Dying Light (25 page)

“
No.” He leans back into
the pillows. “I am the observer. Think of the Book of Revelations.
John of Patmos was the witness to the end times. His role was to
observe and chronicle what he saw. That is my role in this story as
well.”

I grow uncomfortably warm under the
bright fluorescents of the hospital room. “Self-appointed or do you
see angels too?”

“
I was called, yes,” he
says, evading my question.

I reexamine what I know of Jeremiah to
see if this new story holds true. Back in Nashville, when a little
boy was shot and killed in the crossfire, Jeremiah practically
shook him at me. His little body was still half inside the body bag
when Jeremiah unleashed his anger, furious that I had failed to
call in Jesse to help with the mission.

“
You’re not just
observing. You’re participating,” I say. “With all the rescue
missions and attempts to go after Caldwell, the word observer is
grossly inaccurate.”

“
I do damage control. I
try to keep people out of the way, but yes, I have been pushing
Jesse to engage from the beginning. Engage with Caldwell. Engage
with the other partis.”

My jaw drops. “Why?”

“
Because this needs to
happen,” he says. “She is the final piece that must be in
place.”

“
And here I thought you
wanted to keep her safe.”

“
There is no safe in this
world. No one is going to make it out of this alive. You understand
that, don’t you?”

I take a step back. My heart is
pounding wildly. Someone calls my name. It’s Nikki, saying my name
over and over again as if I’ve gone deaf.

“
You knew,” I tell her.
“You promised to help me protect Jesse, and you knew he was walking
her into the fire.”

“
Al—”

I turn and storm out of the
room.

Jesse

C
aldwell takes a phone call. He slips one hand into his
pocket, his head cocked ever so slightly to listen to whoever is on
the line. His face screws up in irritation.

“
I see. I’ll be right
there.” He slips the phone into his pocket.

I blink and he’s gone. On instinct I
blink several more times, trying to reconcile the sudden absence of
a person that was just there.

“
He does that.”

I turn and find Maisie leaning against
the wall at the edge of the hallway. Light from her bedroom spills
past her. Winston is still snoring in her room, his snores audible,
even from here.

“
Who does what?” I ask,
unsure if she is talking about Winston or Caldwell.

“
Dad.” She comes further
into the room and sinks onto the sofa. “He leaves all of the
time.”

“
He’s probably out
clubbing baby seals.”

She shrugs.
“Probably
.”

This makes me look at her.
I’m not sure what I expected her response to be, with me implying
that her father is a monster. But I certainly didn’t expect her to
be so
…
agreeable
.

I take a seat beside her. “Why are you
locked in this tower?”

Maisie considers me a moment longer
and then pulls a pillow into her lap. “He says it’s for my
protection.”

“
From
what
?”

She shrugs.

“
I guess you’re lucky that
he cares enough to protect you. He tried to have me beheaded in a
basement once. He also gassed me to death and buried me
alive.”

Her eyes go wide.

“
You must be his
favorite.”

“
I’m not his favorite.”
Maisie looks down at her lap, taking a sudden interest in the
design on the throw pillow. “Mom is. He tolerates me because she
loves me so much.”

This is a sad insight, if it’s true.
“Sorry.”

She shrugs again. “He isn’t my
favorite either.”

A silence grows between us, thickening
with each passing second. I’m not sure how to break it. Then my
stomach grumbles. “I don’t suppose they actually feed us up here,
do they?”

Maisie raises her voice. “I can make
breakfast. It’s about the only thing I can cook
actually.”

She goes into the kitchen and starts
making food. Eggs, bacon, toast. A jug of orange juice is pulled
out of the fridge and handed to me, no glass.

I twist off the lid and gulp it down,
wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

Maisie is scowling at me.

I hold out the OJ bottle. “Sorry, did
you want some?”

She looks from my sticky mouth to the
wet rim of the jug. “No, thanks.”

A moment later, two plates are set on
the dining table in one corner of the great room. I eat everything
but the bacon, which I toss onto Maisie’s plate.

Her eyebrows arch. “You don’t eat
bacon?”

“
Nope. I’ve done so many
different death replacements that I can’t help but see meat, as
well,
meat
. I
can’t bring myself to eat it.”

“
You don’t eat bacon,” she
says again, in awe. “No wonder you’re not his favorite.”

“
Have your quad all mashed
up like ground chuck on the pavement and I’d like to see you eat
meat.”

She shoves a whole piece of bacon into
her mouth and smiles.

What a little shit. I can’t help but
smile back at the kid.

I push my empty plate away from
me.

“
So what’s that shiny
purple thing around you?”

“
A chastity belt. I’ll
tell you about them when you’re older.”

She frowns at my evasion.

I change the subject. “How long do you
think we’re going to be locked in this tower? I don’t really
understand why we’re here.”

“
Because the only way in
and out is through Dad. It’s impregnable.”

“
Uh, I think you
mean
impenetrable
. But yes, you want everything impregnable where
sixteen-year-old daughters are concerned.”

She doesn’t smile at my
joke.

I decide to test her, see how much she
knows about what’s going on. “So we’re supposed to wait here
until…what? What are we waiting for?”

She pushes her own plate away. “Until
everyone is dead.”

Ally

G
loria is packing up when I walk into the room with a duffle
full of Jesse’s stuff. Her sketchbook is protruding from the top of
her own bag as she slings it over a shoulder.

“
So we’re leaving now?” I
ask. “Honestly, I can’t tell if we are coming or going. I feel like
we are running all over the place and not getting anything done.
First we try to leave, and Jesse disappears on us. Then Jason
chases us all over the city, and here we are again, back where we
started. I hope you saw something helpful in your drawing. I want
to meet this backup already and go get Jesse.”

“
That’s what we’re doing
now.”

“
Thank god.” I gather up
my bags, in addition to Jesse’s. “Let’s go then.”

Nikki catches up to us in the lobby,
and I swear under my breath. Gloria cuts me a side
glance.

“
I’ll get the car,” she
says. “Meet me out front.”

No one tries to stop Gloria from
exiting the building. No sedation darts or dramatics. She exits
just fine while I’m waiting for Nikki to stop running toward
me.

She slows when there’s just a couple
of feet between us. “I know you’re mad, but hear me
out.”

We walk together across the grand
lobby toward the doors. Outside, several people are rushing off to
whatever comes next for them—work, home, school. They pay us no
attention whatsoever. In a place as big as Chicago, two women
standing on a sidewalk talking is hardly noteworthy.

“
You lied about the
cameras, and you lied about protecting Jesse. You knew from the
beginning that I joined all this because I wanted to make Jesse
safer. I wanted more protection, not to suit her up and send her to
the front lines.”

“
I didn’t lie,” she says.
“I wasn’t allowed to tell you. That’s not the same.”

I give her a hard stare. “That’s
lying. You can’t expect me to spend all my time and energy
guessing what you haven’t told me.”

Her fingers brush my arm. “I’m sorry.
You have to understand, that given my position, I can’t tell you
everything.”

“
So there are still things
I don’t know?” I ask, my mind reeling. “You could be planning to
throw Jesse in a volcano to appease the gods for all I
know.”

Nikki tugs at her ponytail, tightening
it. “No one is throwing Jesse into a volcano. It’s not like
that.”

“
How am I supposed to
know? You don’t tell me everything.”

A taxi flies past us and we step a
little farther away from the curb. I tug my coat around me tighter.
It’s really too thin for a Chicago winter.

“
I told you I love you,
and I mean it. I hope we have a chance for a life together. It’s
what I hope for most in the world.”

“
How can you love me and
lie to me? That’s not how it works, Nick.”

She looks out over the crowded
street.

“
You’re as bad as she is.”
When she meets my gaze her eyes are hard.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Jesse spends all her
energy trying to fight what she is. Sure, she’ll run into a burning
building if you tell her to. Or play the hero for a paycheck. But
she’s so noncommittal about it. You can talk to her for five
minutes and know she doesn’t think her actions mean anything.
Worse, it’s like she’s annoyed that she’s got this job to
do.”

“
Tell me how you really
feel.” My temper flares. I take a breath before speaking again.
“You think Jesse isn’t enthusiastic enough about dying, or being
your lackey?”

“
She came here to Chicago
because you told her to. Not because she cares about what happens
to the world. She isn’t altruistic.”

A gold Cadillac pulls out of the
garage and slides up the street toward us. I watch her come with a
mixture of frustration and relief.

“
Who took advantage of
that? To you and Jeremiah, I’m some tool you can use to make Jesse
jump through hoops.”

“
Aren’t you?” Nikki asks.
Her eyes go wide. “No. You’re not. I don’t know why I said
that.”

“
Because you’re mad. I’m
mad. We’ll have to do this later. I have to go save
Jesse.”

“
Of course you
do.”

I yank open the door of Gloria’s car
and stand there waiting for her to say whatever she thinks she
needs to.

Gloria frowns at my hesitation. “We
need to go.”

“
Bye, Nick.”

Nikki throws up her hands and turns
back toward the building. I’m about to close the door when she
says, “I do love you, Al. For whatever that’s worth.”

Jesse

“W
hen
you say ‘until everyone dies’,
do you mean
every
one?” I ask. I mean, I need clarification.

“
He’s going to destroy the
city,” Maisie says as casually as ‘he’s going to pick up milk.’ “A
lot of people will die.”

“
Chicago? He’s going to
destroy
all
of
Chicago?”

“
My mom told me that it’s
important I stay in the tower until ‘i
t’s
all said and
done’.”

Maisie uses air quotes around the part
she stole from Georgia.

My legs feel all wobbly so I sit down
at the kitchen table. “So he locked you here to keep you out of the
way?”

“
My mom asked him to.”
Maisie shrugs “She doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

“
What does your mom do?”
Besides suck the life out of everyone. “Is she his glorified
secretary or what?”

“
No.” Maisie’s brow
pinches together. “She’s awesome. She has powers like you, and she
helps him fight the bad people that come to the city trying to kill
us.”

“
Why would they kill you?
You’re a kid.”

“
My mom says that kids die
in war every day.”

Fair enough. I glance down at my phone
again. There’s still no service.

“
Is there no way to send a
message out? I have people I love out there. I need to warn them
that he’s going to like, blow up the city, or whatever.”

“
I have email.”

“
That’ll work.” I jump up,
excited. “Where’s your computer?”

Maisie rolls her eyes at me but
retrieves her laptop from her bedroom. She places it on the dining
table in front of me, but as I reach for it, I immediately see a
problem. The laptop and table are shoved backwards as I try to use
the computer.