Worth Dying for (A Dying for a Living Novel Book 5) (26 page)

“Of course.”

I rush to the control room and find Gideon and Ally laying side by side on the floor, with Winston sleeping in the crook of Ally’s arms. I’m wasting time, but I had to see that she was okay. I kiss his nose just as Sasquatch skids to a stop at my heels.

They’re okay
, I tell myself.
They’re all going to be fine
.
We don’t have Caldwell and they have Maisie, but we’re all still alive.

Not all of us, a hateful voice retorts.

You must hurry
, Gabriel whispers. His voice is strong now. He’s closer without the other partis to interfere with our connection.

I touch Ally’s face, feeling her warm breath on my hand. “I have to trust you not to be a
total
jerk, Sasquatch. You want the happily ever after?”

Her lips part, but I wasn’t looking for an actual answer.

“Prove it. Save Gloria. Keep Ally safe. And it’d be nice if you took care of my dog too.”

I can hear Gideon’s crisp British voice in my head,
and who am I? The pool boy?

I smile and kneel beside Ally. I kiss her once on the mouth. Her warm breath on my face is such a huge relief that I kiss her a second and third time.

“You’ll see me again,” I whisper into her ear. I meet Gabriel’s eyes.

He nods.
At least once more
.

Jesse

S
omehow I manage to escape the maze of the building and step out into the brilliant desert sun. Fresh bodies of Nikki’s men—or should I say Jeremiah’s soldiers—lay littered alongside the corpses that Caldwell made so long ago.

An engine sputters to life somewhere beyond the wall.

“Damn.” I climb over chunks of rock and through the opening I blasted earlier. It feels like a million years ago. A million years since we went inside the building and everyone I loved was murdered. I jump off of a large boulder onto the other side.

My hands and feet connect with hot sand.

“Here,” Gabriel says to my right. I run toward him and he disappears, reappearing a few feet further away. “This way.”

I follow him and find a black car tucked behind some rocks out of sight. I jump inside, roll down the windows to let out some heat that collected inside and turn the key kindly left in the ignition. I smash on the gas, and sand spews out the back. I sit up a little higher in my seat and tear across the desert.

“Which way?” I beg Gabriel. “Which way did they go?”

I see him in the sky. His big beautiful wings flap around him like a misshapen, grotesquely large crow, raining black feathers down onto me and the black Mustang with each thrust. It’s like I’m driving through some macabre snow storm.

There
, he says and I tear my eyes from the sky to the horizon stretching ahead. The red pickup kicks dust into the air, a thick cloud surrounding the vehicle not unlike a force field.

My car gains on them and I know it’s only a matter of minutes before I catch up. I can only hope that I have the strength to finish Georgia in front of Maisie. It looks like I won’t have any other choice.

I feel Gloria’s hand crushing mine. Her earlier desperate plea on Maisie’s behalf.
Protect her.

My car gets so close to the truck that I can see Maisie, turned in her seat, watching my approach. Her eyes are wide and pleading as the truck bounces and lurches through the desert.

Protect her.

“I’ll get her back,” I whisper and I’ll kill Georgia, although my sister might not want anything to do with me by the end of this.

The end.

Caldwell is dead, but it’s not over.

Why did I ever believe it would be that easy?

Keep reading for a special preview of
Dying Breath
, Book 6 of the Dying for a Living series, coming November 2016

Maisie

T
he truck slides to the right, hooking around a huge boulder. Sand sprays in a swooping arc around us; half of it is spit through my open window into my face and eyes.

“Slow down!” I cough and fumble for anything to grab ahold of. My tears clear the sand from my eyes as I grope the air. I snatch the seatbelt dangling over my right shoulder. I miss the snap twice before I hear the reassuring
click
. The belt hugs me against the warm seat.

Mom doesn’t slow down. She hits another medium-sized rock in the desert and the truck pops up and skids.

“You’re going to kill us!”

“We have to lose her.” Mom’s fierce blue eyes cut to the rear view mirror. Blood smears across her right cheek and I can’t help but stare at it, fixated on the way it fills the creases around her mouth when she speaks. If she flicks out her tongue, she’s going to taste it. Maybe she already does.

I look at my own hands and fingers. Blood everywhere. It pools on the seat, soaking the side of my jeans.

My father’s dead body slouches between us. Most of him rests against Mom. But the head, barely attached, wobbles, threatening to tumble over into my lap at any moment. It’s freaky and gross and looking down at my blood-soaked legs and grubby hands isn’t helping.

I’m going to puke.

“Shit.” Mom is still focused on the rear view mirror, watching the road behind us more than the empty desert ahead.

I turn toward the open window between our seats. I look out over the empty truck bed and see the black Mustang gaining on us.

Jesse is coming.

Of course my sister is coming.

But not for me.

She wants Dad’s head. She wants to blow him up and make sure the crazy bastard never wakes up again. But Mom wants the exact opposite. And here’s me stuck in the middle. The blood reaches my skin. It’s sticky against the back of my knees and the gross, crawly sensation only makes me nauseated.

I pinch my eyes shut, but this makes it so much worse. Mom’s jerky driving intensifies the dizziness. I open my eyes and find a fixed point in the desert. A white building in the distance, pinched between a beautiful blue sky and chalky orange sand.

I focus on this building and draw in deep breaths, but stop.

Dad’s body is starting to smell.

It’s the heat. The hot air coming through the truck’s open windows. His body is putrefying faster in the sweltering sun.

“I have to stop her.” Mom calls up her power. I can feel it. Through our psychic connection or whatever you want to call it, I feel her power before I see it. Phantom snakes, twin coils of black smoke start to unfurl from Mom’s abdomen. If she even grazes Jesse with the smoke, then Jesse is dead.

No
. An impulse to protect my sister overwhelms me, blocking out the nausea and the overbearing heat.
Do something. Say something.

“You don’t have a good shot. You’ll end up killing me.” I’m not really pleading for my life and Mom knows it. “She’ll just use her shield to block you.”

With a frustrated hiss, Mom retracts her power.

So she
is
still trying to keep me alive. I know it’s really messed up to be surprised by that. No one believes that their own Mom wants to kill them. And I guess Mom doesn’t want to kill me with her own hands.

If Dad decides it’s time to rip my head off, I don’t think she’ll stop him. And I know that should make me mad and I’m kind of pissed about it. But she’s also my mom. I love her. And she’s in danger too.

So what am I supposed to do about it?

“You have to wake him up,” Mom barks, hooking a sharp right. The truck slides as it corrects itself. The white building disappears and now there’s only blue sky. Nothing to focus on.

Vomit burns in the back of my throat. I swallow. “No.”

“Damn it, Maisie.” Mom grits her teeth. “We need his help to fight her. Wake him up.”

“We don’t have to fight,” I say. “I told you that but you won’t listen. We can share the power. We were always supposed to share it!”

I think of Monroe. I think of his awesome infectious laugh and his sweet eyes. He had puppy dog eyes, like Winnie Pug. More importantly than being the kindest man I’ve ever met, Monroe told us—me and Jesse—the truth. The truth about our powers and how we are supposed to use them. They were never meant to be used against one another. They were supposed to be used together. But Dad made a mistake and it broke the connection and everyone else has been making the same stupid mistake ever since.

But we still have time to fix it. We can make it better.

How can I make Mom understand that? They’ve been fighting forever. I don’t know what to say that will make her put down her proverbial weapons.

“She’s a liar.” Mom’s face softens with pity. “Whatever Jesse told you was a lie.”

“She wasn’t the one who told me. And it’s not a lie.”

The Mustang hits the back of the truck and we lurch forward.

“Do you think she’s going to let him live?” Her eyes cut to Dad’s body. “She’s going to kill him.”

“If he ever wakes up, do you think he’s going to let
you
live? Or me? He’s a monster.”

“Maisie!” My mother screams. She reaches across Dad and slaps me hard across the face. She looks as shocked as I am. She’s never hit me before. Not once. Not ever. “What did she do to you?”

“What’s he done to you?” I snap back. My face stings and I want to cup my cheek, but I don’t dare. I want her to see the mark she’s left on my face. “Since when are you the crazy abusive one?”

Her hands wring the steering wheel.

“Leave him,” I beg her.

“He’s your father.”

And a monster
. But I don’t say it for a second time. “Me, you, and Jesse don’t have to fight. If we fight, it’s your own fault.”

“You know better.” Mom scowls at me. “You know she’ll kill me. It’s why you woke me up.”

Why I woke her up—

My argument dissipates. The fight replays in my head. Mom killed Rachel. They erupted in blue fire and then mom collapsed dead on the hallway’s floor. I bent over and blew into her nose, waking her up in that special way I can because—because—she’s right. Because I knew Gideon, Gloria, and Jesse would overpower me. They would kill her and make me watch.

I couldn’t let that happen.

My mom isn’t perfect. I know that. I know she might even be a bad person by most people’s standards.

But she’s my mom. And she’s always loved me. Protected me—or at least she did until I became partis with powers and that changed everything. Dad stopped ignoring me, stopped looking at me like I was a bug on the floor. He started to look at me the way he looked at Jesse.

My silence makes Mom think she’s won.

“It’s either me or her, Maisie,” she pushes. “Whose side are you on?”

My fist tightens around the seatbelt
. Whose side am I on?

The longer I don’t answer, the more Mom’s face pinches in betrayal. “This isn’t you. She did this to you. She turned you against your own mother.”

“No, I—”

“We have to kill her. We have to protect your father and kill her.”

“What about us?” My temper explodes. “What about protecting
us
?”

“He won’t,” Mom says, but I know that voice. It’s the
he will never hurt you while I’m alive
voice. But my mom won’t always be alive. She was dead an hour ago.

I cross my arms over my chest. “I won’t wake him up and I’m not going to help you hurt Jesse either.”

“I’m your mother!”

The Mustang pulls around the side of the truck. The driver’s side window rolls down and there’s my sister all wide-eyed and freaked out.

She casts her shield. It covers me and part of the truck.

She looks as surprised as I am that this works. She screams. “Jump!”

Jump? Out of a moving truck?

“Jump! I’ll catch you,” she screams again, over the sound of sand and wind and roaring engines while her dark hair whips around her head.

She wants me.

She wants me more than she wants Dad’s dead body.

Because she loves you
a voice whispers through my mind. A voice I haven’t heard in a long, long time.

It’s all the courage I need.

I throw my door open and reach for the release on my seatbelt.

“No!” Mom cuts the wheel hard to the right, slamming the side of the truck into Jesse’s Mustang. My door is ripped away by an invisible, angry hand. Sparks spray into the cab as metal scrapes metal. Stray shards sting my cheeks. I cover my face, hoping my arms and legs stay inside the cab enough not to be ripped off.

I open my eyes and Jesse is still there, keeping up with us. The side of her Mustang looks like it was stepped on by a huge boot. Through the open window, she’s still shouting.

“I’ve got you! Jump!”

“Fuck off!” My mother screams. With one flick of her hand, the Mustang’s two front wheels are lifted off the sand and thrown back into the air.

“No!” I scream, but this doesn’t do anything to stop the Mustang from flying through the air and then dropping back to Earth like a bomb.

The black car rolls head over tail before slamming into the side of a boulder.

Oh my god, no!

The car explodes on impact, the black muscle car disappearing in a plume of fire and smoke.

“Oh god, no. No, no,
no
.”

I blink back tears, hanging out the open side of the truck. My mother’s fierce fingers bite into the flesh of my upper arm, trying to yank me back into the truck. But I can’t look away from the burning wreckage.

I’m desperate for any sign,
any
that Jesse survived.

I don’t get one. All I see is fire and the mushroom cloud darkening the blue sky.

My sister’s funeral pyre. All that’s left of her, a swirling, black blaze.