Dying Light (14 page)

She shrugs and puts her headphones
back on. I fall back onto the beanbag and Winston curls up on my
belly using me as a pillow. Within three minutes, he’s
snoring.

Gabriel,
I think, hoping he’ll show up.

Gabriel flickers into focus. He’s
standing like a giant in the middle of the girl’s room.

Where do you keep
going?

“
I can’t materialize
here,” he says as if that tells me anything. “I stay
close.”

How’s Ally and
Gloria?
I couldn’t care less about
Sasquatch.

“
Jason attacked. Gloria
protected the group.”

“
What?”

Maisie rips her headphones
off again. “
What
?”

“
This is a private
conversation with—me and myself,” I tell her. “Put your headphones
on.”

“
You can’t tell me what to
do.”

“
In most civilizations,
younger siblings are subservient to the older ones.” I consider
igniting my hand to prove my point. I decide against it, knowing
that it could go really badly if this place doesn’t have a fire
extinguisher. Those boyband posters look very flammable.

“
Whatever.” Maisie rolls
her eyes and yanks the headphones back on, punching her keyboard
more furiously than before.

I watch her for a moment and I decide
she probably muted the volume, waiting to see what I’d say. I storm
out of the room. By the time I reach the center of the bulbous
needle, Gabriel appears. To my surprise, he’s pretty substantial.
Not the so-real-I-can-touch-you Gabriel that I usually have my
conversations with, but much clearer than before.

“
I need to get back.
They’re defenseless without me. Okay, not really. Gloria’s badass
and Ally is super smart, but I should be with them, not
here.”

“
They may succeed. He
isn’t invincible. None of you are.”

“
Do you see any way out of
here? It can’t really be sealed up, can it?”

I pace the great room, looking at the
Chicago skyline. Ally is out there somewhere. Safe, I
hope.

“
There are no doors and
the windows do not open. It would take immense force to break the
glass.”

“
Like a
firebomb?”

“
Yes.”

“
Ok, if I firebomb the
glass, can I survive the fall?”

“
Winston would not survive
the fall.”

“
What if I cradle him
against my chest? He might be small enough to fit inside my
shield.”

“
If your shield does not
hold, he would die of hypothermia. You cannot leave with him. If
you are willing to leave him behind, you may leave.”

“
No.” I throw up my hands,
irritated that Gabriel has nothing to tell me but what I’ve already
figured out myself. “I didn’t come here and suffer through all
this—” I jab a finger in the direction of Maisie’s bedroom.
“—this
emotion
,
just to abandon my pug now.
I
don’t abandon people, unlike someone we
know.”

“
Then you must wait and
hope they come for you.”

I frown. “No, I didn’t
come so Ally could do another risky rescue mission. I don’t want
her trying to save me.” As soon as I say it, I realize my mistake.
Of course, she’s going to try.
She’ll
always try.

“
Fuck.” I fall onto the
sofa. “How did I overlook that?”

I pull at my face with my
hands.

I look up at Gabriel. “Can you shield
her, even if I’m so far away?”

No answer.

I clench and unclench my fist. I want
to throw something. I decide the couch is too big so I snatch off
the pillows and hurl one after the other at Gabriel. They sail
right through him of course.

“
Shielding her is the
least you can do to make up for being such a giant
asshole!”

Gabriel’s feathers stiffen, rising up
like fur. “What did I do to upset you?”

“
You lied to
me.”

“
I have never
lied.”

I want to slap him. “You sure as hell
left out a lot. When did you plan to tell me I was going to die?
Huh? When exactly were you going to say ‘oh hey, by the way, you’re
going to have to blow up or the whole world is going to die,
including the woman you love’?”

I stagger. “What did I just
say?”

“
You said ‘you sure as
hell left out a lot. When did you plan to tell me I was
going–”

“
Yes, I know what I said.
Thank you.” I look at Gabriel in such a way that I hope I can melt
his face.

The woman you
love.

I mean of course I love Ally. I tell
her I love her all the time.

I wail and pull at my face.

Gabriel crosses the room and peers
down at me where I lay collapsed on the couch. “Your heartbeat is
elevated. Are you distressed?”

“
I hate you. Go
away.”

He blinks his big cat eyes at me. “I
do not sense that you actually want me to leave.”

I cover my face with my hands. “Please
stop talking.”

Gabriel listens to this command at
least.

For a long time, I sit on the leather
sofa, face covered, listening to my breath.

“
Is there anything else
terrible you should tell me?” I lower my hands to make sure Gabriel
is still there. He is, hands in the pockets of his black dress
pants. “Is Ally going to be skinned alive in front of me or
something? Am I going to go all dark and murder her? I want full
disclosure now.”

Gabriel turns away from me and looks
out over the water. “You are in control, Jesse. Not me. You will
have whatever you want.”

“
I don’t want to
die.”

“
Is that all?” he asks,
his back still turned to me.

I guess not. But how did I expect this
to end? I was so sure insanity would get me first—and it still
might at the rate I’m going, talking to angels, jumping out of
burning buildings, and allowing psychopaths to cart me off into the
night.

But this is a little
different. I have this hope that I’ll get lucky. Yeah, the odds are
shitty that I’ll sort out all of this mess with Caldwell and the
partis, yet I hoped that I would and even better, that there would
be an end to all this fighting. A
happy
ending.

The happiest ending I can hope for now
is that if I explode, it doesn’t hurt so much.

I pull my cell out of my
pocket.
No signal.

It couldn’t have anything to do with
being suspended over a huge freshwater lake, could it? I scroll
through my contacts and see Brinkley’s name on the
screen.

My thumb hovers over the send
button.

Oh B. What I wouldn’t give
to call you now and have you tell me what to do.

My chest aches the longer I stare at
his name. In my mind, Caldwell appears behind him, grabs hold of
his neck and—snap. The stark horror of the moment replays over and
over.

I can’t forget that Caldwell is a
monster. And monsters lie. God, I wish he was lying about the end
of the world crap. But Gabriel hasn’t said a word to contradict
him.

I squeeze my phone until my fingers
turn white. I push the scroll down button until Brinkley’s name
disappears. I come to a stop on a second name.

Lane
.

I haven’t even thought about him.
Okay, so this is what he wanted anyway—a break. And who said I had
to think about him while I’m on this break? At first I thought
about him a lot. I imagined what it would be like when we made up.
I pictured fantastic makeup sex of course. I also imagined eloquent
speeches where he explains what a fool he is for dumping me and how
he knows now he can never live without me. But I haven’t had one of
the makeup-sex-I’m-an-idiot-forgive-me fantasies in a
while.

Then I find out I’m going to explode
the world and who’s the first person I think about?

The woman you
love
.

“
Ah, shit.” I sink into
the sofa. “I’ve just learned I’m going to die like forever, and I
haven’t even thought about Lane.”

“
You do not love him,”
Gabriel says. “You love Alice.”

I grit my teeth. “Yes, thank
you.”

He frowns. “You seem as though you
would like answers. I am providing the clarity you
desire.”

“
Okay, really, I do want
you to leave now. Do you sense that? Go on. I’ll call you if
Caldwell shows up with a machete or something.”

Gabriel flickers and disappears,
leaving me alone to stare out at the beautiful expanse of blue grey
water.

You love Alice.

I press my forehead to the
cold glass. I know what he means. I love her like
that
. I want her
like
that
—no one
else. Fuck. I can’t argue. I kept my distance because she didn’t
want it to be just about the sex for me. But it isn’t about the
sex. I’m trying to picture this happily ever after. I don’t know
what that even looks like, except that it’s just me and her. It’s
not even sexy, it’s—happy. Peaceful. Sweet.

“
You were afraid it would
hurt to lose her. Now you understand you will lose her no matter
what.”

I whirl to find Gabriel standing
behind me.

“
Oh my god, do you
mind?”

“
You are trying to
understand—”

“
I know!” I yell. “But can
I have a little privacy?”

“
I am here to help
you.”

“
If you don’t go away, I’m
going to rip your feathers out.”

Scowling, Gabriel flickers and then
disappears.

Maisie is standing at the edge of the
hallway, looking at me with curious stare.

I put both of my hands on my hips.
“What do you want?”

She grins. “You’re a little crazy,
aren’t you?”

“
Don’t I know
it.”

Ally

“W
ho did you ask for help?” I accept the bowl of chili mac that
Nikki hands me before she sits down on the chair across the room.
“Do you want to sit here?”

“
No, I’m fine.” She winks
at me. It makes my stomach knot and my cheeks warm. “I have a
better view of you from here.”

I’m grinning like a fool when I turn
back and see Gloria staring at me, chewing her own chili mac. Her
expression is carefully neutral.

“
Actually Brinkley asked
for their help,” Gloria says, putting her bowl down and wiping her
mouth with a paper napkin.

“
Oh that’s right.” I
remember Brinkley’s letter, which came with the first
journal.

I trust Gloria to make sure
the information makes it into their hands. But I only know one who
will come for sure. If I’m wrong and no one steps up, I want you to
know that I trust you too. You’ve always had Jesse’s interests at
heart, and I think that’s the real thing that scares
Caldwell
.

I can’t count how many times I’ve read
that letter, over and over. “It’s been two months. Shouldn’t
someone have stepped up by now?”

“
They have.” Gloria cuts
her eyes to Nikki who is lost in her own bowl of food. Gloria’s
eyes say the rest.

They just won’t come near
Tate Tower.
“So are they coming
here?”

“
They’re
already in Chicago, surveying the situation,”
Gloria says. “They’re investigating The Needle.”

“
So, what, they’ll call
us?”

Gloria scrapes her bowl clean before
I’ve finished my fourth bite. “You need some sleep and I need to
draw.”

“
I’ll take first watch.”
Nikki takes her bowl to the sink.

Gloria accepts her guard duty offer
with a nod and begins setting up her papers and pencils on the
table in front of her.

Nikki takes a seat beside me, pushing
the hair back behind my ears. “How are you holding up?”

“
Okay.” I shrug. I put my
bowl on the side table. I was so hungry before, but now I can’t
seem to shovel the food into my mouth. “What about you?”

“
Fine. Believe it or not,
this is a rather calm day for me.”

I smile. “Jeremiah works you too
hard.”

She shrugs. “The price of trust, I
suppose.”

“
The price of skill.
You’re amazing.”

She turns toward me.
“
You
were amazing
in the tunnel. Any other girl as pretty as you would’ve squealed at
least once, and I even stepped on your fingers.”

I’d forgotten about that. I look down
and see the red line across the knuckles of my left
hand.

Nikki leans forward for a kiss. I let
her have my lips once, a soft brush of skin on skin. She pulls me
into her lap and runs a hand through my hair.