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

by Kory M. Shrum

  “There’s a roadblock,” Gideon says, downshifting. “So much for taking back roads to stay out of sight.”

  Officers swarm the pavement. Several stand with their boot heels in the gravel shoulder and backs to wide open fields. More are in the road, leaning against the few cars that have clotted at this particular section of blacktop. Three state trooper vehicles block the way with a wooden barricade covering the gap between. If the officer approves a car, then the barricade is lifted and the driver is allowed to pass through to the other side.

  “If they aren’t looking for us, then they should let us pass.” I’m trying to count how many officers there are.

  Uriel, I think, hoping to prick the angel’s ears. Do you see something I don’t?

  Everything, a haughty voice retorts.

  Can I kill them all?

  You’ll likely die, he says.

  “What are the chances they aren’t looking for us?” Gideon asks with a derisive sneer, unaware of the internal conversation. “Oh god, why are you smiling like that?”

  I giggle. “This will be fun.”

  “Rach—be reasonable,” Gideon says. “You can’t squeeze all their hearts or throw their cars without taking at least one bullet to the head and then where will we be? Dare I even mention how vulnerable I am?”

  “Don’t whine, Gideon.” I bend down and rub the soft fur on my leopard print heels. “It’s not sexy.”

  The car in front of us inches forward to take its turn as the one in front of it creeps toward the lifted barrier.

  “Do as I say, pretty boy, and we will both get out of this alive.”

  Uriel’s laughter rings deep through my ears and I squirm in my seat, at the ready. Gideon must be right, of course. Already, several officers on the side of the road have turned their neutral gazes on us. One points at the large scrape along the side of the Mercedes and I wonder if I should have let Gideon ditch the car in Pennsylvania as he wanted.

  A cop with his rifle starts walking toward us as the car in front is given the go ahead to depart.

  “Ready,” I whisper and Gideon’s fingers tense on the gearshift. As the car in front of us is halfway through the barrier, I act. “Go!”

  Gideon punches the gas, lurching past two officers. He barely clips one, sending him tumbling to the pavement. The cops in front raise their rifles, but I was expecting that. I shove them back over their vehicles, their guns shooting worthlessly up into the air. The officer trying to get the barrier back into place gets a nice hard shove too.

  I don’t stop at the barrier, of course. With my mind, I shove hard against all the cars in front of us. Rubber wheels squeal against the pavement as they slide toward the shoulder. By the time Gideon reaches the barrier, there’s a nice big hole for him to fly through.

  He’s laughing like a school boy.

  I turn back to see the officers climbing into their cars.

  “Here comes your daily dose of excitement, Cariño.”

  “Can’t. Wait.” He shifts and the Mercedes accelerates again, easily overtaking the vehicle that’d passed through the barrier ahead of us.

  The troopers gain on us, passing the car that pulled over at the sight of flashing lights.

  I turn around in my seat and focus on the car closest to ours.

  Uriel, I ask. Your vision is better than mine. Tell me when they are lined up.

  One trooper moves over to the left trying to pass Gideon but he moves to the center of the road. A car approaches in the opposite lane, but I concentrate on the steering wheel, yanking it hard toward the ditch.

  Uriel?

  Now.

  I don’t make the mistake of shoving the cars themselves. To push them back would take a great deal of force. I’d have to override their forward momentum enough to stop them and then use more force to knock them back.

  I choose an easier target.

  In one swift jerk, I yank up large slabs of concrete stretching behind the Mercedes and the pack of officers gaining on us. It comes up in giant sheets rising up like a great black wave before folding over onto the cars. The underside facing me was clotted with mud and earth, bits of grass sticking to the axle.

  The dust cloud is tremendous. When it clears, I see two cop cars have managed to maneuver around this. The car that was closest to us only had its back end lifted. The other must have been near the back of the pack and had more time to escape the danger than his colleagues in the front.

  “I’m not sure the taxpayers will appreciate that,” Gideon says, but he’s smiling. He couldn’t care less about taxpayer money.

  “Stop the car,” I say.

  “Love, I don’t—”

  “Stop the car!” I command and the Mercedes comes to a squealing stop. The front right wheel slides off the road onto the shoulder. Now further from the wreckage of the pile-up and destroyed road, I see three cars still in pursuit. Two from the pack and the one tailing us closely from the start. Five officers in all.

  I throw the car door open and hear Gideon groan.

  “Stay in the car,” I tell him. “You could get shot.”

  “You aren’t bulletproof either,” he argues but keeps his head down.

  I walk toward the police with my arms up as if in surrender. The man in the closest car lifts his gun and I break his neck. I barely twitch my pinkie and the vertebrae crack like eggs on the side of a frying pan.

  A ripple of pleasure rolls through me. Uriel’s laughter rumbles from deep in my mind.

  “Freeze! On the ground!”

  I turn my head to see the three officers approaching in a triangle formation, guns up and pointed. They look like some strange boy band about to break into song and dance.

  I reach out with my mind and grab their hearts. All three and squeeze. Their arms falter in front of them, as they lurch forward, clutching their chests. They drop to their knees. Their guns clatter against the road like plastic toys.

  They stop moving.

  Rachel! Uriel booms and I jump at the sound of his voice.

  A gunshot goes off and a shell strikes me in the chin. It’s as if a giant fist has punched me across the jaw. I stumble back as white fire explodes up the side of my face. Hot blood pours down the front of my beautiful dress, making the satin cling to my breasts.

  The world is already losing focus as I turn on the fifth officer. No freeze. No hands up. He sees four officers fall dead and decides not to waste a word on me.

  My body weakens from the massive blood loss, and my mind dulls at the edges, either from the pain or blood loss of having my jaw blasted off.

  I do see him though and I flex that muscle in my mind bringing him to his knees. I don’t know if I kill him quickly or cleanly, but I don’t take any more shots to the face.

  I sink to my knees and place my palms on the cold pavement.

  Gideon’s boots pound the pavement as he runs up behind me. He places a hand on my back and tries to gently roll me over. I’m moving in that direction anyway, as my elbows buckle and I collapse completely to the road.

  “Holy shit,” he says, his eyes wide. “Your face—”

  He grimaces, wrinkling his nose and looking away. He doesn’t finish the sentence.

  What? I want to say. Aren’t I still pretty?

  But I can’t use my mouth to make words. I can’t even get my throat to swallow the blood I’m choking on until Gideon rolls me onto my side. It probably isn’t a coincidence that he points at my fragmented jaw on the pavement.

  “Hold on,” he tells me.

  I want to laugh. Hold on? Hold on to what? What is there to hold on to when the entire world falls away?

  Chapter 27

  Jesse

  I’m sitting on the bed in the little bedroom while Gloria loads up the car.

  I look at my meager possessions on the bed beside me and try to clear my head. Realizing that everything I own can fit into a backpack isn’t helping me gain a positive perspective of my life. My confusion only deepens. Why me? How can I be so t
otally unlucky? My father dies and it’s unlucky. My mother remarries a child molester. Unlucky. I try to kill myself to escape the pain and horror only to find out I’m one of the few people who can’t die so easily. Even that makes me unlucky.

  And all the shitty things that have happened since: Eve tried to murder me. Liza tried to murder me. Caldwell tried to murder me—is still trying.

  I fall back on the bed and press my hands to my face.

  All I see is the pencil sketch of Ally dead, lying so peacefully on the desert floor. One softly clasped hand over her breast. It has to be Georgia who does it—kill her without leaving a single mark. I know I have to kill her first, but it isn’t that easy.

  Maisie doesn’t want Georgia to die. I saw that clearly in the bizarre linked power exchange that we shared with Monroe. So I can also expect any attempt I make to kill Georgia and protect Ally will be resisted by Maisie. Hell, Maisie might even try to fight me over it. And since Maisie is my only chance in reviving a dead Ally, I have to hope she stays on my side.

  “Why are people so complicated?” I groan and throw myself face down on the bed.

  A soft knock comes at the door and it creaks open. Ally peeks inside. “Gloria says we’re about ready. Are you packed?”

  I groan into the mattress, face down.

  “That’s a no,” she says with a sad smile. “Let me help.”

  “Don’t bother,” I say. “I don’t need any of this shit anyway.”

  “Well I for one would appreciate if you packed the toothbrush at least,” Ally says and shoved the purple stick into my backpack. “The underwear is optional.”

  I give her a weak smile.

  She squeezes my hand. “Tell me.”

  “I think you should go with Nikki. Just get away from me.”

  Her furrow deepens. “We decided sending me away wouldn’t keep me safe. We’ve learned that lesson, haven’t we?”

  It’s true. We have. And we’ve learned from Gloria’s mistakes too—which is why I can’t tell Ally she’s going to die. What if something changes? What if her new decision seals her fate?

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” Ally begs, squeezing my hand tighter. “You’re shutting me out and I don’t know why.”

  “I’m not going to survive this,” I say. I look up and search her eyes. “You know that right? I’m going to die.”

  She looks away first. When she dares to look me in the eyes again, her eyes are tight. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I’m not lucky.”

  Unlucky. That’s what’s wrong with me. I’m unlucky.

  So why in the hell would I think I was lucky enough to get the girl? That’d I’d be lucky enough to get out of this alive?

  She smiles. “I’m lucky. I’ll be lucky enough for the both of us.”

  Again I see the image of her dead on the desert floor.

  “Maybe you’re not lucky either,” I say. “You’ve been stabbed. Assaulted. You ended up dating a big jerk.”

  Ally snorts. “You’re not a big jerk, Jess.”

  “Are you calling me short?”

  She cocks her head, knowing I set her up for that stupid joke. She scoots closer to me. “I was lucky enough to find you after I thought you were dead. I was lucky enough to survive the stabbing and the assault. I get to do this.”

  She leans in for a kiss. Her soft lips brush mine once, then presses to mine for a second, deeper kiss. I don’t stop her.

  I clasp one hand on the back of her neck and pull away from the kiss to look into her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s grinning.

  “I could kiss you forever,” she says, smiling.

  “I don’t think we’ll have forever.” My face crumples. Even as I contemplate our impending doom, I realize it’s not my death I fear. I don’t care about dying. It’s about not getting what I want.

  I want to be her happily ever after.

  I hate the idea of not having her for myself. But would I really want Ally to be alone and sad either? No. I can’t wish that on her. She’s confessed how depressed and lonely she was after my suicide, unaware that I’d survived, then moved to St. Louis and began working as a death replacement agent. I can’t ever wish that on her again. I’d love to dunk Sasquatch’s head in a toilet, but I know she’ll be good to Ally. Not perfect. She’ll never love her the way I love her. But maybe she can at least keep her from feeling so alone.

  “A penny for your thoughts.” Ally brushes the bangs out of my eyes. “Before Gloria comes up here and drags us out by our ears.”

  “I was thinking about how much I love you.” I pull her into my arms. “I don’t think I have a lot of time left with you, but I want you to know that I’ll love you forever. I always have, since we were kids, and I always will.”

  Ally pulls back from me with tears in her eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid. Jesse, promise me.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  Her jaw tightens. “What about what I want?”

  “What do you want?”

  “To be with you. That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted for as long as I remember.”

  “You can’t be with me if I’m dead,” I snort. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I can be dead too.”

  “No!” I stand up, knocking her back a little. “We aren’t pulling a Thelma and Louise. You’re not going to die.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  We aren’t as in control of this as we think, Brinkley had warned. And here Ally and I are fighting about what will happen as if we’re calling all the shots.

  Gloria shoves the door to the bedroom open. “Now that we have agreed no one will die, would the two of you mind getting in the car?”

  Ally shoves all my things into my backpack in one swoop of her hand and zips the top.

  “So much for organization.” I slip one strap over my shoulder.

  We squeeze down the narrow hallway and run into Maisie and Winston on the landing. Single file we descend the steps and go right out the front door. Gloria doesn’t lock it behind her and I’m not sure what good it would have done with a giant hole blasted out one side of the house anyway. Like Monroe cares!

  I’m behind Ally, watching her walk toward the Jeep, a black hardtop Wrangler. Gloria has parked on the street outside the iron gate. At the end of the walk, I grab Ally’s hand. She looks back at me and gives me a sweet smile. I squeeze her hand tighter and pull myself up to her side and kiss her cheek. Her smile is even bigger.

  Good.

  As confused and frustrated and downright furious as I am about all this, I don’t want to take it out on Ally. I want to enjoy these last few moments I have with her. They feel precious and fleeting.

  “I love you,” I whisper into her ear. “More than anything.”

  She turns to kiss me, but her lips never hit their mark. I collapse, pulled down by an explosion of pain in my jaw.

  Chapter 28

  Jesse

  “What’s happening?” Ally’s shrill question pierces my ears. “Gloria?”

  My eyes flutter open and the first thing I see is a giant black tire with white letters etched into its rubber. I blink, trying to clear the pain away and see Gloria under the car. No, Gloria isn’t under the car. She’s on the other side, bent over Maisie, saying her name over and over again, one hand on the kid’s cheek, slapping it. Winston howls from the back of the Jeep, like the way he howls if he hears a firetruck’s siren.

  I feel bits of gravel under my hand as I try to push myself up. But I’m not lying on the Rue Dauphine. I’m in the middle of an interstate hundreds of miles away.

  The horrible pain in my jaw. The sight of blood spilling down the front of a dress—Rachel’s dress—the way it splatters against the concrete. Gideon’s face when he turns me over—turns Rachel over. Then the blackness. The dark suction dragging me down.

  I gasp for air.

  Ally searches my face, her brown eyes desperately trying to wring some kind of recognition out o
f me.

  “Can you hear me?” she asks as the world comes into focus around her. I can smell the rubber, the oil and gasoline. Ally. The door stands open behind her as she kneels in front of me.

  I nod, unsure if my vocal chords will actually work should I try to use them. Ally pulls me to standing by the elbow while I hang onto the car with my other arm. On my feet, I see Maisie through the window, cradling her jaw.

  “She got her face blown off.” Maisie meets my gaze, her eyes big and wet. “Her fucking face.”

  “Maisie!” Ally tsks, surprised to hear the kid drop the F-bomb for the first time.

  Maisie doesn’t even register Ally’s shock.

  “Did you feel it?” I ask Maisie, noting her wide, frightened eyes. Do I look as shaken?

  “I felt you,” she said, lips quivering.

  I felt you, I repeat in my head. But not Rachel? So Monroe restored the connection between me and Rachel. And me and Maisie, but Rachel and Maisie do not share a connection.

  “You looked like you were dying.” Ally removes her hand from her heart.

  “Rachel died.” I give Gloria a hard look. “What the hell did Monroe do?”

  “Can you get into the car?” Gloria asks. She opens the door for Maisie.

  It had been so clear. So goddamn vivid. Not only the pain or the sight of the torn up road. But the cool air, the barren fields stretching in all directions. Even the feel of the satiny fabric rubbing the top of my thighs. The way my feet had begun to ache inside of the leopard print heels. All of it.

  Maisie doesn’t let go of her jaw as she climbs into the front passenger seat.

  “What’s going on?” Ally helps me into the back of the car and then crawls in after I slide across the seat.

  “Did Monroe explain to you what he was going to do to us?” I ask Gloria.