Death of Day
A Girl of Glass Story
Megan O’Russell
Visit our website at www.MeganORussell.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Death of Day
Copyright © 2019, Megan O’Russell
Editing by Christopher Russell
Interior Design by Christopher Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Requests for permission should be addressed to Ink Worlds Press.
Printed in the United States of America
Death of Day
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Discover the Domes
Afterword
Chapter One
About the Author
Also by Megan O’Russell
Chapter One
The buzzing beat of the music cut through the pounding in her head. Sweat slicked Raina’s skin as she wove through the dancers. The sweet smell of booze filled the dark room. Even the stench of the rotting city couldn’t compete with that of the club. In the Rev there was nothing but the moment, and flesh, and the thumping stronger than a heartbeat.
A man snaked his arm around Raina’s waist, drawing her toward him. She didn’t bother turning to see his face as his stubbled chin brushed against her cheek and his teeth nibbled the edge of her ear.
Let him have a taste.
She swayed with him for a moment, feeling the aging wooden floor bend beneath the weight of the crowd.
The man slid his hand from her waist to her neck. He closed his fingers around her throat. With a laugh, Raina elbowed him in the stomach and ducked under his arm. She didn’t turn to look at him as he cursed over the music.
“You okay?” a man with hair spiked high shouted in her ear as she stepped up to the bar.
“Fine.” Raina pulled bills from her bra, waving them at the bartender.
“He should be kicked out for that,” the spike head said. “I can go get the bouncer.”
“Don’t bother.”
She caught the bartender’s eyes.
His chest shook with laughter, though she couldn’t hear the sound. He grabbed a full bottle from the shelf and tossed it to Raina.
“Planning on a good night?” spikey asked.
“Sorry, I don’t have enough to share.” Raina slipped past him to the far corner of the club.
A hand reached for hers, luring her back into the dance. She brushed it aside, not caring who had offered to be her partner.
The vibrations of the music shook her lungs as she neared the wall of speakers. Raina gulped down air like a child swallowing pills for the first time.
A man as wide as the door she sought blocked her path.
Raina pulled more money from her bra before the man had time to ask for it. With a bow he stepped aside.
She rolled her eyes and gave a little curtsy before pressing the metal bar and stepping out into the night.
The city’s stink filled her nose at the same moment the chill air sent goosebumps bristling on her skin.
Raina kicked the door closed behind her just in time to keep the bouncer from hearing her cough. Blood splattered the back of her hand. Her lungs cramped, and the coughing didn’t stop. She leaned against the poles of the fire escape, waiting for the fit to pass.
“If you want me dead,” Raina spoke to her lungs between coughs, “you can stop working whenever you like.”
She unscrewed the fresh bottle of liquor, holding it up to her nose. The pungent smell of pure alcohol burned past the scent of her own blood. Taking a sip, she swished and spit the mix of blood and booze over the fire escape railing.
“What a waste.” She poured some of the precious liquid over her hand, washing the blood away. She wiped her hand on her pants, trusting the black to cover any unsightly hints of red.
She’d given up on colored clothing two years ago when her lungs had started to go and coughing blood in public had become part of her daily routine.
The first real sip of the fiery liquid cleared her throat. The second fortified her for the climb to the roof. The rusty metal steps clanged under her boots in a pathetic way. Her footsteps couldn’t compete with the thumping of the Rev or the shouts of the city below.
One flight up, she could see past the buildings around her. Another flight and Main Street came into view.
Raina took a drink from the bottle and leaned against the crumbling brick wall. Her breath rattled in her chest.
I sound like a corpse.
Her laugh shook free a fresh round of coughs.
A horn honked on the street below. The driver leaned out the window, shouting at the pedestrians walking down the center of the road.
The walkers shouted back. A young man jumped onto the hood of the car, strolling up and over the roof as though the car weren’t there.
The driver leaned on the horn. He should have known better than to veer off the main streets. Only the richest in the city had money for gas anymore. The streets had been taken over by the poor, who had nothing but their feet to get them from one point to another.
The fire escape door opened, gushing sound out of the club into the night.
Raina grabbed the railing and dragged herself up the last flight of steps. “What is the point in bribing a bouncer for access if he lets other people bribe him, too?”
Speaking the words aloud to herself took the last bit of breath she could muster. By the time she reached the abandoned rooftop, her lungs had begun to panic. Her heart told her she was suffocating. The liquor made it clear she needn’t care.
Tarpaper crackled under her feet. She passed a cluster of sturdy chairs and headed straight for the far edge.
Construction lights shone on the hill across the river.
“The end of the world stops for nothing.” Raina sat on the brick ledge, dangling her feet over the ground six stories below, waiting patiently for her lungs to remember how to breathe.
Footsteps crunched across the roof behind her. “Going to jump?”
Raina’s neck prickled at the sound of the unfamiliar voice.
“I just bought a bottle.” Raina held the liquor high in the air. “What do you think?”
“That you’re expecting to live until the last drop.” The voice came closer. The footsteps stopped right behind her shoulder.
“Going to push me?” A cough cut through Raina’s words. Blood speckled the back of her hand.
Let him see. If he wants to push me, let him know he’s killing a corpse.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the man said. “Someone as important as you? What a waste your death would be.”
“I’m important?” Raina took a gulp of liquor, burning away the taste of her own blood.
“You’re a McNay,” the man said. “Your family’s the most important this side of the river.”
“That’s me, the Extinction Heiress.” Raina passed the bottle over her shoulder. “Daddy dearest owns the lights and the machines and all the fancy things working to build the domes across the river.”
He lifted the drink from her hand.
“If you’re looking to hold me hostage, have fun trying to get me out of the building. Daddy pays the bouncers to keep me safe.”
“And you pay them to let you sit on the edge of death?” He set the bottle next to her.
“I like to watch the domes at work,” Raina said. “Keep an eye on the salvation of the world.”
“Do you really believe the domes are our salvation?” The man stepped up onto the ledge.
His boots were worn leather, made in the same hearty fashion as those of the soldiers who patrolled the streets.
“I’ve read the billboards,” Raina said. “To protect the children. For the future of mankind.”
“And you believe them?”
Raina took a long drink before speaking. “Do I believe sealing a group of people in a set of glorified greenhouses is going to save the world? Do I believe my father’s construction is going to be well built enough to survive whatever horrible thing wipes out the city? Or do I believe that it’s an elitist ploy to give the few who are lucky enough not to be dying of disease, malnourishment, or chemical contamination a spa-like extinction experience? I’ll be dead long before they seal themselves in the glass, so I really don’t give a shit.”
“You don’t care that they’re abandoning you and your family out here to die?”
“We’ve been dead for years.” Tears stung the corners of Raina’s eyes. “Just like everybody else who lives in the city.”
They’d drunk the water that had been contaminated by chemical dumping, breathed the air tainted by smoke from the factories. No one from the city was pure enough to be taken into the domes. The domes would be built right across the river so the sick city dwellers could stare at their pretty glass bunker, but they didn’t get to survive. Only the privilege of staring at hope as they died.
“And your father accepts his family being denied salvation?” the man asked.
“They pay him well enough the domes could be slaughtering children instead of saving them and he’d still invite them to a dinner party.”
“And the domes can’t do anything to help you?”
Raina dug her nails into her palms, the knowing in the man’s voice setting her nerves on edge.
“The dome people won’t help anyone but their own.” She took another long drink. The fire of the liquor steadied the trembling of her hands.
“And the doctors?”
“Blood’s too infected to survive a lung transplant. Daddy paid good money to get a black market set, but the doctors still wouldn’t do it. My darling Daddy threw the lungs into the dumpster.”
“How long have you got?”
Raina took a rattling breath. “A year if I live like a nun, six months if I do anything worth living for, a few minutes if I jump after I finish the bottle.”
“Do you want to jump?”
Raina looked up at the man.
He was only a few years older than she was. Curling black hair kissed his shoulders. His dark eyes held neither sympathy nor anger.
“I’m tired of drowning in my own body.” Her words carved a hollow in her chest. “What am I going to see in six more months that I haven’t seen already?”
“What if there was another choice?” The man lifted the bottle from Raina’s hand. “What if you could live for decades more? With a strong and healthy body, capable of doing amazing things.”
“Do I get to ride a unicorn, too?” Raina grasped for the bottle.
He raised it out of her reach. “No magic, only medicine.”
“You’re offering the rich girl a miracle cure?” Raina asked. “Couldn’t you try and be a bit more original?”
“I’m offering to help you. After all, what have you got to lose?”
Raina stared at the street six stories below.
“The ground will still be waiting to catch you tomorrow,” the man said.
“Fair enough.” Raina pushed herself to her feet. “Slice me up and call me a miracle.”
“No knives involved.”
“How boring,” Raina tried to sigh, but a cough cut through her sarcasm. “Fine, give me the miracle pill or whatever.”
He shook his head, looking out toward the glowing lights of the construction. “I need something from you first.”
“Of course you do.” Raina snatched the bottle from him. “Just back the hell off and let a girl drink herself to death in peace.”
The blow caught her in the back before she had lifted the bottle to her lips. Her feet launched over the open air at the same moment pain stabbed through her arm.
“I can deliver on my promise,” he spoke over Raina’s scream.
“You’re insane.” She looked up to her wrist.
“And you are the perfect mix of desperation and hope.”
The man gripped the bottle in one hand and Raina in the other, dangling her over the street as though she weighed no more than the liquor in her stomach.
“What the hell!” Raina shrieked.
“What the hell am I, or what the hell am I doing?” The man smiled. “What I am is more than humans were ever meant to be. What I am doing is proving I can make good on my word. I need a favor from you, Raina McNay, and in exchange, I offer your life.”
Raina glared into the man’s dark eyes, the feeling of absurdity melting away the longer he held her casually in the air. “What do you want?”
“Supplies,” the man said. “The domes aren’t the only ones planning a path to survival, but your father’s prices are too steep for some to pay.”
“You want me to negotiate prices with my father?”
“I want you to steal supplies from his warehouse and deliver them to me. I want you to tell no one of our arrangement. And once you’ve procured the necessities, I want you to join me and others like me as we build our own path to salvation.”
“Path to salvation?” Raina hacked up the words. “You’re going to bomb the city, level it all and save us from our suffering?”
“No.” He smiled. Wrinkles formed in the corners of his eyes. “I want to build. I want to dig and fortify. I want to create a home better and stronger than the glistening glass domes.”
“And who better to help than the Extinction Heiress whose daddy owns all the tools?” Raina pursed her lips, stamping down the tiny bubble of hope that teased the hollow in her chest. “What do you want me to do? I don’t know how to drive a back hoe.”
“Nothing like that.” He raised his arm, lifting her over the ledge of the roof. He held her up until she was over the solid, flat tarpaper before letting her go. Her legs crumpled beneath her. She gasped for breath, her lungs fighting to keep up with the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
A piece of paper appeared in the man’s hand. “I want you to get everything on the list. Load it into a truck and drive it all the way up Park Lane to the dead end by the forest.”
“Great.” Raina snatched the paper, quickly reading down the list of supplies. “You came prepared, didn’t you?”
“You have no idea,” the man said. “I wouldn’t ask a question if I didn’t already know the answer.”
“Then you’ve got to know, desperate or not, I won’t be able to get all of this on my own. I’ll need help loading the truck. Can your construction crew come help with the heist?”
“No one can know where the materials have gone,” he said. “What we’re building has to be kept secret.”
“So”—Raina tucked the paper into her pocket—“find the supplies to build, not blow up the city. Magically get them into a truck. Drive the truck out to the woods and trust that you’re going to save my life, not murder me? Sounds like fun. When do I start?”
“When you’re ready.” He gave a small bow. “You have a little time left to live your normal life. I wouldn’t want to steal the last of those days from you.”
“I’m really sick of dying.” Raina wiped the blood from the corners of her mouth. “Meet you at the woods in the morning.”
Her legs shook as she pushed herself to her feet.
“I can only meet you at night.” He took her elbow, steadying her as she yanked the bottle from his hands.
“Cloak and dagger, I like it. Better hurry to steal from Daddy if I’m going to make it in the nex
t few hours, huh?”
She started toward the door, the haze of the city swaying with every step as sense and adrenaline tried to make amends.
“I can take you down a faster way than the stairs.” He scooped her into his arms, not seeming to notice as she pushed against his chest.
“I can make the stairs on my own two feet,” Raina said.
He took the bottle from her hand and dropped it, letting the glass smash on the rooftop.
“That was a real dick move.” Raina kicked, fighting to wriggle free from his grip as he stepped up onto the brick ledge of the roof. “I thought you didn’t want me—”
The wind stole her words as he jumped, plunging them both into the open air below.
Terror silenced her scream as they neared the ground. She didn’t shut her eyes against the end. She had no fear of dying. Death was nothing more than an old friend she had been waiting to kindly stop for her.
With a thump that shook her teeth, he landed on the sidewalk, not even swaying as he took two steps before setting Raina back on her feet.
“What the hell was that?” Raina leaned against the brick wall, digging her fingers into the cracked masonry to hide the shaking of her hands.
“A taste of what you’ll be able to do soon enough.” He smiled. “What I have to offer is a lot better than death. All I ask in return is your help in building a future you’ll actually live to see.”
Raina nodded, not trusting her lungs or her voice.
“I’ll see you by the forest.” He turned and walked up the street, not looking behind as he rounded a corner and strode out of sight.
“I’m so drunk.” Raina pressed her forehead to the bricks. “Fact one: I’m dying. Easy one, Raina. Fact two: he just jumped off the roof and I’m not dead. Fact three: he says he can make me like him.”
She tried to picture it. The strength not only to run up the stairs to the roof but also to jump to the ground unharmed. To walk without needing to stop and catch her breath. To never have to taste her own blood in her mouth again.
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