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

by Kory M. Shrum

  I gave her a once-over. “What do you usually wear?”

  She frowned at herself. “Jeans. Hoodies.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know who sells those.”

  “I like comfortable clothes.”

  “Hmmm. We’ll go for urban chic then. I know some boutiques downtown that might have some stuff you like.”

  “I don’t want to spend too much money.” She looked at her hands self-consciously before abandoning the little spoon altogether. She lifted the glass and gulped down the remainder of the float.

  “The FBRD is footing the bill. Consider it a sign-on bonus. And you have to start all over, so we can’t be frugal here. Is there anything you need tonight?”

  Jesse shrugged. “I don’t have a toothbrush.”

  “Let’s go out for dinner and we’ll pick one up at the drugstore on the way back. There’s a Walgreens by this little Mexican restaurant I love. They have this amazing goat cheese dip.” I pretended to drool on myself. “We’ll stop there and get you the essentials. Deodorant. Toothbrush. A hair brush. Makeup, whatever you want. They have all that.”

  “I don’t wear makeup,” she said.

  I placed one hand on my heart. “Well, I guess we will keep you anyway.”

  She looked at the empty float glass and then back up at me again.

  “Want another?” I asked, trying to read the expression on her face. Longing? Shyness? I wasn’t sure.

  “No, I’m full. Thanks.” Then her expression darkened even more. “I’ll pay you back. Just figure up what all this costs. Add your rent and utilities and—”

  “Let me stop you there,” I said, squeezing her arm. She flinched and I dropped my hand. Abuse then. I knew that reaction as well as anyone. The way the body could react to sudden unwanted touching.

  “I don’t want to owe you anything,” Jesse said and now I was sure she really would cry.

  “You won’t. I’m not doing any of this because I want you to owe me something.”

  “But the money—”

  “Fuck the money,” I said.

  Her eyes went wide and the she let out a startled laugh.

  “This is your job. You’re getting paid. The bureau will reimburse me for any expense I report. They have to cover your expenses because this can be a shitty job, and you deserve to be paid well. Not everyone can do it.”

  She didn’t look entirely convinced. “Brinkley said only 2% of the population has NRD. And only a small percentage of those people are willing to be death replacements.”

  “Death replacement agents,” I corrected and put her glass and spoon in the sink. “Yes. So you’re very valuable. Got it? The least they can do is buy you some clean underwear.”

  This won me another surprised laugh. “And they’ll pay you back?”

  “Oh sure. It’s in the contract. Did Brinkley show you the contract?” I asked.

  She bit her lip. “I had to sign it.”

  I frown. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in August.”

  So young. Granted, I didn’t have much on her, but she wasn’t even old enough to be a death-replacement agent. She’d be shadowing me until August at least.

  “So what do you want to do before dinner?” I asked her. I pulled the ice cream from the freezer again and started to make my own float. Seeing her devour hers had awakened in me a hunger I didn’t know I had.

  She shrugged. “I wish I could call someone.”

  “A friend?” I asked, my curiosity piqued as I licked ice cream off the spoon.

  “Yeah,” she said. Another self-conscious smile spread over her face. “I want to tell my best friend I’m not dead. She’ll freak out.”

  I open another can of Cherry Coke and nod toward the cell phone on the table. “Help yourself.”

  The kid hopped off the stool and snatched up the phone resting on a turquoise placemat. She flipped it open, punched some numbers and waited. The longer she waited, the more nervous she looked, gnawing on her lip first, then her thumb. Finally, her brow shot up. “Mrs. Gallagher? Is Ally home?”

  Jesse’s face hardened.

  “It’s me, Jesse.” She frowned and hung up without saying goodbye.

  She stared at the phone on the table for a minute longer before she seemed to realize I was still in the room, watching her.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I think I’ll take a shower and then a nap, if you don’t care.”

  I nodded toward my bedroom. “There’s clean towels in the closet opposite the toilet. Just don’t pick a red one. That’s the color I’m using.”

  She disappeared from the room leaving me to eat my float alone.

  I would catch Jesse making phone calls to that number at all hours, day and night. But she would never say anything. Though once or twice she did leave a message. I thought she would go on like that forever and ever until about two days after Jesse’s first death replacement.

  She picked up her phone—in celebration of her first replacement, Brinkley had gotten her own cell phone—and started to dial a number. Half way through the dialing she stopped.

  “I—” Her voice trailed away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, when she didn’t finish.

  “I can’t remember her number.”

  Since she’d been sneaking around with mine up until this point, trying over and over again to contact this Ally but never getting through—either her bitch of a mother would shoot her down right from hello, or she’d delete the answering machine messages Jesse left—whatever the case, contact had not been made, but I had the number.

  I punched it into her phone for her. Thinking maybe she wanted to try from the new phone, throw the bitch off her trail. Caller ID was still a thing back then.

  But Jesse wouldn’t press send on her phone.

  “What’s wrong now?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember her name.”

  “Ally,” I said, hoping to knock a memory loose for her.

  “Ally,” she repeated.

  “Ally. Smart. Really good at track. Was going to be valedictorian or some shit. Go to college. Then law school and join her brother’s law firm.” I was pretty sure this Alice girl was the subject of some homoerotic wet dreams, but that hardly seemed like the thing to bring up now.

  “I can’t—I can’t remember her face. Oh my god, what the—” the first wave of panic washed over her. Her face seized up and her fingers blanched as she squeezed her phone.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, pulling the phone out of her hand. “It’s okay. It’s normal. Death replacing tends to burn through a few memories. Be grateful. I’m sure there’s some shit you wanted to forget.”

  I for one had forgotten some of what Chaplain had done, but it wasn’t enough. Sometimes I’d wake up in the dead of night feeling like I’d just been stabbed in the chest or had my throat slit, drenched in sweat and heart pounding, without the ability to vividly recall what I’d just been dreaming.

  “I forgot?” she asked, as if she wasn’t entirely sure she believed me. “Brinkley said I’d forget.”

  “Yeah and you’ve been calling her for months. It’s probably time you gave up on this so-called friend.”

  She sat her phone down in agreement but her face didn’t relax.

  I never saw Jesse call Ally again. By the time she’d completed her sixth replacement, she never even talked about the girl and I never brought her up. I knew it would confuse her. Hurt her. And I couldn’t bear to take her peace away.

  By then, I more than loved the kid.

  Remember who your heart is.

  Love is a luxury and immortality isn’t free. Sometimes you have to pay a price to keep it.

  Even if that price is your dearest friend.

  Chapter 36

  Jesse

  Gloria has to break the door down, but she manages it after a few tries. Maisie keeps her eyes on Winston, her gaze sliding to take in a corpse only once or twice. She bends to pick up the pug, cooing encouraging wo
rds I think are mostly for her. After all, he lifts his nose and sniffs the air like “what’s that strange smell?” but otherwise seems absolutely uninterested in the bodies strewn about.

  With one more hard shove of Gloria’s shoulder, the door gives. It’s awfully dark inside, so no one is quick to walk in first. When we look around, as reluctant to move as we feel, Gloria frowns at us. “This is only the utility shed. I’ll restore power and then we will breach the main building. It is very unlikely we will find a body inside.”

  No one moves.

  Gloria presses the door open farther with the flat of her hand and pulls out a large flashlight. She clicks it on and the beam springs to life. “Wait here.”

  The three of us nod enthusiastically, and Winston too because Maisie shakes him so hard.

  Gloria disappears into the shadowed hallway and the door starts to shut after her. I grab it at the last moment and Gloria calls out, her voice already from somewhere far down the hall. “The hinge is broken. No need to prop it open.”

  I let go of the door and feel foolish. “God, why does this place make me so jumpy?”

  The heat grows. So super cold at night. Really hot during the day. Got it. Cancel my subscription to the Arizona real estate catalogue then. I pull at my collar.

  “Uh, because it’s super creepy!” Maisie says, rubbing Winston’s exposed belly. She gestures around us at the exposed corpses, stripped of their flesh like carrion. “The place has some bad juju or karma or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things happened here.”

  I give Maisie a look. “What did your mom say?”

  “She told me what they did to her here.” Maisie’s voice tightens.

  After Caldwell took me hostage for the first time with the intention of murdering me slowly, he’d done his mind trick on me, where he broadcasts memories or false images directly into a person’s mind. And with that little mind trick, he showed me what it was like in this camp. He projected the sharp image of Georgia having her arm amputated above the elbow, without anesthesia, and for no real reason except the scientists and military wanted to see what her amazing NRD positive body could do.

  “Why would she describe that stuff to you?” I ask, angry at Georgia. The idea that Georgia was just as horrible of mother as my own frustrates the hell out of me. What could be gained by telling your kid that stuff?

  “She wanted to be sure that I understood bad things can happen to me.”

  “Tough lesson,” Ally murmurs giving me the side eye. “If he brings Georgia—”

  “He’ll bring her,” Maisie insists, peering into the dim hall for Gloria.

  “—then we can expect her to be just as affected by this place, if not more so than Caldwell. That’s good right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, turning the plan over in my mind, searching its seams for flaws. “We want them confused and not thinking straight.”

  “The battleground is as important as the battle,” a voice says and we all scream.

  Gloria pushes the door open and scowls at us. “You know my voice.”

  Our mouths snap shut.

  “Did you get the power to come on?” I ask.

  “Only in two of the buildings,” she says.

  “Um, then let’s stick to those,” Maisie says immediately.

  “Ditto,” Ally and I say in unison.

  “As fun as it might sound to you, running around in the dark with Georgia and Caldwell—”

  “—and Rachel,” Ally interjects.

  I shoot her a glare. “—I’d rather not.”

  “It’s fine,” Gloria says, stepping out into the light. “One of the buildings I was able to turn on is where they held Georgia. It will suffice for our objective.”

  Again I see the horrible memory of Georgia’s torture in my mind and the way Caldwell’s face twisted with rage at the account.

  “Let’s hope so,” Ally says as the four of us, plus pug, follow Gloria to a building up ahead. I lag near the back with Maisie.

  “So, I’m sure you’ve noticed that since Monroe did his weird Voodoo thing—” I whisper.

  “Hoodoo,” Maisie corrects. “Voodoo is a religion. Hoodoo is a practice.”

  A headache intensifies behind my eyes. “Whatever, look, I can feel all your emotions.”

  “And I can feel yours,” Maisie says.

  That’s upsetting, but not entirely surprising. Of course she can. Why shouldn’t it be a two-way street?

  “Okay, so I know that you don’t want us to hurt your mom, but are you going to try to stop me from blowing them up or—”

  Maisie’s face crumples. For a minute, she looks like she’ll sob uncontrollably. But then her face hardens. She adjusts Winston in her arms. But she doesn’t meet my eyes. She talks to the desert floor.

  “We have to save the world.”

  “Or so they keep telling me,” I grumble.

  The tears collect in the corners of her eyes, sparkling in the high sun overhead. Her sadness spikes, rolling through me until I feel like I’m going to cry. Or scream. Or both.

  “Fuck, Maze, it’s not like I want to murder your mom,” I say.

  “I know.” Her voice hitches and the sadness wins, pushing the anger aside. “God, I know. I’m not taking it personally. I don’t think I can watch.”

  “No one is asking you to.” Horrified, I stop walking. “I don’t want you to see that.”

  If I’d seen Eric Sullivan die when I was a kid, that would have totally screwed me up. If I’d seen my mother die in her car wreck, even with all the anger I harbored toward her, I still think that would’ve been really hard. I would never ask Maisie, this sweet big-hearted kid to endure that.

  “I’ll make sure that Ally keeps you far away from all that,” I say. Because that’s where I want her, with Ally in case the worst happens.

  “I have to do something,” Maisie says. “I have to contribute.”

  “You’ll contribute,” I assure her. “You have three objectives. Very important objectives.”

  I’m careful not to talk in a patronizing voice. I want her to know I’m serious.

  “Keep Ally alive. Keep Winston alive. Don’t get captured.”

  “Keep Ally alive. Keep Winston alive. Don’t get captured,” she repeats. “Is that in order of importance?”

  A hitch of melancholy rings through our connection.

  “No,” I say. “I care just as much about you not getting hurt as I do Winston and Ally.”

  It feels like a lie. I don’t want Maisie to get hurt, of course not. Come on, I’m not a sadist. And I don’t want her to end up with her parents again. But I also feel like I’m using her for her awesome ability.

  “I promise to try to talk your mom into sharing the power with us. That’s the best I can do, Maze.”

  A swirl of emotions plays over Maisie’s face, until her features soften into recognizable relief.

  “You’re feeling everything I am, aren’t you?”

  Maisie gives me a crooked smile. “I think so. I’ll try not to freak out when the fighting starts.”

  The realization hits me. “Oh, shit.” This whole time I’ve been worried that Maisie might interfere with what I have to do. I completely overlooked the fact that through our freaky little connection, I might be as freaked out by the idea of assaulting Georgia as if Maisie had tried to do it herself. “Shit.”

  “I’ll try,” Maisie insists. “I promise.”

  I make a mental note to try and attack Georgia out of Maisie’s line of sight.

  Gabriel’s words are coming back to haunt me; you’ll find it very difficult.

  What must be true for me and Maisie must also be true for me and Rachel. Assuming she does try to kill us, will my desire to live overpower her desire to kill me? Vice versa? And what if she wants to kill Maisie for her power? What then?

  “Have you felt any emotions from Rachel?” I ask her. “Apart from the whole blown off jaw thing.”

  Maisie shook her head. “No. Why?”

&
nbsp; “I’m not sure,” I admit. Maisie has put that fear in my head. That maybe this awesome plan we have might not be as thorough as we thought. After all, we never planned on Monroe’s weird blood magic. The original plan was everyone had one goal. One plan. And we would work together to achieve that objective. But it looks like that’s changed. I still want Caldwell dead, but Maisie wants Georgia alive. And Rachel? Who knows what the hell she wants.

  Revenge, Gabriel whispers in my ear. She seeks revenge.

  Against who?

  We follow Gloria’s lead. She has never actually admitted to us whether or not she’d been to this military camp, either during its incarnation as a detainment center or after. But she had “viewed” this place enough times that I’m sure it is as familiar to her as her own home back in Nashville.

  And the way she moves around the place proves this more than anything. She knows which doors lead to which rooms. When we come to a nondescript intersection of two identical hallways, she doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “This way.”

  But despite her self-assured way of stomping through this place, it’s still creepy as hell. I’m the last in our bizarre conga line, and I can’t help but look back over my shoulder again and again, expecting to see someone or something creep up on me. This place has a horrible vibe. If one of the dead soldiers were to rise up suddenly and come after our brains like old school zombies, I wouldn’t be all that surprised.

  We cut another corner and Maisie, who’s been right on Gloria’s heels, gasps. I bump into Ally’s back with an oomph.

  I peer around their bodies and see a boot. Well, not only a boot. The boot covers a foot, protruding from the corner of the hallway ahead. It isn’t only the legs of a body stretching across the hallway that makes Maisie shriek. It is the fact that it’s only one boot covering one foot.

  It mostly certainly begs the question of where the hell the other leg is.

  Gloria frowns at Maisie. “Wait here.”

  She marches toward the leg in her usual soldier’s gait and stops before the boot. She looks down at it the way one might survey a problem, examining how best to solve it. Oh we’re out of milk? Hmmm. I shall pick some up!

  Gloria kneels, grabs the boot and throws it further down the hallway.