Worth Dying for (A Dying for a Living Novel Book 5)

by Kory M. Shrum

  Caldwell, my homicidal father, stands behind a podium, his face a mask of grief. Tears that I’m certain are fake as hell stream down his cheeks. Even in his beautifully tailored suit and nice haircut, he looks like shit. The woman beside him, Maisie’s mother Georgia, doesn’t look any better. Her hair is disheveled and thick black smears from her eyes to her chin.

  “We want our daughter back. We want all of this to end.” Caldwell panders to the sympathetic crowd. The camera sweeps the masses, and there isn’t a dry cheek in the house.

  “When was this?” I ask Gideon.

  “It must’ve run earlier today. I’m surprised they didn’t broadcast it in Times Square,” he says, deep creases forming between his eyes.

  “We want the people responsible for this to be brought to justice. We’ll give a reward to anyone who provides information on our Maisie.”

  The camera cuts to the reporter, who also has tears in her eyes. “The following suspects are wanted for questioning in this case: Jesse Sullivan—”

  My mugshot from last year flashes up on the screen. Not the most flattering picture, I must say.

  “Rachel Wright—”

  Rachel wearing her mental hospital gown flashes up on the screen next. At least she looks a little worse than I did. If she sees this, she’s going to go ballistic. The fact she was on television without makeup and not dressed to the nines will definitely cause an uproar.

  “Alice Gallagher—” Ally’s driver’s license photo fills the top right of the screen, making our square 3/4 complete.

  “Captain Gloria Jackson—” An old photo of Gloria from her days in the military is the last to appear. She looks sharp in her uniform, her face and eyes somber.

  “A fifth suspect, possibly a radical Islamic terrorist, is believed to be assisting them. They are responsible for the bombings in Chicago that took so many lives.”

  “What racist bullshit.” I half-choke on the words. “Caldwell blew up the city himself!”

  “Any information leading to the capture of these criminals or the return of Maisie Caldwell will be generously rewarded.”

  Gideon turns off the screen. “The first part of the program presented Maisie’s disappearance as an attack against the Church. They are arguing that some have radicalized against the unification of the Church and seek retribution by harming the daughter of its leader.”

  I squeeze my head as if to keep the anger from splitting it in two. There are so many problems with this I don’t even know where to begin. I end up shouting, “You’re not a terrorist!”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He flashes me a weak smile. “I look like a terrorist, and my devices can’t hide us from the public. We are only hidden from technology. Someone will spot us on the streets.”

  “We aren’t abandoning the plan!” No, no, no. We are so close to killing him once and for all. Caldwell, the evil son-of-a-bitch who murdered my handler Brinkley, abandoned me, mentally abused Maisie, and is responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of people. No. I won’t stop until he is cold in my grip.

  “Jesse.” Ally places one hand on my arm. Her eyes are big and round, and more alert than they’ve been in the last few hours. “If we’re caught and we go to jail, we won’t get our chance.”

  She’s right. Dammit.

  I look up at Gideon. “But what about our plan?”

  “It can still work. With a few minor alterations, it can still work.”

  I accept his answer with a sense of unease. I wish I could ask Gabriel what he thought, but I’ve only seen him twice since we left Chicago. Until he became absolutely inaccessible, I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to depend on the advice of my angel. I know he’s still there. I can feel him so to speak, but he can’t materialize as long as Rachel, Maisie, and I are together. Inconvenient.

  “Just don’t tell Maisie,” I say at last, looking from Ally’s face to Gideon’s. “If she knows, she’ll do something stupid and heroic.”

  Gideon clears his throat and cuts his eyes over my shoulder.

  I turn and find Maisie standing in the doorway, her expression grim. Winston sits at her feet, his collar and leash still around his neck.

  She’s heard every word.

  Chapter 2

  Jesse

  “Stop, stop!” I yank the backpack out of Maisie’s hand and throw it across the room.

  “Hey, my laptop’s in there!” She wails and rushes to the far wall, rummaging through the heap with shaking hands.

  I take big breaths and try to calm myself. Freaking out on Maisie won’t get me anywhere. When you make me mad, I fixate on something benign. Like a light socket, Ally once said. Okay, let’s try that.

  This room is very luxury hotel. Big high headboard gleaming in the soft lamplight. The walls are an agreeable cream, the carpet white—so not the best place to murder someone. Macabre aside, it doesn’t look like a teenager’s room. No posters or fun glittery things. No books or stereo like what I remember back at the tower where Caldwell first locked me up with Maisie. Did she miss her room? Can’t it be enough that we saved her?

  My anger flares. “Stop trying to leave and I won’t have to keep stopping you!”

  So much for anger management.

  She turns her computer over and over until she’s convinced it’s unharmed. Then she stands, all the fury returning to her face. “You don’t need me!”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’ll turn myself in.”

  “What the hell is that going to do?” Winston scuttles away from where he’d been sitting at my feet, probably afraid I’m going to make a sudden movement and accidentally step on him. He slinks out of the room, tail tucked.

  “I’ll tell them I ran away. I’ll tell them that you had nothing to do with it. They’ll call off the search.”

  I groan and pull at my face. I’ve been doing this a lot lately. “For someone so smart, you sure say stupid things.”

  “You’re one to talk!” She throws her bag, and its unzipped mouth hemorrhages clothes, papers, and the few meager possessions Maisie has managed to acquire over the last few weeks in our care.

  “Oh so you can throw your stuff around the room but I can’t?” I ask.

  “It’s my bag! And my laptop!”

  I can say a thousand things. Instead, I take a breath like Ally taught me before daring to speak. “My point is it doesn’t matter what you say. Caldwell will get into everyone’s heads and convince them otherwise. He’ll say you’re confused and scared. That you have to say these things because we threatened to kill you, blah, blah. Going back won’t solve anything, and you know it.”

  Maisie sinks onto the bed and puts her face in her hands. I sit down beside her on the mattress.

  I look around the room desperately searching for what to say.

  She finally speaks, but all the fight’s gone from her voice. “You can’t be seen with me. If they see us together, we’ll get caught in no time.”

  “If I’m not with you, they’ll still recognize my face.”

  I remember the time a prostitute tried to cut off my head and my face was plastered all over the news. Nashville is a big city, but people recognized me on the street and figured out where I lived, vandalizing my house. New York is bigger, but I have doubts that will work in our favor. It’s bigger, but there’re more people too.

  How can I comfort the kid? Take her hand? Too corny. A pat on the back? Too patronizing. A hug? Embarrassing!

  So I push her off the bed.

  “Hey!”

  “I need you,” I say. “Winston needs you. I’m not leaving Winston behind, hoping Caldwell doesn’t kill him. And I can’t watch him all by myself, because we’ve got work to do.”

  She picks herself up off the floor. “You only need me to watch your dog?”

  “You love watching Winston. What are you mad about now?”

  “You demoted me from super-powered partis to dog walker!” Her mouth presses into a thin line.

  Right.
It is hard to remember that Maisie has superpowers like me, is a chosen partis like me for two reasons. First of all, because she’s a kid. She’s a scrawny bag of jelly. Adorable, but defenseless. Second, her superpower isn’t as flashy as mine. She can bring the dead back to life, which is no small feat, but she’s only had to use the power once in the last few months. When Winston was killed in the crossfire, the last time I went head-to-head with Caldwell, she brought him back to life by blowing air into his nose. It’s a hell of a trick.

  I throw myself back on the bed. “You’re more than a dog walker. You’re an integral part of our plan. And you’re my secret weapon.”

  Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve already replaced Ally,” I go on. “Once you replace someone, it doesn’t work again. If she’s killed, I can’t save her, but you can. If I can’t save Gideon or Gloria, there’s you. You are a super-powered partis, and we need you.”

  “Do you mean it?” Her tone is hopeful for the first time. “I don’t want to be some loser damsel that you’re dragging around.”

  “I want all of us to come out of this alive.” I ruffle her hair. “Can you help me do that?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She bats my hand away, her grin beautiful for a moment, the relief easy to read in her big, round eyes. Then her smile falters. “There can only be one partis in the end.”

  I turn away from her so she can’t read my face. Anger. Sadness. Disgust. Hope. It’s all there, I’m sure. How the hell is the kid so good at dragging all the emotions out of me at the same time? Maybe she’s got other superpowers I don’t know about and wrecking people’s emotions is one of them.

  “We’re all going to die: me, you, Rachel, dad and mom—and whoever else has powers. We’re all—”

  I cut her off. “Hopefully not for a really long time.”

  I don’t want to talk about the fact that killing her parents is on my to-do list. “Let’s worry about that later. For now, promise you’ll stick with me.”

  “Because you really need me?”

  “I really do.” This time I do let her search my face and I don’t look away. “I really don’t want you to leave, Maze.”

  The kid smiles, slow and genuine. “I’ll stay.”

  “Great, now go to sleep.” I stretch my arms overhead. The room is a little chilly so I cross to the thermostat on the wall and kick it up a couple of degrees. “We still have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, and that asshole Caldwell isn’t going to change it.”

  “You should call him Dad.” Maisie strips off her jeans and sweater, which reeks of beer and cigarette smoke from the bar, and steps into her PJs, not an ounce of bashfulness on her face. Of course, she doesn’t have an autopsy scar to be ashamed of like I do.

  “No way. Caldwell has never been a dad to me.”

  Eric Sullivan had been a great dad and I’d missed the hell out of him when he died seventeen years ago. Maisie has never met that man. She’s only known the smooth talking church leader Timothy Caldwell as her father. Rough-handed, oil-slicked mechanic Eric wouldn’t become Maisie’s dad for years after he slipped out of my life.

  Maisie doesn’t ask any more questions or press me for any more assurances. Thank god. Instead she crawls into her bed, and I lift Winston up and put him in bed with her. He bounds up and down on the pillows before turning several circles and lying down. He tucks himself into a bagel shape of pug. A loud huffing snort sounding a lot like finally escapes him.

  I stand there and watch until Maisie’s breathing deepens to a steady rhythm. I slip out of the room, but leave the door open, even though I usually close it. I don’t know why the impulse to do this is so strong. If Caldwell knew where we were, he would’ve already popped in and killed us all, so there’s no danger he’s going to pop in here and kidnap Maisie out from under me now. Still, I can’t bring myself to close the door.

  Ally is on the couch, her laptop open on her legs. I take a seat beside her.

  “Still drunk?” I ask.

  She gives me a pathetic half-smile, her brown eyes full of the low lamplight. “No, unfortunately. That newscast was quite the buzz kill.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Is she going to run away?”

  “Who knows.” I flop onto the couch beside her. “She says she won’t, but she does whatever the hell she wants anyway.”

  Ally grins.

  I scowl. “What?”

  Her smile doubles. “I might know someone like that.”

  I know exactly what she’s saying. I give her a look. Then I gesture at her laptop. “What are you doing?”

  “Reading the news.” She presses her fingers into her forehead as if her skull is bulging out and she hopes to push it back into place. “I think it’s moving me right into the hangover phase.”

  “Take some aspirin.”

  “I already took three trying to head it off,” she says.

  “Head, ha!” I snort. “Head it off…get it?”

  She sighs, unamused.

  I gesture at the laptop. “Anything else about us?”

  “Not much more than what was in the news report. It’s too soon, I think.” She continues to rub her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “But I’m actually not looking for those stories.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “The partis,” she says. “I want to find Number 7.”

  I throw myself back against the couch. Right. Caldwell has done a fine job of ferreting out all of the partis—me, Maisie, Rachel, Cindy, Georgia, Monroe and Minli—those of us with superpowers. Caldwell’s mission is to kill each of us and absorb our gifts. If a partis is killed and the gift isn’t absorbed, then it’s passed on to some other Necronite—a person with NRD, who can die but come back to life because of their brain disorder—assuming their brain wasn’t destroyed in the death, of course.

  That was exactly what happened. Minli was killed, but her power wasn’t absorbed. So now anyone can have it—any of the one million people on the planet who have the NRD condition. Someone will be called up.

  “I don’t like not knowing who it is.” Ally echoes my concern. “I don’t want another Jason on our hands.”

  “Yeah, that would blow.” Jason nearly killed us a couple of times, chasing us out of the 34th floor of a high-rise building. It was either jump and hope I live, or let him tear me apart. Some of these partis—cough, cough, Caldwell—are crazy drunk on their power. They want more of it and are absolutely ruthless about ripping each other’s heads off. Of course, a few are absolutely sweet too. Gloria seems to think Monroe is one of the kind ones, and god knows what she is doing with him down in Louisiana. And I think Maisie and Rachel are some of the best people on the planet.

  Of course, I’m absolutely biased. Maisie is my kid sister and Rachel is my best friend after Ally.

  But Ally is right. The next partis could be a lunatic with a bloodthirsty desire to gurgle our entrails.

  I come out of my thoughts, realizing Ally is talking again. “I’ve been looking for anything weird. Unexplained phenomenon, shooting or blinding lights, anything that sounds like Minli’s power.”

  “Nada?”

  Ally frowns. “No. Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I cuddle closer to her. I nudge the laptop on her lap and close it, shoving it between the cushion and couch arm. “You didn’t start any of this bullshit.”

  Ally snuggles into my arms and I like the warmth of her.

  We could fall asleep like this, but before sleep can grab ahold of me and pull me down into the thick darkness, a sharp memory surfaces. Caldwell in my grip, engulfed in blue flames and burning. Me hissing all my hatred into his face as his flesh blackened, peeling away from the skull.

  You want to burn, let’s burn.

  I’d engulfed us both in fire, trying to boil his eyes in his sockets until Ally stopped me.

  “Why did you stop me?” I whisper, my eyes fluttering open. The low-lit living room is perfectly stil
l and quiet around us.

  She doesn’t answer, her arms still wrapped around me.

  “We could be that much closer to ending all this insanity if he were already dead. Don’t you want it to be over?” I ask, trying to turn her so I can look into her face.

  She’s asleep.

  With her head on my chest and arms around me, she draws slow deep breaths against the hollow of my throat.

  “You can’t stop me next time,” I whisper into her hair. Our plan gives us only one shot.

  One and no room for mistakes.

  Chapter 3

  Jesse

  “Oh my god, what is that sound?” Rachel screams from the bedroom.

  That sound is Gideon in the kitchen shoving apple slices and kale leaves into a juicer. He insists on making this racket every morning, saying some crap about his body is a temple and it’s to be worshiped on a bed of kale leaves or some shit. Every time I get a whiff of that green mush the machine spits out, my stomach churns and I get an intense craving for French fries.

  “Here we go,” I grumble to Ally who casts me a weary look over her cup of black coffee. She isn’t looking that great this morning either. She sits on the sofa with her legs crossed under her. Her eyes are puffy and her hair unbrushed. Thick smears of leftover makeup give her a racoonish appearance, but she’s the cutest raccoon I’ve ever seen.

  “I’m going to stab someone.” Rachel throws the door to the bedroom open. It bounces off the wall behind it.

  Rachel looks like death baked crusty on a highway. Roadkill walking. Her hair is knotted into a thick nest on one side of her head. Makeup is smeared in all directions, giving the impression that she made out with a clown last night. Her magenta pajamas are decent enough, but wrinkly and riding up in places. Her entire left calf is exposed up to the knee.

  “I told you to hydrate her,” I say to Gideon, who has paused in his masticating, a kale leaf in each hand. “You’ll wish you’d poured that water down her throat.”

  Gideon smiles, unaware of the horror that’s about to unfold. “I’m making you a juice, my love. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “You didn’t offer me any juice,” Ally mutters over her black coffee.