A Maidens Grave

phone, fiddling with the pistol stuffed in his belt. He looked bored; he grimaced and hung up. Picked up a shotgun, pulled back a lever on it, and stepped to the doorway. His back was to Kielle, perhaps ten feet away. The girl leaned her head out. Light from outside, a shaft of brilliant white light, glinted off the blade in her hand. Melanie signed, “Wait.”
    Stoat grabbed Shannon by the arm and pulled her to the door. Brutus stepped back, pointing the gun outward, and Stoat eased the door open.
    A figure appeared in the doorway—a trooper dressed in black. He handed in two six-packs of beer. Stoat shoved the girl out the door.
    Now!
    Melanie stepped slowly behind Brutus. She smiled at Kielle, who frowned, confused. Then Melanie reacheddown and simply scooped the little girl off the ground, grabbing the knife from her hand.
    Kielle shook her head violently.
    But Melanie spun around, moving so fast that Brutus froze in confusion, staring at them, no idea what was going on. Melanie continued to smile as she stepped around him, firmly gripping the astonished girl.
    Then flung Kielle out the door into the chest of the trooper.
    For an instant no one moved. Melanie, still smiling at Stoat, slowly eased the door closed, shooing her hand lethargically at the astonished cop as if he were a bluetail fly.
    “Fuck,” Brutus spat out. Stoat started forward, but Melanie slammed the door completely closed and wedged it tight with Kielle’s knife. Stoat tugged at the large knob but it wouldn’t budge.
    Then Melanie dropped to her knees and covered her face, trying to cushion herself from the blow as Stoat’s bony fist slammed into her neck and jaw. He pulled her arms away and struck her hard on the forehead and chin.
    “You fucking bitch!” Brutus’s tendons and jaw quivered.
    He hit her once hard and she fell against the floor. Trying to scrabble away, she pulled herself up by the windowsill, glanced outside and saw the trooper carrying both the young X-Men with him, tucked under his arms. Jogging awkwardly through the gully away from the slaughterhouse.
    On her neck she heard the vibrations of a man’s voice shouting in anger. Brutus was running to the window on the other side of the door. He stepped back from it then aimed the shotgun outside.
    Melanie ran at him.
    It seemed that her feet didn’t even touch the ground. Stoat grabbed for her but caught only a shred of silk collar that tore away. As she collided with Brutus’s shoulder she had the satisfaction of seeing his pain and surprise and fear as he fell sideways into a square of butcher block. The gun hit the floor but didn’t go off.
    Melanie looked out the window once more and saw thetwo girls and the trooper disappear over a small hill. And then Stoat’s gun caught her above the ear that had first gone deaf, years ago, and she dropped to her knees. She fainted not so much from the pain as from the terror that the darkness taking her vision was from a broken nerve and that she would now be blind as well as deaf forever and ever.

5:34 P.M.
    “You gave us a bonus, Lou. Thanks much.”
    “Wasn’t me,” Handy grumbled.
    “No? What happened?”
    “Listen here, I’m pissed.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Just shut up and listen, Art. I don’t wanta hear your bullshit.” His voice was colder than it’d been all day.
    “Forty-five minutes for that helicopter. That’s all you got and I’ll tell you, mister, I’m itching to kill somebody. I almost hope it don’t show up. I’m not doing any more bargaining with you.”
    “How’s your beer?”
    “I picked the little bitch already. She’s ten or eleven. Wearing a pretty dress.”
    “Emily,” Angie said.
    “And I’m gonna let Bonner have her first. You know ’bout Bonner, don’t you? You got your fucking files on us. You must know all ’bout his little problem.”
    A negotiator never imposes his own values on the situation—either approval or criticism. Doing so suggests that there are standards of what is and isn’t acceptable and is apt to irritate the taker or make his bad behavior seem justified. Even offering reassuring clichés can be dangerous, suggesting that you’re not taking the situation seriously.
    Reluctantly Potter now said in as blasé a voice as he could muster, “You don’t want to do that, Lou. You know you don’t.”
    The cackle of vicious laughter filled the van. “Everybody’s telling me what I don’t want to do. I hate that!”
    “We’re working on the