“Just how much practice?” I asked, trying to stay awake. “Are you responsible for what happened in Atlanta—or anywhere else?” Though I doubted he killed over 1000 NRD-positives by himself. Genocide isn’t a one person job.
“I am a servant of God.” He raised his chin. “I merely do his bidding. Now and always.”
“Right now, it’s not God helping you,” I said. “It’s my own stupidity.”
He liked this answer. He pulled a third chair from the corner and placed it halfway between Ally and Lane, much closer to me than the other two seats.
“Is that for me,” I asked. “Are you going to shoot us in the head like a firing squad or play more pop-goes-the-weasel?”
“This isn’t for you,” he said and rapped on the door twice. And before the door opened I knew who it’d be. I’d seen the drawings after all—and I knew who was missing.
Boston and Swede carried Brinkley in, holding him under each arm, plopping him without ceremony into the chair.
Brinkley’s face was in bad shape, bright blood running along the side of his jaw over, darker crusted blood. Clearly, the torture had been going on for days. The sight of Boston and Swede and their smug faces made my blood boil.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, spitting hatred between my teeth. “Traitorous assholes. He trusted you.”
Martin smiled.
My chest ached to see Brinkley slumped in the chair, clothes wet with his blood and the swollen purple mass that used to be the left side of his face.
Bobkins, it’s time to make your dumbass useful. I thought. Garrison—anybody—hurry the fuck up. We’re out of time.
“He should have chosen our side when he had the chance,” Martin said. “But he chose you and look where it got him. We tried to make him see that there are thousands like you, but he wouldn’t listen. And he was wrong. We’ve been watching you just to make sure, but he was wrong. You aren’t special at all.”
He chose me. All along Brinkley’s been fighting for me. My hard ass boss was really so much more than that. All his coldness, all his discipline—it took on a new meaning now that I knew what was going on around me.
The sad ache in my chest deepened, sparking into anger. “Brinkley is a good man. A loyal man. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Martin shrugged.
“Untie me so I can kick your teeth in,” I said.
Martin came close, just beyond my reach. His eyes boiled into mine. “I will untie you.”
I covered one eye. “Ow, ow, ow. You just poked out my eye with your nose, Pinocchio.”
He bit his lip. “I want to see how funny you are when I let you go.”
“You just said you want to cut off my head. Of course, you won’t let me go.”
He grinned. A maniacal maddening grin that made him look carnivorous.
“See, I plan to stab your friends and let you choose which one lives.”
My anger was completely replaced by a crashing wave of fear.
He must have seen it because his smile doubled. “I’m going to stab him, him and her. And then I’m going to walk out of this room. From that safe distance, I’ll enjoy the show. You’ll run around frantic trying to decide who to replace. And once you do, once you’re dead, I’m to come in here and cut off your head while that friend you just saved, watches. I’ll finish up by slitting their throat.”
I didn’t know what to say and I wasn’t in the mindset to hide my complete horror. So he got the full satisfaction of my distress. He can’t do that. He can’t make me choose. He can’t just sit there and watch. Motherfucker. Motherfucker.
“Motherfucker,” I said. “You can’t do that.”
The three of them laughed. Boston and Swede, the traitorous jerks, picked me up under the arms as Martin kneeled down and unlocked my shackle. As soon as my leg was loose I kicked him in the face, which he kindly repaid with a punch in the jaw. My hinges creaked on that one, ears ringing. I didn’t think the jerk had broken it, but a bit more pressure and he’d have knocked my mandible out of socket for sure. The blow sure as hell didn’t help my concussion.
“Don’t do this,” I said. It was as close to begging as I was going to get.
“Consider it done,” he said with a smile. Boston and Swede threw me down on the bed then stood close, waiting.
Martin pulled a knife from Swede’s back pocket, where it’d been this whole time. If I’d known, I’d have done some carving of my own. The moment I saw him, I charged.
But Boston and Swede pushed me back down on to the bed.
“Don’t ruin my fun,” Martin said.
That’s exactly what I wanted to do, ruin his fun. He might kill us, but I wasn’t going to make it easy. But before I could plan my attack, Martin stabbed Lane under the ribs. Lane screamed, the white of his non-swollen eye expanding as he sucked in as much air as he could into his rapidly deflating lung.
I dashed forward and Boston picked me up, lifting me off the floor so even my feet couldn’t touch. I had more than a few choice words for the traitorous SOB, but Martin after dealing Lane a second stab wound, moved on to Brinkley. He stabbed Brinkley in the stomach twice. Brinkley grunted, but was so out of it from the previous beating I don’t think he felt much. Then Martin went to Ally.
He came around the back of her chair, bending forward to press his cheek to hers.
“I know she’s your favorite,” he said. He took a deep breath, smelling her hair. He slid the blade down the front of her chest, popping off one shirt button, then two. With her right breast exposed he cut across her collarbone and chest, a long line of red bubbling to the surface. She kept her mouth shut, refusing to cry—her brown eyes shut tight. He slid his hand into her shirt and kissed her neck almost tenderly.
“He told us just where to push if we wanted you.” Martin tapped her collarbone with the knife tip as he spoke. “We had to kill your mother, of course.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. I couldn’t think past Ally as I moved from option to option, desperate for a way to save her.
“Didn’t you think it strange that your mother had an accident in the middle of your investigation? We needed to separate you from your stronghold. With you gone, we could divide and conquer.” He gestured to Ally. “When she came running through that door, it was like a gift from heaven.”
“Who helped you?” He had to mean Gloria’s nemesis, if she ever had one. Whoever the hell this other player was, he knew that if I left, Ally’d jump on the chance to find Nessa. And he knew that Gloria would tell her where to look. And of course, I’d come running after Ally.
Gloria was right. He’d manipulated us like pawns.
“I can give her a matching scar if you want,” he said, ignoring my question. “A makeshift autopsy here and now?”
“Don’t you fucking touch her!”
He moved his hand further down and cupped her breast. “Just think, if you save her, I can have a bit of fun with her before I slit her throat. You think I need practice fucking, do you?”
“Don’t touch her!” I screamed again, more piercing reverberations ricocheted off the walls.
My vision changed.
At first I thought I was blacking out. It’s happened, you know, high levels of stress and people just faint. Yet I could still see, in a weird disconnected way. It wasn’t exactly the usual aurora borealis of color waves preceding a death, but more like what I’d seen in bed with Lane, only enhanced.
Everything was static, the embodiment of bombarding particles colliding with one another in torrential waves. It was like watching the hint of a television show on a blocked channel. The static of my body pulsed in time with my panic. It was ever so easy to shove that panic out, far, far out and penetrate both Boston and the Swede who held me.
Then it happened like it had with Lane. The men fell to either side yelping. Even though Martin was far away, he convulsed and dropped his knife. Back on my feet, I ran for Martin, but one of the men grabbed my pants’ leg and I
fell flat on my face, teeth cracking against the stone floor. I saw stars for a several seconds, giving Martin time to regain his footing and the knife.
When I saw him again, Martin’s eyes were wide. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” Boston said. He held onto me still, though more gingerly this time.
“She shocked me,” added the Swede.
I tried to do it again, gather the static and shove it out, but all I could do was cradle my jaw and swallow the blood in my mouth.
Martin didn’t move for a moment. He stared at me as if he’d never seen me before.
Then he stabbed Ally in the guts.
There was no pleasure in it. His movements were mechanical. He couldn’t get out of the room fast enough, leaving me alone with my three dying friends. I pulled myself to my knees, trying to stand. When a wave of dizziness took me, I crawled to Lane’s chair and pulled the gags out of his mouth.
“Save Brinkley,” Lane said as I untied Ally and Brinkley’s gags.
“No one’s going to die, but me.” I barely saw them through my tears, wiping them out of my eyes as fast I could. “The cops will be here any minute now. Just hang on. Someone will come.”
“Of course you want me to die,” Ally said. Her eyes were down, unfocused. Her breath grew uneven.
Lane whispered, losing air. “If you survive, Jess, they’ll keep coming for you. You’ll need Brinkley to keep you safe.”
“Both of you shut up,” I said. “You’re fucking idiots.”
Finally on my feet, I shuffled back and forth between their chairs, watching blood pour out over their thighs, pooling in the floor at the feet. Brinkley’s blood was the first to touch the floor. I assumed this was because he was a big guy. Already half-pulverized, I still couldn’t believe he had any to spare. The sight of a growing puddle made me wail louder. I searched the room for anything I could use to stop the bleeding. Aside from their clothes, I had nothing. The bed was stripped and not another scrap of cotton existed. My feet squeaked as they slide over the wet stones.
“Nessa,” Ally murmured. “They’re going to kill her.”
“Goddamn you!” I yelled through the slot in the door where Martin and the others watched. I heard their laughter seep through the cracks while I paced.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t bury any of you.”
I circled the room twice, laying a hand on each of their chests. They were cooling, sticky, but none of them had the pull of death yet. My mind raced. This couldn’t possibly be happening to us. How did we end up here? We knew this would happen. Why couldn’t we manage to stay away?
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to look for her,” Ally whispered.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “None of that last confession crap. We’re not dying here.”
I removed my shirt and shoved it against her stomach, adding as much pressure as I could. I waited, but I didn’t feel the pull. I paced again, touching each of them, feeling as though I was playing the most bizarre version of eenie-meanie-minie-mo. Something stank, putrid. Whatever it was, it was on my hands. My stomach turned and I dry heaved twice.
I untied Lane, feeling stupid I hadn’t thought to do so sooner. Then I untied Brinkley and Ally. “We’re getting out of here. I promise. Someone’s coming.”
Without the ropes holding him in place Brinkley fell forward into the floor. He wouldn’t be walking anywhere. Ally couldn’t stand, trying once before collapsing back into her chair. Lane could stand, but he hissed through his gritted teeth—clearly in a lot of pain.
“I’ll save whoever goes first,” I said, helping Lane to steady himself. “But the other two of you will have to fight. Kick, scream, whatever you’ve got until someone comes, okay? Do you hear me?”
I looked at Brinkley nearly unconscious and Ally clutching her belly. What the hell was I saying?
Lane kissed me full on the mouth, holding the back of my head with his free hand. Then he smiled. Before I said anything he shuffled to the door and leaned near its opening as if taking a guard’s post. He’d just volunteered himself for the first attack. I couldn’t look at him or I was going to fall apart. Adrenaline only took me so far.
“Listen,” Brinkley said. His first word and he was fading fast. I felt it in my bones. I kneeled between Ally and Brinkley, not touching either of them just yet.
“You didn’t prepare me for this, asshole.” I wasn’t talking about death and I wasn’t talking to Brinkley. Dying was what I did best.
It didn’t scare me to die.
Whenever I died I’d wake and the people I loved would be there—but not this time.
I would lose someone tonight.
“Just hold on, okay?” I begged Brinkley. “I promise to quit being an ungrateful little ingrate if you just pull through this.”
“That’s redundant, ungrateful ingrate.” Ally murmured. Leave it to her to care about English on her death bed.
“You led me here to die,” I said, speaking to Gabriel. As if I conjured him, the room changed and grew warmer. Feathers rained into the room like fallen ash. I looked up to find Gabriel standing behind Brinkley and Ally. His tie was midnight blue and matched his eyes. The utter sorrow in his downturned eyes could never make me believe this was anything Gabriel wanted or planned.
“I hear someone,” Lane said from the doorway. He was sliding down the wall to the floor.
“Help us,” I said. I wanted Gabriel to be real, to have real divine powers. Ally’s breath became labored. I reached for Ally and pulled her from the floor into my lap. I rocked her gently.
“Please don’t do this to me.”
Choose who you will take with you. Choose the one who will help you most in the desert ahead.
Gabriel echoed Rachel’s warning to “choose well.” But I couldn’t choose, not between Ally and Lane, if it meant the other had to die. And I couldn’t give up on Brinkley, now that I knew how much he’d sacrificed to keep me safe in a world that was against me.
How the hell could I give up on any of them?
The only clue I had was the fact that Rachel had used the word she—and I only had one she.
But Rachel could be wrong. She had drawn Nessa in the room after all and Nessa wasn’t here.
Death came when I pressed my cheek against Ally’s cheek. I felt the pull when it’d begun. I was replacing her, feeling that string tighten in my navel and the suction of the mini black hole. Ally’s head fell back as she gasped for air. Then I heard Brinkley beside us, lapse into ragged breaths.
I couldn’t replace them both. I reached out and tried to grab him anyway, willing to try. But I couldn’t reach him with Ally in my lap. I was tethered to her now, and she’d be the one I followed into death.
Lane coughed and blood creased the corner of his mouth. I couldn’t do anything for him or Brinkley. I’d only followed Ally and that tightened navel string, down, down, down—Gabriel never taking his eyes off me. Those watery eyes—that great abyss—seemed to widen, ready to swallow me whole.
At first I resisted. I thought, but what happens next? Anything was possible. Even if I saved her, they could still kill us all. Or worse—they could keep her alive. And I knew sometimes alive was far worse than dead.
It was like closing my eyes at the worse possible moment, in the middle of chaos. It felt stupid—my eyes should be open. I should be ready.
But what else could I do? This was my only option—praying that somehow, despite the odds, we would survive this.
All I could do was save her. Save her but—I choose them all, I told Gabriel. I need them all.
And as if in response, he spread his wings wide, and enveloped my world in darkness.
Chapter 25
Gabriel held me in his warm arms, too warm for a person’s—as if he were made of sunshine itself. His feathers smelled like rain, but were as soft as wisps of smoke. I breathed him in before I opened my eyes.
“Oh God, I’m dead, aren’t I? Dead-dead. The fina
l sha-bang. A ghost on toast, right? Kaput,” I said, my eyes still closed. “Like the real deal.”
“No,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face. “You’re just in the hospital. Again.”
Too much time with me and he’d inherited my sarcasm. I finally dared to open my eyes and take in my surroundings. I saw the usual: bed, vitals monitor, too much fluorescent light—and that antiseptic hospital smell.
“Am I really in the hospital or is this some kind of out-of-body near-death experience?”
“You are not dead,” he said, patiently. “I promised to keep you safe.”
“You weren’t much help when Martin carved us up like pumpkins.”
I shot upright in bed. “Oh my god, where are they?”
“You’re awake.” A nurse rushed into the room and turned the volume on my wailing heart monitor down. “I’ll notify the doctor.”
I snatched her wrist. “Where are they?”
“Let go please, ma’am.” She tried to pull away, but I sure as hell wasn’t letting go.
“You’re hurting her,” Gabriel warned.
“Where are they?” I demanded again. “Did you bring anyone in with me? There were three of them with knife wounds.”
When she realized I wasn’t letting go, she reached over and jammed the nurse-call button by my bed.
“There’s a white guy, late twenties named Lane Handel,” I continued. I just wanted her to answer my question. “A young woman, blond hair named Alice Gallagher and an older guy mid-fifties James Brinkley.”
“Let go of me,” she said and yanked free. After a nervous glance at the fried monitor that I apparently zapped, she disappeared out the door cradling her wrist.
“What happened to them?” I asked. Gabriel blinked big eyes at me. “Tell me or I’ll start plucking your feathers out one by one.”
“You were saved,” he replied, completely unaffected by my threat.
“But what about Ally?”
“You successfully replaced her.”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “And Lane and Brinkley?”
Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel) Page 22
