Worth Dying for (A Dying for a Living Novel Book 5)

by Kory M. Shrum

  “No,” I say and knock her hand away. “You’re going to take his power. Let him die and when he wakes up he’ll be fine.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Monroe says. “I’ve got to show you now.”

  Monroe grabs my hand and Maisie’s. It’s too much like the dreamscape with our doppelgangers in all their Kumbaya glory.

  “This is how it’s supposed to be,” Monroe says. “Y’all see what I’m saying. Hold on to me now.”

  I’m trying to yank my hand away. “Live.” I want to scream but he won’t let go of me. His old hand is impossibly strong on mine.

  Monroe gasps and his hand convulses in mine.

  Warmth shoots up my arm, racing toward my heart. My chest is filled with fire and the fire doesn’t stop there. It crawls up the back of my throat, burning my nose before settling into my brain. It’s like a swarm of fire ants have crawled through my ears and have started liquefying my gray matter.

  I want to let go, clutch my skull and scream, but I can’t. I can’t move my body, or breathe, or call out for help. I’m frozen, locked into the pain of Monroe’s death.

  I do manage to open my eyes but I don’t see Monroe on his knees in the destroyed room. No soldiers with guns. No shocked Ally or Gloria watching helplessly. I open my eyes and see Monroe in the dreamscape. He’s glowing white, bright as a star, but I can still see his face. His beautiful smile, so full of relief.

  “This is what we were always meant to be,” he says and I see the wings. His wings with feathers the color of a dove’s stretch out on either side of him. Then the light overtakes him and he’s gone.

  The room comes back into focus and someone is crying.

  Maisie. She’s sobbing into her hands, her face covered by her palms. I don’t move or say anything.

  “Jesse?” Ally kneels down in front of me. The men with guns have climbed through the hole in the wall and are standing in the room awkwardly. Everyone is waiting for something to happen.

  Ally reaches up and wipes a thumb under my nose. It comes away bright red with my blood. “Jess? Say something.”

  Maisie is still crying. “Why would he just die?”

  She pulls her knees into her chest and wraps her arms around them, hiding her face. Her sobs grow louder.

  “He wanted to die.” Gloria holsters her gun and places a hand on Maisie’s head. Her voice is hard and steady, but her eyes give her away. Tears pool in the corner of her eyes as she stares at Monroe’s lifeless body in the center of the room. It isn’t imploding like the others had. No blue fire incineration. His body only lies there.

  “Why is he still here? Why didn’t he catch fire like the others?” I ask.

  Ally looks up and starts talking to someone in black body armor. “Can you—”

  “Of course,” Nikki says. “Kirch, Franklin. Help me with this.”

  “Monroe.” I seize her armored calf. “His name was Monroe.”

  She doesn’t even fight me on it. “Of course. Please help me with Monroe.”

  “No, wait,” Maisie says. “Wait, wait!”

  She crawls toward Monroe’s body. She places her hands on his chest and bends over into his face. She’s touching his bloody shirt but doesn’t seem to notice her hands are staining red.

  Gloria grabs her and pulls her off the body.

  “Let me try!” Maisie wails. “Let me try!”

  “No,” Gloria says gently. “It’s not what he wanted.”

  Maisie shrugs her off and lunges but Gloria has to seize her again before she can blow up his nose like she did to Winston a few months ago. Three little puffs and then he might stir, might come back to life. Would it work? We won’t find out because Gloria is holding Maisie above the body while the others prepare to take him away.

  The body.

  Because that’s all that’s left of Monroe.

  “Did you absorb his power or was another partis called?” Ally asks, such a callous question. She’s searching Maisie and me for any signs. “You were both touching him at his time of death but neither of you seem to be ‘rebooting’?” Ally uses air quotes around the word ‘rebooting’. She doesn’t like that term, but I agree there isn’t a more accurate one.

  “They absorbed it,” Gloria says. “That is what Monroe wanted you to understand. You can share power. You do not need to kill each other for it. You can give it freely.”

  I imagine what that might look like: Me, Maisie, and Rachel in a circle, all alive and well. All casting a shield that protects the world. It’s not ideal. It’s not my ‘get the girl and live happily ever after daydream’, but having my friends alive, my sister alive, and the woman I love safe is a decent second place prize.

  “I do feel a little—funny,” Maisie admits.

  “I do too.” Though it’s hard to explain exactly what’s changed.

  “Cast a shield,” Gloria instructs.

  “I don’t know how that would—”

  “Cast a shield and see if you have more power,” she insists. “The only way you’d have more power is because he gave it to you. Try.”

  I cast my shield.

  “Shit,” Nikki says.

  Ally and I are both speechless. The shield is huge. The entire room is coated in a violet glow. It covers the eight of us easily: me, Gloria, Maisie, Nikki, Ally, even Monroe and the two soldier helpers who’d come at Nikki’s command to move the body.

  “I can feel it.” Maisie’s eyes grow as wide as half dollars. “I can feel your shield.”

  I try to make the shield bigger and it grows, expanding without effort. Not only is it so much bigger, but it moves with finesse. It passes over objects without knocking anything back. And the purple glow is intense, so much brighter than it ever had been in the past.

  I drop the shield, beginning to feel a little tired, with a touch of headache forming behind my eyes.

  Maisie bounces with excitement. “I could feel your power. Can you feel me?”

  The answer is no. “I guess we won’t know until you do the back-to-life thing,” I tell her.

  Ally helps me to my feet. In the back of my mind, somewhere far away, I remember our fight. But now with Monroe’s power coursing through me, I can’t seem to stay mad. A little sad, maybe, but I can’t hold on to my anger.

  “If we can get Rachel on board—” Maisie says.

  “If she wants to share the power,” Ally adds, sounding hopeful. “Then perhaps you won’t become unstable when you assimilate Caldwell and Georgia’s gifts.”

  I meet her eyes. “Is that why you stopped me from murdering him in the church?”

  I envision this again for the second time in as many days: Caldwell and I locked arm in arm, bodies blazing. I would have killed him then if Ally hadn’t stopped me.

  Her face falls. “I’m afraid that if you—either of you—kill him, it will tear you apart. He has so many powers already. Even absorbing one makes a person unstable. Absorbing so many at once—”

  “But we can share now,” Maisie says, so hopeful.

  “But if Rachel and Caldwell and Georgia won’t let you share, it may come to violence,” Ally says.

  Anger and fear washes over me. No one is hurting my mom. They won’t dare. I’ll tear them apart—

  Wait, what?

  I turn to Maisie and see all of these emotions playing out on her face.

  It’s Maisie who cares. Apparently Monroe’s hookup is more than a power share. Oh god, I hope the kid isn’t getting all my convoluted feels for Ally too.

  “Gloria—” Ally looks away as Nikki and the others take hold of Monroe’s body. I too let my eyes slide to an indeterminate spot on the floor. “When I was searching for information on the partis, I discovered that Monroe attempted suicide at least twice. Why?”

  “His boy was killed,” Gloria says without inflection. But she also won’t look any of us in the eyes.

  He’s my heart, that boy. Monroe had said once. But he’d only ever talked about the boy in present tense. I’d assumed he was s
omewhere safe, like my little brother Daniel. Alive and well and far far away from all this madness.

  That’s what I get for assuming.

  “He wanted his death to mean something in the end,” Gloria says. “And now it does.”

  Maisie and I exchange a glance. She feels guilty. Or I do. I can’t tell. Maybe we are sharing guilt over Monroe’s bittersweet goodbye.

  “But if Rachel is already unstable—”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s our friend.” The anger rises. But it isn’t as sharp as before. It’s tinged with doubt now. And fear. I shoot Maisie a sharp look.

  “I’m sorry!” she says. “But she’s crazy!”

  “She’s our friend,” I say, trying to flood her little sensor with all the trust and love I have for Rachel. I think it actually works. Her shoulders relax. “She will help us. I’m sure of it. Especially now that there’s another way.”

  Chapter 24

  Rachel

  I can’t describe how excited I am to reach Arizona. Everything in me is begging for the next fight.

  “Can’t you make it go any faster?” I ask, a headache building behind my eyes. It feels like tiny creatures are going to push the top of my head right off.

  “I don’t have a gadget for controlling traffic, darling.” Gideon glances at me from the driver’s seat of a brand new Mercedes. It was the first luxury car we could find. At the edge of the lot, we walked right up to the door and climbed in. This was after I unlocked it from the outside, of course. The push button starter required no key at all.

  “Drive on the shoulder?”

  “What shoulder?” he asks. “There are concrete barriers on both sides.”

  I look at the long line of red tail lights stretching before me.

  You are subject to no one, Uriel says in my ear. He isn’t visible. There’s no place for him to materialize in this two-seater.

  A fresh wave of anger washes over me, flushing my cheeks with warmth. An idea comes to me and I look at Gideon and grin.

  “I am subject to no one,” I say aloud.

  He gives me a crooked smile. Not entirely pleasure, but also a hint of fear.

  I wag my eyebrows. “Hold on, pretty boy.”

  I focus on the cars ahead of me. I concentrate until I can feel that part of my arm, the extension of my power, wrap over the metal bodies. I enclose one after another with my power. Then I lift. The cars go straight up into the air.

  Gideon makes a choked sound of surprise. “No.”

  “Drive,” I tell him as the first few cars reveal their underbellies, a map of axles and fuel lines. A few tires spin desperately but find no ground to cling to. “Drive!”

  Gideon swears and throws the car into gear. The Mercedes accelerates beautifully, a flawless advance. I look up at the undercarriages as we speed beneath one car, then five and ten. Gideon has to slow once when I don’t lift the car as quickly as he’s accelerating.

  I turn in my seat in time to see the first cars falling back to the highway. They slam against the pavement. Windows burst out. Tires explode on impact.

  I’m laughing so hard my sides hurt.

  Gideon scowls at me from the driver seat. “You could injure someone.”

  “Spoil sport,” I pout. “Don’t ruin all the fun.”

  His worried features twist in on themselves, until it isn’t fear or irritation in that dark brow now. His lips crook up in a smile.

  “Admit it.” I reach over the gear shift and give his thigh a squeeze. “You’re having fun.”

  He puts one hand on mine, stopping me from going higher to yank open his belt. “We have 3000 pounds dangling overhead.”

  “You do like it. Danger. Chaos.” And it’s why I like you.

  He’s grinning now. A genuine smile. Gideon may tell himself that he has morals, but I know what he loves most. A semi begins to lift off the ground and Gideon slows the Mercedes.

  “Faster,” I say.

  He doesn’t.

  “Hit the gas!”

  He obeys and the Mercedes accelerates. I count eighteen wheels before I see the underside of the cabin.

  “I’m amazing!”

  Gideon laughs. “That you are. There isn’t another creature like you on the planet.”

  I warm at his words. My desire to pull over and fuck the boy wars with my desire to get to Arizona and kill someone. Life is full of tough decisions.

  The traffic jam breaks ahead and gives way to slow moving cars. But I don’t stop. I shove the cars off the road, clearing a direct lane for Gideon and I.

  “How fast can this Mercedes go?”

  “About 245 km/h.”

  “Show me.” I press my head back against the seat just before he punches the gas. I focus all my attention on the cars ahead of me, shoving them from our path.

  Gideon breaks out into gleeful laughter. “This is so much better than Grand Theft Auto.”

  I’m laughing too even though a shadow passes over my mind.

  Uriel?

  Silence.

  Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but something is happening.

  I hear Jesse and Maisie. Voices chatter softly in the back of my mind. I can’t hear the words clearly, but I recognize the tone and pitch. And then the emotions come.

  Panic. Anger. Fear.

  I try to hold on to it, amplify it, and get a better sense of what is happening, but I can’t. A headache explodes behind my eyes and I clasp my hands over my face. I see Jesse and Maisie standing in a circle with others, holding hands and chanting They are in the center of a vortex, wind whipping around them ruthlessly.

  Monroe steps forward and places both his hands on the side of my face.

  White hot fire shoots from his fingertips into my skull. I try to stagger back from the old man, but he won’t let go. And I’m thousands of miles away from Louisiana on a turnpike in New Jersey. He shouldn’t have any power over me here.

  Monroe’s hold on me tightens. “Remember who your heart is.”

  “Fuck!” Gideon screams.

  I pull my eyes open in time to see a car swerve in front of the Mercedes. I try to move it, but my power is thick and sluggish in my veins.

  I only manage to move the baby blue Volkswagen beetle to the left enough that we scrape along its side, door to door. Sparks rain onto the windshield and Gideon. As soon as we are clear of the big blue Ford truck on the right of us, we coast right off into the ditch. Thank goodness the turnpike has grown shoulders. If we’d done this one mile back, there would’ve been nowhere for us to go but straight into a concrete barrier.

  “Christ, Rachel!” Gideon yells. His voice is cold and sharp. “What the bloody hell?”

  “Monroe,” I say, squeezing the side of my head. “He’s doing something to the powerlines.”

  Gideon’s eyes slide up to the sky. His tone is kinder when he speaks again. “What power lines?”

  “No,” I groan. I tap my temples. “The ones in here.”

  He stares at me, lips parted. He doesn’t say anything else. At last he reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  No. It feels like someone has been reading my diary. Someone has gone somewhere they shouldn’t. I don’t like it one bit.

  “Get back on the road.” I pry open my eyes and see trees. “We need to catch up to them.”

  Something flashes across Gideon’s face. Fear? Apprehension? I can’t get a good read because of my pounding head. I curl up into the seat and press against my temples harder, hoping to relieve some of the pressure there.

  “The road is clearing up ahead.” He shifts gears and gives me a strained smile from the driver’s seat. “It looks like we won’t need your immense talents at the moment.”

  “Good.” Because I need to save my strength.

  Chapter 25

  Jesse

  “Authorities say the Mercedes was stolen from a car lot just south of the city, near the interstate. We have positively identified the woman as Rachel Wright, asylum esca
pee and one of the five terrorists responsible for the kidnapping of Maisie Caldwell, daughter of esteemed church leader Timothy Caldwell. Anyone with any information is encouraged to call 1-888—”

  “He’s probably still dead from the blood loss,” Maisie says around a mouthful of Reese’s Pieces. She tosses one to Winston who catches it in the air. “It takes like eight hours, right?”

  “The database says six. Its entry was updated this afternoon.” Ally turns to me. “Can you imagine it? There are people out there, carrying on, having replacements, completely unaware of all of this.”

  I watch Winston catch another candy in his mouth. “Lucky dogs.”

  I curl up deeper into the cushions and hug my knees against my chest. I feel sick. It’s like my stomach acid is flooding up the back of my throat.

  Winston licks my hand and I give him half-hearted thanks. “What a loyal little buddy.” I’m trying not to register the number flashing on the television at the bottom of the news program. What would I say if I called?

  Hey, yeah, so that crazy bitch throwing cars all over the interstate is my friend. She’s sort of insane with these superpowers, so you should shut down the roads and stay the hell out of her way. By the way we’re not terrorists. Stop calling us that.

  That’d go over well.

  Ally sees my face and uses the remote to change the channel. “Let’s watch something else.”

  Maisie crumples up the candy wrapper and tosses it across the room into a wastebasket. “I’m still hungry. Can we go get some Chinese? No, let’s get more of that fried chicken! That stuff was amazeballs.”

  I rub my forehead. “I’m not sure we can leave.”

  All three of us look toward the hallway. Nikki and Gloria are in the next room exchanging angry, hushed whispers.

  Maisie huffs. “I’ll starve to death before they agree on anything. Then I’ll wake up and be even hungrier.”

  Ally turns up the volume on the television.

  A female announcer leans forward on her elbows, speaking directly to the camera while footage appears in the box by her head. “We’ve begun to see irregular flight patterns for birds. More whales than ever before are washing up on shores. Our very own correspondent Cameron Groove reports.”