Dying Light (22 page)

Another
Jason—
two
Jasons—loose and prowling the city. I think back to Minli and
Monroe. Could they be in the city looking for a fight? Or maybe
someone even worse.

God, no.

“
There was a reading quite
close to Jackson’s apartment while we were there,” Nikki adds.
“It’s quite possible that we’re being watched for weaknesses. We
should be on our guard.”

“
Okay.” What else can I
say?

We arrive at Tate Tower,
and it’s like arriving with the President. Before I can even fully
park the car on the street, personnel flood Gloria’s Cadillac.
Nikki is escorted inside by a team of guards, one man two inches
taller than Nikki, quickly debriefs her on the state of
things.

Nikki goes up in the first
elevator with her guard, and our eyes lock for the briefest moment.
She gives me a reassuring smile and I return it.

I can’t help but find her
attractive at moments like this. A girl in power, self-assured and
handling her business, it’s a special kind of turn on for
me.

We’re about to go back to
the car but the guard speaks to me.

“
Tamsin suggests that you
return to your apartment here in the tower,” the guard says. I
can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman through the armor, and the head
plate masks the voice. “But she realizes you may not want to
stay.”

“
We’ll stay,” Gloria
says.

I manage to keep the
surprise off of my face. The guards leave us, returning to whatever
order Nikki is no doubt sending them through their little blue
earbuds.

I don’t say anything as
Gloria steps into an open elevator and smashes a button. I don’t
speak until the doors close.

“
We’ll stay for a little
while?” I ask.

“
Get the rest of your
things. And Jesse’s. We don’t want to lose anything in the
blast.”

I’m relieved we’re finally
alone. Alone enough anyway.

The
door to the apartment Nikki and I share opens this
time.

The difference between
treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates. The Count of
Monte Cristo
. I read it in French class my
senior year. It’s strange how the mind works. How it can pull up a
memory from the bottom of a dark pool of forgetfulness.

Gloria follows me inside
and into the apartment and slides the deadbolt into
place.

“
This room is bugged,” she
says.

“
No, Nikki has special
privileges.”

“
Are you sure about that?”
Gloria looks wholly unconvinced.

I think about the sex.
Granted, we haven’t been able to as much as we’d like lately, given
the hectic nature of work, but we’ve had enough that I shiver at
the idea that I did it on camera for whoever happened to be on
duty.

“
The bathroom,” I tell her
and her face alights with recognition. It is our best
option.

Gloria and I step into the
bathroom and shut the door behind us.

“
What’s going on?” I ask
her.

She presses a finger over
her lips and turns on the faucet. Then she reaches into the shower
and turns that on too. We slide down onto the floor together, and
even with all the white noise created by the running water, she
whispers.

“
We have to wait for
our
backup before we break into The
Needle.”

“
You said it was
impossible. It was designed to be
not
broken into.”

“
There’s a way. I’ve
started to see it while I draw, but I keep getting
interrupted.”

“
So draw,” I say,
squeezing her knee. “I know you can do it.”

She spares me a smile.
“Jesse will be okay.”

My heart hammers. “Are you
sure? She just killed four people.”

Gloria looks at the
shower, considering the diamond-shaped pattern of the curtain.
“Casualties are unavoidable.”

I grab her hand and say
something I’ve wanted to say for months. “I’m sorry about your
brother, Gloria. I’m so very sorry.”

Gloria’s gaze falls to her
lap. She runs one hand over her short hair before her fingers curl
and she scratches her scalp. “Micah made his choices. I made
mine.”

I hug her. I think she’ll
stiffen in my arms or clam up, but she accepts my hug, clasping her
hands behind my back and returning the squeeze.

“
While you draw, I’ll pack
up, okay? Then we’ll get out of here.”

“
We should try to be gone
before Tate wakes up.”

“
Is Jeremiah really that
bad?” I ask.

“
You didn’t know he has
NRD.”

“
No,” I admit, though I’m
not surprised to find that Jeremiah kept secrets. On most days, I
feel like everyone is keeping secrets. Even me. “Is this the part
where you tell me he is secretly partis too?”

“
No,” she says. “He is
something else.”

“
That sounds so ominous.
What is he?”

“
I’m not sure.” Gloria
pulls herself to a standing position, straightening slowly as if
her knees are unsure of themselves. “I draw him in the corners of
my pictures sometimes.”

I frown. “That’s
strange.”

“
It is,” she agrees,
turning off the shower and tugging the curtain back into place.
“But that’s where I see him. I don’t know what it means
yet.”

“
Do you think Caldwell is
working with another A.M.P? Is that why
he’s
still able to dance around us
so easily?”

“
He might have one,” she
agrees. “They won’t be as good as Micah. Or me.”

At the mention of her
brother’s name, the blood slows in my veins. “Did you read
Brinkley’s journals?”

“
No.” Gloria pulls open
the bathroom door and leads us out.

“
You can tell by the way
Brinkley writes about you in the journals, you were close. Losing
someone close to you—”

Gloria stops in the middle
of the hallway. Then she turns and meets my eyes. “Brinkley made
his choice. He did what he thought was right. You can’t ask any
more from a person.”

There is a finality to her
statement and I can’t ask more.

“
So tell me about our
backup.”

“
I am not allowed to
mention them by name. It was agreed upon.”

I choke on curiosity. “But
I’ll meet them, right?”

She smiles. “You sure
will.”

Jesse

H
ere I am, back in the freaking needle. Talk about two steps
forward, four steps back. I walk up to the large windows and look
out over Lake Michigan.

We can ride all the way to
the ocean.

Lane’s blue eyes were
bright when he said this, what seems like a century ago.

Yes
, I think.
Take me far away from all
this bullshit.

But we didn’t go to the
ocean that night. Or the night after or the night after that. We
just went home.

The fear that Lane has
finally called me, but that I can’t get the call because I have no
cell service up here, creeps in again. Another, more cynical voice
says,
No way. He wouldn’t pick this one
moment to call. He avoided you for two whole months and your cell
service was just fine. Get over it. He’s done with you.

He had a hundred moments.
A thousand. He didn’t choose to call then, and he sure as hell
isn’t calling now.

I sink down onto a sofa
and note how quiet this place is. From here, I can’t hear Winston
snoring. When we got back, I found him curled up in Maisie’s bed,
in the crook of the girl’s arm. Traitor. One belly rub and he’ll
give it up to anyone.

Caldwell said he’d be
back, that he had to “check on something.” I don’t care. I’m a
little curious why he hasn’t killed me yet, or at least tried, but
that curiosity is little more than a bee buzzing in the back of my
head.

I’ve killed four
people.

Have you ever killed
anyone
? I asked Brinkley once.

Have you ever eaten a
donut?
he asked in return.
Sometimes you can’t get around
it
.
Even if
you’ll regret it all your life
.

“
Is that what you would
say now?” I ask the purpling dawn on the horizon. No one
answers.

Gabriel appears, his wings
open as if he’s just landed. He tucks them into his back and they
disappear, making him look like a beautiful man in an expensive
suit.

“
I killed four people,” I
say, pressing my hands to the cold glass. I watch the white crests
rise and fall between my fingers.

“
Nearly 200,000 died
today,”
Gabriel says, mimicking me. He
presses both hands to the glass too. “
You
were not responsible for that.”

But I am responsible for
these four. What if they have families? What if someone is finding
out right now that I killed the person they love most in the
world?

“
You did nothing
wrong.”

“
How can you say that? Of
course it’s wrong.”

Gabriel shows me the
blackened city. The world is in ruin. Building façades crumble.
Smoke billows up into the gray sky. A sulfuric wind tears at what
remains of the rubble.

“
You have the power to
make it right.”

Ally

I
listen to Dr. York’s voicemail for the third time and
frown.

“—
haven’t heard from her
in a couple of days and so I was just wondering if Cindy was with
you. It isn’t like her to miss a seminar without talking to me
first. If you could give me a call back and let me know if she’s
just freelancing with Jesse, this old man would sleep better
tonight.”

I stretch out on the living room sofa
as my mind runs several scenarios: Cindy dead by Minli or Monroe’s
hands. By Caldwell’s. Cindy overtaken with power, half-crazed and
wandering the streets of Nashville.

I call the hospital and leave a
message for Dr. York who isn’t available. I apologize for not
knowing where Cindy is and ask him to call me back if he gets ahold
of her.

That’s four partis that are
missing—five if I count Jess. Is this Caldwell’s doing? It has to
be, but why? Has he killed them? Or is he detaining them like
Jesse?

The intercom by the front door buzzes,
and I see Nikki’s face in the tiny screen. “Al?”

I get up from the sofa and cross to
the door.

“
Al,” Nikki says, because
she can’t yet see my face in the intercom.

I press the button that will carry my
voice up to the control room. “Hey.”

“
What is Jackson doing?”
she asks with a curious smile. I can see the control room behind
her, large monitors blinking blue.

Gloria is sitting at the two-person
dinette set to the right of the front door, drawing with a towel
thrown over her head.

“
So there
are
cameras in
here.”

“
Nowhere important,” Nikki
says.

“
For your sake, I hope
not.”

“
I promise. But seriously,
what is she doing?”

“
She’s viewing. She
doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s drawing, so she’s covered
herself.”

I glance at Gloria. The baby blue
towel shivers with the motion of her hand moving beneath. The
towel’s tag scratches at the tabletop.

“
How can she see?” Nikki
asks.

“
She doesn’t need to look
at the page. She can just draw whatever she sees in her head. Kind
of how we can type without looking at the keyboard.”

“
If you say
so.”

“
Did you call just to ask
me what she was doing?”

“
No.” Color fills Nikki’s
cheeks. “I need you to come up here.”

“
Is that an
order
?” I ask, grinning.

She returns my smile. “It’s a polite
request. The crew up here is minimal right now, and I need to tell
you some things.”

My heart quickens. I glance at Gloria
again and the quivering towel. I can leave her, can’t I? She
usually draws for hours at a time. I’ll be back before she’s
finished. I make a point not to look back at my laptop, where I
have several windows open in a search for more information on Paul
Kellerman, a name I’m trying to rule out from Brinkley’s
list.

I force a smile. “I’ll be right
up.”

The screen goes dark. I find a notepad
and scribble a message for Gloria. I put it on the kitchen table so
that it’s the first thing she’ll see when she pulls the towel off
her head.