Something terrible is about to happen. The thought seemed almost spoken into Miranda's mind, as if by a voice, a spirit voice, not her own. She would have silenced that voice if she could have. She would have unheard the words. She was standing at the living room window of the house they called the Farmhouse. It was a ramshackle, weather-worn two-story building in an unmown field near the woods outside the city. Its once-white clapboards were stripped raw by wind and rain. Its roof was slumped like the shoulders of a disappointed man. Inside, all around her, hallways seemed to run off haphazardly in different directions. The hallway walls were stained and faded. There were no pictures hung anywhere. In the living room, the furniture was worn and dusty: sagging armchairs and a colorless sofa, which the men had brought in from second-hand shops in town. To Miranda, the place had become a prison, though it was only fear that held her there. She could have walked away any time. But where would she have gone? She gazed out the window. She stood and watched as the two men waded away through the high grass. Theo and Moran. They were dark figures in the gray morning. They moved slowly toward the line of evergreens, tall pines standing stark against the clouds. Theo was the smaller of the two. His body was stunted and misshapen. His legs were spindly. His hips were weirdly wide. His shoulders were overly broad and his arms overly long and powerful like an ape's. His two vicious Dobermans trotted along beside him. Evan Moran, on the other hand, was a big and well-made man. Tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered. He was fit and taut, and his gait was easy. Miranda could see his face in her mind's eye: cruel but handsome, frightening but thrilling too. A round, rough face with hot eyes under boyishly mussed brown hair. For weeks, those hot eyes had been gazing at her. He didn't try to hide it, not even when Theo was in the room with them. Whenever Miranda glanced back at him, Moran's thin lips would curl up at one corner in a knowing smile, as if she were complicit in the flirtation. She would look away, but she could feel her cheeks grow warm. When Theo wasn't there, Moran would sometimes move to stand beside her, too close. He would look down at her from his greater height and speak her name in a soft growl, a rumble she could feel in her stomach and below. She would shake her head no, but she did not mean no and they both knew it. Something terrible is about to happen, said the voice in her mind. Soon. Very soon. She watched from the window as the two men reached the trees. She watched them enter the forest, side by side. Both were carrying rifles in their right hands. There were deer in the woods. It was October. Hunting season. When she could no longer see them through the trees, Miranda turned away. She faced the living room. The colorless sofa with its cushions collapsing in on themselves. The colorless easy chairs with the arms soiled. The scarred wooden table beneath the far window. The small dusty mirror on the opposite wall. She saw herself in the mirror. She was a small woman in her thirties. She was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Her face was expressionless and pale. Once she had been beautiful in a delicate, dreamy way. Finespun blonde hair. Perfect small features on a porcelain face. Now as she looked in the mirror she saw something that frightened her, sickened her even. It wasn't her age. It wasn't the faint shine of silver in her yellow hair. It wasn't the lines on the slightly bloated cheeks. All those changes were still almost unnoticeable. What made her queasy was the frantic fire of panic in her crystal blue eyes. She could see it clear across the room. They were the eyes of a woman spinning out of control, trapped in a life spinning out of control. She was no longer in charge of her own destiny. I am no longer who I am, she thought. Restless, she moved down one of the haphazard corridors into the kitchen. It was her best room, the room in which she felt she belonged. There were dishes in the stained bronze sink. She had made the two men breakfast before they left. She knew she ought to take the opportunity to clean up while they were gone, but the dread in her stomach sapped her energy. There was still some coffee left in the carafe in the coffee maker. She poured herself a mug of that instead. She didn't drink from the mug. The coffee was surely cold by now. She simply sat at the kitchen table by the window and held the mug's handle for comfort. She stared into space. She tried not to think about where she was or how she had come here, but her mind wandered aimlessly over the past. Her life back in the city. Her life with Theo. Theo and those Dobermans. His angry dogs. His furious soul made flesh. Had he always been like this? she wondered. So angry? So violent? Had he always been the way he was now? Had she? Once, not long ago, Moran had found her alone in the kitchen. She was standing at the window, staring blankly as she was staring now. She was still wearing her long nightshirt. The bruise on her neck was plain to see. Moran stood too close, towering over her. "Miranda," he said in his low growl. He reached out with one big hand and gently touched the purple bruise with his fingertips. She drew away. She put her hand up. "Don't," she said. But there had been a moment's lag before she moved, before she spoke. There had been a moment when she'd let his fingers linger on her. When she finally did move away, she looked up at him. Their eyes met too directly. Too much feeling passed between them. "You don't have to live with this," Moran said. "It's all right. It's nothing," she told him. "It's not all right..." But then they heard the skitter of the dogs, their nails on the wood of the upstairs hallway. Theo was coming downstairs. Moran hovered over her another long moment. Just to show her he was defiant, he was not afraid. But before Theo came into the room, he moved away from her. Now, she began to lift the coffee mug from the table. She knew the coffee would be cold but she lifted the mug to her lips anyway. I am no longer who I am, she thought again. Then she heard the rifle shots. Excerpted from A Woman Underground by Andrew Klavan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
