Dying Breath

by Kory M. Shrum

  “You cannot let the police take you.” Gabriel’s wings hunch with his irritation.

  You think? I groan inwardly. I can’t talk to him aloud unless I want to freak these guys out. I thought they wanted to go for coffee, and maybe if things go well, a bit of kissing.

  The police officer wrenches my arm behind my back. Hard. Way too hard considering I’m practically a spaghetti noodle in his grip.

  “Hey!” I yell. “I might need that arm someday.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Shut up?” My temper flares. Heat floods my neck and face. “Shut up? How’s that professional?”

  I get a look at my dirty face and messy hair in his aviator glasses before he says, “Shut up, or I’ll make you shut up.”

  “Uh, no.” I ignite.

  Blue flames engulf me, blazing from my navel, over my abdomen along each limb. The heat, and no doubt surprise drives the cops back. I erect my shield as soon as they’re clear of me, and none too soon either. A second later, bullets ping off the outside of the shimmery purple barrier. I let the flames die. They shrink, quiver, and then completely disappear like a faltering gas fire.

  One cop, the one right in front of me has emptied his clip, but his finger keeps pulling the trigger. The cop beside him is holding his gun, pointing it at my head, but it dips as his mouth falls open. He’s gawking at my shield, trying to process how little ol’ me is doing all of this.

  I want to fire bomb their asses. I want to see arms and legs fly in all directions.

  You murdered eight people on live television. Ally’s scolding tone burrows into my ear.

  The woman I love already thinks I’m a monster. No need for her to wake up and see how much carnage I’ve left in my wake while she lay dead. Dead, because of me.

  Gee-zus. Guilt is such an impediment! It should be counted as a disability!

  I dial it down and throw sparks on the pants of the officer who roughed me up. He jumps back, cursing, his pants burning like flash paper.

  I can’t suppress a giggle as he undoes his buckle and tries to tear them off. He falls out of his pants into the street, his butt bouncing on the ground, wearing only briefs.

  Ewww. Not something I wanted to see today.

  His utility belt, or whatever they’re called, hits the pavement with a crack. The handcuffs clank to the sandy road with his gun, Taser, and mace.

  The other cops are looking at me, unamused by my Abracadabra no pants trick. I ignite their pants too. That gets them moving, and I widen my shield the moment they’re gone, giving myself some breathing room.

  A radio buzzes to life, and I catch my name blasted over the intercom.

  Shit.

  If the feds get a lock on my location, they’ll come out and blow this tiny town to smithereens. I doubt they’ll hold back since they think I’m a terrorist responsible for bombings in Chicago. According to reports, I left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. All of this on top of the accusation we kidnapped Maisie, a Church leader’s daughter, as part of our anti-Church statement.

  If I let the feds come out here, this will get ugly fast. Ally would argue to save the town. I’d have to be the one to remind her the government doesn’t give a shit about a town with only one Quick n’ Go and no stoplight that I can see. If they come here for me, guns blazing, the causalities will be a lot higher.

  No way in hell am I leaving this place without Maisie, or without Caldwell’s head on a platter.

  Fight it is.

  Sorry, Al.

  I throw a blast of flames out across the street and strike the police car right in front of me. All four tires lift off the ground with an audible whoomph. Flames eat its rusted undercarriage, and the windows explode as it climbs higher into the sky. Then as the flames turn black and the smoke rolls out of the busted windows in corded waves, it sinks back to Earth.

  Once the tires hit, the screech of crunching metal ricochets off the buildings. Glass bursts through the air like confetti.

  “Holy fuck!” Someone shouts. The men scatter like mice caught in the dog food bag. They dart for buildings and parked vehicles and rock facades to hide behind. The problem with this is they are taking their radios with them.

  “Listen!” I scream at the top of my lungs as a dozen eyes fix on me. I count the pairs of aviator glasses.

  Gabriel confirms, fourteen.

  “Take off your radios and throw them into the street. If you don’t, I’ll have to kill you, and I don’t want to do that.”

  Four radios clank onto the concrete without hesitation. A low mumble hangs in the air. They want to discuss their options before handing their connection to the outside world over to the firebombing monster. I get it. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to keep this democratic.

  Maisie doesn’t have time for it.

  Every second I waste is a second closer to Caldwell’s resurrection.

  “Not good enough!” I hope I look pissed and not petulant.

  “You can’t shoot me.” I point at the shield. “But I can kill you no problem. Give me the radios. Now.”

  Eight more radios tumble onto the pavement. A minute later, a shot rings off and a bullet pings off my shield.

  I turn toward the young cop who fired it. “Really?”

  He gives me a good ol’ boy shrug like he knows he fucked up.

  “Radio.” I wiggle my fingers at him.

  He rips it off his uniform and throws it into the street giving me a total of thirteen.

  I unleash another fire bomb on the second cop car. And I blow up the coroner’s hearse too.

  “You’re making me mad!” I warn. I refrain from tearing my clothes off and doing a Hulk smash because it won’t help my street cred.

  A scuffle draws my attention as one cop rips another’s clothes off. Well, hey! That got sexier than I expected. Until I realize he only ripped the other man’s shirt off to get the radio he refused to give up. The shirt and the radio hit the pavement.

  “You saved his life,” I say. “Feel free to remind him of it next time he gives you shit.”

  I ignite the radios lying in the sand. I watch the black cords and mouthpieces sizzle and pop in the hot sun, their heat easy to overlook in the inferno of the burning vehicles.

  Now I have fourteen cops and a small crowd standing around staring at me. Shit. What the hell am I going to do with them?

  Stupid Ally and her stupid don’t-kill-people ideas.

  She isn’t here, Gabriel whispers in my ear, and he’s right. I’m carrying Ally and her code of ethics around all by myself.

  And why?

  Because I got her killed. Again. Man, I suck.

  I don’t need my therapist Herwin and his psychobabble to tell me so.

  I can see her motionless on the tiled floor of the military compound, deep in the belly of the testing facility where Caldwell was held and tortured for years. Where he met the woman who would become Maisie’s mother. Where he discovered what he was and what he could do.

  But despite all his cruel intentions, it hadn’t been Caldwell who’d killed Ally. It was Rachel.

  Rachel, my own best friend. The first friend I ever had once I woke up from my own suicide and learned what I was and about the job Brinkley had waiting for me.

  And whose fault was it that Rachel got away with murder? Mine. I trusted her. Even when Gloria and Ally, and hell, Brinkley too, told me she was lost, I still believed she wouldn’t hurt me.

  Hurting Ally is definitely hurting me.

  You cannot be blamed, Gabriel says.

  “Oh shut up.” I shrug off his attempt to soothe the confusion saturating my thoughts. “Tell me what to do with these people.”

  The cops nearest me shrink back in fear. I said that aloud, huh? Oops. I suppose it doesn’t matter if they think I’m unhinged. That can’t possibly be bad for my badass reputation, right? All the best girls are unhinged.

  Distract them.

  Gabriel’s right. If I distract them, I can slip away.

  I
search the area for something to blow up. There’s the corner store. The saloon. Large, orange boulders were worked into the landscape as part of the town’s charm. A few fences made of wood with old-fashioned hitching posts. I haven’t seen any horses, so perhaps it’s only for historical significance.

  Over my right shoulder, a building looms. It’s old, and falling apart. That might work. It’s big enough it would need immediate attention, lest the fire spread to more vital parts of town.

  The building reminds me of the kind of place you’d put farm equipment back in the Midwest where I grew up. If it comes down to blowing up some random equipment or cars versus buildings with people in them, I’ll choose the structure that’s half collapsed already.

  I throw a fire bomb near the top, and a chunk of roof flies off into the sky. Burning shingles rain down on the crowd, and they scurry back. The cops try to put distance between us.

  I blast again, and more of the roof explodes upward before blowing inward. A chunk lands on the roof of the old saloon hotel, and it catches fire.

  Oops.

  The men scatter. In a town this small, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are also the local firefighters.

  I throw another blast through the middle of the building, and dried and decaying wood explodes out into the street—if I can call this sandy corridor where we all stand a street.

  The fence is broken where a giant beam blasts through it, splitting the wood in two. Then the debris starts to smoke.

  “One more should do it.” I draw in a breath, feeling the sweat trickle down the side of my face and drip off my jaw onto my shirt collar.

  I unleash the last blast and the building caves. Wood boards explode outward. Flaming shingles erupt into the sky like Cape Canaveral rockets. More glass explodes raining down on our head like glitter.

  I turn back toward the hotel and store to find all the police officers that had been waiting for me with baited breath. Only, they aren’t waiting for me anymore.

  I stand alone in the middle of the road.

  Some of the officers are working to put out the hotel fire. Others are dodging the flames engulfing the cars which are also spreading to adjacent buildings. The wind.

  Fuck. I hadn’t thought about the flames traveling or how dry everything is. This place is going to burn fast.

  Shit.

  I wanted a distraction, but I didn’t want to burn us alive! Maisie’s in this town somewhere. And those flames leading dangerously toward the adjacent building will be charred cinders in no time.

  The cops are running and shouting, giving orders to one another as they try to prioritize the damage. Two men with a giant wrench begin to open a red hydrant outside the convenience store. A group of people stands behind the glass window, mouths covered, watching the carnage unfold.

  If I’m going to run, now’s the time to do it, when everyone’s looking the other way.

  I turn to bolt, and there’s a cop, a young one whose uniform barely fits him. His pants are hiked up a little too high and his utility belt hiked a little high as well.

  “Freeze,” he says.

  “Can’t,” I tell him. “I’ve got a sister to save.”

  “Freeze!” he says again, as if he shouts at me loud enough I’ll actually listen to him. His back is to one of the orange boulders. It gives the impression this town was carved right out of the desert.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I tell him, and I mean it.

  His brow furrows. I run at him, keeping my shield up, and his eyes double in size.

  When my shield slams his body against the boulder, and I hear his head bounce off the stone, the gun falls from his hand and hits the sand with a poof.

  I step back as he falls unconscious at my feet.

  “Sorry,” I say again, knowing his head is going to hurt like hell when he wakes up. I’ve been conked like that myself a couple of times, and it isn’t fun.

  “We are running out of time,” Gabriel reminds me.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your feathers in a twist.”

  I cast one more look over each shoulder, searching the wreckage and town for eyes. But no one’s looking my way. They’re watching the cops scurry like ants trying to reassemble their crushed ant hill.

  I run.

  Chapter 9

  Maisie

  “Yes, this is Georgia Caldwell,” Mom says into the phone. She’s pacing in the small white kitchen of the house we commandeered. And here I thought that was only something you could do to pirate ships. “Trace this call and use the coordinates to come get us. Now.”

  She listens. I’m not sure who she’s talking to, but I can guess. Dad has about a dozen personal armed guards. They follow him around like an entourage. Followed. I don’t know if he’ll ever have a use for them again. Who needs an entourage when you’re dead?

  I pivot in Sam’s desk chair. I try to imagine explaining to him why I’m wearing his jeans and his boxer briefs and my face floods with heat. Hopefully, he’ll never see me like this and I won’t have to worry about it. And me borrowing his clothes is probably the least of Sam’s worries.

  How would he feel knowing a dead monster is in his bed? It sounds like some twisted Goldilocks story. And a sadist jerk has been sleeping in my bed…

  I like stories. In my fantasies about the college life that’s never going to happen, I often imagine myself as an English major, with awesome homework like reading books all the time. Or I could save time and get my stories from television or movies. I bet I could write an amazing paper on Supernatural, analyzing the story arc and everything.

  Or I’d major in art. I’d love to know more about dimension and shading and color and just about everything really.

  “Lieutenant Perry, we do not have much time,” Mom says. “Hurry.”

  Lieutenant Perry is the head of Dad’s security team. He’ll have the helicopter in the air in ten minutes. And then the whole team will he here in Arizona.

  Jesse. Hurry.

  A tingle flutters in my chest. Followed by an explosion.

  Boom. Boom. Bang.

  “Come prepared,” Mom adds and disconnects the call.

  I lean over the bed to look out the kid’s window. I place one hand on Dad’s cold boot for balance and raise the blinds by yanking the pull cord with my other hand.

  Smoke blooms in the distance. Maybe eight or ten blocks toward town where the houses are closer together. Thick black plumes billow into the sky, rolling like ink in water.

  Mom bursts in. The thin bedroom door and brassy doorknob bounce off the wall behind her. “Wake him up.”

  My stomach knots. “I’m tired.”

  Her lips press into a thin line, and she stalks across the room, her hair wet from the shower. She’s wearing a man’s shirt and sweatpants that drown what Dad calls her chicken legs.

  She wrenches me out of the desk chair by the elbow. I gulp down the pain without squealing.

  She thrusts me toward the bed, but steps on the hem of my jeans.

  I fall forward, elbows catching the edge of the mattress. My knee connects with something metal, and red explodes behind my eyes. White hot pain bursts from my knee to my hip. I bite my lip to keep from crying out. But she heard my sharp intake of breath.

  I try to understand what happens. When I engage my brain, my emotions pale.

  My brain tells me my knee hit the metal bed frame holding the mattress up. The edge of the frame slipped into the crevice beneath my knee cap perfectly. That’s why it hurt so bad. Body. Pain. Natural.

  “We’re all tired!” Mom screams. “Stop fucking around!”

  “I don’t want to,” I say again as tears pool in my lashes. I try to even out my breath and loosen my clenching throat. I picture Winnie Pug. I imagine pressing my lips to his wet nose.

  Mom yanks the blinds open. Only one side is ripped up, giving the slats an uneven and assaulted look. She jabs a finger out the window. “Look what she’s doing! She’s destroying this place. She’ll destroy us w
ith it.”

  “Not me.” It comes out more like a wish than a certainty.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Mom snorts. “She wants your power like the rest of them. She’ll kill you too.”

  “She should.”

  Silence stretches between us, filling up Sam’s room. I finally dare to look at her and instantly wish I hadn’t. Tears stream down her cheeks.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  If I say a word, I’ll start crying. I don’t even try.

  “She’s going to kill me, Maisie. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Yes, I do. My guts clench again, and I start to worry I’ll have to run to the bathroom.

  “Are you going to let her murder me? Your own mother?”

  I look away. It’s not her tears that tear me apart. It’s the utter look of betrayal on her face. Like I’m the one person in the whole world she should be able to count on. I’m her baby. She brought me into this world. If anyone betrays her, it shouldn’t be me.

  I want to leave the room, get away from her, and breathe some fresh air. My arms and legs feel like sacks of sand. Wet sand.

  “After all I went through to get you back,” she chokes out, and I sink completely to the floor, giving up my hope of escape. Hot tears spill onto my cheeks.

  “We had to send you away so you’d be safe, but I got you back.”

  I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine what it was like giving birth inside a torture camp and then giving up your baby so it wouldn’t be experimented on by greedy military scientists.

  You’re all I thought about. You’re the only reason I survived that place. It didn’t break me because I had you. Knowing you were okay was enough.

  How many times had she said these things to me when I was little? How many hundreds of times?

  She crouches down in front of me, taking my hands. I can’t pull away. I’m pinned on three sides: her in front, the bed on my left and the desk drawers at my back. I can’t leap right either, or I’ll only launch myself into the desk chair.