Every Stolen Breath

by Kimberly Gabriel

  “Are you ladies interested in phones today?” a sales associate in blue-rimmed glasses asks as he rubs his hands together.

  Emi doesn’t look his way. “We’re on our way out.”

  “Alrightee then. I’ll just be over here if you need me.”

  Emi grabs my wrist. “Don’t go to the gala.” Her concern catches me off guard.

  A stinging sensation starts beneath the bridge of my nose. “I have to.”

  “I can find you a way out.”

  “They threatened my mom.” My voice is small, desperate.

  Emi drops my wrist. Nods. She smooths out the front of her coat as if regaining her composure. “Well—my wife, Olivia, is notorious for being on time, and I’ll be late on our anniversary if I don’t leave now. But you know how to reach me. Keep that phone with you at all times.” She nods again. “Good luck, Lia.” Without waiting for a response, she heads out the glass doors and into the night.

  The back of my throat burns like I’ve swallowed ash. I pull out my inhaler and take in a deep, medicated puff.

  On my way out the door, I pass a guy staring at me. At first, I don’t recognize him, but when I take a closer look, I see the creepy spider tattoo crawling up his neck, behind his ear.

  Spider Tattoo.

  My throat clenches, trapping my breath inside me. I dart through the glass doors, glancing back to see if he’s following me. Instead, he heads over to the desktop I was using and starts punching at it with tight concentration.

  I don’t dare wait to see if Emi’s program works. Without a second thought, I turn away from the Apple Store and take off running.

  CHAPTER 27

  I kick my covers and flip away from the clock on my nightstand. It’s past midnight. My mind won’t stop racing.

  If my sister Annie were around, would any of this be different? Would Adam still be alive? Would she and I find a way to take down the mayor before the gala? Before Emi’s article? Something that ensures he rots in prison instead of spending the city’s blood money on flashy hotels with gaudy fountains.

  I flop to my back, tangling my leg in the sheets.

  That’s what this is about for him: His image. His legacy. He’s murdering people so he can splash his name all over city buildings. I should’ve recognized it the first time I met him. His artfully grayed hair. His perfect teeth. He’s a narcissist—the dangerous kind. And the whole Lakefront Project reflects it. For the last ten years, the project’s platform has been all about bringing in revenue, generating tourism, and saving this city. But those promises are all secondary to the real reason behind it all: the mayor’s ego.

  I’m not sure whether to laugh or simply despise the irony behind it all. This city turned their backs on my dad’s entire career when he was pegged as a narcissist. And yet everyone, including the media, seems to give the mayor a pass? Unless the mayor found a way to control the media too.

  My right eye twitches, and I massage the dull ache pulsing inside my head.

  I need to go back. Reanalyze my crime wall. Every Death Mob victim must be linked to someone tied to the Lakefront Project. It’s how the mayor gets people to agree to his plans. And he’s controlling those already involved with the project too, like the men in that picture. The Swarm can’t exactly attack everyone. My eyes dart around the ceiling, connecting invisible dots like a constellation that’s always been there but is finally crystalizing. That’s what the blackmail is for.

  Ryan said his dad did something illegal. Maybe they all did. Bribery? Extortion? Embezzlement? One of a million other possible scenarios I can’t even imagine? Maybe they were coerced into it. Maybe they were already corrupt. Either way, every single one of them had a kid in high school. That’s more than coincidence. The mayor must have chosen those men so he could force their kids into the Swarm.

  I rub both eyes with the palms of my hands. I’m so close to figuring it out. I know I am. And still, so many unanswered questions spin through my head in dizzying circles with two more nagging than the rest. Why didn’t the tweet about the next attack include the location? And how will I catch the Swarm on video if I don’t know where it is?

  Unless the attack is meant for me.

  I inhale. Air crackles against the back of my throat like vinyl record static. Whatever the mayor is planning for the night of the gala, I’m running out of time. The day I cut my foot, Ryan asked me if I’d responded to the tweet about the Navy Pier attack, if I’d signed in. There has to be something to that.

  I jump out of bed. The sheets, still twisted around my ankle, tumble to the floor. I kick them away and scurry to my bag. Squinting in the dark, I rummage through it for the phone Emi gave me, the one I’ve been avoiding for the last three days. I tap Google Maps. Like Emi promised, Ryan’s house is pinned. And it’s only a few blocks away. I still find it hard to imagine him living so close.

  I throw on an oversized pair of sweats, wrap my scarf around my neck, and pull my wool hat low over my eyes. I’ll need to skirt the Escalade camped out front, which shouldn’t be too hard. The bigger challenge is getting to Ryan’s without a hallucination overpowering me.

  Dr. What’s-His-Name would bank on me failing. Which is all the motivation I need.

  Just before I walk out of my room, I listen for movement coming from my mom’s room.

  Nothing.

  Grabbing my keys off the desk, I slink down the stairs and head for the back door. My palms sweat as I punch in the alarm code, deactivating it, praying the staccato beeps don’t wake my mom.

  I tiptoe down the porch stairs like I might disturb someone hiding in the bushes waiting to kill me. Careful not to activate our floodlights, I hug the house, tracing the perimeter of our yard, while watching the night for any sign of movement.

  The leaves on our Japanese maple flutter all at once. For a split second my heart leaps as I think it’s a person hiding among the dead blooms of our hydrangea bushes. Not exactly a hallucination, but still too neurotic if I’m going to make it four blocks.

  I sidle up against the fence and inch around the garage. My hand grazes the brick as I round the corner and pass the side door. I’m about to clear it when the door jerks open. A thick hand grabs my wrist and yanks me inside my garage. Before I can make a run for it, the door slams shut, trapping me inside.

  A burst of adrenaline ignites every nerve in my body. I spin, looking for my attacker, ready to punch or kick, whichever I can get in first.

  Someone grabs my shoulders to steady me—and I’m looking into Ryan’s eyes.

  I shake him off, gulp for air. “What are you trying to do to me?”

  Ryan’s hands slide down my arms, lingering at my wrists.

  I bend over. Visions of Adam’s silhouette cowering in the alley flash like a strobe light inside my head. Blood leaks from his face. I shut my eyes. Squeeze the images out. “Don’t do that. I can’t . . .”

  Ryan bends low, until his face is near mine. He clears a chunk of hair from my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. “You okay?”

  I step back and inhale, burying the images of Adam. They threaten to slice me open as I shove them deep into my gut and work to regain my courage, release the pressure in my chest.

  Ryan stands, leans against the hood of my mom’s SUV, and waits for me to finish my mental breakdown.

  I shuffle, searching for space, but my elbow hits the mountain bike propped against the wall. The front wheel turns, scraping the concrete. The back wheel clashes against a metal shelving unit littered with tools we haven’t used since my dad’s death. I think of the blogger, sideswiped by an Escalade, and I inch away from the bike like it’s a dark omen. I can’t move far; there’s barely enough room for Ryan and me to stand across from each other without touching.

  He tucks his hands into the pockets of a zip-up hooded sweatshirt. “Where were you going?”

  Short huffs burst from my lips, echoing through the dark. They’re too loud. Too weak. I grab my sides, keeping my arms close to my body as my crap lungs tak
e their time steadying themselves. “To find you.”

  Ryan stares at me through the shadows with an unbearable intensity.

  “I need to talk to you. You’re not exactly easy to get ahold of,” I whisper.

  “And you thought sneaking around in the middle of the night would be a good idea?” Ryan searches my face before taking off his Blackhawks hat and dropping it on the hood of my mom’s car. He rubs his forehead. “You have three Swarm members watching your house.” He’s quiet, but firm. “One out front. Two on either side of the alley.”

  My head turns on instinct, like I can see them through the cement walls.

  “You wouldn’t have made it a few steps past your gate,” he says.

  I’d only considered the Escalade out front. Three is more than I expected. I imagine light snaking through the darkness and glinting off the metal in Lip Spikes’ mouth. The garage shrinks. The air becomes thick, musty, claustrophobic. I unwind my scarf, slide my hat off, and drop them on the ground.

  “They announced the next attack.”

  Ryan’s eyes soften like he knows no matter how many people we find to come forward, there’s not enough time to prevent it.

  I stretch my torso, expanding my lungs, trying to release the unwanted pressure burning in my chest. “There’s no location.”

  Ryan nods. “They’ve never done that before.”

  I figured as much. The whole thing is a setup—without any key information, I’ll be walking into a trap, one I might not escape.

  “But they’ll tweet it out, won’t they? The night of the attack.”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s how you know who to hit. The victim is identified just before the Initiators start.”

  Ryan dips his chin. The movement is controlled, slight. “They send a pic.”

  I envision Navy Pier. Dozens of blue orbs filled the gray, misty day as phones went off just before the attack. I shake away the idea that on Saturday night, it could be my photo on everyone’s screen.

  “That’s why you sign in through Twitter. To give whoever’s in charge a list of everyone at each attack.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrow. “Where are you going with this?”

  Ryan said earlier that not everyone’s forced into the Swarm. “The Initiators aren’t blackmailed. They must volunteer.”

  “Initiators are idolized. They’re well taken care of—money, gifts.” His voice is low and contemptuous. “Some kids join for their chance at that.”

  “So the tweet is an all-call. They need the attacks to be big.” It’s how the mayor invites more people, which means anyone can join. I can’t imagine what kind of person signs up to savagely murder someone else, but that’s not the point. “If I tweet back, then Saturday night when the location goes out—”

  “No,” Ryan snaps. His jaw ripples beneath the skin. The muscles in his arms and chest tense. “Why would you do that?”

  “The mayor wants me to go to the Save the Parks Gala with Cullen.” I glance at him. “He says it’s for the press, to have me standing next to him . . .”

  Ryan’s shoulders stiffen. “The same night.”

  “They’re picking me up thirty minutes before the attack starts.”

  I search his face for a sign—any indication that there’s no correlation. That my worst fears are outrageous and illogical. But Ryan’s square jawline is sharp, his expression hard. “You can’t go.”

  “They aren’t exactly giving me a choice.”

  I’ve considered every angle—refusing, boycotting, running away. None of my options are good. These people killed my dad. Adam. Fourteen others. My mom would be next.

  Ryan’s expression turns worried or desperate—I can’t tell. Either way, it stirs my anxiety, and for the first time since knowing him, I’d rather he bury his emotions like usual. “Tomorrow. I’ll go to the CPD.”

  “Not without more people.” I lift my chin to make up for my size. For my shoulders that come up to his chest. For how narrow and small I feel every time I stand next to him. “We can’t afford that risk.” I pull the Post-it from my pocket. As I do, the back of my hand knocks into his stomach, which is solid and strong. Heat splashes across my neck, down my back, but Ryan doesn’t flinch. Like he didn’t feel it. Like it doesn’t matter how close we’re crammed together.

  I rake my ratted hair. “It’s a list of others forced into it. Their parents are tied to the Lakefront Project like your dad.”

  Ryan stares at the paper while I hold my breath, waiting for him to grab it. All it would take is one subtle shift for my hand to brush his hoodie. Goose pimples skip up my arms.

  “If I take this, will you back off? Stick to our plan?”

  I consider promising I’ll wait for him to come forward, which would be a lie. Or arguing back that this is my fight just as much as it is his. Instead, I say nothing.

  His fingers graze mine as he slips the sheet from my grip and tucks it away. The rest of his body remains perfectly still. Light from the alley comes in through the window, hitting his eyes in a way that makes them look almost silver like the sun touching the lake on a dreary day. “I get that you feel guilty.” His lips form a slight grimace. “I do too. But you can’t act reckless because you’re alive and they aren’t.”

  His words hit me like a punch in the lungs, stealing my breath.

  Annie. My dad. Dopney. Adam.

  A dull whir underlies the dark silence.

  Ryan’s eyes flit back and forth between mine. “I’ll find a group to come forward because you asked me to. But you need to give me time.”

  “I’m out of time.” My voice shrinks. “We both know the attack’s meant for me.”

  For the second time tonight, I want him to tell me I’m paranoid, to deny it as a possibility. But his silence confirms what I know is true. Ryan looks at me with that expression of his, when his edge is gone and his guard is down and his face is full of depth and emotion. Like he doesn’t know what to say. Like there’s nothing to say.

  I cross my arms, pressing them tight against my ribs to ease the sharp ache inside me.

  He takes a half step toward me, so our toes touch. “I won’t let that happen.” His voice is low and coarse.

  His gaze flickers across my face.

  My stomach flips.

  Ryan grabs my arms, and every muscle I have turns taut. His thumb brushes against my bicep as he pulls me in, closing the last inches between us. My face flushes, and I’m thankful it’s too dark to see the red blotches I know are spreading up my neck.

  His eyes search mine as he lowers his face. He looks uncertain, like he’s waiting for me to stop him or slap him or give any indication that I want to kiss him back, but my thoughts are empty, wiped away. I stare at the straight line of his lips as they near mine before uncrossing my arms and letting them fall against his. A wave of heat rushes through me. His lips brush mine, and he kisses me. The kiss is gentle and short and nothing like I’d imagined.

  He pulls away like he changed his mind, like he realizes I’m not worth the risk, or the kiss itself was terrible. But instead of stepping back, he holds his face inches away from mine, searching for a reaction. He looks so vulnerable that my heart flutters, and my lips flicker upward at the irony of it.

  Ryan flashes back the tiniest of smiles before he leans in and kisses me again. This time he doesn’t pull away. He presses my back so I move closer, forcing my arms to encircle his neck. His other hand slides up my neck and weaves its way into my hair. His tongue sweeps against my bottom lip, and my heart thrashes. I’m sure he can feel it, and I don’t care.

  His arms tighten around me, drawing me into him. Like doing so will help us escape everything. And for several moments, it works. He isn’t the Swarm. People aren’t staking out my house. No one wants to kill me. No one else even exists except Ryan and me, kissing each other in the crammed corner of our detached garage.

  When he pulls away again, I can’t help from biting my lip, suppressing my smile.

  R
yan smiles back, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen him smile without restraint. His whole face bends in a way that fills my body with warmth, especially as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’ll figure this out. You’ve gotta trust me.”

  I want to believe him. Just like I want to believe two broken and flawed people like us could like each other and maybe even—one day—date like normal teenagers. I don’t know what’s better: believing there’s a chance everything will work out or admitting that no matter how well prepared either of us is going into Saturday night, everything will most likely spin out of control.

  Ryan’s lips brush against my ear as he kisses the side of my head. “Sooner or later they’ll announce the location.” His voice is rugged. “And when they do, we’ll make sure you’re nowhere near the next attack.”

  He wraps his arms around me. “You’re not in this alone,” he says.

  I lean into his shoulder, the strength of his arms.

  I almost tell him my plan. How earlier this evening, I set up a live-streaming feed on the phone Emi gave me that’s automatically synced to whatever I record. How I linked the feed to a dozen social media sites, which have been joined by over seven thousand followers in the last few weeks, ensuring someone will see it before the mayor can take it down. I have my audience, which I fully intend to exploit. Like my dad did.

  I open my mouth to say it, but I can’t. I can’t risk him trying to talk me out of it.

  Instead we stand in the corner, saying nothing to each other, as I try to block the visions spinning through my head, the images of the Swarm closing in on us both.

  By the time I slink into my house, it’s after 2:00 in the morning. My room is quiet and undisturbed. I peek through the blinds without rustling the wooden slats. From what I can tell, there are no reporters in front of my house.

  The Escalade, however, is parked on the side of the street a few houses down.

  I jerk back, putting distance between myself and the window.

  My hands shake as I grab Emi’s phone from my nightstand.