“You’re going to kill us!”
“We have to lose her.” Mom’s fierce blue eyes cut to the rear view mirror. Blood smears across her right cheek and I can’t help but stare at it, fixated on the way it fills the creases around her mouth when she speaks. If she flicks out her tongue, she’s going to taste it. Maybe she already does.
I look at my own hands and fingers. Blood everywhere. It pools on the seat, soaking the side of my jeans.
My father’s dead body slouches between us. Most of him rests against Mom. But the head, barely attached, wobbles, threatening to tumble over into my lap at any moment. It’s freaky and gross and looking down at my blood-soaked legs and grubby hands isn’t helping.
I’m going to puke.
“Shit.” Mom is still focused on the rear view mirror, watching the road behind us more than the empty desert ahead.
I turn toward the open window between our seats. I look out over the empty truck bed and see the black Mustang gaining on us.
Jesse is coming.
Of course my sister is coming.
But not for me.
She wants Dad’s head. She wants to blow him up and make sure the crazy bastard never wakes up again. But Mom wants the exact opposite. And here’s me stuck in the middle. The blood reaches my skin. It’s sticky against the back of my knees and the gross, crawly sensation only makes me nauseated.
I pinch my eyes shut, but this makes it so much worse. Mom’s jerky driving intensifies the dizziness. I open my eyes and find a fixed point in the desert. A white building in the distance, pinched between a beautiful blue sky and chalky orange sand.
I focus on this building and draw in deep breaths, but stop.
Dad’s body is starting to smell.
It’s the heat. The hot air coming through the truck’s open windows. His body is putrefying faster in the sweltering sun.
“I have to stop her.” Mom calls up her power. I can feel it. Through our psychic connection or whatever you want to call it, I feel her power before I see it. Phantom snakes, twin coils of black smoke start to unfurl from Mom’s abdomen. If she even grazes Jesse with the smoke, then Jesse is dead.
No. An impulse to protect my sister overwhelms me, blocking out the nausea and the overbearing heat. Do something. Say something.
“You don’t have a good shot. You’ll end up killing me.” I’m not really pleading for my life and Mom knows it. “She’ll just use her shield to block you.”
With a frustrated hiss, Mom retracts her power.
So she is still trying to keep me alive. I know it’s really messed up to be surprised by that. No one believes that their own Mom wants to kill them. And I guess Mom doesn’t want to kill me with her own hands.
If Dad decides it’s time to rip my head off, I don’t think she’ll stop him. And I know that should make me mad and I’m kind of pissed about it. But she’s also my mom. I love her. And she’s in danger too.
So what am I supposed to do about it?
“You have to wake him up,” Mom barks, hooking a sharp right. The truck slides as it corrects itself. The white building disappears and now there’s only blue sky. Nothing to focus on.
Vomit burns in the back of my throat. I swallow. “No.”
“Damn it, Maisie.” Mom grits her teeth. “We need his help to fight her. Wake him up.”
“We don’t have to fight,” I say. “I told you that but you won’t listen. We can share the power. We were always supposed to share it!”
I think of Monroe. I think of his awesome infectious laugh and his sweet eyes. He had puppy dog eyes, like Winnie Pug. More importantly than being the kindest man I’ve ever met, Monroe told us—me and Jesse—the truth. The truth about our powers and how we are supposed to use them. They were never meant to be used against one another. They were supposed to be used together. But Dad made a mistake and it broke the connection and everyone else has been making the same stupid mistake ever since.
But we still have time to fix it. We can make it better.
How can I make Mom understand that? They’ve been fighting forever. I don’t know what to say that will make her put down her proverbial weapons.
“She’s a liar.” Mom’s face softens with pity. “Whatever Jesse told you was a lie.”
“She wasn’t the one who told me. And it’s not a lie.”
The Mustang hits the back of the truck and we lurch forward.
“Do you think she’s going to let him live?” Her eyes cut to Dad’s body. “She’s going to kill him.”
“If he ever wakes up, do you think he’s going to let you live? Or me? He’s a monster.”
“Maisie!” My mother screams. She reaches across Dad and slaps me hard across the face. She looks as shocked as I am. She’s never hit me before. Not once. Not ever. “What did she do to you?”
“What’s he done to you?” I snap back. My face stings and I want to cup my cheek, but I don’t dare. I want her to see the mark she’s left on my face. “Since when are you the crazy abusive one?”
Her hands wring the steering wheel.
“Leave him,” I beg her.
“He’s your father.”
And a monster. But I don’t say it for a second time. “Me, you, and Jesse don’t have to fight. If we fight, it’s your own fault.”
“You know better.” Mom scowls at me. “You know she’ll kill me. It’s why you woke me up.”
Why I woke her up—
My argument dissipates. The fight replays in my head. Mom killed Rachel. They erupted in blue fire and then mom collapsed dead on the hallway’s floor. I bent over and blew into her nose, waking her up in that special way I can because—because—she’s right. Because I knew Gideon, Gloria, and Jesse would overpower me. They would kill her and make me watch.
I couldn’t let that happen.
My mom isn’t perfect. I know that. I know she might even be a bad person by most people’s standards.
But she’s my mom. And she’s always loved me. Protected me—or at least she did until I became partis with powers and that changed everything. Dad stopped ignoring me, stopped looking at me like I was a bug on the floor. He started to look at me the way he looked at Jesse.
My silence makes Mom think she’s won.
“It’s either me or her, Maisie,” she pushes. “Whose side are you on?”
My fist tightens around the seatbelt. Whose side am I on?
The longer I don’t answer, the more Mom’s face pinches in betrayal. “This isn’t you. She did this to you. She turned you against your own mother.”
“No, I—”
“We have to kill her. We have to protect your father and kill her.”
“What about us?” My temper explodes. “What about protecting us?”
“He won’t,” Mom says, but I know that voice. It’s the he will never hurt you while I’m alive voice. But my mom won’t always be alive. She was dead an hour ago.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I won’t wake him up and I’m not going to help you hurt Jesse either.”
“I’m your mother!”
The Mustang pulls around the side of the truck. The driver’s side window rolls down and there’s my sister all wide-eyed and freaked out.
She casts her shield. It covers me and part of the truck.
She looks as surprised as I am that this works. She screams. “Jump!”
Jump? Out of a moving truck?
“Jump! I’ll catch you,” she screams again, over the sound of sand and wind and roaring engines while her dark hair whips around her head.
She wants me.
She wants me more than she wants Dad’s dead body.
Because she loves you a voice whispers through my mind. A voice I haven’t heard in a long, long time.
It’s all the courage I need.
I throw my door open and reach for the release on my seatbelt.
“No!” Mom cuts the wheel hard to the right, slamming the side of the truck into Jesse’s Mustang. My door is rippe
d away by an invisible, angry hand. Sparks spray into the cab as metal scrapes metal. Stray shards sting my cheeks. I cover my face, hoping my arms and legs stay inside the cab enough not to be ripped off.
I open my eyes and Jesse is still there, keeping up with us. The side of her Mustang looks like it was stepped on by a huge boot. Through the open window, she’s still shouting.
“I’ve got you! Jump!”
“Fuck off!” My mother screams. With one flick of her hand, the Mustang’s two front wheels are lifted off the sand and thrown back into the air.
“No!” I scream, but this doesn’t do anything to stop the Mustang from flying through the air and then dropping back to Earth like a bomb.
The black car rolls head over tail before slamming into the side of a boulder.
Oh my god, no!
The car explodes on impact, the black muscle car disappearing in a plume of fire and smoke.
“Oh god, no. No, no, no.”
I blink back tears, hanging out the open side of the truck. My mother’s fierce fingers bite into the flesh of my upper arm, trying to yank me back into the truck. But I can’t look away from the burning wreckage.
I’m desperate for any sign, any that Jesse survived.
I don’t get one. All I see is fire and the mushroom cloud darkening the blue sky.
My sister’s funeral pyre. All that’s left of her, a swirling, black blaze.
Author's Note
Any one of my close friends can vouch for my dark and twisted imagination. It’s been a source of amusement for years. And if you’ve made it this far, you probably have a sense for how I prefer to handle difficult truths—with sarcasm. But this once, I cannot take credit for inventing the horrific circumstances that Rachel, Nivedha, or the others suffered at the hands of Chaplain.
What happened to Rachel in the cold basement of a house in St. Louis was not nearly as fictitious a circumstance as you may believe. Nor can I impress upon you the real and immediate danger of the issue.
Many of you have heard the term human trafficking. In fact, the word has been thrown around so much recently, that it is becoming one of those terms the eye can slide right over. Yet, I’m going to ask you to sit up and pay attention, at least for the next thirty seconds. And in those thirty seconds or so, I’m going to separate the fiction from the facts.
Fact: Over thirty million people are living in slavery today. That’s almost three times the number of slaves taken from Africa before the civil war (12.5 million). Over 80% of them are women and girls. And children.
Fiction: This only happens in impoverished, so-called “third-world” nations.
Fact: It’s happening right here in America. If you live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, or another airport hub, it’s happening in your backyard.
Fiction: There’s nothing you can do about it.
You don’t need to take my word on any of this. Educate yourself. I suggest an amazing TedTalk by Jimmy Carter for starters. It’s only 16-minutes and we both know that you spend more time than that watching cat videos in a given sitting.
And if you’re feeling really ambitious, I challenge you to question your own assumptions about human trafficking by watching another video (just 19 minutes). Or if another video seems like too much, read a powerful testimonial from a sex trafficking survivor.
Then let’s pretend (I really hope we aren’t pretending) you’ve watched all the videos, read the articles, and feel that you can stave off the cat-video craving for just a little longer.
What next? Ask yourself: “What can I do?” How can you use your unique skills and abilities to fight the Chaplains of the world?
Yet again, if you have no idea where to start, I’ve got a fancy list of 20 things you can do.
Because this isn’t an issue you can just throw money at. A great deal of it is wrapped up in the decisions you make every day.
So educate yourself. Make educated decisions.
Use your power to speak up for the voiceless.
Acknowledgments
We’ve done it again! I am both expectant and surprised when a book is finished. On one hand, I think “of course the book is done! I worked so hard!” and on the other I marvel that somehow I’ve managed to do it. But not alone. Never alone.
Thanks to the fans first and foremost. If it wasn’t for your enthusiasm for Jesse, Ally and crew, I’m not sure I would have the fortitude to continue with their story. You hold me accountable in all the right ways, and there’s nothing like a piece of fan mail to bolster my spirits when the writing gets tough. So thank you for reading the book, liking the book, telling me you like the book, and showing your enthusiasm for the next one. All of this is more important to me than you know.
Some fans of particular importance (though in no particular order) are Leslie Church, Elizabeth Poole, Sharon Stogner, Louise Villeneuve, Kriss Morton, Tiffany Halliday, Rebecca Poole, Colleen McGuire, Andrea Cook, Joe Thomas, A.B. Shepherd, Bill King, Marcia Roeder, Mike Billington, Rachel Menzies, Ashley Ferguson, Wendy Nelson, Katie Robbins, and CC Ryburn. You’re always excited about the latest installment and are usually the first ones to spread the word and post reviews. Thank you for that.
Victoria Solomon, your “list” of what you wanted for Gabriel and Rachel were immensely helpful. I hope I have fulfilled all your requests to your satisfaction. If not, there are two more books coming…so give me another chance?
Special nod to my critique group, The Four Horsemen of the Bookocalypse: Angela Roquet, Monica La Porta, and Katie Pendleton. You’re awesome midwives. Thanks for steering Jesse and I in the right direction.
John K. Addis did it again! How he keeps turning out these lovely covers despite my inept and convoluted requests, I have no idea. He must be magic. Pure magic. Maybe that’s why his daughter calls him Princess Unicorn.
Last but not least, my love Kimberly Anne. I’m going to marry you so hard in October. Prepare yourself.
About the Author
Kory M. Shrum lives in Michigan with her partner Kim and her ferocious guard pug, Josephine. She is very fond of naps and foods made of sugar, which is, as you can imagine, a deadly combination. But she tries to compensate for her extreme physical laziness with her overactive imagination. She's an active member of SFWA, HWA, and the Four Horsemen of the Bookocalypse, where she’s known as Conquest.
When not writing, she can be found teaching, traveling, and wearing a gi. She’s very likely to tempt you to an ominous tarot or palm reading—anything spooky-foo to pass the time until Guardians of the Galaxy or Sherlock return. She’s not-so-secretly dying for the next season to begin. She loves hearing from fans on Facebook, Twitter, or her website.
If you like free stuff, be sure to sign up for Kory’s mailing list, and be the first to hear about giveaways, new releases, and updates on her work. You can also follow her Bookbub page. And don’t forget to leave a *very much appreciated* review (however short! Good or bad!) for this book wherever you can. Your voice matters!
Also by Kory M. Shrum
Dying for a Living Series: The Jesse Sullivan Novels
Dying for a Living (Book 1)
Dying by the Hour (Book 2)
Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Book 3)
Dying Light (Book 4)
Worth Dying For (Book 5)
Dying Breath (Book 6) Coming November 2016
Other work
Badass and the Beast: Ten “Tails” of Kickass Heroines and the Beasts who love them (with Angela Roquet)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Special Preview of Dying Breath
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Kory M. Shrum
Worth Dying for (A Dying for a Living Novel Book 5) Page 26
