Icarus

FIVE

There it was.

Touch it. Hold it. Make sure it was real. Yes. Oh, yes. Very, very real. It was the key to everything, this little card. To the future. To the good life. To love and money and respect. To everything the two of them had always wanted.

To everything they were in danger of losing. But now they didn't have to lose it. Any of it. Here it was and she had done it for them. Arranged it all.

Did she even know what she was doing? Maybe. Hard to know. Hard to know anything.

Except there was nothing else to know. They had what they needed.

Invite you to the biggest off-Broadway opening of the year

The invitation seemed to get larger, growing all by itself, and it took on a surreal glow. It was indeed a magical thing. It was a solution to all their problems. A ticket to a beautiful new world.

And in this world… well… it knew the truth there, too. It most certainly did.

We're thanking you for welcoming us…

They would be welcomed, all right.

They were thieves, both of them, the very worst kind of thieves. Had been right from the start. Stealing dreams. Stealing love.

Stealing the future.

We're thanking you for welcoming us…

Oh, yes, they surely would be welcomed.

And they just might be dead, too.

If they were lucky.