Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel)

by Shrum, Kory M.

  “What do you mean ‘the power was over-whelming’?” I grabbed the back of the metal chair, but kept it between us. She was beginning to sound crazy again.

  “You know what power I’m talking about,” she said. “I know you came here for answers. Even if you aren’t awake yet, you know you’re different.”

  I spent most of my time as a corpse. Of course I knew I was different. “What do you mean I’m not awake? I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

  She leaned in close and studied me. I didn’t feel particularly safe, hiding behind a chair.

  “I see,” she began. “Someone just flipped your switch. You’re still warming up.” She returned to her drawing. “I, for one, am very excited, given who you are and all.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I asked. Because she’s crazy. “And what do you mean who I am?”

  She stopped drawing and frowned. “His daughter.”

  “Whose daughter? Brinkley’s?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why Brinkley popped into my head.

  Maybe because he was the only man old enough that both Rachel and I knew.

  Rachel burst out laughing. “No.”

  Then more and more laughter until tears blurred her eyes.

  “This was a bad idea,” I said. “I don’t know why I thought coming here was the answer.”

  Rachel’s hair fell forward into her eyes and curled under her chin. “Because you want to know about the angels.”

  That stopped me. And the sing-song tone of her voice put me on edge. She was so normal five seconds ago, that I’d almost forgot she was crazy. Worse, I felt strange in Rachel’s presence, which I could only describe as electric. My skin seemed to shiver against my bones and my mouth went dry. Even though I was convinced she was obviously still completely insane, her words stirred something in me.

  “Can’t you just tell me?” I asked.

  She pointed at the drawings on her walls, the ones I’d casually overlooked when first entering. I knew the people in the pictures, including Ally and Gabriel—two people Rachel had never met.

  Anger rose fresh up my throat and threatened to consume me. I tried to focus. Seeing Gabriel’s face on the walls was enough to remind me why I was here. “Some hurt and some help. That’s what you said. Tell me about the angels.”

  She glanced at me over her sketchpad but remained silent. It took every ounce of self-restraint not to knock the notepad out of her hand and demand she speak to me. Scared that I might actually lose my temper on someone who was as mentally fragile as a child, I turned to leave the room.

  “Wait!” Rachel called out, terrified. “Don’t go.”

  “You don’t want to talk,” I said. I kept my voice tight, restrained. I couldn’t be mean to her.

  She put the book down. “Can I at least have a hug?”

  No way. I wasn’t even comfortable sitting beside the bed. How could I let a crazy person wrap her arms around me?

  Go ahead.

  The command was clear in my mind, seemingly more urgent with her outstretched hands groping the air for me.

  Do it.

  I crossed the room, one step then another. I was within her reach but she didn’t grab for me. She just opened her arms wider and invited me in. Was she compelling me with her mind or something crazy—no.

  You can trust her, Jesse.

  I recognized the voice but I didn’t acknowledge it out loud. A mental asylum was the last place you’d catch me talking to my hallucination. Then I saw him, sitting in the empty twin bed. One ankle crossed over the other as he slouched against the wall behind it.

  “Come on, Jessup,” Rachel pressed, wiggling her fingers. “Didn’t you miss me even a little bit?”

  “More than you know,” I whispered. I meant it. This was my chance to apologize for real. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you. I blame myself. If you hadn’t worked so hard to train me, replacing so many people—”

  Rachel pulled me off my feet into her bed. My heart tightened in panic as her arms closed around me.

  “You were worth it,” she whispered and pinched my ear lobes then my cheeks, an old comforting gesture.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I was torn between guilt over her condition and fear that it was only a matter of time before I ended up right here beside her.

  “You will be the one to save us, Jessup. I’ve seen it.” Rachel’s arms, soft at first, coiled tighter. It was like feeling a boa constrictor slowly tighten around my neck. So slow, that I didn’t realize I was in trouble until I couldn’t move. When I tried to jerk away from her, she only tightened her hold.

  Her voice was so soft that I had to quit squirming or risk losing her words in the shuffle of our clothes and the bedding. “You must listen to your angel and only your angel. He knows what you need better than you do.”

  “Wh—”

  She squeezed me hard enough to force the air out of my lungs and cut off my words. “They are watching you, Jessup. And listening. Be careful of what you let them see. Keep your power secret. Trust only your angel.”

  My heart was a thunderous roar in my temples. Combined with her death grip, the room was reduced to spots around me. It reminded me of Eve’s attack in the worst way. Claustrophobic. Suffocating.

  I gagged on my own spit, choking. She let go of me and air rushed in like a high wave pounding the sand. How in the hell was she so strong? What were they feeding her? I stumbled to my feet, trying to breathe. Granted, I probably made it worse by struggling.

  A loud ripping sound echoed off the white walls as Rachel tore the picture she’d been working on out of her notebook and folded it up.

  She thrust it into my hand. “Choose carefully. You’ll need her the most—in the end.”

  I wanted to open the picture, hoping it would make her words clear but she placed a hand on mine, stopping me. “Time’s up.”

  Gabriel didn’t look relaxed. He stood, ready for something. You must go.

  I don’t know how he did it, but I saw the men perfectly in my mind. Three goons who looked like big trouble, harassed the Queen Bee at the desk. Even though the desk was down the hall and out of sight, I saw the image perfectly as if we were standing right beside it.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to Rachel. I wasn’t sure what I was grateful for, her not choking me to death probably. Whatever the reason, I felt like she’d done me a big favor. I slipped the unknown picture into the pocket of my jeans.

  “It’s always good to see you,” she said and a sudden wide grin broke across her face. “And I’ll see you again, Jess. But until then—good luck.”

  The desk lady with the beehive squealed. “You can’t go in there!” and I saw through the double doors the head of a man looking the other way. Without hesitation, I ducked across the hall into another room to find myself staring at a man in a dress sitting on the bed and woman putting makeup on him as she squat in front of him. Both were patients.

  Scared they’d leap up and go crazy on me, I blurted a compliment. “You’re beautiful,” I told the middle-aged man in the flower-print dress.

  “You can’t look yet,” the woman demanded in a gravelly voice. “He’s not ready.”

  “I won’t peek,” I promised, focusing half my attention out the small glass window to see two men duck into Rachel’s room. The other half of my attention remained on the two mental patients crouching behind me.

  As soon as the goons entered, the door snapped shut as if slammed from the inside and I heard the strangest sounds. I yanked my door open and darted across the hall to save her from whatever horrible things they were doing to her, when Rachel’s face appeared.

  She smiled through the tiny window and flashed me a thumbs up as I dumbly stared past her grinning face at the two unconscious guys lying across the adjacent bed where she’d piled them. I had a feeling that Rachel’s gifts were not limited to mediocre drawing or speaking in riddles.

  I reentered the main room with the desks to find Queen Bee arguing with the last man lingering at the des
k. I pulled the hood of my zip up hoodie up over my head and crept past him on my toes. I prayed the whole time that my shoes wouldn’t squeak or that Queenie wouldn’t yell at me to sign out or something.

  Just before I exited through the large double doors, SQUEEEEAK.

  I froze.

  The man arguing at the desk turned and caught sight of me. Immediately, he yelled to his unconscious buddies. I didn’t wait for him to realize they weren’t coming and ran as fast as I could. I cut into the corridor and ran past the elevators to the stairs.

  I’d never moved so fast in my life or at least it felt that way. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairwell, I felt great about this. I was brilliant, I was quick, I was made to survive, as if NRD gave me any other choice. The fact that I threw open the stairwell door to find myself alone seemed proof enough.

  I cut through the last stretch of the first-floor corridor and popped out the side exit. I could even see Kyra’s car in the distance. Kyra sitting behind the wheel waiting for me was my beacon of salvation.

  Someone grabbed me.

  “I’ll cut you!” I screamed. I thrashed like a landed fish as large hands scooped me up. “I’ll cut you with my mind powers.”

  The rough hands didn’t release me. “Since when do you have mind powers?”

  I stopped thrashing long enough to realize Brinkley was the one holding me. He’d grown some facial hair since I’d seen him last. His blue eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and I’d never noticed so much gray in his dark locks before. Whatever he’d been doing to keep me safe, he’d been doing it instead of sleeping.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  A heavy door slammed somewhere and Brinkley took that as his cue to drag me by the elbow toward Kyra’s car.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I screamed as we raced across the lawn to the parking lot. “You’ve been keeping secrets!”

  “I followed you. Now get in the car,” Brinkley said. He tried to tear Kyra’s door open but the car was locked. The click of it being released sounded and Brinkley tried to stuff me inside. I clung to the door in refusal and Kyra made a small sound of surprise.

  “People are trying to kill me because they know things about me that I don’t. Unless you’re trying to get me killed for my stupidity, you’ve got to talk to me.”

  He yanked open the door again, but I pushed against it. “Get in.”

  “No.”

  “Stop fighting me and get in the damn car,” he demanded.

  “No, I’m not leaving until you tell me what you know. You owe me that much. If I’m going to die, goddamnit, I better know why!”

  “There will be no share time!” Brinkley jabbed a finger over the car at the three big men running our way. Big men, like body builders big. “They’re going to kill you if you don’t get into this fucking car!”

  With one violent push, he shoved me into the car and screamed at Kyra. “Drive!”

  Kyra was terrified. Having probably never been screamed at by a stranger, here she was with an angry one in her face and three others running toward her looking equally as violent. No wonder she froze up.

  “Drive or I’ll yank you out of the car and drive her myself.”

  Kyra snapped to life and started the car. I grabbed Brinkley and begged. “You have to tell me. I have to know what’s going on.”

  “Go to the funeral.”

  “You don’t understand, okay. Something is wrong with me. I see—”

  “Go to the funeral and I’ll meet you there.” I must have looked doubtful. “I promise, just go,” he added.

  It was hard but I let him go. Kyra hit the gas and backed up in a single squealing movement. She hit something which I hoped was a bad guy or maybe just another car and not Brinkley. I couldn’t see and Kyra didn’t care enough to check. She was already out of the parking lot and halfway to the entrance by the time I managed to turn around in the passenger seat and search the parking lot through the back window.

  I didn’t see anyone in the parking lot but Gabriel, his wings spread wide, menacingly, as he watched us go.

  Chapter 15

  “No more pit stops!” Kyra screamed. Her eyes were wide, knuckles white and hands shaking with adrenaline.

  “But I really have to pee,” I said.

  “Should we even go to the funeral?” she asked, her voice cracking. “I know it’s your mom and all, but there’s no point in getting yourself killed. There are other ways to say goodbye!”

  I’d given her the short version: I was visiting. Some guys busted in. Brinkley demanded I get the hell out of there because these guys weren’t necessarily nice and so on.

  Clearly, I left a lot out.

  “Brinkley told us to meet him there,” I said. “I don’t think he’d tell me to go there if it’d put me in danger.” Not to mention that wherever the hell Brinkley was, that’s where I wanted to be. He had some questions to answer. “And if I’m not there he’ll think something happened to us.”

  This answer seemed acceptable to Kyra since she maneuvered us back the way we came without any more questions. Ally blabs when she is scared. Apparently, Kyra gets quieter than a mime.

  The closer we got to my mother’s house, the more corn I saw. We must have passed a hundred rows of corn lining the two-way road between the last town and her house. The faded blacktop didn’t even have a line dividing it into two lanes, just the corn and a small, one-story house every mile or so.

  My chest pounded the second Kyra turned onto the gravel driveway. The house itself was modest, but nice. White siding with black shutters and a red door hauntingly similar to the incomplete sketch Gloria had shown me in her book. Mom hadn’t changed much in the years since I’d left. She’d planted more flowers, which were enjoying their last days of warmth before winter.

  A red station wagon and beat-up truck with a toolbox and tire in the bed both sat parked near the door. No dogs barked nor did anyone come out of the house. Kyra looked from the address on the directions, to the address by the door.

  “This is it,” she said, turning to me. “Are you sure about this?”

  No, I thought. “We’ll be fine.”

  Then we sat—neither of us eager to move. Kyra gripped the steering wheel. I stared at the house, waiting for someone to appear. Technically the funeral wasn’t for another two hours. There weren’t many cars so maybe people hadn’t shown up yet.

  “We could just stay in the car,” she said, and turned toward me. Color was returning to her cheeks, but her eyes were still a little too wide. I had a feeling she’d never road trip with me again.

  “We can’t,” I said and got out. I couldn’t go straight into the house because I was practically sick from adrenaline. I was still so tore up from Rachel’s visit that I couldn’t imagine seeing my little brother just yet. I leaned against the hood and surveyed the area.

  No sign of Brinkley.

  The property was really beautiful in the morning light. Water and hills framed one side of the house and what appeared to be miles of corn on the other. Lots of trees and open sky, no neighbors that I saw, though I was sure they’re around. My eyes were drawn to the swarm of crows circling high above a scarecrow perched alone in a distant field.

  Kyra’s car door shut behind me and I jumped. “It’s really quiet out here,” she said.

  “We could use a bit of quiet,” I mumbled.

  “We were at a mental hospital,” Kyra said. “I guess we should’ve expected it to get crazy.” Bad joke, but we both snickered. Then we laughed so hard tears spilled from our eyes. I was pretty sure we were losing our shit.

  “I don’t even know what happened back there,” I admitted. Not just with Rachel, but who the hell were those guys? “I’m going to take a walk and try to shake some of this off. You want to come?”

  “I’ll stay here in case someone comes out,” she said. “Are you sure you should be anywhere alone right now?”

  “Look around,” I told her. “I
don’t think anyone can sneak up on me way out here.”

  I walked away from the house into the woods, watching my feet kick at the fallen pine needles. The air smelled of dirt, dry cornhusks and it was much cooler than in Nashville, though we hadn’t travelled that far north. I breathed it in deeply and my lungs chilled. Then the packed dirt trail narrowed into the dense tree-line.

  A crow cawed, loud and sudden above my head. I swore.

  “I’ve had enough excitement today. Thanks.”

  He cawed again as if in response, which only spooked me more. I moved deeper into the woods away from it. I followed the black feathers littering the path until ahead the trees thinned, opening up to a clearing. It was like the pines formed a border around this one circle between them. I recognized it immediately from Gloria’s charcoal rendering of it.

  The circle was large with a thick layer of pine needles and forest ferns hiding the ground. Black feathers were everywhere—in the straw-colored grass, in the shedding trees. In the middle sat a large black dog, maybe a Labrador. I was about to move forward and pet it, scratching those floppy ears, when the dog turned into a person. Just like that, in a flickering flash, the dog became Gabriel. His arms were folded over his chest. His mouth moved, but I didn’t hear his voice.

  “So that creepy bird by my mailbox, that was you?” I asked, stepping toward him. “Are these the ‘other forms’ you meant? Do you always choose black? Should I keep an eye out for black cats, bats, and bears…?” His tie went from black to red and my voice trailed off.

  I followed his finger, gazing up in the direction in which he pointed. For a second, I just stared at the sky. I didn’t see anything. No clouds or birds or planes. Then I saw what he meant and realized what I was looking at. The realization struck me hard like missing a step, and the way the heart lurches just before going down.

  This was where I died.

  Someone had come in and cleared the collapsed barn away. The grass had healed up for the most part, but if I looked at the top of trees, I still saw the faint outline of black charring from where the high flames licked the branches seven years ago. Of course, I knew I died in the barn, but I hadn’t realized in following those feathers, just where my feet had taken me.