Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) (34 page)

I miss him of course. I’ve never fired a gun in my life. But it gets Brinkley’s attention and he turns and finishes the guy himself. Then Brinkley returns the favor and fires three shots into the tree limbs above us. I’m crouching, hands over my head. Little splinters rain off the tree, hitting my coat like soft, sporadic rain. Then I heard Brinkley’s shots change direction and the splinters stop.

Two bodies hit the ground beside me in a sickening thump. Lane swears and pulls me back away from the two men who were presumably guarding Jesse from the branches above.

“You okay?” Lane asks.

I’m shaking. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

The gunfire is dying down around us. When it is silent for several heartbeats, the smoke filling the field and trees, I raise my head and call out. “Brinkley? Nikki? Jeremiah?”

No answer.

The smoke thickens, bringing with it an eerie silence. A dark shadow emerges from the white smoke, lumbering like a strange hunchback creature. I stand slowly, pushing myself out of Lane’s arms. Lane raises his gun and watches the solitary figure approach.

It isn’t until I hear a string of explicative vocabulary that I’m certain it’s Brinkley. And the hump on his back is Gloria.

“Where are Nikki and Jeremiah?” I brush off my knees and adjust my hideous orange cap and gas mask. I try to count the bodies. I want to say six. I think I see six but the gas is thick. “Please tell me you didn’t accidentally shoot them.”

“I didn’t,” he says, his voice is muffled by the gas mask, like mine, but he is clearly offended.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I checked the bodies. They probably fell back when they saw the gas.”

“Because they didn’t have masks!”

“You’re the one that brought extra people!” Brinkley counters. “It isn’t my fault. They said they had their own equipment.”

“Go look for them,” I say. “While Lane and I dig up Jesse.”

Brinkley grabs me as I turn to rush across the field. “No. If they are as resourceful as you say they are, they can handle this. We’ll regroup once the gas dissipates.”

I’m angry. I can’t believe how inconsiderate Brinkley is with his lone wolf act. He could get people killed. We needed to work
together
. That was the
plan
.

“How will we know the exact spot where she is buried?” Lane asks. He’s inspecting the ground, sweeping a foot over the dirt.

“The earth should be disturbed.” I help search the ground around us as the white gas begins disappearing through the trees like phantom fingers.

I’m hoping this means Jeremiah and Nikki will reappear.

“Keep your mask on,” Brinkley says, pulling his own shield down.

“There,” Lane points at a square patch of dirt on the ground. It’s slightly darker and looks unsettled.

He starts to dig at one end of the grave. I choose the other, using my hands to scoop away the lightly packed earth.

I try not to think about the fact that I’m digging
into
a grave, the creepiness of it. I focus on Jess.
It’s Jesse in there. It’s Jesse in there.
Not somebody’s corpse. Just Jess. And I have to get her out.

We dig faster against the dying light, and the monsters that might come with the darkness.

The shovel hits something hard. I plunge my fingers in beside the spade and wood catches my fingers.

“Back up,” Brinkley says

Once I am clear of the hole, I notice the knees of my jeans are stained green-brown, and my jacket is covered in clumps of sticky grave dirt. I search the clearing, the evaporating white smoke of a misty dusk but I still don’t see Jeremiah or Nikki.
Please be okay
. I’m half-convinced they were shot down while retreating and Brinkley just doesn’t want to tell me.

Gloria stirs against the tree where we propped her, but her eyes remain closed.

Brinkley wedges the head of the spade into the corner of the box working it back and forth.

The wood creaks, protests as the nails are pulled out, like lips pulled back, exposing long, sharp teeth.

My hot breath on my face is unbearable, so I jump into the grave, safely below the gas circulating above and pull off my gas mask. The smell coming from the makeshift coffin is terrible.

When Jesse dies, her body expels all that is in its bowels. It’s not the most dignified aspect of the replacement process, but it happens nonetheless. But by the look of it, Jesse had been sitting in her piss soaked jeans for a long while.

My vision blurs, making it hard to focus on any more details of her there. Her stiff body framed by the wooden box, framed again by the walls of dirt on each side. I’m crying. And my voice cracks behind my mask as I yell at Brinkley.

“Get her out of there,” I say.

“I need your help,” he says. “Both of you.”

They climb into the ground and grab her feet. I gag again, dropping her leg and hurling against one of the dirt walls of the grave. I place a hand against the cold earth to steady myself. Brinkley is saying my name, impatient.

I pull my sweater up to cover my mouth and lift Jesse’s legs. Lane carefully drags himself out of the hole with Jesse in tow, holding her up by lacing his arm under hers. Still holding her legs I help him heft the rest of her out. Then Brinkley reaches into the hole and pulls me up. The smoke has dissipated and both men pull of their masks.

“Turn around,” I say. “Both of you, while I clean her up.”

Brinkley hands me the backpack before turning around. Lane turns his back also but the expression on his face as he sees Jesse is heartbreaking. And it is hard to see her this way. Not just sad, but hard. I want to kill someone for what they’ve done.

I pull clean clothes, underwear, a wash cloth and a bottle of water from the bag. I pull off her pants, underwear and toss them back into the grave. I wet the washcloth and do my best to wipe her down. I’m glad I packed a second bottle, because it takes both to clean her up. I don’t know what I’ll do if she wakes up dehydrated. She’ll just have to tough it out. If I were her and I had to choose between a serious thirst and a shit-caked ass, I’d suffer the thirst.

She’s warm still and not stiff, so it’s easier to manipulate her limbs into the clothing. As I edge the denim fabric up on each hip, I feel a pulse in her abdomen artery. I press my fingers to her neck to confirm.
Yes
. Her heart is beating. It is the fast, panicked pulse of someone afraid.

Don’t be afraid.
It’s just me, baby. Just me.

“I’m done,” I say. They turn around.

“The farther we get from the grave the better,” Brinkley says.

“We can’t drive out of here,” I say. “The car is shot.”

“We’ll have to walk the three or four miles into town and get help,” Lane says.

“Just walking would take us an hour. Dragging Jesse and Gloria will take longer,” Brinkley says.

“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” I say. “We have to keep moving.”

Brinkley carries Gloria across his back like a fallen comrade and Lane and I carry Jesse. But it is harder than it sounds and we aren’t getting very far. Our only hope is to head back toward the SUV and town and hope we run across Jeremiah and Nikki. My back aches, sore from hefting Jesse through the woods. Then I feel the press of her hand against the back of my neck.

“Help me sit her down,” I tell Lane.

“What’s wrong?” Brinkley asks.

“She’s breathing,” I tell them. Her eyes are still closed but she is breathing. Her chest rises and falls in a slow steady rhythm. “She’s waking up.”

I kneel and take her hand into mine. “Jess, baby? Can you hear me?”

She squeezes my hand. My relief is immeasurable.

“We’re here,” Lane says. He takes her other hand.

The grip on my hand tightens and her mouth opens, sucking a deep gasping breath of air.

Her eyes fly open. She leaps to her feet, knocking us both back, surprised.

“What the hell?” Brinkley swears and tries to maneuver Gloria off his shoulders. But he’s too slow and we are too stunned. Jesse tears right past us and bolts back the way we came.

“Not that way!” I scream after her as I watch her run back toward the danger. “Jesse, wait!”

But she doesn’t seem to hear me. She is running as if her life depends on it.

Jesse

I
can feel Ally. Ally pulsing, almost coursing through me. But how? And how is she here? I can’t bear to stop and find out. If I don’t keep running, I might explode. So I keep pushing, tearing through the corn. I’m aware of the shouting behind me but I can’t stop. Gabriel’s power is making my skin crawl like fire ants have built a colony under my flesh. In my blind panic, legs pumping, it takes me a minute to realize that the barn, the coffin, it is all behind me. All of it a dream—except for Gabriel.

And I feel someone else—not Ally. It is not unlike feeling the blood pounding in my own skull. A present pulse tuned to my own frequency somehow and I turn toward it.

I erupt into a clearing and see the house. It looms over the corn with its large white face and dark eyes reflecting the dying light. I could keep running, I could. But something about the child’s pulse—and it is a child, I realize, from the feel of it—calls to me. So I slow down. I enter the house feeling the sensation of the child pulling me toward it. Not just a child. Men, women—people I know. Somehow.

It is hard to move slowly when I feel like I’m going ten directions at once. I lick my lips and swallow. I shake my hands to release tension. I do it all again—but it isn’t helping.

My fingers trail over the flaking yellow wallpaper, brush cold door knobs and chipped wooden door frames of the hallway between the front door and kitchen as I try to steady and ground myself.

The kitchen is cold and hollow, the counters stained and dusty. The refrigerator unplugged is pulled away from the wall. The basement door is already open a crack so I listen for movement before opening the door wider and stepping inside toward that pulse. I don’t hear anyone. The steps creak as I descend into the darkness, each foot scraping against the wood as it reaches blindly for the next ledge. It smells like damp rags and earth. And there is a chill that’s settled into the concrete walls.

I reach up above and pull the string tickling the top of my head.

Dozens of bodies lie in rows. It seems so strange to see them stretched out on the basement floor. It isn’t the sort of place to find dozens of sleeping people. And their breath is the only sound filling the dark space.

The one that calls to me, the little pulse echoing my own rhythm, is lying in the floor between a man and woman. I lift her from the cold floor and realize who it is. Julia Lovett. She is soft and warm in my arms but heavy dead weight.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Why are you here?”

Gabriel appears. I can feel him inside me yet I can also see him like a hologram projected from my chest.

He stands tall beside me with his wings tucked away. His suit is immaculate as usual with the exception of a few stray down feathers clinging to the dark sleeves. His hair is shaggy and shoulder length, falling into his beautiful green eyes.

I can’t look away from his face. “Who are they?”

He wants more power.

“Then why take them?” I ask. “They aren’t doorways. I thought only the partis whatevers are doorways.”

Can’t you feel him?
The power inside me swells and I almost drop the child in my arms. I do hit the ground, a jarring pains shooting through me when my knees connect with the cement.

“No, no more,” I beg and still manage to hold the child.

But he doesn’t cut off the power. He dials it up higher. I cry out and clutch Julia tighter. Tears stream down my face. It is almost like seeing something beautiful or moving and crying from the sight of it. It isn’t pain or sadness. Intensity. It is simply intensity.

Quit fighting me
, Gabriel commands.

“You’re hurting me,” I whimper. “Please stop.
Please
.”

He dials it back a notch and a small clarity comes. I open my eyes and focus on the people nightmaring on the basement floor. I can only really fixate on the colors of their clothes—a blue sweater. A green coat. Until more details, rather impressions come from the roll of power. It’s as if the power is probing the bodies like insect feelers, then giving me the data.

“He is trying to
make
a door to my power,” I say. I glimpse the soft green flames burning inside them. Not quite the red of the living, nor the blue of NRD. The soft green of near death that remains for a person once they’ve been saved. And a few flames
feel
familiar. Like I know them somehow. But as I search each face I become more certain they are strangers, all except the child in my arms. So the others? “But not just my power.”

He will terminate them once he realizes he cannot gain power this way.

“We can’t leave them here,” I say. After my lovely time with Caldwell, I could just imagine what he had in mind for these poor people. And they didn’t do anything to deserve this. All they wanted was more time. And so do I.