Blue Dahlia

downstairs.”
    But she walked through to her room first to catch her breath, compose herself. Treasures, she thought. She had the most precious treasures. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and thought of Kevin. A treasure she’d lost.
    Logan said Dad’s always watching out for us.
    A man who would know that, would accept that and say those words to a young boy was another kind of treasure.
    He’d changed the pattern on her. He’d planted a bold blue dahlia in the middle of her quiet garden. And she wasn’t digging it out.
    “I’m going to marry him,” she heard herself say, and laughed at the thrill of it.
    Through the next boom of thunder, she heard the singing. Instinctively, she stepped into the bath, to look into her sons’ room. She was there, ghostly in billowing white, her hair a tangle of dull gold. She stood between the beds, her voice calm and sweet, her eyes insane as she stared through the flash of lightning at Stella.
    Fear trickled down Stella’s back. She stepped forward, and was shoved back by a blast of cold.
    “No.” She raced forward again, and hit a solid wall. “No!” She battered at it. “You won’t keep me from my babies.” She flung herself against the frigid shield, screaming for her children who slept on, undisturbed.
    “You bitch! Don’t you touch them.”
    She ran out of the room, ignoring Hayley, who raced down toward her, ignoring the clatter of feet on the stairs. She knew only one thing. She had to get to her children, she had to get through the barrier and get to her boys.
    At a full run she hit the open doorway, and was knocked back against the far wall.
    “What the hell’s going on?” Logan grabbed her, pushing her aside as he rushed the room himself.
    “She won’t let me in.” Desperate, Stella beat her fists against the cold until her hands were raw and numb. “She’s got my babies. Help me.”
    Logan rammed his shoulder against the opening. “It’s like fucking steel.” Rammed it again as Harper and David hit it with him.
    Behind them, Mitch stared into the room, at the figure in white, who glowed now with a wild light. “Name of God.”
    “There has to be another way. The other door.” Roz grabbed Mitch’s arm and pulled him down the hall.
    “This ever happen before?”
    “No. Dear God. Hayley, keep the baby away.”
    Frantic, her hands throbbing from pounding, Stella ran. Another way, she thought. Force wouldn’t work. She could beat against that invisible ice, rage and threaten, but it wouldn’t crack.
    Oh, please, God, her babies.
    Reason. She would try reason and begging and promises. She dashed out into the rain, yanked open the terrace doors. And though she knew better, hurled herself at the opening.
    “You can’t have them!” she shouted over the storm. “They’re mine. Those are my children. My life.” She went down on her knees, ill with fear. She could see her boys sleeping still, and the hard, white light pulsing from the woman between them.
    She thought of the dream. She thought of what she and her boys had talked about shortly before the singing. “It’s not your business what I do.” She struggled to keep her voice firm. “Those are my children, and I’ll do what’s best for them. You’re not their mother.”
    The light seemed to waver, and when the figure turned, there was as much sorrow as madness in her eyes. “They’re not yours. They need me. They need their mother. Flesh and blood.”
    She held up her hands, scraped and bruised from the beating. “You want me to bleed for them? I will. I am.” On her knees, she pressed her palms to the cold while the rain sluiced over her.
    “They belong to me, and there’s nothing I won’t do to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I’m sorry for what happened to you. Whatever it was, whoever you lost, I’m sorry. But you can’t have what’s mine. You can’t take my children from me. You can’t take me from my children.”
    Stella pushed her hand out, and it slid through as if slipping through ice water. Without hesitation, she shoved into the room.
    She could see beyond her, Logan still fighting to get through, Stella pressed against the other doorway. She couldn’t hear them, but she could see the anguish on Logan’s face, and that his hands were bleeding.
    “He loves them. He might not have known until tonight, but he loves them. He’ll protect them. He’ll be a father to them, one they deserve. This is my choice, our choice. Don’t ever try to keep