Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“Alex told me she moved back to the city two years ago,” I said. “He said she was fine for the first few months, and then gradually she started getting depressed. It wasn’t an overnight thing, so being back here affected her negatively. She obviously grew up elsewhere. Maybe her parents moved away because of the disappearances and, without that localized connection to the Break—”

“She lost her Gift,” Wyatt finished. “Which starts coming back when she returns to the source, only if she doesn’t remember it from childhood, or have any idea how to tap into the Break—”

“She ends up wallowing in depression without knowing why. It gets so bad she kills herself.”

“Then you find her body, because even though she’s dead, it’s still a tap into the Break.”

“Do you think that’s how the Halfies tracked us to the mall? Someone gave them information on Chalice and they had the place watched?”

“Possible, but not likely. I had the gremlins start wiping her out a day before that happened.”

“Right, okay.” I turned, marched back to the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not done talking to Alex. Keep sifting; see what else you can find that might help us.”

“We need to talk about this teleportation thing.”

“We will, when I’m done.”

I slipped back inside before he could argue, and locked the door. No more interruptions.

Alex hadn’t moved. Tears had left stains on his pale cheeks. His cut lip left a red smear on his chin. Clear snot dripped from his nose. He didn’t look like a dangerous, half-Blood traitor, just a scared young man without a friend in the world.

I imagined a similar look on Chalice’s face near the end. Completely at odds with herself, feeling alienated and uncertain as to why. So depressed that she saw no way out of the well of pain she’d fallen into. I found no common ground with that sort of emotional agony and no sympathy for the choice she’d made—only commiseration in feeling trapped inside a body that didn’t seem like her own.

“Alex?” I asked. “It’s Chalice.”

He blinked, didn’t look at me.

“I’m sorry I left, but I still need to talk to you.”

“Are you going to set me free now?”

“Soon, but first, do you know a man named Tovin?”

“Tovin’s not a man,” Alex said, his demeanor changing instantly. Like I’d flipped a switch with a single word. His face hardened, mouth drawn in a tight line. Every scrap of misery was gone. “Stay away from him, Chal.”

“Tovin wants to hurt someone I care about, and I need to stop him. I have to find him first, though. Do you know where he is?”

“I’ve only heard things. The others, they talked about him. He’s like the boogeyman. He’s powerful.”

“I need to find him, Alex.” I cupped his cheeks in my hands, amazed at how cold his skin was. Cold and clammy and rough. “Where is he?”

He held my steady gaze, his tinged with disgust. “Do you promise to let me go?”

Across the room, on top of an antique dresser, I spotted a discarded gun belt. Several boxes of ammunition were laid out on top of it. Nadia had certainly brought along an arsenal. Good news for us, since I had no weapon on me, save Horzt’s crystal shard. I eyed the gun and hoped one of those boxes held what I needed.

“I promise, Alex.”

“The old mill.”

“What old mill?”

“They kept talking about an old mill, said that’s where he was. The old mill. That’s what they said, Chal. Does that help?”

I searched my memory, thinking about the city’s waterfront properties. No mills came to mind.

“I told you where he is,” Alex wailed. Tears pooled in his eyes. Bright spots of color flamed in his cheeks, standing out from his pallor. Blood dripped from his cut lip to his chin and dappled his shirt.

“The old mill,” I said.

“Let me go.”

I stood up and walked to the dresser. Each step echoed like thunder. I found the box of bullets labeled “A.C.” and fed two of them into the gun’s chamber. Anti coagulant rounds were hard to come by outside of the Triads. I walked to the back of Alex’s chair and held up the gun. His shoulders shook. My finger twitched.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” I said.

“Does dying hurt?”

My eyes tingled. I bit the insides of my cheeks, tried to ignore the heartache in his voice and keep focused. Alex was already dead; this wasn’t Alex. I was stopping a monster, putting down a rabid dog. Nothing more, nothing less. Lie to him, shoot him, and get it over with.

“Dying didn’t hurt the first time,” I said. “It’s all the shit leading up to it that’s painful.”

He bowed his head. I pressed the muzzle to the back of his neck. Clean shot, perfect kill, even for a Blood. My finger twitched. I couldn’t pull it. I couldn’t rationalize the kill.

“Do it, Chal.”

I closed my eyes.

“Let me go.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Save me.”

My finger squeezed. The gun roared. I screamed.

14:00

“This is useless,” Nadia said, fingers tapping away at the keyboard of a laptop. “There are no mills in this city. No paper mills, no flour mills, not even a puppy mill. He lied to you.”

“Check anyway,” I snapped.

I had taken refuge in Rufus’s kitchen with cling peaches and a can opener while Nadia and Wyatt made themselves useful by looking into our only clue. The teeth of the opener cut an uneven path around the edge of the can. Thick syrup pooled. My stomach rumbled. Rufus really needed to shop more often.

Nadia shot me a glare over the edge of the laptop, which I promptly matched. With a brief nostril flare, she ducked her head. Wyatt stood behind her at the dining table, arms crossed over his chest, reading over her shoulder.

The file on Chalice had revealed nothing else useful in determining the actual existence of a teleportation Gift. She had a list of child psychology evaluations as long as my arm, as well as a handful during her teen years. And medical records for two E.R. visits in high school—drug overdoses that seemed more teen-related than Gift-related. It only confirmed that she had been a lonely, troubled woman long before Alex met her.

“The old mill,” Wyatt said, uttering the words for the tenth time since I’d relayed them. “Could it be a code for something else?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, maybe Tovin’s location is hidden in the text of the Hardy Boys’ The Secret of the Old Mill .”

“I’m serious.”

“Me, too. He said ‘old mill,’ okay?” I tossed the serrated can lid into the sink and plucked a fork out of the dish drainer. The peaches were warm and too sweet, but I ate them anyway.

“Nothing,” Nadia said. “No mills within city limits.”

“Did you search the suburbs? The mountains north of the city?”

She grunted and typed something else. I chewed on a peach, somewhat unnerved by the faint metallic taste of the fruit. Oh well. If Tovin didn’t kill me first, then botulism would.

“There’s nothing relevant there, Evy,” Wyatt said, after gazing at another page on the computer screen. “Nadia, try searching the maps for street names or buildings.”

“How about company logos?” I said.

“One moment, please,” Nadia said.

Fingers flew. The laptop buzzed. She and Wyatt leaned closer. The blue light of the monitor reflected in their eyes. I slurped down another peach. On the other side of the room, Rufus continued to sit quietly in his wheelchair. Patient, watching, not participating. It was downright spooky.

The rest of Rufus’s apartment was as spartan as a motel room. I found myself looking around for personal artifacts. Photographs or paperweights, even an old take-out bag that had missed the trash can. Something to prove a human being had lived here for a reasonable amount of time. He chose to live in a crappy part of town, but didn’t even make an effort to nest?