Dying Breath

by Kory M. Shrum

  “He left.” I keep my voice and face flat. “He got scared and took off.”

  “No,” she says. “He’s here. Find him.”

  Anger makes my cheeks hot. I want to unleash on her. But I can’t. Not only because there’s a gun in my back, but because I can’t forget my mom just lost the person she loves most in the world. It doesn’t matter he was a wretched jerk who totally deserved to die. She loved him.

  Still loves him.

  “You killed his dad. I brought him back,” I say. “I cleaned up your mess.”

  I watch her face for a reaction. I search her red eyes for any recognition of what I’m saying. I don’t see any. Has she become totally callous to murdering people?

  “It was his dad in the hotel,” I say again. I want her to remember. Her expression doesn’t change. “You lied to me. You said he let us use the house.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  I blink back shock.

  It isn’t that she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t care.

  “Your father is dead. You left your father to fend for himself. Even after I begged you to resurrect him and you went to go save another man?” Mom’s nostrils flare. “You saved someone you didn’t even know but your own father—”

  My heart pounds harder. “Sam’s dad is innocent!”

  Innocent. Unlike Dad who’s murdered hundreds of thousands of people. Dad who chose to fight and is—was—probably the entire cause of it all.

  She shakes me. “You didn’t know him! You didn’t even know him!”

  I don’t know if she’s talking about Dad or Sam’s dad.

  I don’t respond. She’s not yelling in my face because she wants an answer.

  She’s hurting. She’s mourning. I understand. And she can be mad at me all she wants because Sam’s alive and his dad is going to be okay and as soon as we’re out of this town the better.

  Mom’s eyes flutter, blinking rapidly, as tears flow over her cheeks. She turns away with a sneer.

  “Get her away from me.”

  Perry clamps down on my shoulder, and pulls me from the doorway. He marches me through the living room, out of the door and through the fence. He’s leading me to the helicopter. He’s going to make me wait in the scorching hot sun as punishment. And if I have any doubt how he views my behavior he says, “In some militaries, dishonor is punishable by death.”

  “I never joined the military.” I wait for him to bring the butt of the gun down on the back of my skull and end my misery.

  Instead, he shoves me into the white picket fence. He spins me around to face him.

  I stare him down. There’s nothing he can do to me that’s worse than what my father did.

  And he must know it by looking at me. His hatred softens to disgust. He smiles.

  “You want to know a secret?” He’s whispering, failing to control the grin twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I’m not sorry you let him die. The bastard had it coming.”

  His face is close to mine and I can smell his awful breath. I’d bet anything he has a rotten tooth in there somewhere.

  “If I must kiss someone’s ass, I’d choose your mother’s any day of the week.”

  His crude leer makes my stomach flop.

  Then his smile is gone. “You need to know where your loyalties lie. If you’re not with us, then we can’t trust you. You know what we do to people we don’t trust, right?”

  Gun fire erupts at the back of the house.

  Jesse!

  Perry drags me toward the backyard. But when we enter the backyard, Jesse isn’t there. No firebombs or purple shields.

  There’s a boy in the sand, on his back, coughing blood out of his mouth.

  Did they find him? Did they find Jesse?

  Or did he leave the safety of his hiding place for another reason.

  It doesn’t matter. The result will be the same.

  “Sam!” I rush to shield him with my body, but Perry jerks me back. My shoulder aches.

  No. No.

  Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you stay hidden?

  I blink back tears.

  Another soldier puts a bullet in his chest. I watch the gun kick. I see Sam’s body get knocked back.

  “Sam!” I scream again as the bright red blood blooms through his Sun Devils jersey. The word Devil bleeds.

  Hold on. I don’t say it aloud, but I’m begging with all my being. The soft lips I kissed not long ago are caked in blood now. Hold on. I’ll bring you back. If you die, I’ll bring you back. Don’t be afraid.

  He knows I will. There’s a clarity in his eyes, a fearlessness.

  He believes in me. He has absolute faith my power.

  Or he does until the moment Perry puts a bullet in his head.

  Chapter 26

  Jesse

  My eyes fly open.

  I’m soaking wet.

  No. Not wet.

  I’m cold. My skin and face are icy. And I’m shivering like I crawled out of a winter river. This is normal for someone who was dead and then decides not to be. But it isn’t the low body temperature alone that has me quaking. I lift my stiff fingers, and man, they’re stiff. My finger brushes cold and crumbly.

  Dirt.

  My heart blasts off like it’s heading to the moon.

  Dirt. Dirt. Oh god, I’ve been buried alive. Again. How do these things keep happening to me?

  I stretch my arm overhead and don’t feel the rough edge of a coffin or wooden box. No grainy splinters catch under my nails.

  I pull myself to sitting position and nothing conks me on the head. Not buried. But definitely underground. I’ll never forget the smell of packed earth. I exhale a sigh of relief, as much as my sore, achy chest will allow.

  I’m sitting in some kind of cellar. A Coleman lantern resting on top of a stack of supply boxes illuminates the room. Dirt walls and floors. But there’s the bench I’m on and another chair in the corner. Wait. Is this a bench or a cot? It’s hard to see in the poor light.

  But squinting in the dark, there’s one thing I’m sure I don’t see: a boy.

  Please hurry. I think she’s in trouble.

  Who said that? Those words, like the vibration that woke me, had the sharp edge of reality.

  Where’s the boy?

  And where’s Maisie?

  The vibration, whatever that was, is gone too.

  But I remember the helicopter I saw in the distance before I killed Caldwell, before I murdered him and took his power.

  His power.

  Gabriel?

  I reach up and pat my body. I pat my face and neck like I expect to find another nose or horns jutting out of my face.

  “Gabriel?” I speak aloud when my mental desperation doesn’t make him reappear.

  I catch the scent of rain and a sudden heat washes through the cool darkness, but he doesn’t materialize.

  Go, he says.

  That’s it. A one-word command. No, “hey, how you doing? No, “hey, welcome back!” Or “I’m glad you’re alive and not completely insane!”

  Jesse!

  Pop. Pop. Poppoppop. Pop.

  My head jerks up at the sound of muffled gunfire.

  Another gunshot followed by screaming. Maisie’s screaming.

  The muscles in my body go rock hard.

  Without thinking, I open up. It’s easy. I want to know if Maisie’s okay one second. The next, I’m reaching across time and space to find her.

  Only I’m not reaching with my arms or a stick. I’m reaching with my mind.

  I find a soldier first and the thoughts and feelings pouring out of him—god he’s just a kid what a fucked up job this is I’m glad the bastard is dead I would resign this goddamn minute if I didn’t think Perry would put a bullet in my fucking head the second—

  This mental vomit accompanies the image of a boy on the ground, writhing, coughing blood. A puddle oozes out from under his arm, turning the dirty sand red.

  Is that happening now? Is some boy being mur
dered right above my head. The boy. Somehow, it’s the boy who spoke to me when I was unconscious. Hurry. So, is he Maisie’s friend? That’s the only possibility that makes any sense.

  Thinking about him makes me focus on him. I shift from the soldier to the boy. Pain hits me so hard I’m winded. I roll off the bench and hit the dirt on my knees. I’m sucking air and it’s not coming in. My lung whistles, I’m drowning.

  No. Not me. The boy’s drowning. His lungs are filling up with his own blood, and every time his muscles contract against the pain, a flash of white hot agony tears through him and spots dance before his eyes.

  Maisie skids to a stop in front me.

  No, not me. The boy. I’ve got to keep reminding myself.

  A man has Maisie by the arm, hurting her. I can see his fingers biting into her flesh. I want to kill him. Take his gun and shove it into his mouth.

  Maisie’s crying. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s okay.

  Gratitude swells inside of me. For all Maisie’s done for my dad.

  My mind rears back. Fuck my dad. No, not my dad. The boy’s dad. She did something for the boy’s dad.

  And she wants to save me too. I can tell, I can see it in her desperate face as she strains against the soldier holding her back. And maybe she can save me, maybe—

  The man holding Maisie lifts his gun and points it at my head.

  No.

  I jump to the gunman’s head. I reach inside him, and instead of finding the anger I expect, I find a cold emptiness. I try to seize his mind, seize his gun hand at the very least, and stop him from murdering the kid.

  I’m either too slow or I don’t have Caldwell’s mastery of this power yet. He could be in several minds at once. The minds of a whole army. He could read them and control them as easily as his own body. I’ve seen him do it. But Caldwell had his powers for years.

  I’ve had this ability for minutes.

  I jump back to the boy the same instant the image of his mother standing at the back door smoking a cigarette flashes through my mind. She’s never coming back. She’s never coming back, and if I die, Dad will be all—

  The gun goes off.

  It’s like someone yanks the plug out of the wall. Static, fuzz, and pictures and then pitch black dark.

  I fall out of the boy’s head and onto my forearms. I gulp air. The pain I’ve been struggling against leaves me all at once. I roll onto one side, desperate to breathe. Desperate to right the world again.

  Jesse, Gabriel whispers. His hands press into my back. He’s more solid than before. More solid with Maisie and Georgia above us. Is it the power? Is the power I absorbed his too?

  Yes, he answers.

  I don’t know if he’s saying this or me. I’m beginning to worry there isn’t much of a difference anymore.

  Move, Gabriel commands.

  The tenor of male voices echo overhead.

  They’re coming.

  “He came from in here,” someone says.

  I can’t decide if I’m hearing the voice with my ears, my mind, or a combination of the two. My senses are blurring. Once, it was easy knowing the difference between seeing something and hearing it. Now I can’t tell the difference between what I see and what someone else sees. What I feel and someone else feels.

  Footsteps stomp on the ground above. Heavy boots come down on whatever separates this cellar from the world. Every time a heavy boot comes down, dirt tumbles from the ceiling. Little streams fall into my hair and hit my shoulders.

  “Tear this place apart,” someone says.

  I’m pulling myself to a sitting position as objects are shifted and tossed aside. They bounce off the floor as they tumble down. It’s only a moment before I’m discovered.

  You must leave, Gabriel says again as if that’s helpful.

  Show me the freaking exit, I hiss inwardly.

  I search the four walls and ceiling for a way out. Big mistake.

  With my chin tilted up, a trickle of dirt hits me square in the face and I cough.

  I swallow it. My eyes bulge with the strain of not releasing a cough tickling my throat. My eyes burn and water. As soon as I’m sure I can’t hold it anymore, my mouth opens and I gulp air.

  Only to sneeze.

  The shuffling feet stop.

  Go! Gabriel commands. He wants me to use Caldwell’s power.

  I don’t know how! I fire back. Yelling at me isn’t going to make it happen!

  Caldwell’s mind shit is disorienting enough. I’m not ready to open another power box and access all the fun shit inside.

  I might not be ready, but I’m out of options, and time.

  A scraping sound screeches overhead. I look up in time to see a square of light outline a panel. I dart into the darkest corner as fingers burrow into the ceiling and begin to lift the panel out of place.

  A square of light hits the dirt floor and my cramped dark space isn’t so dark anymore.

  Gabriel!

  Thrashing wings enfold me as more light pours inside.

  Chapter 27

  Maisie

  Sam.

  Perry and two other men are in the shed, tearing it apart. Like a pack of wild dogs on a corpse, they’re rough and thorough. A giant wrench and a stack of clay pots are thrown from the shed into the yard. The beautiful, sweet boy with his brains thrown across the sand lies there. No one is even looking at him.

  I kneel beside Sam and take his hand. It’s clammy. Cold but sweaty, with sand sticking to it. I turn it over and it rolls under its own weight, heavy as a lion’s paw.

  I touch his wrist bones, his elbow, and his upper arm. I don’t go higher because I can’t look at his face. I make it all the way to the collarbone, but the blood there makes me turn away.

  I should look.

  Someone should look. Because Sam deserves to be remembered. He deserves to have a witness to the horrible thing that happened to him.

  He deserved much more, this boy in his Sun Devils T-shirt. Sam was brave enough to stay with me, to show me he could help me in repayment for saving his dad.

  I wipe at my tears with the back of my hand, dragging the knuckles across my eyes.

  “You should have gone to the hospital.” My voice cracks. “You should have gone with your dad and you’d be alive. You’d be safe and sound in some waiting room now. Why didn’t you go? Why didn’t I make you go?”

  “Did you hear that?” The commotion stops. “A sneeze.”

  “Look underneath,” someone says. Perry? I can’t tell. All the voices sound far away.

  “Find the door. There’s got to be a door.”

  They begin pulling up the floor.

  A class ring on Sam’s ring finger is nearly too hot to touch. I work it off the finger, wiggling it over the knuckle past the bone. The yellow gold ring rolls in my palm, sparkling in the sunlight. The gemstone is a deep red. The color of the blood oozing out of his chest. It’s engraved on all sides. On one side, there’s a basketball etched into the markings. In the other, the happy and sad face associated with drama.

  I was right about the dramatics.

  I cry again. Harder this time. I squeeze the ring until my hand aches.

  Kill them all. Kill every one of them.

  “Clear,” someone shouts.

  “Go down anyway. I want visual confirmation.”

  The stairs creak the way they had when Sam carried down my sister, something I could never have done myself. I wouldn’t have known about the hiding place if not for Sam. They would have found her and killed her. There’s so much I owe this boy for, and I’ll never be able to repay him.

  “Clear. There’s nothing down here but supplies.”

  Big black boots skid to a stop in the sand beside me. Equally big hands grab onto my shoulders and lift me off the ground. I’m dragged away from Sam’s body against my will.

  I don’t want to leave him alone and defenseless again.

  Perry wraps his hand around my throat and lifts me into the air. My legs dangle. I
grab his hand and forearm, trying to pull myself up and relieve the pressure crushing my throat.

  “You’d save her, but not your own mother?” Perry shakes me and I’m certain my neck’s going to break. Perry doesn’t care. “She’s going to destroy all of us. Is that what you want?”

  And you thought he wouldn’t? That Mom wouldn’t?

  He shakes me. He shakes me until my teeth rattle in my jaw.

  “You’ve killed us,” he says and drops me. Pain shoots up my legs and into my hips on impact. I draw in air, trying to breathe. My neck aches. It’s already swelling.

  What did Dad tell them? That he was the Messiah? He was the only one who could save the whole world? By serving him, they were protecting all of mankind, but especially their own butts?

  What idiots.

  I roll my eyes up to meet his. “Good! We should die. Every single one of us. We’re not worth anything!”

  I squeeze Sam’s ring until my hand cramps, but I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll lose it. I shouldn’t take it. It should go to Sam’s dad. I didn’t know him. I can count on one hand the number of hours I spent with him. But holding it makes me brave.

  Perry’s face twists into a rage. I tense, expecting a giant boot to slam into my guts.

  The intercom in Perry’s ear buzzes to life. “They’re here.”

  The earth shakes. I feel it rumbling under my palms. A huge black helicopter whizzes overhead. Perry and I both look up as it flies over the smoking town in the direction of the army base. Toward my defenseless friends.

  Jesse! If she isn’t in the underground bunker, then she’s awake. She might be close, watching. If she’s close enough to hear me, she needs to know about the danger. The helicopter! It’s headed right for them!

  I wait for any kind of recognition. I’m desperate for any sign Jesse heard my plea and is rushing off to save our friends. Nothing.

  No telltale buzz in my head the way it felt when Dad snuck in and started poking around.

  Only silence stretches in all directions, and the smell of smoke and blood from the town we’ve destroyed.

  What if she isn’t herself?

  What if Jesse is as crazy as Dad was? It was a lot of power to absorb and now it’s all inside her.