Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (23 page)

3:48 P.M.

W
e have just turned off I-55 when Jackson screams. “Stop the car. You need to park, now.”

I swerve onto the shoulder, but then the car dies. It coasts toward the ditch and I have to slam on the break to make it stop rolling. It doesn’t help that Alice is screaming in my ear.

“Brake!”

The car hangs off the edge of the ditch, tilting forward, but the emergency brake is in place. We aren’t going anywhere.

“We’ll have to walk from here.” Jackson flips through her sketchbook. She stops on a page. It’s not a picture she is looking at, but notes along the margin. “It’s almost a mile.”

She scribbles a note for only me to see,
this is Jesse’s doing. She’s blasting everything
.
Like Rachel?
Then closes the sketchbook.

My heart knocks against my ribs. It is a warning. If Jesse’s power is getting out of control, she could be like Rachel when I found her that first time. She could be as much a danger to us as Caldwell himself.

“That’s consistent with the map,” Jeremiah says. Jeremiah is the first to climb out. A blast of cool October air rushes into the car before he closes the door behind him.

“What the hell is she doing out here?” Alice asks. “What did they do? Lock her in an outhouse?”

I haven’t failed to notice the way her eyes keep sliding right toward the blonde beside her. She hasn’t formally introduced herself, but she has to be Nicole Tamsin, the one whose partner was murdered brutally. She looks tough, but not as vicious as Gideon implied. He described her to a T though, athletic body and dangerous gaze included.

“She is in the ground,” Jackson says and her face pinches in pain.

“They buried her?” Lane kicks his door open and jumps down onto the street.

“Now I know why you brought the damn shovel,” I grumble to Jackson and we climb out as well.

We pull all our gear out of the back of the black SUV and suit up. As soon as possible, we get off the road and into the trees. Alice is to my left, wearing the orange hunter cap I put on her head when she refused to take a gun. We walk for a while, long enough that my muscles warm and my breath is heavier. I shrug my shoulders to adjust the weight of my pack when Jackson leans toward me and says something about the sound of water. I raise a hand, hoping everyone will stop.

“Shhh, shhh,” I urge when it is pretty obvious that only Jackson understands hand signals.

No one moves and I strain to hear better. There is something in the trees. Branches creak and sway, though I can’t detect a breeze on my face. From the sound of it, it’s much bigger than a squirrel.

“There.” Jackson points at the tree. It’s a beast with a multitude of fat branches. “She’s right there.”

Jackson darts forward and I don’t grab her in time. “Shit,” I say and think of the drawing she showed me: her and Micah locked in battle, their own fight to the death.

“Jackson, hold,” I yell, abandoning any element of surprise. If someone is in the trees, they already know we are here.

Jackson is halfway across the clearing when her knees buckle and she goes down. Alice jerks forward and I grab ahold of her jacket and force her down as Lane falls on top of her. A bit excessive considering we aren’t being shot at but at least the little twat is making himself useful.

“Did she get shot?” Alice asks, spitting the grass out of her mouth. I remain crouched beside them looking for any movement, but I don’t see anything. Jeremiah and Nicole have gone absolutely still beside me, guns up and ready.

Come on Jackson. Don’t be dead
.

“What’s happening?” Alice begs.

I charge out into the clearing, but keep low. I make it to Jackson. Alice follows me and I have just a moment to worry about her before I realize she is doing a better job of keeping low than I am, given our height difference.

We kneel beside Jackson, rolling her over and checking for a wound. Nothing. No blood. I look into the trees and see someone. He or she is wearing camo and blending with the treetop surrounding them. If it wasn’t for the black gun or small movements, I may not have seen them at all.

“What is this?” Alice asks and shows me a small metal dart about an inch long. I recognize it.

“A sedative. Military grade.”

“Why would they sedate us if they want us dead?” she asks. “Torture?”

“They didn’t want her dead, but I’m not willing to bet they feel the same way about me,” I say. After all, hadn’t Micah asked Caldwell for Jackson? I’m assuming he wanted her without a bullet in her head. I don’t think Caldwell is as sentimental, but he probably isn’t stupid enough to piss off his Magic 8 Ball. In my case, I figure we’re close enough to the actual death, he’ll take my head whatever way it comes.

Lane finally makes it to us. “Is she OK?”

Alice fills him in.

I turn and see that Nicole and Jeremiah have fallen back. Good. That makes it easier for me to follow my plan.

I grin and give Alice my gun. I can see the panic and rejection screwing up her face before I even have a chance to let go. “Just hold on to it for a minute. Keep your eyes open, and if you see anything, point and shoot.”

I tear open Jackson’s canvas bag and pull out the masks I asked her to pack.

“Put this on,” I say and give Alice a mask. I give one to the boy too before fitting one over Jackson’s face.

Then I grab a couple of tear gas canisters from the canvas bag and hurl them into the woods. The canister whistles through the air before thrashing the branches on its way down. Hissing sounds emit from the undergrowth and smoke begins to seep out of the dense tree line. I yank my own mask down over my face and lift my assault rifle. The Python shifts against my lower back as if anxious to see battle.

Not yet
, I tell the gun.
Not yet
.

“You’re a jerk,” Alice says looking back toward the friends I left unguarded. If Jeremiah really is so badass, let him prove it.

“We are going to have to run,” I say, as they look up at me with wide, fearful eyes. I don’t wait for them to panic or argue with me. They wanted to be here, and if they’re going to be here, it’s my way or the highway. For the next few hours anyway.

“Ready. In 3…2…” The boy’s hand tightens on Alice’s pack. “Run.”

4:23 P.M.

I
scream and hurl another tear gas canister into the trees. It whips through the branches, then crashes to the ground. I stay low in the clearing, while Jeremiah and Nicole wait crouched to the right where we came in, and Lane and Ally make it safely to the large tree on my left, where Jesse is supposed to be buried.

I let out a battle cry, a little showmanship if you will. If this is my last hurrah, you better believe I’m going out in style. My second scream is swallowed by the sound of gunfire in front of me.

I crouch down and wait, but I don’t have to wait long. My first target tumbles from the tree line a little to my right, coughing and hacking. I prop the rifle against my bent knee and blast three rounds through the front of his chest.

The sound of gunfire turns my head 180, to the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. Bullets hit the trunk of the front most trees, spitting bark into the air, but none of the bullets are hitting the second target stumbling toward me. This one has managed to pull his black shirt up over his nose. Before he lifts the gun, I put a bullet in his head and he falls back, disappearing into the dense smoke covering the ground.

I look to see who fired the shots and find Alice, coat open, chest heaving, and gun raised. She must have seen the man creeping up behind me and shot at him.

Her eyes are wide with surprise and I laugh, knowing full well she just shot a gun for the first time in her life.

I see movement and glance up. Two men in the tree above Lane and Ally are turning their guns down, taking aim at the top of their heads. I put bullets in both of them and they fall from the trees, slamming the ground in front of Alice and Lane.

The gunfire stops, and I decide to make a round before the smoke gets too thick. I even double back to see if Jeremiah and Nicole are clear and can’t find them. I can hear his voice though, barking orders at someone.

“We’re on the east side,” he says, his voice one with the white smoke. “Send Evan and Kirby with the ATVs. We will regroup at the main house.”

The main house
, I wonder, thinking of the elusive farmhouse from Jackson’s drawing.

“Ally needs—” Nicole begins but Jeremiah doesn’t let her get too far.

“Keep your head clear,” he says, chastising her like a child. “Whatever happens, I expect you to do your job.”

I don’t know what the girl says to this, maybe nothing. I only hear Jeremiah. “We
need
to move back. The gas is getting too close.”

Convinced I’m not going to hear anything more, I go to the tree where I left Jackson, Alice and Lane.

“Nikki?” she asks and I hesitate, both because it takes me a minute to realize she’s shortened Nicole’s name and because I’m not sure how honest to be.

“They probably fell back to escape the smoke.”

“You should’ve given them masks,” she hisses.

“I didn’t have enough,” I say and it’s true. In fact, I realize I don’t even have one for the kid, once we dig her up.

We inspect the ground for a possible grave and find a rectangle of disturbed earth. Alice is about to remove her mask, maybe to get a better view, but I put my hand on top of her head so she can’t lift it.

“Keep it on,” I warn her and we start digging.

I think of Charlie and Smith, so recently unburied from my own plot at Mt. Olivet’s. A sick feeling slides through my muscles as we push deeper and deeper into the earth.

I can’t help but feel like I am digging my grave, pushing myself closer to my own death.

6:08 P.M.

W
e dig Jesse up and pull her out. It helps that the grave wasn’t very deep and there are three of us. But when I see the kid in the coffin, I feel murderous. The world tilts and I know that if Caldwell appeared before me at this moment, every cell in my body would be bent on destroying the son of a bitch.

Alice is crying and begging us to pull Jesse out of the hole.

We lift her body, and she’s covered in her own shit. In her death, Jesse’s body expels all that is unnecessary. We stretch her out on the dirt beside the hole and I don’t even know where to start.

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

After handing her the backpack, I obey, ashamed of my own relief. I lift my gun a little higher and survey the area. Lane is still beside me, looking at the trees as if waiting for orders himself. Neither of us say anything as Jesse is stripped and cleaned behind our backs.

My pride in Alice grows more than I ever thought possible. She knew what to do when I didn’t. She isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty or doing the work. I suddenly feel intense gratitude that Jesse has her.

“The farther we get from the grave the better,” I say. I look back the way we came, toward the car, in the direction where I know there is no farmhouse. We have Jackson, we have Jesse, and we are all alive. If we can just get to the car and leave, then I might live to see another day.

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

“We’ll have to walk the three or four miles into town,” Lane adds. He’s sweaty from digging and has a smudge of dirt across his right cheek.

“Just walking will take an hour or so,” I say. “Dragging Jesse and Jackson will take longer.”

“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” she says and I have to agree.

Yes
, says the old bastard in my head.
Just go. Get as far away from here as you can.
I lift Jackson up and throw her over my shoulder. It isn’t the first time I’ve had to carry her like this.

We don’t get very far.

“What’s wrong?” I ask when I see Alice and Lane struggling with the kid’s body.

“She’s breathing,” Alice says. She puts the back of her hand beneath the kid’s nose and I see for myself her chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. “She’s waking up.”

They each take one of her hands, looking like a choreographed scene from a soap opera, as Jackson grows heavy on my shoulder. When her fist tightens on theirs, I should feel relieved. But for some reason, my limbs go limp.

The kid’s eyes fly open and she leaps to her feet, knocking both Alice and Lane to the side.

For just a minute, I see that wild, uncaged energy I saw coursing through Rachel so long ago. I try to maneuver Jackson off my shoulder, feeling for one instinctive moment that I should grab ahold of my gun. I’m too slow. Before I can even put Jackson down, the kid is running, blasting past us in the opposite direction.

I watch her run full speed toward what I know must be the farmhouse.

She shouldn’t be able to move that fast, but I’d been through this with Rachel.
Shouldn’t be able to
no longer applied. When Rachel first went
live
, was first
possessed
by her angel as she describes it, she’d lost it. She had hurt herself and tried to hurt Jesse.

Before I can warn them to proceed with caution, Lane and Alice run after her. I try to reposition Jackson across my back, leaning in such a way that the majority of her weight is distributed across my hips and quads instead of my back alone.

The three of them disappear and I’ve no choice but to follow slowly and deliberately. I won’t leave Jackson alone in these woods.

“Well, we
almost
made it out alive,” I tell my unconscious friend.

When the trees break and I finally see it, my heart throbs. I feel like I’ve come to the edge of a great precipice and I’m looking out over the vast valley below, knowing that the only thing left is to leap.

The white paint has peeled away in places showing a gray, dull wood beneath, and the windows are completely covered with dust. The cornstalks surrounding the house have been bent back in places, and the front door stands open. I put two and two together and figure that the three of them went into the house.

“Did no one teach you kids not to go into strange houses?”

Jackson moans and I turn and gently set her down. Her eyes flutter open and focus on me. I point at the stalks around us, silent spectators come to watch our final performance. “We made it.”

“The corn,” she says. She reaches up and squeezes my hand, wincing as she pulls herself up. She looks around, shifting her weight on unsteady feet. “I don’t want to die here.”

“If he has the nerve to show his face, you’ll beat him,” I tell her. I put a steady hand on each of her shoulders. “I’ve no doubt you’ll win.”