Dying Light

by Kory M. Shrum

  “Who did you think I meant by friends?”

  Relief washes over me. Not Ally. Ally.

  “So you’re going to kill Jeremiah?” I shrug, the chain rattling at my side. “Okay.”

  Caldwell gives me a curious look.

  “He’s almost as bad as you,” I tell him. “He’s got all these resources, but he didn’t even try to save Brinkley.”

  “Don’t leave with him or you’ll regret it,” Caldwell threatens.

  “Or what? He’ll torture me? Kill my friends? Kidnap my dog? Abandon me and have a whole second family with some other daughter? Oh wait, no. That was all you.”

  Caldwell growls his frustration and disappears.

  I exhale a long breath. The church rocks again with another explosion somewhere, followed by the pat-tat-pat-tat of guns going off. It never ceases to amaze me how willing Jeremiah’s people are to fight out in the open like this. After seeing how Caldwell does crowd control, I know why he isn’t afraid. He’ll mind-wipe everyone back to obliviousness. Jeremiah doesn’t have any such talents that I know of, yet clearly he’s got money. Money must be its own superpower.

  The door to my room is thrown open and there stands Jeremiah, sweater vest and all.

  “Jesse,” he says, sighing my name. He adjusts his glasses. “Thank god, you’re all right.”

  “My hero,” I say with thick sarcasm. “Get me the hell out of here.”

  “You’ll have to lower your shield.”

  “Ha, no. Not happening.”

  “But I came here to save you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Save it. If I had a dollar for every time some dude said that to me, I’d be so rich right now.”

  “How am I supposed to get you out of the building without you lowering your shield?”

  Good question.

  I look down at my wrist and wonder if I can expose just the chain. It requires a little more control than I think I have over my shield. Threatened equals shield up. Fear equals bigger, brighter shield.

  “I’ll try to expose just the chain,” I tell him.

  Jeremiah looks like he might refuse me. His gaze is steady and unforgiving, but I don’t waver. I am tired of being lied to and misled. I’m tired of the men around me telling me what I should do with my own power.

  Jeremiah issues an order for a bolt cutter and someone barks compliance through the speaker. A wave of heat rolls from the hall behind Jeremiah, along with the distinct scent of something burning.

  “Where’s Alice and Nicole?” he asks.

  “How am I supposed to know? I’ve been catching up with dear ol’ dad.”

  “You were foolish to go with him. You have nothing to show for it.”

  The sharp truth of the assessment pisses me off. I don’t have Winston, and Jason almost hurt Ally and Gloria.

  “Fuck you. I have a fancy new healing power.”

  “When will you figure out that you have to work with people in order to achieve your goal?”

  A man appears with the bolt cutter. “Brinkley tried to work alone, and look where it got him.”

  “You don’t know anything about him.” My temper flares and my shield gets bigger, knocking Jeremiah back out of the room. The door slams shut after him, and the terrified minion with the bolt cutter is pressed against the wall as if I intend to crush him.

  My shield shrinks as the man starts yelling.

  “Sorry, sorry.” I throw my palms out in apology. “I wasn’t mad at you.”

  He runs his hands over his body to make sure it’s all there. Then he picks up the cutters he dropped. “May I?”

  “Yes, please.” I drop the entire shield long enough for him to cut the chain quite close to my wrist.

  Jeremiah throws the door open again and the shield goes back on, bumping the man with the cutter.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “Sorry about squishing you.”

  “Follow me. I have a helicopter waiting.” Jeremiah exits the room, the minion with the cutter lingers behind to take up the rear.

  I consider my options. I can refuse to go with Jeremiah. He did sedate me and he wanted me to kill Jason as badly as Caldwell did. There’s got to be some horrible reason for that. I should slip away and find Ally and Gloria on my own.

  The problem is, I don’t know the first place to look for them. I don’t have Gloria’s people-finding skills. I can’t pop anywhere in the world like Caldwell. If I go with Jeremiah now, at least I could find Ally and then leave whenever I want. He can’t stop me. And if anyone is keeping tabs on Ally and Nikki—Caldwell aside—it’s Jeremiah.

  “Coming.” I catch up to Jeremiah, Gabriel at my heels. We take a series of twists and turns through the church, and once or twice, I think I see Caldwell’s face for an instant in an unlit doorway. But whenever I look for a second or third time, he’s never there.

  I must be imagining it.

  “No,” Gabriel says. His voice is velvet in my ears. “He is waiting for the chance to grab hold of you.”

  Better make sure my shield stays up then. God, this is getting old.

  “What is getting old?” Gabriel asks, those emerald eyes falling on mine.

  All these dudes fighting over me. Girls like this shit? It’s not flattering at all. It’s suffocating.

  Life is hard enough without Jeremiah and Caldwell circling me like sharks, each one waiting for the chance to chomp off one of my legs.

  We turn yet another corner in the labyrinth of the church.

  “Down,” Jeremiah screams. His hand connects with my shield, but instead of moving me, my shield rebuffs him, his own body hitting the floor.

  Caldwell’s men fire. Bullets slam into my shield and ricochet, zipping off in other directions. My shield shimmers and blurs on impact, but remains solid and impenetrable.

  “That’s cool.” I can’t help but be impressed with my awesomeness. I’m bulletproof.

  The bolt-cutting guard yelps as a stray bullet slices through his upper arm. Blood wells up through the hole in his black clothing.

  “Less cool,” I say, worried it was a bullet bouncing of my shield that got him. Another one of Jeremiah’s men reach forward and grab the bolt-cutting guard, dragging him around a corner, out of sight.

  Jeremiah shouts more orders into his earpiece and men flood the small corridor.

  Caldwell appears in the middle of the hall and all gunfire ceases. Jeremiah’s soldiers go stiff and jerky like puppets on strings. A swirl of black shadows emerge from Caldwell, ribboning around him.

  “What the—?” I take a step back.

  Men start falling at his feet. Anyone who brushes against the black ribbons falls down.

  Dead.

  Totally dead.

  Because unconscious people don’t pass out, eyes open and vacant.

  Jeremiah’s wide eyes meet my own. He considers the scene, mouth ajar.

  Georgia, Caldwell’s wife-woman-whatever the hell she is steps out from behind Caldwell and as soon as I see her I realize the black ribbons of death are coming from her, not Caldwell.

  Her palms are turned up toward the ceiling, but her arms hang low by her side. The ribbons follow her gaze, reaching out and attacking whatever object her eyes fall on.

  She’s controlling them with her eyes. Shit.

  “She’s partis,” I tell Jeremiah, just in case he can’t see the ribbon dancing. “She’s sucking the life out of people. Uh, you should go.”

  Jeremiah stops calling his men into the room. Smart.

  Caldwell seizes this opportunity to take his men out of the church. First they are here, fighting Jeremiah’s men. Then they’re gone, his men gone with him.

  I don’t think Georgia can penetrate my shield, so I step forward, putting myself between her and Jeremiah’s men. It isn’t that I like any of them enough to save their lives, but it seems like a jerk thing to do, just standing over to the side with a shield, watching people die.

  I try to gain Georgia’s attention. “You should join a c
ircus. You can be in the freak show.”

  She turns her cold eyes on me.

  “Your stage name can be Rigor Mortis Ribbons. No. Dancer of Death. Or maybe Death and Ribbon Dancing.”

  Her jaw tightens, but I think it’s working. She’s stopped looking at Jeremiah and his men and in my periphery, I see them sneaking away, sliding into the hallways behind us.

  “It’d be a killer show.” I grin. “Get it?”

  One of her black ribbons snaps forward and slams against my shield. My shield hisses like water thrown on a hot skillet. Sparks even fly.

  “Why the hell hasn’t he tried to kill you, Georgia?” Anger makes my face and neck hot.

  My shield throbs wildly, half-blue fire, half-purple.

  She takes a step away from me.

  Caldwell reappears behind Georgia and they exchange a glance. Then she takes a step back into his arms. He wraps himself around her. It’s tender, like she’s the most precious thing in the world.

  They disappear, leaving me alone, standing in the center of the hallway.

  He loves her.

  It’s like a fist has been shoved into my chest and is squeezing my heart.

  My shield fails altogether.

  For a long time, I thought maybe my father was broken. He’d died and then suffered in a camp for years. Maybe he just lost his ability to relate to others. Then there’s this Maisie shit. But again, I thought maybe he was only going through the motions. After all, it wasn’t like Maisie and Caldwell appeared to have this amazing connection or anything. Teenage angst or not, there was a distance there. Nothing to be jealous of.

  But this.

  The way he took Georgia in his arms. The gentle, sweet way—it wasn’t fake at all. The way she folded into his chest, with trust and love—he’s given her a reason to believe in him like that.

  He loves her.

  But not me.

  So it is personal. All the attempts I’ve made trying to say it’s not me, it’s him, crumble away.

  “It’s me.” I can feel tears welling, my throat constricting under their weight. It’s why Lane didn’t want me. It’s why Ally found someone else. It’s why—

  “Jesse,” Gabriel takes a hold of me. “Breathe.”

  “It’s me,” I scream and the church explodes with blue fire.

  Chapter 30

  Jesse

  Jeremiah is dead.

  Blackened flesh. The scorched glass of his spectacles. Almost nothing is left of the sweater vest. The three other men lay dead in the hallway with him. Jeremiah’s men no doubt.

  I’ve been responsible for someone’s death before. I was present when Caldwell killed Brinkley and I couldn’t save him. That was my fault.

  This is different. I killed someone.

  Four someones.

  I slump against the wall, sliding down its unforgiving stone until I’m on my knees beside the body. Jeremiah’s body.

  I breathe. In. Out. I try to think, but my mind is a clear shocked buzz. White flames burn around me, then fizzle to smoke. I can’t process what I’ve done, a single mantra repeating in my head.

  I don’t kill people, I save people. I don’t kill people, I save people. I don’t kill people, I save people. I don’t kill people—

  “You need to leave this place.” Gabriel warns. “You cannot stay here.”

  “Jesse. Move. He’s coming.”

  Nothing Gabriel says can make me get up from the floor. My eyes fixate on a place where two stones jut together, one pushing the other up and out of place.

  Gabriel gives up and disappears. Or he is forced out by the owner of the polished black shoes that step into my field of vision.

  Caldwell kneels down in front of me. “Jesse.”

  He is able to get quite close, because my shield doesn’t erect around me.

  “You don’t understand what is happening to you.” He lays one hand over my knee. “But I do. I have gone through this, and I can help you. The longer you fight what you are, the more grief you will experience.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me.” I look up and search his face. It’s as unreadable as the scorched stones surrounding us.

  “I want you to accept your role in this. Stop trying to play the hero. Stop trying to escape, and embrace what you are. It will make this—everything that must happen—easier.”

  “For you or me?” I ask, but I know the answer. I saw it in the way he wrapped his arms around Georgia. I’m just a chess piece he’s trying to maneuver. But can I get something from him too? Should I play so I can help myself?

  “Come with me. It’s almost time for the main event and I want you there.” He stands and offers his hand. “Please.”

  I look at the four dead bodies.

  I did that.

  Me.

  If Caldwell kills me, maybe it would be better. I’m going to die anyway. The world will die anyway. And if he kills me, at least it will keep me from hurting anyone else.

  Chapter 31

  Ally

  “Goddammit!” Gloria slams her laptop shut. I let go of the steering wheel just long enough to reach over and slip the device out of her hands before she throws it into the windshield. I hand the computer to Nikki in the backseat.

  “What happened?” Nikki asks, sitting forward to accept the laptop.

  Gloria turns toward the passenger window. “He took her back to The Needle. Fuck.”

  “There goes our window of opportunity.” Both Gloria and Nikki give me a cold glare. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Now is not the time for pessimism.”

  My chest constricts as I turn on Gloria’s blinker and switch lanes. It’s as if I can see an ever-expanding ocean between us, taking Jesse farther and farther away from me.

  Nikki’s ear glows blue, her wireless device blinking to life. “Tamsin.”

  Her brow furrows, the creases above her eyebrows deepening. She exhales. “I’ll be there soon. Follow protocol three until I arrive.”

  The blue earbud goes dark and she meets my eyes.

  “You’ll have to drop me off at Tate Tower.”

  “We can’t stay at Tate Tower,” Gloria says, unyielding.

  “I understand,” Nikki says, her voice calm. “But I have to go back. Jeremiah is dead, and I have to assume control.”

  I tap the brake without meaning to, my eyes flicking up to meet hers in the rearview. “Jeremiah’s dead?”

  “Jesse killed him.” Nikki measures my face. “If my report is accurate.”

  “Shit,” Gloria says.

  “What happened?” I ask Nikki.

  “They were trying to rescue her from Caldwell, and she lost control. Four men were killed.”

  My heart lurches. Four men were killed. She will become less stable, the more power she absorbs.

  “I have to run things until Jeremiah is able to. We—”

  “Wait, what? You said he was dead.”

  Gloria turns away from the window. “Jeremiah has NRD.”

  “So he’ll only be dead for a little while?” I ask.

  “Right,” Nikki says. “So until he is able, I have to coordinate the units. It’ll be easier for me to monitor everything from control at Tate Tower. So, please, take me back.”

  “You can’t stay there,” I remind her.

  “We’ll only stay until Jeremiah is awake. Our secondary location doesn’t have the medical ward up and running yet. Once it does, or once he’s stable enough, we’ll move. We should still be able to clear the building before Jackson’s prediction catches up to us.”

  I hook a right at the next light and carry us east.

  “There’s something else.” Nikki settles back into her seat as if bracing herself for my reaction.

  I don’t tell her to spit it out. I just flick my eyes up to the rearview and meet hers in an invitation.

  “There are more partis in the city,” she says. “Besides Jesse.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When they use their power, it produces gam
ma rays. In addition to Jesse’s output, we’ve registered three other sources in the city in the last 24 hours. No doubt one is Caldwell, but we don’t know about the other two.”

  Another Jason—two Jasons—loose and prowling the city. I think back to Minli and Monroe. Could they be in the city looking for a fight? Or maybe someone even worse.

  God, no.

  “There was a reading quite close to Jackson’s apartment while we were there,” Nikki adds. “It’s quite possible that we’re being watched for weaknesses. We should be on our guard.”

  “Okay.” What else can I say?

  We arrive at Tate Tower, and it’s like arriving with the President. Before I can even fully park the car on the street, personnel flood Gloria’s Cadillac. Nikki is escorted inside by a team of guards, one man two inches taller than Nikki, quickly debriefs her on the state of things.

  Nikki goes up in the first elevator with her guard, and our eyes lock for the briefest moment. She gives me a reassuring smile and I return it.

  I can’t help but find her attractive at moments like this. A girl in power, self-assured and handling her business, it’s a special kind of turn on for me.

  We’re about to go back to the car but the guard speaks to me.

  “Tamsin suggests that you return to your apartment here in the tower,” the guard says. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman through the armor, and the head plate masks the voice. “But she realizes you may not want to stay.”

  “We’ll stay,” Gloria says.

  I manage to keep the surprise off of my face. The guards leave us, returning to whatever order Nikki is no doubt sending them through their little blue earbuds.

  I don’t say anything as Gloria steps into an open elevator and smashes a button. I don’t speak until the doors close.

  “We’ll stay for a little while?” I ask.

  “Get the rest of your things. And Jesse’s. We don’t want to lose anything in the blast.”

  I’m relieved we’re finally alone. Alone enough anyway.

  The door to the apartment Nikki and I share opens this time.

  The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates. The Count of Monte Cristo. I read it in French class my senior year. It’s strange how the mind works. How it can pull up a memory from the bottom of a dark pool of forgetfulness.