Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel) (30 page)

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

G
abriel 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 final 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?”

A knock on the door stole my attention. The doctor walked in. “Who were you talking to?”

“Are they okay? Are they here in this hospital, can I see them?”

“Are you next of kin?” the nurse asked, the one with the red wrist.

“I’m going to next your kin if you don’t answer my question,” I said.

The doctor came to the edge of the bed. It wasn’t Dr. York. It was some young guy who I’d seen around. “You need to remain calm, Ms. Sullivan.”

I grabbed his arm and yanked him toward me so hard he flinched.

“If you don’t tell me if my friends are dead or alive I’m going to shock the living daylights out of you.”

“What’s an assault charge on top of everything else?” a voice asked from the doorway.

Agent Garrison stood there. He had a bandage on his head and a look that told me that if I knew what was good for me I’d shut my pie hole. I admit it was enough to make me pause.

“That is a terrible way to treat the man who patched you up,” Garrison added. He came into the room beside the doctor-nurse duo and I still couldn’t get over how short he was.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, releasing the doctor. I smoothed his ruffled lab coat with my hands and forced a smile. “Post-traumatic stress or whatever.”

“Do you need to examine her before she leaves her bed?” Garrison asked.

“Yes.” The doctor removed his stethoscope from his shoulders, but it was obvious he had little interest in touching me after my violent spiel. Regardless, he did his job dutifully, and so did the nurse who checked my blood pressure with a cuff and played with my fluid bags. Though I’m sure she’d found pleasure in stabbing me with a new needle.

“A little dehydrated,” the doctor finally pronounced. “But she’ll survive.”

“Can she bring that with her?” Garrison pointed to my fluid bag and to the IV connecting it to my arm. When he lifted his hand I realized his right arm was bandaged too.

“It has wheels,” the nurse answered. She helped me from the bed then offered me the slender metal bar supporting my IV. I turned toward the bed but Gabriel was gone. I didn’t know at which moment he’d left. Perhaps he really didn’t like being threatened to have his feathers plucked.

Their jobs done, the nurse and doctor left, leaving me alone with Garrison who motioned for me to follow him. “We need to talk.”

I shuffled after him, my legs stiff and cold.

“You haven’t read me my rights yet,” I said. “Is that a good sign?”