Free Dying Light by Kory M. Shrum Page A

your
sister.”
    “ Yeah, about that .” I do another turn
around the room but there’s nothing to fixate on with the lack of
windows, doors, or décor of any kind, save three pieces of
furniture. Two rose-colored chairs and a sofa, which he drapes
himself over, like a French courtesan. “Tell me about this
so-called sister.”
    “ Her name is Maisie.
She’ll be seventeen in February.”
    I go all weak in the knees.
    “ She’s eight years younger
than me. You must’ve had her right after you died.”
    “ 16 months
after.”
    “ And she’s been with you
ever since?”
    “ Breathe,” Gabriel says.
The scent of rain intensifies. “Breathe, Jesse.”
    “ She was born in the camp
and raised by foster parents until she was six. It took us that
long to get her back. Georgia, her mother, insists we keep her
close.”
    Her mother insists we keep
her close. So while he saw fit to keep one
daughter close he left the other one in the care of a pedophile.
What. The. Fuck.
    “ Are you kidding me? And
what about me?”
    “ You were already fifteen
by the time I got out of the camps.”
    “ That was when the worst
of it started,” I told him. “You could’ve come back for me. You
could’ve saved me from all that shit.”
    The power rolls along my
skin, and the more I look at his snide little face, the more I know
I want to
firebomb him. I want to watch the skin burn off his bones just like
Eddie’s.
    “ I couldn’t have saved you
from him,” Caldwell says, steepling his fingers.
    “ Keep telling yourself
that.”
    “ He wants you angry. He
wants you to make a mistake.” The light
brush of Gabriel’s fingers pulls me out of myself. I turn, but the
room is empty except for me and the jerk.
    “ Do you understand why he
can’t materialize when I’m here?”
    If I lose my temper, I might make a
mistake, and I will be dead, which is exactly what Caldwell wants.
He wants to kill me and take my power.
    “ I have a feeling you’re
about to tell me.”
    “ We are charged like
magnets. There’s too much commotion, too much charge and chaos in
the space around us when we are close together,” he says. He
gestures to the room. “Electromagnetic interference, if you
will.”
    “ You could be feeding me a
bunch of horse shit, for all I know.”
    He only smiles.
    I see Brinkley in my head. Brinkley in
his leather jacket. Brinkley with his James Dean smile and the look
of sheer determination as he lifts his gun to shoot Caldwell.
Brinkley would remind me not to get confused, not to let Caldwell
too deep into my head.
    “ Brinkley and I had a long
and complicated history that you know nothing about.”
    I fold my arms over my chest. “And
that justified killing him?”
    “ I remove obstacles that
lay in my path. I don’t care what the obstacle is.”
    “ So how do you intend to
remove me?”
    “ Ah,” Caldwell grins as if
I’ve asked him the question he’s been waiting for. “You’re
different.”
    “ Dare I ask why? Or can I
just expect a cryptic, noncommittal answer?”
    “ It would take days to
explain why you’re different and what that difference means for
us.”
    I snort. “First you have to kidnap a
dog and now you flatter me? I didn’t realize you’d stoop so
low.”
    My body aches to sit down in one of
the rose-colored chairs, to move closer into the light instead of
hanging on the periphery like this. But to sit down suggests
complacency. I can’t get comfortable in case he decides he wants to
kill me here and now.
    “ You agreed to come and
here you are. Take a seat.”
    I don’t.
    “ So did you bring me here
to starve? Or did you want privacy for the monologuing?”
    “ Gabriel won’t tell you
his plan, because he runs the risk of you shutting him out. He
chose you of all the NRD prospects. He saw something in you that he
desires,” Caldwell’s voice is smooth, the lilting tone of a mega
church preacher.
    “ Why did your angel choose
you?”
    A fox grin spreads across his