Every Stolen Breath

by Kimberly Gabriel

  A man with patchy gray scruff jumps between us. “Here?” His face turns ashen. He must be the father.

  I nod. “Run!”

  He steers her away, shielding the baby as they push their way through the crowd.

  A small sense of victory fills me as they make their escape.

  I spin, arms and elbows butting into me. Identifying the victim is impossible. Someone’s about to die and there’s no way of knowing who I’m here to save.

  Clenching my teeth, I grab a weedy guy with short buzzed hair, glasses. He screams “Save the Parks” like he wants to be the loudest rioter.

  “Swarm attack,” I yell. “Run!” I turn to the next person. Scream it again. Neither of them seems to care, but I refuse to quit.

  Remembering my plan, I snatch the burner phone from my purse. I hit record and stick it in the air, as high as I can with no idea what I’m catching. Copperhead’s pointy chin? Spider Tattoo’s neck? The crowd jostles me. I can barely hold on. And then a blur of silky black catches my eye. It swings back and forth against a backpack with a trio of buttons.

  I shove my way past protestors, crashing against them until I reach her. I spin Katie around.

  “Why did you come?” I scream.

  Katie’s face radiates with passion and righteousness. But her eyes widen as she looks me up and down, taking in my coat, cocktail dress, heels, until her expression becomes horrified. Her picket sign droops. “Where are you supposed to be?”

  There’s no time to explain. I grab her wrist. We’re too far in, too close to the center. Protestors jostle us as I search for the edge of the mob to make our escape. After two steps, we’re pitched sideways. The crowd is growing rowdier. Someone slams into me, knocking me over. I brace myself against the cement. A shoe crushes my fingers. Another guy trips over my back, burying me beneath bodies. I scream. I can’t save Katie if I’m trampled to death.

  But the weight is lifted. A hand grabs my arm, heaving me upward, and I collide into Ryan, his Chicago hoodie. A baseball cap shields his eyes. A dark gray neck gaiter conceals his face to his nose. He yanks it down.

  He looks panicked—more than he’s ever shown. “What are you doing here?”

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  Confusion flickers in his eyes. “They sent coordinates an hour ago.”

  My stomach drops as the realization that I’ve been set up clicks. The mayor knew it was me. He baited me here, and I fell for it.

  Before I can tell Ryan, he drags me behind him. His grip is tight. He’s too fast. I can’t keep up.

  I turn for Katie. Scream her name. She runs after me, until she’s next to me, clutching my bicep as we weave through people.

  I grasp the phone and hold it up. I can’t tell what I’m recording, if anything at all. The chanting and shouting are too intense to concentrate. But if these are my final moments, I’m taking out as many Swarm as I can.

  Cullen pushes past a man in the crowd. “Lia!” He looks from me to Katie, trying to read the situation, before glaring at Ryan with mistrust. Ryan looks more like the Swarm than anyone else here.

  I grab Cullen’s hand. “We have to leave.”

  Ryan pauses long enough to scowl at my hand in Cullen’s. Then he takes the lead, guiding me, Cullen, and Katie away from the center of the protest. And that’s when my phone vibrates.

  Before I can even blink, Ryan grabs his cell from his hoodie. Buzzing and chiming go off around us. Blue orbs light up the riot. Everyone around us seems to check their phones.

  The Swarm is identifying the victim.

  In the milliseconds it takes for Ryan to check the message and look at me, the uprising around us hushes, blurs, and disappears. I stop breathing.

  It’s me. I’m the victim. I walked right into their trap.

  Ryan’s unreadable gray eyes soften at first, then harden just as quickly.

  He looks past me to Cullen. “Run.” His voice is severe. “Get her out of here,” he screams. “Run.” Anger. Panic.

  The noise and pandemonium return like an explosion, overwhelming my senses, my ability to think. Ryan turns and charges into the center of the riot. Cullen yanks on my arm and takes off with Katie matching our pace. I stumble behind, turning one last time to see Ryan charging the five Initiators parting through the crowd in my direction. Lip Spikes leads it. Hood, glasses, and the rest of his arrogant face exposed.

  I lift my phone. Aim it.

  All around us, people start screaming as they realize what’s happening.

  My legs buckle and flounder. The shaking in my chest overtakes my body. I stretch my arm higher, but my lungs are dying out.

  Cullen catches me as I fall. He hoists my body over his shoulder and runs.

  Katie’s bag thumps against her back.

  Bodies collide as people fight to escape. Someone crashes into us. Cullen careens, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps running. The shrieks, wails, hysteria blend together, like one frenzied siren piercing the night.

  I gasp for air, clutching my purse, the phone, and Cullen’s tuxedo jacket, as he dodges fleeing people.

  The searing in my chest is agonizing, like shards of glass slicing my insides. Still, I lift my head and the phone together. Past hundreds of people scattering in every direction, I zero in on Ryan. The Initiators. They collide. I can’t tell who throws the first punch, but they all fall. All six of them. Another attacker jumps on top.

  I hit Cullen’s back. “Let me go!”

  They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill Ryan for protecting me. I thrash against Cullen’s grip, crying and coughing and choking while somewhere Ryan is getting pummeled to his death.

  People scream, run, bump into each other, trip over one another. I can’t see Ryan. I’m losing him.

  I pound Cullen’s back until he throws me down against the outer Plexiglas frame of a bus stop harder than is necessary. “What are you doing?”

  “Where’s Katie?” The breaths are shorter. My lungs are burning. We’re fifty yards from where Ryan is dying.

  Cullen grabs my coat, shakes me. “Shut up and run!”

  He stands, motions to grab me.

  I smack his hands away and fumble for my purse, my inhaler. It bobbles as I force it into my mouth. I jab at the canister, unable to concentrate. Cool mist shoots in my throat. I swallow it. Hold it.

  I crane my neck until I see Katie’s backpack fleeing with the crowd. It bounces against her shoulders as she runs away toward safety, escaping the attack.

  I have to go back.

  I throw my inhaler and the burner phone and all it captured into my purse. As I do, the picture text lights up my screen.

  It’s Ryan. In his baseball cap, his gray gaiter, his hoodie.

  Ryan was the intended victim.

  I look at Cullen, breathe, try to get my lungs functioning. I stand, begging my legs to steady themselves. I grip the outer post. Force myself to turn around. I have to help Ryan. I can’t let the Swarm kill him.

  But Cullen catches me. “Dammit, Lia.” He hoists me on his shoulder again. My body’s shaking too hard to resist. Tears flood my face as I picture Ryan at the bottom of the Swarm. Dying.

  People are screaming, running for cover all around us.

  I look up to find the Swarm surrounding the Water Tower—the attack is full blown.

  And that’s when I hear the gunshot from somewhere in the middle.

  The sound pierces my insides as if I know by instinct he’s gone.

  Like Dopney. Adam. My dad.

  The Swarm scatters. Cullen takes off running.

  Through the jostling and the chaos, I strain to find him, knowing it’s the last time. Amidst the crowd, the silhouette of Ryan’s lifeless body is collapsed against the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER 29

  Cullen fumbles with his house keys while I glare at the security camera filming us from the corner of his front porch, imagining who might be watching, waiting for us to enter. The lock clicks, and Cullen pushes the heavy doo
r open. I follow behind, scanning his house for the mayor. An electric current pulses through me. It’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart right in front of the ostentatious sculpture in their foyer.

  I picture Ryan’s face, his last hard look as he turned to meet the Initiators. The Swarm closing in on him like rabid wolves tearing apart their prey. This attack was quicker, more sudden, more intense, and then there was the gunshot.

  My entire body aches to crash, but I refuse to let that happen. Not yet. I clench every muscle and tendon I have, hellbent on finding the mayor, exposing him, destroying him the way he’s destroyed the lives of so many people in this city.

  Cullen walks across the open space from the foyer to the living room and turns the television on. He flips to live footage of the scene. The words “Teen Dies in Death Mob Attack” stream across the bottom. Behind the reporter, lights highlight the Water Tower as dusk sinks in. Yellow tape frames the square littered with protestors’ signs.

  I turn away, close my eyes, and concentrate on the charge surging inside.

  “What just happened?” Cullen grabs the top of his head. He looks ghostly white. He turns on me, eyes full of disgust. “You knew about it.”

  Cullen takes a few steps, charging like he’s going to hit me. Instead, he spins around and squeezes his head with his palms. “You stupid, psychopathic . . .” He rips off his tuxedo jacket and throws it across the room.

  I’d assumed Cullen was in on it all: the setup, the attack. I thought he’d heard Richard threaten me on the pier—not that any of that matters anymore. “Where’s your dad?”

  Cullen’s entire face cringes. “How should I know?”

  The driver was instructed to bring us here—a place we’d be safe. I didn’t object. I welcomed it, expecting the mayor would be here too.

  Cullen yanks at his bow tie and stares at his hands covered in grime. He holds out his cuff, which is speckled in red. “I have blood on me. Someone’s blood,” he says like it’s my fault. “I know a lot of screwed-up people. But you’re more screwed up than all of them.” He shakes his hands like he’s ridding himself of the night and stomps up the staircase, leaving me alone.

  I yank off my coat and pull out the burner phone, scanning the room for the best place to prop it. The bookcases, the wet bar, the windowsill. My movements are spastic as I finally head toward the mantel. I set it between the iridescent vases, behind a heavy candle pillar so the camera lens peeks out. Stepping back, I survey the fireplace. The phone is concealed. I grab my other cell, call up the site where I’m streaming live. For several seconds, I watch myself in the low-back cocktail dress, standing in the mayor’s living room staring at my cell. It’s like I’m watching someone else, someone older, someone who hasn’t lost everything.

  I think of Ryan’s lips on mine. Less than a week ago. The twinge in my chest threatens to infuse my entire body, incapacitating me. It should’ve been me. He was stronger. He could’ve taken down the mayor with everything he knew.

  The lock on the front door jiggles.

  My head snaps toward it. I tuck my cell into my purse and throw everything onto the couch.

  Richard steps through the door looking disheveled. The second he sees me, he lets out a deep breath. His shoulders slump. He presses his palm against his chest. “Thank God. I came as soon as I found out. Where’s Cullen?”

  I freeze, thrown by his tone. His expression. “Upstairs.”

  “Are either of you hurt?”

  “No,” I whisper.

  Richard crosses the room. He rubs the back of his neck and passes the TV, where paramedics hoist Ryan’s white-sheet-covered body into the ambulance. Something about seeing it on the screen confirms it happened. It was real. Not a hallucination. The image sears me like a brand, leaving behind a fresh, new scar.

  Ryan’s hand grazes my shoulder. It slides down the bare skin of my arm. His lips brush the top of my ear as he says my name. “Lia.” His voice is rough and coarse and close, like he’s standing right behind me. And I wilt. It’d be so easy to give up, collapse on the couch, let the pain take over. I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing away the temptation, burying it deep, deep, deep inside.

  “We’re all so thankful Cullen was there to save you.”

  I ground myself in Richard’s nasal words. There’s something to the way he says it, like it’s forced.

  I open my eyes and narrow them. Richard walks toward the massive windows overlooking Lake Michigan, the night settling in. He makes a sharp turn and walks along the wall toward the mantle, pulling his cell from the inside pocket of his tux.

  I realize what he’s doing too late to do anything about it. Richard reaches around the vases. He taps my phone without detection and shuts down my live feed.

  It hits me like a bullet, a very real and heavy blow.

  Richard chuckles. He rolls his shoulders back and flips his cell around to show me his screen filled with muted gray. “This is your website.” A smug grin spreads over his lips. His white teeth flash above his crooked bow tie. “Dead air,” he says, drawing it out.

  Richard slows his pace, his movements. He strolls to the wet bar on the side of the room and pours a drink from a crystal decanter. “You must have been so hopeful. Naïve. Delusional. But hopeful.”

  I glare at him. My chest heaves, and for once my lungs feel strong. My mind sharp.

  Richard glances up at me. “I left the attack coordinates off the tweet knowing it would draw you in to respond.”

  I keep my face as stoic as possible, ignoring the throbbing in my temples. Of course. It was Richard. He’s been one step ahead, not the mayor. The mayor’s been too busy glorifying himself and his legacy.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Richard looks around the room as if reassuring himself that we’re alone. “Soda? Juice? Tea?”

  I breathe deeply, like a bull before charging. Richard’s been the mastermind, the one who orchestrated the attacks. Maybe I should be scared of him, of what he’s capable of, but my father, my best friend, and Ryan are dead. Because of him. Richard and his puffy neck. His nasally voice. His crooked bow tie.

  He grabs a bottled water from the minifridge and walks it over to me. Holds it out.

  I continue to glare, refusing to move.

  He sets the water down on the coffee table. “It took you longer to respond than I’d anticipated. I’ll give you that. But once you did”—he chuckles—“it was easy to figure out everything you were trying to accomplish with your fake Twitter account, your new phone.” He bites his lip, shakes his head, puts one hand on his hip beneath his tux. “Did you really think you’d outsmart me?”

  I clench my teeth. “You killed them.”

  Richard snorts. “It’s funny that you, of all people, would fall for a guy from the Swarm. That surprised me,” he says in a patronizing tone. Richard stares at his drink as he swirls it. “Apparently it wasn’t enough watching your dad or your best friend murdered. Those didn’t slow you down. No—not you. You’re resilient.” His voice squeaks. He nods his head and sniffs his drink. “I like that about you.” He then takes a sip, holding it in his mouth before swallowing. “But everyone has a button. It’s just a matter of finding it, and once you do . . .” His laugh is shrill. Grating. “Well, you can get them to do anything. You—” He shakes his index finger at me. “You’re interesting. Harder to control than anyone else in this city. I’ll give you that. A lot like your dad. I just didn’t expect it from a sixteen-year-old.”

  Adrenaline courses through my veins, making every extremity feel charged and twitchy. “I was going to your stupid gala like you wanted.”

  Richard snickers. He closes one eye. A prolonged wink. “You also impersonated the Swarm with your fake Twitter account.” Richard tucks his hand into his pocket. “And what about the Apple Store? I’ll admit, whatever program you installed on that computer, it took us a while. But I found what you’d been searching.” Richard snorts again. “You led me right to him, you know. I knew someone from the inside w
as helping your dad, and Hewitt’s boy might have gone undiscovered if it weren’t for you.”

  I draw in a shaky breath. It takes everything in me to dismiss him. He’s only trying to crack me. He wants me to crumble in front of him. But I refuse to give him that satisfaction.

  “You run the attacks.”

  “I do a lot more than that.”

  His pride is disgusting. Infuriating. “You murder people.”

  “I keep people in line, Lia,” Richard says with a calm demeanor. “The mayor has revitalized this city. I help ensure that vision by controlling what’s broken.”

  “By forcing the city to sell lakefront property? Blackmailing teenagers?” I trip over my words. “Making them join your Swarm?”

  He rocks from heel to toe. His grin widens like I’ve said something amusing. “You’ve only scratched the surface. I got a city ordinance from the early nineteen hundreds repealed. That takes politicking. Coercion. Control.” He bites his bottom lip. Giddy, almost. “Let’s not minimize what I had to do to make that happen.”

  Richard relishes it. He wants to brag about it. Celebrate it. Like he’s dying to be recognized.

  My voice shrinks as I begin to wonder if the mayor is involved at all. “It’s all about control for you, isn’t it? You use the Swarm to get what you want.”

  “It’s not about what I want—it’s about what this city needs.” Richard’s brow tightens. “You make it sound so simple, but I assure you, it’s quite complicated.” He smooths the hair sticking up on the crown of his head. “Do you understand how much debt this city was in before the mayor took office? Millions of people are collecting pensions for the first time in years. This city has been resurrected.”

  He pulls back his sleeve to check his watch before shaking his arms, straightening his jacket. Richard regards his drink. “I tried to give you a chance, Lia. But you’re stubborn and, like everyone else, expendable.”

  “You’re going to kill me.”

  He sets his drink on the table. “You’ve given me no other choice.”

  Richard takes a step closer to me as if he’s considering murdering me with his bare hands here in the mayor’s living room.