clock’s ticking. You start walking to the elevator, with your hands up, or things get messy.”