"Abby!" Niki yelled. "We can't get to Skip! It's like he's surrounded by some sort of force field!"

     Yes. Yes, Abby could see it now that she really looked. The snow no longer reached Skip but seemed to melt in thin air. The howling winds didn't make his clothes flutter.

     He was still blue, though. He still looked dead. What the...

     "I'll tell you what, Gramps," Tindriss said. In spite of the still raging storm, he heard her words clearly. "I'll give you to three to turn visible, or I'll do to your family what I just did to Adam Forwarder."

     As if you're not going to do that, anyway, Gramps thought. Still...

     "Hi."

     Why put it off?

​     She pointed at him. 

     "I had a chance to kill you once, and I didn't take it," she said. "That's one of the few regrets of my life. That time/space scrambler you threw on me? I pulled it back off of myself almost immediately, so far as I know, because that fucking thing made me lose track of when and where I was. It took me a billion forevers to find my way to a space/time where life existed and had evolved. Then it took another billion forevers to find Adam Forwarder...and you." 

     She took a step towards Gramps.

​     He refused to flinch. Fuck her.

     "I'm going to take a long time with you, Gramps," she said, "torturing you, maybe years, maybe decades. You're immortal, right? I could keep you as my little torture pet. I'd enjoy that...but first I have to kill your family."

     "You..."

     "I need to see the pain in your eyes as I rip the limbs off everyone you care for. I'll let them live until their throats give out from screaming, and then I'll tear off their skulls and scoop out their brains. You got the better of me with that space/time scrambler, Gramps. No one gets the better of me. As I spent centuries in search of a timeline that looked familiar, I first was furious with you and despised you, but then I felt grateful to you because of the gift you gave me, that gift being the gift of revenge."  

     "I'll take that child," she said, "and then I'm going to take the three of us to a place where I can indulge in some true payback."   

CONTINUE