Dying Day Read online

  When the sharp burst of purple light exploded in front of my eyes, for a moment I was blind. Then when the color receded, I saw only sparks of light until my vision cleared. So for a full minute, I honestly wasn’t sure if Eve had stabbed me or not.

  The appearance of the shield was as surprising as it had been when Gabriel appeared in front of Jeremiah. And I saw him this time, too. Even if all he said was a hurried apology. I cannot stay. Jesse is in danger.

  But Eve’s words feel ominous. He said he would avenge Nessa.

  The fact Gabriel had come at all…that Eve had talked about angels helping her and a promise to restore Nessa’s life…What is going on with the angels?

  True, my first instinct was to blame Jeremiah, but I’ve since revised that belief, now that the adrenaline has fallen and the danger has passed—that this might be a different threat altogether.

  The bad angels, Jesse had said once. I think even Cindy made mention of them.

  Is it possible that one is still in the game? Is this he Eve mentioned a threat I haven’t accounted for?

  It would serve me right to be so focused on the dangers of this world—the people with pitchforks—to overlook a worse threat to Jesse’s life.

  I need to widen my gaze or more surprise attacks will be inevitable.

  “Did you see that?” Eli hisses proudly as the nurse wipes at his arm with an antiseptic-soaked swath of gauze. He is practically crowing. “Cat-like reflexes. Maybe I’ve got a little extra something in my veins too, eh?”

  “Kelly is going to kill you,” I remind him from my place on the opposite hospital bed.

  “No, she’s going to kill you. She loved that shirt, and you ripped it to shreds. I think she gave it to me for Christmas.”

  His enthusiasm for being stabbed doesn’t recede in the slightest. Probably because his wife isn’t actually here to give him a sharp lecture about not dying before their child has a chance to meet their father.

  Nikki stands in front of me, hands on her hips. “I want you to check her again.”

  “It wasn’t her blood,” the nurse says and gives Nikki a weary look.

  Nikki tries to death glare the nurse into checking me over again as I sit on the gurney with my feet hanging over one side. The nurse holds Nikki’s gaze without so much as blinking. To my surprise, Nikki folds first, looking away with a sigh.

  Then Nikki stabs the earpiece in her ear with her finger. It ignites blue. “I want you to replay the tape again. I want all the arrivals on the tarmac to be rescreened. I want to make extra sure we haven’t let any other threats onto the base.”

  “Dr. Gray, can you please just look her over one more time?” Nikki begs.

  Doctor, not nurse. My apologies for assuming it takes a lab coat to make a doctor.

  Something softens in the doctor’s face. She shrugs her dark brown braid over one shoulder and turns to me, looking ready to do as she’s asked.

  “Where is she?” a high girlish voice screams. “Where is she?”

  Dr. Gray looks at the ceiling and sighs.

  “Let her through,” Nikki says and the guard at the door stops trying to push Maisie through the double doors.

  Maisie tears her elbow out of the guard’s grip. “Excuse me.”

  Then she’s in front of me, face beet red with anger and screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “She tried to kill you. Az—” she bites down on that last word so hard she bears her teeth in a grimace. “I heard she tried to kill you.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. I make it a point to keep my voice low and steady.

  “Is it?” Maisie says. Her voice is still too high and too tight. “We are supposed to be safe here, and you were attacked—almost stabbed.”

  “She didn’t even get close to me,” I say.

  “About that,” my brother says from the opposite gurney.

  I flash him a desperate look. His mouth snaps shut immediately. Then he says, “Are there vending machines or a cafeteria around here? I could use something to eat. We didn’t even get peanuts on the plane.”

  Bless him.

  “Fuck the peanuts!” Maisie screams.

  “Maisie!” I can’t hide my astonishment. I didn’t even know she cursed.

  “You were almost killed!” Her eyes fill up with tears, those bright blue irises shimmering.

  I politely nudge Dr. Gray aside and pull Maisie forward.

  “Look at me.” I place a hand on each of her shoulders. “Maisie, look at me.”

  I squeeze her shoulders until she reluctantly meets my eyes.

  I run one of her hands over my arm. “Not even a scratch.”

  The anger leaves her in ragged breaths. Her shoulders sag.

  “I can’t—” she says, pinching her eyes closed. Her foot stamps the tiled floor once. “Everyone keeps dying, and I can’t—”

  “Give us the room please,” Nikki says. Dr. Gray and the guard step out, leaving Eli, Nikki, Maisie, and I alone beneath the harsh fluorescents of the medical bay.

  I watch the tears stream down Maisie’s cheeks, her eyes still pinched closed.

  I take both her hands in mine, and she collapses against me. I wrap my arms around her and catch my brother staring. He wants to be introduced, of course. But now is hardly the time.

  “If one more person dies, I’m going to lose it,” Maisie whispers into my hair. “I’m just going to freaking lose it.”

  I yearn to tell her it will be okay. I want to assure her that she won’t lose me. Or Gloria. And that Eli will be the most practical ally she could hope for. But I can’t bring myself to lie to her.

  You don’t expect to come back, my brother had said. And it looks like I don’t have to make her false promises. Nikki leaps at the chance to do it for me.

  “Nothing is going to happen to Ally,” Nikki says. “I promise.”

  Her face is hard with her determination. Maisie either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care. Her arms stay clasped around my neck.

  “I know Jesse—” Maisie begins. Her voice is so low that I’m not sure Eli or Nikki can hear her. “Az—someone told me that Jesse might—”

  My heart clenches in my chest.

  “So I’m, like, prepared for that, you know? But then I hear that you were attacked. And right outside our pod?”

  She lets go of me and covers her face with her hands. She drops them to say, “Man, I’m so tired of crying.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. Because I don’t know what else I can say. How many tears have I shed over Jesse?

  “It seems like someone wants to stab you like every other day. How do you stand it?” Maisie asks. She glances at Nikki and Eli, who both remain silent with solemn faces. I realize that both Nikki and Eli are watching me carefully. It seems that Maisie isn’t the only one who wants my answer.

  I want to argue that I’ve never been stabbed. That being attacked is as much of a novelty for me as it is for them. But then I remember the basement. Martin thrusting a blade into my abdomen, rupturing my spleen.

  “Seriously, I’ve lost all faith in humanity,” Maisie says.

  “Don’t say that,” I say.

  “Why? Because we’re surrounded by so many awesome people?” Her jaw clenches, the vein in her temple jumping.

  “You have to look for the helpers,” Eli says, voice steady. “That’s what Mr. Rogers says.”

  “Who?” Maisie asks.

  “Oh god, am I that old?” He asks me, looking genuinely horrified.

  “For every horrible thing that happens, Maisie, you have to find the good people, too. People get murdered, and people hunt their killer and deliver justice. A hurricane destroys a home, and someone is there to pull them from the wreckage. Hateful people bully and threaten, and then someone stands up to them. Someone fights back. That’s what Elijah means.”

  “It’s not enough,” Maisie says.

  “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Eli adds, helpfully. “That’s what Gandhi says.”

&nbs
p; “What are you, a walking encyclopedia?” Maisie asks him.

  “No, he’s your lawyer,” I say. “This is my brother Eli. I asked him to come.”

  “She doesn’t need a lawyer,” a man says. I turn and see Jeremiah enter the medical ward.

  “Well, she has one anyway,” my brother says, his voice hard.

  Jeremiah’s gaze falls on my brother, and something inside me tenses. My brother has stood up to corporate giants before without flinching, and he’ll need that courage now that Jeremiah has him in his sights. But that’s why I called him. I trust him with this. I know he won’t fold under Jeremiah’s pressure.

  “Fast-acting there, Mr. Gallagher.”

  My brother gives his best oh shucks smile. “You didn’t expect me to let that woman slit my sister’s throat, did you?”

  Both Nikki and Jeremiah flush.

  I glower at Eli.

  “Honestly, given how much surveillance you have in this building, I’m more than a little surprised by your slow reaction.” My brother forces an apologetic pout. “I’m sure you tried your best.”

  Jeremiah adjusts the glasses on the bridge of his nose before looking over his shoulder at Nikki. “Tamsin, would you return Mr. Gallagher to his pod. I want to speak to Ally alone for a moment.”

  “As her attorney, I think whatever you want to say to her, you can say it to me.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “You and Maisie have a lot to talk about.”

  He gives me a long, steady look before sliding off the hospital bed. “I won’t be far away.”

  And even though my brother and Maisie leave without much of a fight, Nikki doesn’t budge.

  “What do you need to talk to her about?” Her voice hardens.

  Nik never loses her patience with Jeremiah. I wonder again what they might have been fighting about in the conference room after meeting with the nation leaders.

  “I have news about Jesse that Alice will want to know. And I believe she will likely want to hear this alone.”

  My heart stumbles. I swallow down flat out panic.

  I manage to keep my mouth shut and only tilt my head to convey my curiosity. At least, I hope I look curious and not like I’m riding the edge of fear with white knuckles.

  “I’m not going far either,” Nikki says, sparing me a smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

  Once she leaves, and the hospital doors swing shut, Jeremiah sits on the opposite bed my brother just vacated. The intimacy of the situation is disturbing. The dimly lit room and just the two of us. The adjacent hall is unnaturally quiet as well as that area just on the other side of the swinging doors that lead to the lobby. I wonder if he decides to leap across this bed and suffocate me now if he would get away with it.

  Undoubtedly.

  Unless that helpful shield were to spring up spontaneously again.

  “As you may have heard from Nicole, Jesse has disappeared from our satellite surveillance.”

  “I’m aware.” Tell me something I don’t know.

  “I placed the order to search the earth for her, of course, but she didn’t turn up. So I asked them to run the GRO program.”

  “G—”

  “—it searches for gamma radiation.”

  “You found her?” I ask, unable to contain myself. I wrap my hand around the cold metal bar of the hospital bed.

  “The location where Jesse was last seen, very close to the coordinates you provided in the hospital, are where we looked first. That area is still radiating an enormous energy signature.”

  “You can’t possibly believe she is invisible,” I say.

  “That’s exactly what I think,” he says. “At least invisible to us.”

  “It certainly makes her safer,” I muse aloud. “If they send any more agents to execute her, they won’t have a target.”

  “Won’t they?” he asks, eyebrows raise.

  I only blink at him.

  “The technology that I’ve utilized isn’t private. Any of the government agencies who decide to dedicate manpower to investigating this situation can do exactly as I have done.”

  This situation. My god.

  “I was intentionally vague, giving only the station that she attacked—”

  “She didn’t attack it!” I burst. “We don’t know what happened there.”

  He nods in acquiescence. “Even if she hides herself, they could find her. If they sweep the area, they could mistake her for a device that’s been buried. They may try to detonate it from above.”

  “They wouldn’t mistake her for a device if you hadn’t suggested it!” My anger rises in a scalding wave. I look down at my hands, hoping this will calm me and bring me back into myself. Except I see my hands shaking with fury.

  “You forget that I have a wider view of this situation than you do. Your feelings for Jesse don’t allow you to see a threat that could cost billions of lives. Are you saying that her life is more important than Maisie’s? Your brother’s?”

  I unclench my fists and try to focus on the words.

  Of course, if I had a dollar for every time a man told me I didn’t understand a situation because my feelings were in the way—I’d be quite rich indeed. And while they are almost always wrong, I am less confident that is true now. I wouldn’t deny to anyone that my feelings for Jesse make it hard for me to think most of the time.

  Is it your love for her? Or your fear of losing her? a cold voice teases. It’s my voice. One that I started hearing shortly after Jesse died the first time.

  “I want to reunite you with Jesse,” Jeremiah says.

  My head snaps up, disentangling itself from its ruminations.

  “If anyone can safely approach Jesse, it’s you,” he adds. “I want to send you in with a small team. I think it is the best way that will cost us the least lives.”

  This sounds too good to be true. Never in the time I have known him has Jeremiah just handed me what I wanted.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Alice. You gave me the idea.”

  “What is the catch?” I ask.

  “No catch. Someone needs to speak with her and convince her to stand down. There is only one person on this planet that has a chance of succeeding. I want you to succeed, and you want to see her. In this arrangement, we will both get what we want.”

  “Do you understand what is happening to her?” I ask. I don’t believe for a second that he does, but I’d welcome any theory at this point.

  “I only know that she is transforming into something that will either kill us or save us.”

  “Is this what your visions tell you?”

  “Do you taunt Captain Jackson for her visions?” He adjusts his glasses. “It doesn’t matter. It only matters that you stop her.”

  Not save her. Not bring her back. He threw her under the bus to all the other nations because he knows and understands what I keep struggling to comprehend: Jesse isn’t coming back from this. Whatever this is—it’s the end of the line.

  “And what if I can’t stop her?” I ask. My fear is so pure and raw that tears pool in the corners of my eyes. I’m sure I look exactly like what he thinks I am. A foolish girl who can’t focus on what needs to be done.

  “If you can’t…” he says, his voice trailing off. “Then we will do our best to survive it.”

  I think of his wife and daughter who are supposedly somewhere on this base. But I have not seen them in the living quarters or rec rooms. Perhaps Jeremiah has separate quarters and that is where they are. Yet the idea that he separates himself from everyone else, even here, makes me wonder if this place is really as safe as he claims.

  And this sudden change of heart—his desire to send me to Jesse now at the last moment—there is something off about it. I can’t suppress my suspicions that no matter what he says, there is a trick.

  But what can I say? How dare you give me what I want? You’re wrong—I can’t possibly talk to her. Refuse to go to Antarctica.

  Then he says something that makes the world stop spinn
ing. “I am aware that you’ve been in contact with Gideon.”

  I stop breathing.

  “And that it is your intention to fly with him to Antarctica this evening.”

  I open my mouth to deny it. He could be guessing, trying to force my hand.

  “Don’t waste a lie on this,” he says. “I have excellent code breakers in my employ, and if they say he will be arriving at 11:00 tonight, I believe them.”

  I look at the clock on the wall. If correct, it is almost six in the evening. I gaze at the ticking black and white face deliberately.

  “I will allow him to enter the base if you promise to take one of my own planes. I am sure you can understand why I want to monitor the situation.”

  “Is that your price for your help? Surveillance?”

  “And I will ask you to wait until 11:30 to depart. That is when I can spare the aircraft you need.”

  Spare it. Even in his generosity, he isn’t prioritizing this rescue mission—because this isn’t a rescue to him. This is a one-way trip.

  But in my mind, I’m already doing the math.

  “Will Nikki be coming?”

  “Nicole doesn’t want you to go. In fact, I suspect that if you would like to make it to Antarctica as soon as possible, don’t tell her you’re going.”

  My heart hammers. I can feel the pulse in the tips of my fingers and temples. I think of the two of them in the conference room again, fighting. Was that what this was about?

  “She believes it is too dangerous and wants you to stay. I think the sacrifice is worth it, if it saves lives,” he says. He removes his glasses and cleans them with the end of his shirt. “What do you think?”

  “I think you expect me to die on this mission.”

  “It is likely,” he says. He slips the glasses back onto his nose and meets my gaze with dark, unflinching eyes. “Does that change how you feel about going?”

  “No,” I say, without hesitation. “I’ll go anyway.”

  “Then it’s settled. I would use the last few hours wisely, Ms. Gallagher,” he says. He slips from the bed, tugs at the end of his sweater vest, and gazes down at me over the long line of his nose.