My mom nods, then looks up into my eyes. “Will it hurt, Joe?”
“Yes.” I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. “It will feel like you’re dying. But I promise you won’t. I promise, Mom.”
“Okay.”
I lay my hand on her forehead and take a shaky breath.
“I love you, Joe.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Then I start the transfer. The flush of energy through my palm does nothing to keep the stabbing feeling from my chest as she seizes up, the death cramps taking hold of her as I drain her life energy. Tears stream down my face, and my hand shakes so bad I can barely keep contact. I close my eyes, feeling past the contact point, sensing how much life energy she has. It’s not much. I keep draining down, but I want to leave plenty of margin for error, so I stop, probably too soon.
My mom’s arms and legs fall limp, and her head lolls to the side. My heart lurches, and I’m afraid that I somehow made a mistake. I press my fingers to her throat: I can barely feel her heart throbbing in her neck, but it’s there. I bend my ear to her half-open mouth, and a whisper of air tells me she’s still alive.
But barely.
I swipe open my phone and quickly punch the number. Elena picks up, and before she can say anything, I whisper into my hand, “We’re ready.”
“We’re on our way.” She hangs up.
They should be here in less than a minute, just enough time for me to clear out and meet them downstairs. At the morgue. Where Elena and her nurse-friend will be wheeling my mother in just a few minutes.
I wipe my face and slap my cheeks a few times, to remove all traces of tears, then stride out of the room. I barely slow down at the nurses’ station, just long enough to say, “Patient in room 403 has been collected,” and move on. I force myself not to hurry to the elevator, but it takes an interminable amount of time for it to arrive.
My jackboot taps nervously on the tiled floor, but finally, the elevator door slides open. Inside is a man in a long, dark trenchcoat. With black boots. I hardly think, just react, striding quickly into the elevator, brushing past him, then reaching back to grab him around the neck.
But it’s too late; he saw me coming.
He reaches back to grab my face, grasping for skin contact, while I wrench him backwards. We both fall to the elevator floor as the doors start to close. His reservoir of life energy is deep, but he’s not as strong as me. I have a lock on his face with my hand, draining him at a near scorching pace, while simultaneously choking him with my arm cinched around his neck. He’s pulling life energy through his hand on my face, but he keeps losing contact as I whip my head back and forth, just out of his reach. It’s a death dance on the floor, but I’m winning, and we both know it.
“Wait!” he chokes out, beating against my head instead of trying to draw life energy from it. I don’t let him loose. His movements slow as the elevator starts to plummet. We were only on the 8th floor, so I don’t have much time. I shove him away, still alive, and spring to my feet, ready for more, if he’s going to push it.
“Walk away from this collection,” I say. “I’ve already taken care of it.”
“What the hell…?” he says, his voice still raspy.
I slam the button on the elevator for the third floor. Less security there. Easier to make my way to the morgue undetected.
“Say you’ll walk away, and I’ll let you live,” I say.
He just stares at me.
“Say it!” I take a step toward him.
He cowers back into the corner with his hands up. “Okay!”
“Just walk away. Tell your bean counter the patient was already dead.”
He frowns at me like I’m crazy, but he gives me a slow nod. The door slides open. I punch the button for the bottom floor and slip out just as the doors close. At least he’ll have to make a trip to the ground floor first. With any luck, he’ll walk away. Or Elena will do her thing before he thinks it through and checks on the patient.
My mom.
I fly down the stairwell, heading for the exit out the back of the morgue and hoping to actually find my mother there alive.
There are four ambulances lined up at the back dock of the hospital. Three are empty and the fourth has a driver who looks way too young to be involved in the illegal smuggling of bodies out of the morgue. But he looks over my debt collector trenchcoat and boots like I’m just another day at the office for him.
“You coming along for the ride?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He opens the back of the ambulance and I climb in. I take a seat on the cushioned bench where the EMT’s would sit while treating their patients. The driver stands guard in front of the open door, arms crossed, watching the back door to the morgue. It seems like a small eternity, but it’s only a few minutes later when Elena and a young nurse in scrubs wheel out a gurney with a bright blue body bag strapped to it. They’re in no small hurry as they run down the ramp. The driver throws open the second ambulance door and the three of them slide the gurney inside. Elena climbs in first, and the nurse gives the driver a quick kiss before following her in. The driver slams the doors shut, and we roll away from the hospital while I’m still working at the strap over the body bag.
The nurse shoves aside my hands and expertly unlocks the strap. The front of the bag peels away with one heart-ripping sound, and inside is my mother, limp and still as death, just as I left her. I quickly place my hand on her forehead and pulse in life energy, praying I won’t feel the same nothingness that Ophelia had when she died. Or when Valac slipped away. There’s only a whisper of presence in my mom, but I feel it, and I step up the rate of transfer. The nurse places monitor patches on her cheek and chest.
“You should infuse here,” the nurse says, laying her hand on my mother’s chest, right above her heart.
I put my other hand there, pulsing energy in through both hands while carefully watching the nurse’s electronic readouts play out on the screen mounted on the ambulance wall. I don’t know what all the numbers mean, but there’s a blip for her heart, and it makes a reassuringly steady rhythm.
My mom’s head stirs under my hand, and she pulls in a deep breath. Her eyes flutter open, and after a moment of searching, her gaze finds my face.
“Joey,” she says.
“Hey there.” I don’t try to say anything more.
“Where are we going?”
I let out a small laugh and look to Elena. She’s smiling, her eyes shining. Even the nurse grins.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe,” I say.
I keep trickling life energy into her all the way to Madam A’s.
If you enjoyed Promise, please leave a review.
The Debt Collector Serial
EPISODE 8
Available 6.12.13
With Elena’s help, Lirium attempts to slash into Candy’s files to get evidence about the conspiracy to transfer out kids.
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As we hurtle toward the end of the first season, I can’t tell you how much of a joy it has been to take this adventure with you, my readers. Thanks for your enthusiastic waiting and cheering for the next episode. Thank you for spreading the word, telling your friends, and even gifting them copies—that kind of hearty endorsement is precious, and I appreciate it more than you know.
At the beginning of this season, I made a promise to you—the reader—that this season would end. By which I meant that there would be no cliffhangers at the end of Season One, compelling you to read on to Season Two in order to find out what happens. I will keep that promise, and make another (due to reader demand): once the series is complete, a print version of the entire Season One will be available as well
as the ebook and audio versions. Thank you for loving it enough to ask. And for taking the ride all the way to the end.
We’re getting closer…
Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy, which is young adult science fiction. The Debt Collector series is her more grown-up SF.
Susan grew up in California, got a bunch of engineering degrees (B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering) and worked everywhere from NASA to NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). She designed aircraft engines, studied global warming, and held elected office (as a school board member). Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets paid to make stuff up.
All her engineering skills come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopic worlds, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in the basement.
Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.
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Promise (Debt Collector 7) Page 5
