“I couldn’t have saved you from him,” Caldwell says, steepling his fingers.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“He wants you angry. He wants you to make a mistake.” The light brush of Gabriel’s fingers pulls me out of myself. I turn, but the room is empty except for me and the jerk.
“Do you understand why he can’t materialize when I’m here?”
If I lose my temper, I might make a mistake, and I will be dead, which is exactly what Caldwell wants. He wants to kill me and take my power.
“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
“We are charged like magnets. There’s too much commotion, too much charge and chaos in the space around us when we are close together,” he says. He gestures to the room. “Electromagnetic interference, if you will.”
“You could be feeding me a bunch of horse shit, for all I know.”
He only smiles.
I see Brinkley in my head. Brinkley in his leather jacket. Brinkley with his James Dean smile and the look of sheer determination as he lifts his gun to shoot Caldwell. Brinkley would remind me not to get confused, not to let Caldwell too deep into my head.
“Brinkley and I had a long and complicated history that you know nothing about.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “And that justified killing him?”
“I remove obstacles that lay in my path. I don’t care what the obstacle is.”
“So how do you intend to remove me?”
“Ah,” Caldwell grins as if I’ve asked him the question he’s been waiting for. “You’re different.”
“Dare I ask why? Or can I just expect a cryptic, noncommittal answer?”
“It would take days to explain why you’re different and what that difference means for us.”
I snort. “First you have to kidnap a dog and now you flatter me? I didn’t realize you’d stoop so low.”
My body aches to sit down in one of the rose-colored chairs, to move closer into the light instead of hanging on the periphery like this. But to sit down suggests complacency. I can’t get comfortable in case he decides he wants to kill me here and now.
“You agreed to come and here you are. Take a seat.”
I don’t.
“So did you bring me here to starve? Or did you want privacy for the monologuing?”
“Gabriel won’t tell you his plan, because he runs the risk of you shutting him out. He chose you of all the NRD prospects. He saw something in you that he desires,” Caldwell’s voice is smooth, the lilting tone of a mega church preacher.
“Why did your angel choose you?”
A fox grin spreads across his face. “Such a personal question. Perhaps he knew I would accept him and his will.”
“Cute,” I say. “Glad you guys are happy together.”
His expression darkens. “The Earth’s magnetic field is dying. Once it weakens completely, the Earth will be exposed, vulnerable, and incinerated in no time at all. A higher power has taken pity on us and offered us a choice. It will require a conscious act of sacrifice to recharge the field.”
I sink into one of the armchairs.
“A partis will have to die, permanently, to recharge the field. That person is the apex and will also be the person who has all of the combined universal elements. All twelve partis powers collected in one body is all that’s needed to create a new world order.”
“So if I don’t get killed by Jason or you, I have to die or the whole planet is incinerated?”
Caldwell’s eyes meet mine. “Yes.”
I fall against the cushion. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but not yes.
“Yes?” I repeat. “The prize for surviving all the homicidal maniacs is death?”
“Everyone dies, Jesse,” Caldwell says.
I throw up my hands. “This is the dumbest game ever.”
Caldwell presses one slender finger to his temple. “To be the apex is a great honor. You get to make the new world in your image.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I stand again and pace from one end of the room to the other. “Are you going to give us all kneepads or is a little rug burn part of your world domination plan?”
Halfway across the room a thought occurs to me. My sneakers squeak to a stop on the industrial carpet. “Wait, does the apex’s death recharge the field or blow up the world? I’m getting some mixed signals here.”
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he says. “That choice is the privilege of the apex.”
“I want this to end. I want my freaking dog, and I want you to stop killing the people I love.” If Caldwell is determined to kill all the partis and absorb their powers, that means he wants to kill Rachel, Cindy, and anyone else with a gift.
Something flickers in Caldwell’s eyes.
“What?” I demand.
“Where is Rachel?”
“Probably dead. Some psycho like you probably offed her.”
“Would you kill her if it came down to the two of you?”
“No.” I throw up my hands. “And she wouldn’t kill me either, because we’re friends. Do you know what friends are? They generally don’t go around stabbing each other in the eyes with forks.”
“Are you sure she wouldn’t kill you, if she understood the situation?”
“Don’t,” I warn him. “Don’t try to make me think everyone I love is planning to murder me. I already have enough to worry about.”
“If it came down to the two of you, Rachel and Jesse, would you kill her if it meant saving the world?”
“Uh, hello? Friends.”
“Then you sentence the whole planet to death. The radiation alone would fry it. Think of it this way: would you die for Alice?”
I answer without hesitation. “Yes.”
“Would you kill Rachel if it was the only way to keep Alice alive?”
This stops me. My heart lurches.
“You would have to kill her in order to be the apex and you must be the apex in order to save the world.”
My stomach turns.
“But don’t worry about making that difficult decision,” Caldwell grins. “I’ll kill all your friends for you.”
“I can’t let you kill them.”
“Then you’re sentencing us all to death.”
“You said we all have to die anyway.” My voice is cracking around the edges. It is harder to muster sarcasm and spite the longer I think about my situation. Best case scenario, my loved ones live and I die. Worst case, we all die. Where’s the freaking bright side in that?
“All the partis have something in common,” Caldwell says, after allowing me a long stretch of silence to consider the impending doom.
I flick my eyes up to meet his. “Our charming personalities?”
“We all wanted to die,” he says. “You wanted to die that night in the barn.”
I see the barn clearly in my mind—the flames, Eddie burning alive, the stars above me as my body lay saturated with the booze and pills I guzzled.
“The angels could have chosen any NRD-positive soul on the planet, but Gabriel chose you because you wanted to die and you had what he was looking for,” Caldwell says again. “I made a similar plea in the camps. Rachel no doubt wanted to die every minute that Henry Chaplain had her tied to a bed.”
Is it true? I ask Gabriel again. I listen but don’t hear him in the back of my mind. Did you really choose me because I was suicidal? But I want to live now.
“This is the part I must make you understand, Jesse. Are you listening?”
I flick my eyes up to meet his.
“We are the north and south poles. We are the same bar magnet. It will come down to the two of us and the sooner you accept that, the better off we will all be.”
“So you can be the apex and create your slave world?”
“Just world,” he corrects. “I’ll create a just world. If you let me.”
I bite off a bitter laugh. “If I let you kill me, you mean.”
&
nbsp; “Your resistance is messing up the entire program. Everyone else involved has accepted their role. Why can’t you?”
I throw up my hands. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because murdering my friends or exploding doesn’t seem like the best life plan. Just give me Winston already. You’ve said your piece. We’re all going to die. Got it. Now send me home.” Ally is no doubt losing her shit by now.
He comes dangerously close and my shield flares to life around me. I’ve no idea why. If there was a threat, I missed it.
“I can’t take you from the room without touching you,” Caldwell reminds me.
“Don’t let him touch you,” Gabriel warns. I can hear the panic in his voice even if I can’t see him clearly.
What’s my alternative? Stay here forever? Hamster ball my way through the walls?
I force my shield down.
Gabriel screams and the next thing I know I’m falling, heavy in Caldwell’s arms.
“Sorry,” Caldwell says, positioning my limp body in his arms. “But we aren’t done yet.”
Chapter 14
Ally
“Jeremiah has checked every camera in the city, but neither Caldwell nor Jesse have made a single blip. He’s extended his search to the rest of the world, given Caldwell’s ability.” Nikki looks up from her seat at the wobbly table and meets my eyes. Her face is illuminated, ghostly in the light from the computer screen. I will never understand why Gloria seems to prefer poorly lit living spaces.
I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Or wherever they are, there aren’t any cameras.”
Nikki snorts. “Does such a place exist?”
“With Caldwell, we never know.” My voice is steady and sure, but inside, I feel sick. My muscles clench and unclench in turn, creating wave after wave of nausea. A sour burn has crept up the back of my throat and the pressure behind my eyes keeps building.
Jess, what’ve you done? Why do you have to be so rash?
I can wish all day long that she would take more time to consider her options before acting, but such a hope would be fruitless. I try to calm myself with reminders that we’ve been lucky so far, that now more than ever, Jesse has power. She can fight Caldwell, if she has to.
These little assurances aren’t calming me. A voice in the back of my mind nags, reminding me that Caldwell rarely fights fire with fire. He fights with deception and confusion and illusion. He will break Jesse’s mind first, before ever trying to fight her power with his.
In that way, I fear Jesse isn’t as strong as Caldwell. Honestly, I don’t think any of us are.
“Scratch that.” Nikki’s voice drags me from my thoughts. “I’ve got something.”
I lean down over Nikki’s shoulder and peer into the computer screen. My eyes settle on the opposite chair for a heartbeat, noting again Gloria’s absence. She’s been gone for nearly an hour, saying she needed to “get a few things.” I wonder if it’s a true excuse or if she has a trick up her sleeve.
“See here?” Nikki punches a few keys on the keyboard and the image gets larger. Caldwell is on a boat in a port somewhere. I can’t tell more from the black and white video streaming into Nikki’s laptop. The wooden dock stretching out to the ship is clear though, as well as the men loading the ship by hand and forklift.
“Where is this?” I ask.
“Finland,” she says, punching a few more keys. A chat box pops up in the top right corner of the screen. Parish looks the same as he did the last time I saw him at Jeremiah’s base in Nashville: plump, hairy, and half a burger in his mouth. He waves at the camera. “Parish says hi.”
I wave back at the man in the little box. “Hey.”
“This ship is headed to the North Pole.”
“Why?” I can’t suppress a surprised snort. “Is Caldwell planning to visit Santa?”
“I don’t know.” Nikki opens and collapses windows broadcasting video feeds. “I don’t see Jesse, so either he dropped her somewhere or she could be on the ship. Parish is canvassing the pier and surrounding area.”
“Or she’s somewhere else?” My heart lurches again. I’m not sure why the idea of Jesse not with Caldwell frightens me more. I should be thrilled that he’s in Finland, possibly thousands of miles from her. Yet, I think seeing her on a pier in Finland would calm some part of me that’s imagining much worse.
Nikki takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I think this is good.”
“How?”
She takes both my hands in hers. “If they’d had some giant firefight, we’d have seen it. You can’t hide something like that. The fact that he’s back to business an hour after taking her is good. He’s not trying to kill her, right? So he hasn’t tried to kill her, and he isn’t doing it now. That’s good. We still have time.”
I squeeze her hands back and place a kiss on her knuckles. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She grins and pulls on my hands until I’m forced to sink into her lap, her face close to mine. She kisses my cheek, then the corner of my lips.
“God, I hope she’s okay. I don’t know what I’ll do if—”
“Shhhh.” She covers my mouth with a kiss. “Think positive.”
I wrap my arms around her neck and she presses her palms against my back.
She kisses my cheek. “If he’d taken you, I’d be crazy right now.”
Heat blooms in my face. “I don’t expect you to be as worried about Jesse as I am.”
She flicks her eyes up to meet mine. “I’m saying that I understand why you’re so worried. I would be too.”
I wrap my arms around her neck. “I’m worried about Winston too.”
“We’ll get them both back.”
Three gunshots go off in the hallway and Nikki jumps up, dumping me onto my feet.
“Is that—” I ask, straightening beside her.
The door opens and Gloria bursts in with her gun drawn.
“Jason,” she says and slams the door closed. “We need to go.”
Nikki slams her laptop shut and shoves everything into her bag. I do a quick turn around the room, gathering up the few things that I removed from my bags. Gloria locks the front door and shoves the kitchen table in front of it. Nikki helps her pile the chairs on top without question.
“What’s our exit?” My pounding heart makes it hard to speak.
Gloria points at the door beside the bathroom. “The closet.”
“Closet?”
She isn’t kidding. Just as someone begins slamming against the front door and rattling the table and chairs, Gloria throws open the broom closet.
“Gloria—” I begin, unsure.
She pushes aside several coats and grabs a crowbar off the top shelf. Wedging the crowbar into the corner of the closet, she pries away a piece of wood paneling to reveal a dark mouth of a tunnel.
“What in the world?”
“Go,” Gloria says over the sound of the table rattling again.
Nikki steps into the dark first, pulling a pen light out of her pocket and shining it ahead. “It drops off.”
Gloria tosses a bag into the darkness. “Just wait on the landing.”
Nikki pulls me in after her and clicks off the pen light.
“I can’t see anything.” This isn’t entirely true. I can see Gloria in the closet and the open door revealing the apartment’s hallway.
Gloria lifts her hand. “Wait.”
Gloria pulls the closet door shut and Nikki clicks on the pen light, illuminating the tight space. Gloria arranges the clothes to their original position, and begins to slide the paneling back into place.
“Turn off the light,” she commands, and Nikki does without hesitating. I can feel her hands on my back, a warm assurance in the void.
The paneling snaps into place as a loud crash echoes in the apartment. The sound of tables and chairs tumbling to the floor is muffled by the big door. There aren’t many places to search. It’s only one room, the bathroom, and this storage closet.
The closet opens, the d
oorknob bouncing off the wall. Nikki’s hand tenses on my back. No one moves or breathes for fear he can hear us through the panel.
The sound of hangers scraping along the metal pole makes me jump and goosebumps rise on my arm at the screeching.
“Goddammit,” Jason yells, followed by the sound of a fist connecting with plaster. He doesn’t hit the panel though, and I say a prayer of thanks for small mercies.
Another crash and then an echoing silence. No one moves or speaks in the cramped space until Gloria clicks on her own flashlight and points it past us. “Follow me.” She speaks directly into my ear before she heads deeper into the passage. Her small, bobbing beam creates a lighted walkway.
Nikki stays close on my heels until we come to a stop. Gloria flashes the light at a small metal ladder.
Gloria climbs onto it first and begins to descend into the shaft. The first rung is cold in my grip and I only have a moment to situate myself before the light disappears. There is a moment of uncertainty and fear as I hang from the ladder in open space, unable to see anything.
The metal ladder bumps against my hip bone and a sharp pain cramps my side. I cling to the rungs harder, feeling one of the cold rungs pressed to my cheek.
Nikki clicks on her own penlight again and shines it on the ladder. “You okay?”
I nod.
“Just do it by touch.” Her voice is gentle and calm. She doesn’t let the urgency of the situation make her impatient, the way Jesse would.
Jesse. Please be okay.
Holding onto the bars, I stretch my right leg down until I feel it graze the top of the next rung. Sinking my weight into it, I do this again and again.
“There you go,” Nikki says and the light shifts as she climbs onto the ladder above me.
I descend, my heart pounding. I can’t see anything, not even my hand inches in front of my face. Nikki’s penlight is too weak to offer any support. I can see Gloria’s light farther down, bobbing in time with her movements, but it’s too far away to be of any use to me.
I try to focus on the task at hand, the simplicity of it. Step. Sink. Grab.
Again. Again.
Dying Light Page 7