Dying Breath

by Kory M. Shrum

  Because none of this is Jesse’s fault, and I don’t blame her for a second.

  I would never forgive myself.

  My heart aches, but not with her emotion. Somehow, Jesse only feels courage. And anger and a fierce determination to do what is right no matter the odds or the cost.

  Jesse, don’t!

  The roller coaster drops, and my stomach falls with it as the sand reaches up to meet me.

  Chapter 33

  Jesse

  Maisie drops. A squeal of surprise erupts from her lips, and her arms go up over her head as if she’s reaching for a ledge to grab onto. Her hair whips wildly around her, hiding her eyes. There’s nothing but maybe five yards of air between her and the ground.

  Gabriel!

  Burn the darkness.

  As hard it is to take my eyes off Maisie, I tear my gaze away long enough to face Georgia. She isn’t even looking at Maisie. Her eyes are fixed on me. Her nostrils flared as she shifts from one foot to the other impatiently. She’s waiting for me to drop my shield, her cue and chance to bring me down.

  The black ribbons of death hang serpentine in the air around her. They’re reared back, ready to strike with the first opportunity.

  Burn the darkness, Gabriel says again. He’s at my back, lending me his strength. I feel one cool hand between my shoulder blades.

  Without looking up, I reach out and test the connection with Maisie. Her fear and panic rushes through me. Instead of trying to sever the connection, and protect myself from the intensity of her emotions, I open myself wide. I note her edges, the outer border of her body, and I throw my shield around it.

  My first instinct is to jump away. To take myself out of Georgia’s striking path. But as soon as I try, I find that my feet are stuck to the spot, rooted. She’s using Rachel’s telekinesis to pin me down the way Rachel pinned Caldwell.

  Burn! Gabriel screams as the black smoke strikes.

  At the same moment, Georgia’s death tendrils rush forward to engulf me, I throw my fire. An enormous stream of flame rushes out of me, colliding with the darkness. A spray of sand pelts us too, probably from Maisie’s impact. But if she’s inside the shield, her body should be unhurt. I won’t know until this is over. I don’t dare look, because Georgia is at my feet.

  The power pouring through me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. A reckless euphoria rolls over me, making me weak in the knees. It’s nearly orgasmic, but somehow my legs don’t fold.

  The flames continue to pour through me, driving the darkness back.

  More, Gabriel urges. More.

  I open myself wider. The channel inside me spreads and I can feel part of the universe coming through. I see myself for what I am. A conduit. A doorway into this world, a way for power and energy to govern here.

  Reality slips. This cocoon of darkness and fire entrances me and in this in-between, I see the truth. Layers and layers of the universe lie on top of one another. The interconnectedness of them. The way one can bleed into another, the osmosis of this exchange, and how certain beings have taken it upon themselves to control the fate of other planes. They are the midwives of the world, committed to helping us birth a more beautiful future—no matter how difficult that birth will be.

  Even as these truths pour through me, my mind rejects them. Mental barriers erect. Radical ideas are drowned in the pool of my disbelief.

  The sand under my feet becomes real again. The heat of the desert and my fire becomes real again. Gabriel, an icy relief, fades.

  Georgia collapses, her darkness falling limp beside her.

  I could pull back. I could stop here and pardon the bitch of all her sins.

  But part of my mind remains in that other place, sees this situation and life from a higher perspective. And that part of my mind says this is simple. One thing must be done and I can do it.

  Easy peasy.

  The fire blasts right through Georgia.

  It latches onto her hair and body. Her clothes blacken.

  I advance, intending to put my hands on her. After all, I can’t absorb her powers and fulfill my divine power until I sink my fingers into her gray matter.

  Georgia tries to push me back. Her telekinesis hits my chest like a wall, winding me. The fire falters, but thankfully, because her smoke is already retreating, I’m able to renew my attack without getting struck by her death ribbons.

  She uses her smoke the way I use my shield. She’s protecting herself from immolation. Until her resistance evaporates like water in the desert.

  A shimmer of purple in the corner of my eye catches my attention. I turn and see Maisie standing halfway between her mother and me. Tears stream down her face and great sobs make her chest convulse.

  Besides relief that my shield held and she landed safely, other emotions rage inside her. The desperate impulse to protect her mother, to give her own life for Georgia’s, and the understanding she shouldn’t because the woman doesn’t deserve it.

  Maisie shouldn’t have to see this.

  Gabriel flutters nearby, more solid than ever, but not at full strength with three partis so near to one another.

  She does not have to, he whispers. She does not have to see.

  A bright image of Liza comes to mind. A face I haven’t seen in a long time.

  Liza in a hotel room in Ohio, raising her fingers and snapping them before my whole world was engulfed in darkness.

  Caldwell took that power from her, and now I’ve taken everything from him.

  You’re right. Maisie doesn’t have to see this.

  I raise my left hand, the only hand I can snap with, and I press my middle finger and thumb together.

  Maisie never even looks my way. I know she can feel me as clearly as I can feel her. But she isn’t paying attention to me now. She can’t tear herself away from Georgia.

  I feel the power uncurl inside me and when it grows too hot to contain, I snap my fingers.

  Maisie collapses on the spot. She crumples like a robot whose power cord has been ripped out of the wall.

  She lays on the sand, unmoving except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. The purple shield is alive, vibrating a couple inches above her skin.

  I refocus on Georgia.

  She looks up at me through her lashes, her face a mask of fear and hate.

  I give her my best wolfish grin. “Now you can have all of my attention.”

  Spittle foams at the corners of her mouth. “You fucking bitch. If you think I’m going to roll over and—”

  “No, no,” I say, cutting her off. “I know you’ll fight to the end. Bitterly. And lose.”

  She pulls herself up, trying to ready herself for another attack. But her knees knock together, the left side of her body is charred black from her hip to her neck. She must have turned into the fire, protecting her dominant side. Smart.

  I know from Caldwell’s memories of Georgia, that I could have learned a million things about pain from this woman. About living with disappointment and uncertainty. She was nothing if not a survivor. I respect that about her. Even if she is a worse mother than my own.

  “Last words?” I ask her.

  Because I’m not going to draw this out. I care too much about Maisie. Also, because I don’t have the luxury of time. I murdered all her henchmen and destroyed one of the two choppers that carried them, but it’s only a matter of time before someone else comes.

  Georgia growls at me, her eyes feral.

  “Nothing at all? No apology for hurting your daughter? No regrets?” I want this to end knowing I tried.

  “What about you?” she hisses, her fingers curling into claws. “For killing the man I loved. For killing the only good thing in this world.”

  Her voice cracks and her lower lip quivers.

  “If that’s your definition of good, then we definitely don’t want you establishing the new world order.”

  She screams. “Fuck you!”

  Georgia launches herself at me, unrepentant to the end.


  “Not today,” I say, and throw my biggest firebomb yet.

  Chapter 34

  Maisie

  I open my eyes slowly. I blink, and water leaks from the corners of my eyes down across my temples. A great blue sky stretches in all directions with puffy white clouds rolling by. Wisps of black smoke dilute the blue.

  I sit up. Sand rolls off my chest and legs, granules tumbling off the fabric of my clothes. The pressure between my ears is horrible, like the time I got a sinus infection during a winter. I open and close my jaw until I hear a soft pop.

  I come onto my knees, turning, trying to see what is on fire.

  It’s the shed.

  The white paint is black with thick plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. Sparks of crackling wood and cinders caught on the breeze float up into the sky. The door, weakened as the fire eats through its frame, cracks and falls to the sand.

  Sam burns.

  I run to him.

  I want to throw myself on his body and protect him from the flames.

  I rip off my shirt and start slapping him with it. My shirt catches. The cheap fabric incinerates.

  I run into the house. The back door slaps the house viciously as I grab a blanket off a sofa and run back outside. I beat Sam with it.

  I’m crying so hard my lungs threaten to give out long before my arms do.

  When the blanket begins to look like another failed attempt, I drop to my knees beside him and start scooping sand onto his body.

  I manage to extinguish the flames licking his legs. But not before they’ve done damage. The melted fabric breaks off in ashen pieces, carried into the air. The skin beneath is raw.

  At least he didn’t feel the fire.

  That small condolence isn’t enough to keep me from sobbing into my hands. Granules of sand get into my eyes, scraping my skin and eyelids as I wipe at my tears.

  My mind begins to register my surroundings for the first time. It dawns on me how many bodies were in the house. The bodies I clambered over in my blind panic to grab the singed afghan.

  A body in the yard lies on a heap of ash.

  I stand on shaking legs and stumble toward it.

  I recognize the nest of chestnut hair even before I roll her over.

  Jesse. Dead.

  This is twice today I’ve found her in a pile of ash. The soot coats her face and neck.

  Her fingers are soaked black with it.

  She killed Mom.

  I roll Jesse onto her back and rock onto my heels.

  A void opens inside me. A big vapid space swallows up all my feelings.

  The heat leaves my body and leaves a cold, cramping pit inside me. The raging fire at my back doesn’t stop me from shivering. I might as well be in the arctic rather than in the Arizona desert.

  I have no idea how long I sit like this. No thoughts. No feelings. I know I’m beside Jesse’s body. One hand on hers, the burning shed and Sam’s body behind me. I can register on some level that the house is full of bodies and that was Jesse’s doing. I can even register that my face and neck are sunburned. Or maybe even burned by actual fire. The skin is tight and stings. Once the sun goes down the pain will set in.

  If I’m alive to feel it. It’s all I can do just to keep breathing.

  I sit there, my body aching, until a small sound catches my attention. I begin to pull out of the void.

  Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.

  The sound grows.

  An enormous bird passes overhead, blotting out the sun. The whole yard is cast in its shadow.

  I look up and see it’s not a bird at all. It’s one of Dad’s helicopters.

  One of Dad’s helicopters. What are they going to do when they realize that both Mom and Dad are dead?

  The world snaps into focus and I throw myself over Jesse’s body at the same moment the helicopter lands.

  Men with guns lying across their chest hop down onto the sand, running toward me.

  They shout questions at me, demanding to know where my parents are.

  They don’t like my answer.

  As I knew they would, guns whirl on Jesse.

  “No!” I scream. I throw myself over her. I try to protect her head above all, but also her vital organs. I should have blown into her nose while I had the chance.

  “Move!” the gunman shouts. With the sun behind his head, he’s only an angry black blob growling.

  “She’s already dead!” I shout.

  “The fuck she is!” His voice is muffled by a faceguard. The end of his gun in my face is perfectly clear.

  “Please,” I beg. “She’s no threat to you.”

  My voice wavers even though I’m telling the truth. Jesse got her revenge against Dad. She took out the only other evil person who was a threat to the world. They have no reason to fear her.

  But if I’m being honest, it’s more than that.

  I love her. Not only because she’s my sister, but because she’s all I have.

  She’s the only person I have left in this big empty world.

  “Move or I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head,” the soldier screams. It seems that even without Mom, Dad, or Perry, his orders are clear. Kill Jesse Sullivan at all costs.

  I’m prepared to be that cost.

  I take a breath and I close my eyes.

  I imagine the bullet going in. I imagine it blowing through my skull the way the bullets blew through Sam.

  Maybe the world will be okay.

  Our partis powers—mine and Jesse’s—will be blown to the four corners of the earth. Twelve new people will be chosen to save the world or destroy it. Maybe they’ll do a better job. Maybe they won’t screw up and kill each other like we did.

  One could hope.

  I breathe in the darkness.

  I settle into the thick shadow of my fate and wait.

  A gun goes off.

  I expect white hot pain. Or more realistically, nothing at all. It’s a big gun and bullets travel fast.

  But I feel nothing.

  Another gun goes off and someone shouts. Then the shadow moves and my shade disappears. Sunlight hits my face and burning neck.

  More screams, and I open my eyes. A man with wild black hair brings the butt of a gun down on a skull. I flinch the second it crunches and the soldier’s knees buckle. Before I can even process what I’ve seen, the wild man flips the gun, twirls it in his hand like a baton and takes aim at my soldier, the one who is going to take my life.

  The gun in his hand blats.

  Kevlar-clad knees hit the dirt. More blood paints the desert floor.

  Then warm, sweaty hands are touching my cheeks, slapping me lightly.

  “Love,” my savior purrs. I know that British accent anywhere. “Darling. Open your eyes.”

  I see Gideon. His hairline is soaking wet, and a trail of sweat runs down the side of his face. But his eyes are bright and clear with relief.

  “Thank god,” he says. He drops the gun and drags me across Jesse’s body.

  Before I know it, he’s got me in a bear hug, twirling me and laughing.

  “We did it!” he laughs. “We bloody did it. Bad guys dead. Good guys alive. Oh hell, I need a drink!”

  My throat closes. “Not the bad guys.”

  “What?” he sets me on my feet. “What’s that, love?”

  “Not just the bad guys. Good guys died too.”

  Gideon looks down at Jesse. “Oh, don’t worry about her. She’ll be alive and raising hell in no time.”

  My throat tightens even harder and I don’t think I can squeeze out the words. “There was a boy.”

  Tears spring to my eyes.

  “There was a kid, like me. He lived here. This is his house. And that—” I point at the collapsed shed and the burned corpse half-buried beneath it. “That’s his—that was him.”

  Gideon’s humor vanishes like an oasis. He grabs me and pulls me into his arms. “I’m sorry. So so sorry.” He kisses the top of my head.

  My chest caves under the weight
of his apology. I can’t draw air into my lungs.

  “And my mom—”

  “I know.” Gideon strokes my hair. “I know. You were terribly brave. I’m proud of you. We all are.”

  I pull myself away from him. “I’m not. If I was brave, I would have protected him. I would have done more. I would have killed Dad myself or stood up to Mom or not let Perry hurt me or—” My sobs cut my voice short. “His dad is going to come home and find his house ruined and his kid dead and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  Gideon’s face hardens. “That’s not true.”

  “It is.”

  “No,” he says and pulls me into his arms again.

  “It is!” I slam a balled fist against his chest. “It is! All of it. I’m stupid and weak and—”

  I keep punching his chest until he hugs me against him. He holds me there in his arms and won’t let me go. It’s like being crushed by a boa constrictor. I try to wrench away, but he’s stronger than me. And the more he coos apologies in my ears, the weaker I feel.

  I want to believe him that Sam isn’t my fault. That Sam’s dad wasn’t my fault. That all the thousand things I could have done differently, weren’t my fault.

  But they are.

  They always will be.

  Azrael pointed at the hotel. We stopped there because I said something.

  “Nothing I do is right,” I sob into his shirt.

  “I am sure if you think about it, you won’t be able to count on one hand all the brave things you’ve done today.’

  “You’re wrong,” I say, my breath hitching.

  “You saved the pug’s life. And Gloria’s and Ally’s. There’s three.”

  I say nothing. There’s no point.

  “You stood up to your mother. You protected Jesse. I saw you. That’s five acts of bravery I can think of without trying. I bet if I tried, I can come up with 24. One for every hour.”

  I pull back and look into his eyes. Tears stand in the corners of his long dark lashes.

  “Not to mention you saved my life.” He plants another kiss on my temple. I feel the plump, wet lips on my skin long after he pulls back. “Thank you for that.”