Dying Light (10 page)

“
Walls can be knocked
down,” Gabriel reminds me, his voice faint in the back of my
mind.

“
This room isn’t doorless
to contain you,” Caldwell says and crosses to the sofa on the far
wall. “It’s for my protection. No one can come in and out of here
except me.”

“
So why am I in your safe
room?” I’m trying to figure out where to put myself. “You plan to
leave me here to starve to death? Because I will totally blow this
room apart.”

“
I wanted somewhere
private for us to talk.”

“
Where’s
Winston?”

“
He’s safe with your
sister.”

“
Yeah, about
that
.” I do another turn
around the room but there’s nothing to fixate on with the lack of
windows, doors, or décor of any kind, save three pieces of
furniture. Two rose-colored chairs and a sofa, which he drapes
himself over, like a French courtesan. “Tell me about this
so-called sister.”

“
Her name is Maisie.
She’ll be seventeen in February.”

I go all weak in the knees.

“
She’s eight years younger
than me. You must’ve had her right after you died.”

“
16 months
after.”

“
And she’s been with you
ever since?”

“
Breathe,” Gabriel says.
The scent of rain intensifies. “Breathe, Jesse.”

“
She was born in the camp
and raised by foster parents until she was six. It took us that
long to get her back. Georgia, her mother, insists we keep her
close.”

Her mother insists we keep
her close.
So while he saw fit to keep one
daughter close he left the other one in the care of a pedophile.
What. The. Fuck.

“
Are you kidding me? And
what about me?”

“
You were already fifteen
by the time I got out of the camps.”

“
That was when the worst
of it started,” I told him. “You could’ve come back for me. You
could’ve saved me from all that shit.”

The power rolls along my
skin, and the more I look at his snide little face, the more I know
I
want
to
firebomb him. I want to watch the skin burn off his bones just like
Eddie’s.

“
I couldn’t have saved you
from him,” Caldwell says, steepling his fingers.

“
Keep telling yourself
that.”

“
He wants you angry. He
wants you to make a mistake.”
The light
brush of Gabriel’s fingers pulls me out of myself. I turn, but the
room is empty except for me and the jerk.

“
Do you understand why he
can’t materialize when I’m here?”

If I lose my temper, I might make a
mistake, and I will be dead, which is exactly what Caldwell wants.
He wants to kill me and take my power.

“
I have a feeling you’re
about to tell me.”

“
We are charged like
magnets. There’s too much commotion, too much charge and chaos in
the space around us when we are close together,” he says. He
gestures to the room. “Electromagnetic interference, if you
will.”

“
You could be feeding me a
bunch of horse shit, for all I know.”

He only smiles.

I see Brinkley in my head. Brinkley in
his leather jacket. Brinkley with his James Dean smile and the look
of sheer determination as he lifts his gun to shoot Caldwell.
Brinkley would remind me not to get confused, not to let Caldwell
too deep into my head.

“
Brinkley and I had a long
and complicated history that you know nothing about.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “And
that justified killing him?”

“
I remove obstacles that
lay in my path. I don’t care what the obstacle is.”

“
So how do you intend to
remove me?”

“
Ah,” Caldwell grins as if
I’ve asked him the question he’s been waiting for. “You’re
different.”

“
Dare I ask why? Or can I
just expect a cryptic, noncommittal answer?”

“
It would take days to
explain why you’re different and what that difference means for
us.”

I snort. “First you have to kidnap a
dog and now you flatter me? I didn’t realize you’d stoop so
low.”

My body aches to sit down in one of
the rose-colored chairs, to move closer into the light instead of
hanging on the periphery like this. But to sit down suggests
complacency. I can’t get comfortable in case he decides he wants to
kill me here and now.

“
You agreed to come and
here you are. Take a seat.”

I don’t.

“
So did you bring me here
to starve? Or did you want privacy for the monologuing?”

“
Gabriel won’t tell you
his plan, because he runs the risk of you shutting him out. He
chose you of all the NRD prospects. He saw something in you that he
desires,” Caldwell’s voice is smooth, the lilting tone of a mega
church preacher.

“
Why did your angel choose
you?”

A fox grin spreads across his face.
“Such a personal question. Perhaps he knew I would accept him and
his will.”

“
Cute,” I say. “Glad you
guys are happy together.”

His expression darkens. “The Earth’s
magnetic field is dying. Once it weakens completely, the Earth will
be exposed, vulnerable, and incinerated in no time at all. A higher
power has taken pity on us and offered us a choice. It will require
a conscious act of sacrifice to recharge the field.”

I sink into one of the
armchairs.

“
A partis will have to
die, permanently, to recharge the field. That person is the apex
and will also be the person who has all of the combined universal
elements. All twelve partis powers collected in one body is all
that’s needed to create a new world order.”

“
So if I don’t get killed
by Jason or you, I have to die or the whole planet is
incinerated?”

Caldwell’s eyes meet mine.
“Yes.”

I fall against the
cushion. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but not
yes
.

“
Yes?” I repeat. “The
prize for surviving all the homicidal maniacs is
death
?”

“
Everyone dies, Jesse,”
Caldwell says.

I throw up my hands. “This is the
dumbest game ever.”

Caldwell presses one slender finger to
his temple. “To be the apex is a great honor. You get to make the
new world in your image.”

“
You’d love that, wouldn’t
you?” I stand again and pace from one end of the room to the other.
“Are you going to give us all kneepads or is a little rug burn part
of your world domination plan?”

Halfway across the room a thought
occurs to me. My sneakers squeak to a stop on the industrial
carpet. “Wait, does the apex’s death recharge the field or blow up
the world? I’m getting some mixed signals here.”

“
It’s whatever you want it
to be,” he says. “
That choice
is the privilege of the apex.”

“
I want this to end. I
want my freaking dog, and I want you to stop killing the people I
love.” If Caldwell is determined to kill all the partis and absorb
their powers, that means he wants to kill Rachel, Cindy, and anyone
else with a gift.

Something flickers in Caldwell’s
eyes.

“
What?” I
demand.

“
Where
is
Rachel?”

“
Probably dead. Some
psycho like you probably offed her.”

“
Would you kill her if it
came down to the two of you?”

“
No.” I throw up my hands.
“And she wouldn’t kill me either, because we’re friends. Do you
know what friends are? They generally don’t go around stabbing each
other in the eyes with forks.”

“
Are you sure she wouldn’t
kill you, if she understood the situation?”

“
Don’t
,” I warn him. “Don’t try to make me think everyone I love is
planning to murder me. I already have enough to worry
about.”

“
If it came down to the
two of you, Rachel and Jesse, would you kill her if it meant saving
the world?”

“
Uh, hello?
Friends
.
”

“
Then you sentence the
whole planet to death. The radiation alone would fry it. Think of
it this way: would you die for Alice?”

I answer without hesitation.
“Yes.”

“
Would you kill Rachel if
it was the only way to keep Alice alive?”

This stops me. My heart
lurches.

“
You would have to kill
her in order to be the apex and you must be the apex in order to
save the world.”

My stomach turns.

“
But don’t worry about
making that difficult decision,” Caldwell grins. “I’ll kill all
your friends for you.”

“
I can’t let you kill
them.”

“
Then you’re sentencing us
all to death.”

“
You said we all have to
die anyway.” My voice is cracking around the edges. It is harder to
muster sarcasm and spite the longer I think about my situation.
Best case scenario, my loved ones live and I die. Worst case, we
all die. Where’s the freaking bright side in that?

“
All the partis have
something in common,” Caldwell says, after allowing me a long
stretch of silence to consider the impending doom.

I flick my eyes up to meet his. “Our
charming personalities?”

“
We all
wanted
to die,” he says.
“You wanted to die that night in the barn.”

I see the barn clearly in my mind—the
flames, Eddie burning alive, the stars above me as my body lay
saturated with the booze and pills I guzzled.

“
The angels could have
chosen any NRD-positive soul on the planet, but Gabriel chose you
because you wanted to die and you had what he was looking for,”
Caldwell says again. “I made a similar plea in the camps. Rachel no
doubt wanted to die every minute that Henry Chaplain had her tied
to a bed.”

Is it
true
? I ask Gabriel again. I listen but
don’t hear him in the back of my mind.
Did
you really choose me because I was suicidal? But I want to live
now
.

“
This is the part I must
make you understand, Jesse. Are you listening?”

I flick my eyes up to meet
his.

“
We are the north and
south poles. We are the same bar magnet. It will come down to the
two of us and the sooner you accept that, the better off we will
all be.”

“
So you can be the apex
and create your slave world?”

“
Just world,” he corrects.
“I’ll create a just world. If you let me.”

I bite off a bitter laugh. “If I let
you kill me, you mean.”

“
Your resistance is
messing up the entire program. Everyone else involved has accepted
their role. Why can’t you?”

I throw up my hands. “Oh I don’t know.
Maybe because murdering my friends or exploding doesn’t seem like
the best life plan. Just give me Winston already. You’ve said your
piece. We’re all going to die. Got it. Now send me home.” Ally is
no doubt losing her shit by now.

He comes dangerously close and my
shield flares to life around me. I’ve no idea why. If there was a
threat, I missed it.

“
I can’t take you from the
room without touching you,” Caldwell reminds me.

“
Don’t let him touch you,”
Gabriel warns. I can hear the panic in his voice even if I can’t
see him clearly.

What’s my alternative?
Stay here forever? Hamster ball my way through the
walls?

I force my shield down.

Gabriel screams and the next thing I
know I’m falling, heavy in Caldwell’s arms.

“
Sorry,” Caldwell says,
positioning my limp body in his arms. “But we aren’t done
yet.”

Ally

“J
eremiah has checked every camera in the city, but neither
Caldwell nor Jesse have made a single blip. He’s extended his
search to the rest of the world, given Caldwell’s ability.” Nikki
looks up from her seat at the wobbly table and meets my eyes. Her
face is illuminated, ghostly in the light from the computer screen.
I will never understand why Gloria seems to prefer poorly lit
living spaces.

I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Or
wherever they are, there aren’t any cameras.”

Nikki snorts. “Does such a place
exist?”

“
With Caldwell, we never
know.” My voice is steady and sure, but inside, I feel sick. My
muscles clench and unclench in turn, creating wave after wave of
nausea. A sour burn has crept up the back of my throat and the
pressure behind my eyes keeps building.

Jess, what’ve you done?
Why do you have to be so rash?