I clutch the phone to my ear, the 911 call still active.
“Death Mob.” My voice is hoarse. “Navy Pier.” It shakes as I recite details to the operator asking me question after question in her stupid, calm voice.
A man screams from inside the pit. It’s pleading, terror-ridden, and slices through my core.
I drop the phone and cover my mouth, silencing my own cries. Somewhere in the center of the attack, that man clings to life as dozens of fists pummel him. And there is no one nearby who can help—not a local or tourist or police officer.
The ship with its captain and crew drifts from the dock, its ropes dangling off the sides. The vendors have disappeared with their carts as if they were never here. Everyone’s gone. Fled. Escaping the horror at the end of the pier, where a man is being beaten to death.
And I’m trapped on the other side.
One guy with oversized sunglasses and a faded gray jacket laughs—a high-pitched cackle—like he’s enjoying it. He shoves a guy in a black knit hat next to him. Black Hat sprawls on the concrete. His sunglasses fall from his face. His jeans rip at the knee. But he doesn’t give up. He stands and bounces on his toes like a boxer. Then he charges Gray Jacket, tackling him around the waist, bringing them both down. They punch and kick. Every couple of hits, one of them smiles as if the whole thing is some kind of sick and twisted game.
I imagine my dad in the center of the attack and press my fingertips against my eyelids, burying the thought that threatens to paralyze me. I refuse to let that happen and make myself an easy target.
Grabbing my phone, I hold it just above the back of the bench, using the wooden slats to steady it and hit record. All around the outer edge of the attack, the Swarm turns on each other, a massive out-of-control brawl. I snap shots. Rapid fire. Ten. Twenty. Until the shake in my arm and the burning in my lungs become too intense.
I dig through my bag for my inhaler and my keys. Wind whips my stringy blonde hair across my face, making it impossible to see. Yanking my black rubber band from my wrist, I throw my hair into a ponytail, frustrated to be wasting time on silly details.
It’s only a matter of time before they see me. The Swarm usually takes one victim, but there have been plenty of cases where someone gets attacked for being too close. And I’m too close.
I take a long puff from my inhaler before weaving my keys through my knuckles. I’ve always been small, so my dad made me take self-defense lessons in middle school. I was good, but any idiot can follow directions in a simulated fight. If my attacker doesn’t start with a right hook, I’m not sure what to do next. I’ve never had to test my ability to improvise. I clutch the strap of my bag with my left hand. If someone charges me, I have at least two swings—my bag and my makeshift weapon.
My nerves buzz with adrenaline. I lean against the iron railing separating the pier from Lake Michigan and glance over my shoulder at the water below. The drop has to be thirty feet, at least. Water slams against the pier. Every time a new wave crashes, a foamy white spray bursts up the side.
An erratic chanting reverberates through the Swarm. I turn, expecting to see a deranged mosh pit full of breakout fights and people pummeling each other. But instead my eyes fix on a girl with choppy jet-black hair standing in the crowd, clutching the bag slung across her body. The tense inward curve of her shoulders throws me. She isn’t chanting or cheering like the others. She looks nervous, pained. Agitated.
I fumble for my cell and click one last shot. She stands out, but no one else seems to notice her. I scan the group for anyone like her only to find the boy hiding beneath the navy hood. His colorless eyes lock in on mine.
I press my back into the railing as if it will somehow hide me.
His glare is deliberate. He dips his chin and walks toward me. His cold gaze doesn’t break. He weaves his way through the crowd like he has all the time in the world. Without warning, he picks up speed and runs.
My knees seize. I drop my phone and scrabble for my keys, preparing my two hits. But the boy closes the space between us so fast, I don’t have time to plan.
Something flashes to my left.
I spin just in time to see another guy lunging at me.
Before I have time to brace myself, the boy in the hood knocks my would-be attacker away with little effort. I’m his for the kill. I swing my bag at his head. He blocks it. I throw my punch, but he grabs my arm and my waist in one fluid motion. His arm is thick, his grip solid. I think of an anaconda squeezing the life out of its prey.
I claw at his wrist with my free hand. He spins me around and pins me against the railing, forcing me to stare at the water below. Taunting me. He wants me to be terrified by the water, by how high up we are. I’m too busy searching for a safe spot to land. If I fall too close to the wall, I won’t make it.
He leans in so close his lips brush my ear. Dread washes through me. What if killing me is the least of his plans?
“Can you swim?” His words are low and coarse. At first, I’m not sure I heard him correctly.
“Can you swim?” he says, louder.
I don’t understand what he’s doing or why he’s asking or what he’s going to do to me next. I nod once, unable to talk.
“There are concrete blocks against the wall beneath the surface. Jump ten feet out. When you hit the water, swim away from the pier. To the right.”
I hesitate.
I can’t figure out his angle. Is he telling me this, knowing I don’t have a chance, that I won’t make the fall? Or is he giving me hope—a cruel joke—because he has every intention of throwing my body toward the concrete?
He scoops my legs from beneath me and flips me over the railing. I clench the rail, squeezing it, while I fight for balance on a ledge too narrow for my toes. He stands on the other side clutching my wrists with a vicelike grip, steadying me.
The Swarm blurs behind him, forty feet away. I search his face for signs of mockery or malice, something that indicates he’s going to kill me. His eyes are steady, unreadable. The perfect straight line of his lips gives him an almost clinical expression. Beneath his hood, I can just make out a dark brown hairline. Everything about him is off. So much of his face is exposed.
A gust of wind hits me so hard, my eyes flutter. His hands tighten around my wrists.
“You got this,” he says.
I can’t tell whether it’s a question or encouragement. A weird wave of déjà vu flits through me. I’ve seen him before.
“Why are you doing this?”
His voice grows threatening. “Turn and jump.”
I hang over the water. The height appears to have doubled. Ten feet out now seems impossible to reach. My grip becomes sweaty. My pulse thumps erratically. If I don’t jump now, I’ll slip and have no chance of making it.
“Jump or I throw you,” he growls.
Behind him, people begin cheering and jumping with their arms in the air.
“They’ll kill you.”
I look one last time over my shoulder at the spray, the water crashing against the cement wall. I choose my spot. The countdown begins. Three. Two . . .
Just as I kick against the pier, my left foot slips. My grip slides off the railing and I sense the wrongness of it all. I haven’t turned around. I don’t get the spring I need, and I begin falling too close to the wall, too close to the white foam and the blocks beneath the water’s surface.
My body is weightless, helpless, as I freefall.
Everything blurs.
As the world spins away, I swear I see him reach for me and call my name.
“Lia . . .”
CHAPTER 3
I smack the water headfirst. Disoriented and confused, I spin and sink like dead weight. I can’t breathe. Can’t control my body. Can’t find the surface.
And I need to find the surface.
There are bubbles and murky gray water. Seaweed. Concrete. And then nothing.
There’s nothing after that.
When I was nine, I walked acros
s the frozen lake at our friends’ house in the burbs and fell through the ice. As soon as I hit the water, thousands of frigid needles pierced my skin, causing a pain more intense than anything I’d ever known. I lost control of my body and breath until I was sure I would die. It was my dad who pulled me out. His grip was strong and desperate as he lifted me to the surface and ran me inside.
Doctors claimed it was a miracle my crap lungs didn’t shut down. They were all impressed by my “will to live”—something I clung to as proof that beneath my weak exterior, I had inner strength, that in a defining moment my subconscious chose to fight rather than sleep.
A distant bell toll pulls me back with each chime, filling in details of “here” and “now.” I’m wet. Cold. My clothes cling like shrink-wrap where I lay half passed out against the white slats of a dock, the lake rocking below me.
I blink and squint, adjusting my vision to the dull light, and find myself staring at the giant brass bell ringing at the dock’s end. The golden dome swings from its post like an upside-down tulip dangling against an ashen backdrop. As each arc grows smaller and each chime fainter, I can’t help but wonder what made it start ringing.
It stops.
I swear I see the very top of the Ferris wheel from Navy Pier. It looks so small. Far away. I struggle to lift my aching body for a better look and realize how badly my lungs burn. I can just make out a soft halo of red and blue emergency lights in the distance, near the tip of the pier, when suddenly a stampede of footsteps thunders toward me.
The Swarm. They’ve found me.
I shoot up, desperate to be on my feet. But I’m too quick. Clumsy. My head spins. My stomach heaves. I lean over the side of the dock and puke.
Something warm and dry and heavy is thrown over my shoulders.
“Get her inside.”
I’m scooped up. I fall back, and everything goes black.
I wake a second time on a couch, cocooned in towels and a thick down quilt. A fire burns beneath a massive wood mantle topped with iridescent vases and a huge abstract painting almost as big as the fireplace itself. The fire casts an eerie glow, bringing warmth to the muted daylight.
Pressure grips my chest, like I’m wrapped in weighted blankets.
I reach for my inhaler on instinct. I always have it. My life depends on it too often. And it’s gone. Kicked aside on Navy Pier? Lost at the bottom of Lake Michigan? I take two deep breaths, testing the limits of my lungs. Air wheezes as it scrapes against the back of my throat, but breathing isn’t as difficult as I’d expected.
I fumble for my silver pendant, the one thing I can’t replace. Still there.
But my phone. I can’t remember what happened to my phone. An aching lump hardens at the base of my neck. The pictures, the videos—they’re protected. They would’ve uploaded to the cloud. But if the Swarm were to discover them . . .
I lift my head, determined to find my phone before anyone else, but the room tilts and spins. It’s too much, and I collapse against the pillow, taking another deep, burning breath.
It’s always my body that fails me.
“Turn it up.”
The man’s voice comes out of nowhere. I think of the dock and the footsteps. I try to dredge up how many sets of steps I heard, but instead I picture Lip Spikes and the Initiators charging that man on Navy Pier, parting the crowd like a missile through water.
My hands start twitching, like some Pavlovian response. I try to steady them, but the twitching spreads up my arms, my elbows.
This is temporary, I try to convince myself. It will pass.
But the surge of panic doesn’t subside. It’s overwhelming and suffocating and threatening to take over every nerve in my body.
I bury the image of the pier and replace it with a favorite memory. I visualize Pa’iloa Beach in Maui. I squeeze my eyes shut and narrow in on details. The damp black sand beneath my feet. The purple sky filling the horizon. The sun rising against a stormy backdrop as the ocean’s white foam swishes along the shore. Mindful of the air coming in and out of my lungs, my spasming heart searching for its rhythm, I focus and breathe and stay in the moment the way I was taught after my dad’s death by a shrink whose name I can’t remember. The twitching simmers to mild trembling until I’ve gained control over my limbs and I’m able to think logically.
Without moving too much, I try to glimpse who’s talking. Someone behind the couch, on the far side of the room. Out of sight.
The television grows louder, and a woman’s pseudo-serious news report fills the room. “We have confirmed that officials received an anonymous tip warning about the attack, which at the time they dismissed. As to the man’s identity, that remains unclear. Witnesses say that within seconds, approximately one hundred teens swarmed and mobbed a man in his late twenties or thirties at the east end of Navy Pier.”
Keep it together, Finch. I tell myself. Bury it. I imagine a black, twisty tunnel spiraling through my head and down my spine to the deep caverns of my gut, where I lodge the sights and sounds and everything that happened on the pier.
“Paramedics rushed him to Northwestern Hospital, where he is reported to be in critical condition. The hospital will not comment on the extent of his injuries; however, sources say he is not expected to survive.”
She’s emotionless when she says it, like she’s reporting traffic. How can she talk like it doesn’t matter whether this guy lives or dies?
“We will continue our ongoing coverage as we wait to hear from the mayor . . .”
Another guy’s voice speaks over the television. “Shouldn’t you be with him right now, Richard?”
Richard—I assume—responds. His nasal voice is curt, uptight. “I’d say a girl washing up on the mayor’s dock an hour after the attack is fairly important.”
Nameless Guy’s tone reeks of derision as he says, “I was starting to think you wanted to keep her. I mean, sure, she smells awful, she has seaweed in her hair, she’s unconscious and half your age, but whatever does it for you.”
I grab the back of the couch and heave myself upright. The room rocks and blurs. Three silhouettes stand against an oversized window flooded with gray light. I push myself up to face them, but my knees buckle. I fall against the couch’s arm.
“Take it easy. You hit your head,” says a new voice. It’s deep and comforting, like he wants me to surrender.
The shadows inch toward me like I’m some rabid, wild animal. I jerk back, maintaining distance, squinting to make out the details of their faces. I stumble over the coffee table and into the side of an armchair.
“You were wheezing pretty heavily, and your O2 levels were low. I gave you a shot of Prednisone to help you breathe. What do you normally take?”
One of the shadows walks closer, arms out, indicating he won’t hurt me. “Albuterol?”
My head feels jumbled, like someone poured syrup in it, slowing down my thoughts and senses. It takes a second to remember the name of the medication I depend on to stay alive. I nod, hesitant to say too much.
“My name is Dr. Marshall. You can call me Steve.”
I flinch at hearing my dad’s name. Dr. Marshall—I cannot call him Steve—doesn’t seem to notice.
“May I listen to your lungs?” Dr. Marshall steps away from the window. Deep laugh lines circle his eyes. He holds a stethoscope in one hand as though asking permission to use it, all in a very anti-Swarm kind of way.
The silence stretches out between us as I gauge whether these three are a threat. I don’t think they are, but I also don’t know if I can trust my instincts right now. I hone in on the doctor, who looks at me with a patient expression as he waits for me to decide he isn’t Death Mob affiliated. And I nod again.
Dr. Marshall slides the cold metal disk up and down my back as I breathe, slipping into routine. I imagine the pops and crackles he’s hearing. Most doctors overreact the first time they listen to my lungs.
Another man steps closer. Tall. Lanky. Better dressed than I expected. I peg him as Richar
d, the one with the nasal voice. “How did you end up on the mayor’s dock?”
At first, I don’t think I’ve heard him correctly. The mayor’s dock? The mayor lives in a Lakefront mansion—I’ve seen it plenty of times. I try to think of how long it would take to drive from Navy Pier to the mayor’s house. Five, six minutes without traffic? The two aren’t close.
Richards squats to eye level. His tie falls forward, hitting my knee. He blushes as he fumbles for it, pressing it against his dress shirt. It’s a weird reaction for a guy wearing such an expensive tie.
“You go to my school,” Nameless Guy says. His tone is critical.
I blink, pushing against the fog governing my head. Nameless Guy wears a collared shirt like it makes him superior. I know him, but from where doesn’t register.
“You’re friends?” Richard asks.
“God, no,” Nameless Guy says to his phone. “She’s nuts—as in legitimately crazy. In third grade, she told everyone she had a twin sister who went to another school. Talked about her all the time. Couple months later we all found out she made the whole thing up. Her twin died at birth.” His eyes meet mine. “That was you, right?” He snaps his fingers like it’s just come to him. “Amelia—that’s it.”
My stomach churns as his name comes to me too: Cullen Henking, the mayor’s smarmy son.
“Don’t mind Cullen,” Richard says, his long, thin legs jutting out like a frog’s. A giant frog with a crooked tie. It’d be funny if Cullen hadn’t just mocked my childhood struggle to cope with the dead twin I never knew.
“Your lungs sound better. Any chest pain?” Dr. Marshall asks.
“Chronic.” My voice is thick, scratchy.
Dr. Marshall smiles, no doubt overcompensating for Cullen’s indiscretion. “You also have a nice-size gash on your temple I stitched up. With any luck you won’t have much of a scar.” He grabs a pen light out of his pocket and flashes it in my right eye. It’s bright and abrupt and knocks me off balance.
Every Stolen Breath Page 2