Dying Light (4 page)

“
We all have our secrets,”
he says. A gust of wind rolling in off of Lake Michigan blows his
hair into his
eyes
. He brings a pale hand up to brush it away, his
gaze
never leaving mine.
“I’ll give you my secrets if you give me yours.”

I snort. I can’t help it. What doesn’t
he know about me? The richest, most powerful man in the world could
have any secret he wants on a plate, if he likes.

I cross my arms over my chest. “You
probably know more about me than I do.”

He cocks his head. “In many ways, I
suppose that’s true. But I don’t know what your intentions
are.”

“
My intentions?”
To get to my freaking pug and get off this
roof.
He has to know Winston is the reason
I’m up here. Maybe he has no interest in the dog, but I’m not
taking any chances.

“
Has he started showing
you your choices yet?” Caldwell asks.

I know I must look as confused as I
feel. “My choice of—?”

“
The worlds.” He moves
closer, placing one shiny, polished shoe in front of the other.
“Has he shown you the worlds?”

“
Jesse.” Gabriel’s voice
rises in warning, echoing in the back of my mind. “Be
careful.”

I get the impression of black wings
flapping and a feather brushing my cheek, but Gabriel doesn’t
materialize.

Be careful of what? The lies? I
already know Caldwell can mindfuck anyone with lies. So what? He
doesn’t need to play with my head. But I can’t sense the danger.
Caldwell can read my face as well as my mind,
apparently.

“
Not yet.” A tightness
strains Caldwell’s voice. I’m not as good at reading people, so a
look of doubt or fear can easily be mistaken for constipation. “If
he intends for you to be the apex, then why hasn’t he shown you the
worlds?”

The elevator doors ding open and men
with guns rush out onto the terrace. More men climb over the lip of
the wall surrounding us.

“
Freeze!”

Caldwell disappears from where he
stood in front of me and reappears beside Winston near the bushes
lining the sod. He snatches the pug up in one fluid
movement.

“
No!” I run across the
rooftop toward Caldwell and he takes a step back, but doesn’t
disappear. I turn my back on him, probably the stupidest thing
ever, and put my hands palm out toward the gunmen. “No. He’s got my
dog. Don’t shoot my freaking dog.”

I whirl on Caldwell. He’s smiling, the
bastard.

“
Give him back. Give him
back or I’ll kill you.”

Caldwell bites back his smile. “Maybe
it’ll be easier if I give you a reason. Wouldn’t you be more
willing to face me?”

“
I feel plenty willing.”
And it’s not like I don’t have a thousand reasons to kill the
man.

Brinkley
. Just thinking of him makes
my chest ache. Brinkley was the one good man in my life, and
Caldwell snapped his neck like he was nothing.

Caldwell’s malicious grin softens. He
adopts a look of sincerity that I don’t trust for a minute, not
with Winston squirming in his arms.

“
We need to talk.”
Caldwell keeps his voice low. “There are things going on that you
can’t possibly understand. And you can’t be naïve enough to believe
Mr. Tate will tell you the truth. I need you to come to me so you
and I can reach an understanding.”

“
Put Winston down and I’ll
come with you now.”

“
No.”

I swear Caldwell’s trying not to
smile.

“
Fucking bastard, give me
my dog.”

Winston squirms, his little squished
nose and big eyes pitiful. The heat rises in my chest and the air
starts to glimmer around me. Gabriel’s power builds, making it feel
like my flesh is pulling away from my bones.

“
If you blast me, you’ll
kill your own dog,” Caldwell reminds me. “Pull yourself
together.”

His chastisement infuriates me more. I
struggle to breathe.

He grins again, triumphant. “No, I
think I’ll make you work for it. Walk out of here on your own
accord. Show me you deserve to know the truth. You’ll find it
harder than you think to get away.”

What kind of mind game is this? “What
about my dog?”

“
He’ll be safe,” Caldwell
says and takes a step away from me. “Your sister will look after
him.”

My sister?
My mouth falls open, heavy with questions, but
Caldwell takes another step back and is gone.

Gone—and so is Winston.

Ally

I
’m a liar. I’m a liar. I’m a liar.

The words replay in my
mind. Okay, I haven’t lied directly, but I’m certainly vague about
my actions. Jesse, Nikki, and Jeremiah all believe I’m working the
child placement cases and
only
the child placement cases. The fact that I
haven’t corrected them, that I allow them to believe what they want
about my work, is certainly a deception.

I lay curled up in the bed I share
with Nikki, my back against the headboard, laptop resting on my
knees. The bed feels a little colder without her, but I’m making
the most of my time alone.

On top of a pillow, I flip
open Brinkley’s journal and unfold the white pages inserted in the
middle. Hundreds of names are listed there, including
Jesse Priority 2, Nashville
, second from the top. Brinkley took this believing it was
Caldwell’s hit list. He must’ve been right. It’s taken all of my
free moments in the last two months to whittle the names down to
just a dozen—everyone has either turned up dead or gone
missing.

I maximize the web browser window and
read the article title again:

Monroe Dupree, 53, Takes
Own Life Twice.

My finger slides down the
first page and stops at a name near the bottom:
Monroe Dupree, Priority 18, New Orleans.

The article includes a sad photo of a
black man standing in front of a dilapidated house. Is this the man
Caldwell’s team is hunting in Louisiana? Is he a partis like Jesse
and that is why Caldwell is searching him out?

I’m not foolish enough to
believe that Caldwell’s men just happened to be
canvassing
the town this man lives
in. There is no such thing as coincidence where Caldwell is
concerned. But I’m not in a hurry to rush in and save him
either.

Jesse tried to save another partis,
Liza, from Caldwell and Liza nearly killed her. I won’t make the
same mistake. I want to know who all the partis are—how many
potential threats are lying in wait out there—and hopefully gain a
better understanding of the situation.

But I can’t tell Nikki or Jeremiah.
What if they want to take these people and force them into the
fight? Based on the article’s depiction of the man, Monroe couldn’t
handle that. He’s suffering a severe depression after the death of
his wife. He’s unsuccessfully tried to kill himself twice, once by
hanging, once by train. A person like that doesn’t need to be
dragged into war.

The door beeps signaling Nikki’s
entry. I scoop up the laptop, journal and papers and shove them
under the bed with one violent shove. Then I throw myself into the
pillow and close my eyes.

My heart is still hammering when I
feel the press of a kiss on my cheek, then my neck, and then my
collarbone. She conforms her body to mine, spooning me.

“
Nicole Tamsin,” I say in
mock reproach. “Don’t you know better than to wake a sleeping
lady?”

I hope she can’t hear my pounding
heart or the unevenness of my breath as Nikki stretches beside me.
She brings one hand to rest on my belly so that I’ll roll over to
face her. She has the cheekbones and pouty lips of a model. Her
beautiful blue eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles at me. Her
hair is pulled up in its usual sleek ponytail, a streak of purple
falling over one shoulder. She’s beautiful, but her eyes look tired
tonight.

“
You were too gorgeous to
resist.” She kisses my nose. Her eyebrows shoot up. “And I’m
surprised I was able to get away with touching you.”

“
Be fair. She’s gotten
better,” I say. When Jesse could first cast force fields, her
primary objective seemed to be keeping Nikki from touching me. Not
the most useful way to practice one’s power, and it certainly put a
strain on our relationship. But lately, unless I am in direct
danger, she seems to have relaxed her standards.

“
I’m not complaining.”
Nikki purrs and pulls me close. She wraps me up in her arms, and I
soften into the warmth of her. “I’ll take whatever I can
get.”

I don’t point out that Jesse probably
doesn’t know Nikki is here and therefore doesn’t know she has to
guard against her. “Jeremiah’s kept you busy,” I say.

Nikki frowns. “He doesn’t think I can
keep my head clear around you. Every mission he chooses is as far
from you as possible.”

“
Would it be so different
if you were here?” I ask.

Her nostrils flare. “You won’t get
pushed out of a burning building, for starters.”

“
Jesse would never do
anything to hurt me.”

“
She pushed you out of a
40
^th
floor window!”

“
34
^th
,” I correct her. “And she shielded me from the fall. You saw
that part too, right?” Though I’m not sure how it looks on
tape.

“
Her shield collapsed the
second she died. What if she’d died on the way down? What if she’d
had a heart attack or was shot? Your brains would be all over
Wacker Drive.”

“
That didn’t
happen.”

“
It
could
have.” Her eyes are wide,
fearful. “I don’t like how easily she’s willing to take your life
in her hands. I
really
don’t like how willing you are to let her.”

My anger blooms red behind my eyes. “I
trust her.”

She swallows whatever she
plans to say next. What could she say that wouldn’t make me
mad?
I don’t trust her. She’s reckless.
She endangers you and I won’t have it.
No.
Nikki is too smart to walk into that trap.

“
You’re okay,” she says
and crushes me against her, kissing along my jawline. “That’s all
that matters.”

She’s warm and soft. My mind goes
fuzzy around the edges and my limbs grow heavy. I fold into her,
and try to relax. And while my body is thrilled she’s returned, my
mind won’t sit still. I want her to explain why Jeremiah has such
an interest in Jesse and why he seems invested in her actions. If
anyone would know his motivations, it would be Nikki. But I don’t
press her for answers.

I have my own secrets after all, so it
makes it difficult, given how much Nikki has grown on
me.

Nikki doesn’t know about Brinkley’s
journals. I’ve read them through twice now. While it answered a lot
of questions I had about Caldwell, it left me with more concerns
than ever. Maisie, for example. Does Caldwell really have a second
daughter? If he does, she’d have to be sixteen now—if she’s alive.
Brinkley didn’t seem to think so, but I’m not so sure. Caldwell
might want to kill Jesse for her gifts, but if Maisie isn’t partis
too, she may not be a threat. How would Jesse react to the news of
a second younger sibling?

Her thirteen year old brother is safe
with his aunt and uncle in Illinois, growing up on a farm far away
from all of this. But Maisie, if she’s alive, must be in the thick
of it. I suppose Caldwell could use his mind tricks to hide
her.

I haven’t shared any of this
information with Jeremiah or Nikki. I haven’t told them about
Gabriel or the fact that Jesse believes he is the source of her
powers either.

She’s kissing me on the neck again and
an alarm sounds somewhere in the building. The snail-shaped
intercom in Nikki’s ear blinks to life, casting blue light across
her cheek. She groans. “Just one night off. Is that too much to
ask?”

She presses the button on her ear.
“Tamsin here.”

Her brow furrows.

“
Yes, why?” she asks the
person on the other end. Her eyebrows shoot up.
“Understood.”

I come up on my elbows. “What’s
happening?”

“
Jesse’s having a meltdown
on the roof.”

I throw back the covers and yank on my
shoes. My coat is on the back of the chair until I tug it
on.

Nikki catches up to me at
the elevator and we ride up to the 65
^th
floor. Everyone must be up
there already.

32, 33, 34.

“
Something happened.” I’m
certain of it.

“
She needs to get better
control of her emotions,” Nikki says, checking the guns on either
side of her hips. I shoot her a withering look, and she immediately
takes her hands off her metal. “I’m just saying, she has a lot of
firepower. She has to be more careful.”