Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“By nature, shy people are more likely to be what?”

I worked the question over in my mind until the answer came screaming at me. “She was lonely. You think loneliness is the trigger?”

“It’s a logical trigger.”

“Is yours logical?”

“Not really.”

“What is it?”

“Also not telling.”

“Come on, Wyatt, you need to teach me how to do this. I can’t just drum up loneliness and hope I land ten feet away. What if I reappear in between walls? That could hurt.”

He heaved a sigh dramatic enough to make a professional actor proud. “It’s arrogance, okay? Haughty, highbrow arrogance at its worst.”

My lips twitched. “So what? You forget to put your arrogance away when you’re done with it?”

His eyebrows scrunched. He opened his mouth to retort. I stuck my tongue out—a gesture guaranteed to force a smile. It worked.

A shadow passed my peripheral vision—a large bird shape that was gone before I turned my head. Too big for a pigeon, but what else? I thought of Danika and was struck by a sudden pang of sadness.

“Evy?”

“Yeah?” Had he been talking?

“Do you feel the Break right now? You said it felt tingly, like static.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled. It was there, but more distant than in First Break. The faintest hint of static just below the surface. I latched on to the buzz and urged it closer. Asked it to burn just a little brighter.

It ignored me and remained far away, the palest notion of power. “It’s there,” I said. “Barely, but it’s there.”

“Use your trigger to bring it forward. Concentrate on feelings of loneliness.”

“Uh-huh.” Hard to feel lonely when he was crowding me. He wouldn’t always be there, though. At the end of this day, one of us (or both) would be dead, forever parted. Alone.

Tears stung my eyes. Nostrils flared. Instinct told me to push those thoughts away and stay positive, but I needed that emotion. Needed to feel the loneliness. I held on, trying to imagine living without Wyatt. Spending the next five or ten or thirty years without him in my life. Without his voice in my head.

The faint buzz crashed on top of me like a waterfall, zinging through from head to toes and back out again. The hair on my arms tingled. My skin flushed, at once hot and cold. Every single cell in my body seemed to vibrate, threatened to fly apart at any moment and scatter me to the four winds.

“I feel it,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I’ve tapped in, Wyatt.”

“Picture the other side of the roof, Evy. Just a few feet. Let the Break take you there.”

I thought of a spot ten feet away, next to the edge. The tar seemed thinner there, ready to wear through at any moment and leak into the cheap apartment below. My body vibrated. The oddest sensation of movement was punctuated by a blinding headache. I wobbled, then toppled sideways when my hands found no traction.

Something slammed into me. I fell a short distance and hit the soft tar roof with a body on top of me. My eyes snapped open. Wyatt stared down, his eyes wide and fearful, mouth open and panting. The pain in my head subsided to a dull ache and settled between my eyes.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It worked. You overshot a little, though.”

We had landed on the soft tar roof, arms nearly touching the ledge. Ten inches to the left, and I’d have missed completely. My stomach knotted. “Holy shit, I almost killed myself.”

“We just need to practice.”

“Easy for you to say.”

He settled in, making no effort to get off me. I pushed my hips against his. He grunted and pushed right back, teasing. Jerk.

“You going to get off me?” I asked.

“You can get out from beneath me.”

Drumming up the loneliness took longer the second time, due in no small part to Wyatt. It was difficult to imagine being without him when he was on top of me, seriously affecting my concentration.

I thought about our time together in Amalie’s home. What if that had been our last opportunity to be together? Annoyance melted into sadness. I latched on and turned it until the tap opened. The static poured through me again.

Wyatt’s face faded. The ache increased. My vision blurred into a mass of swirling colors and unfocused shapes. I was moving again, but realized too late I hadn’t focused on a destination.

The ache flared into a sharp spike of agony that threaded through my skull from top to bottom. I shrieked. Movement stopped. I fell and hit a cool, slick surface and curled up into a little ball. The headache didn’t relent. Pain speared through me. Bright spots of color burst in my eyes.

It dulled in time and awareness returned. Familiar smells and voices. A hand on my shoulder, another on the small of my back, rubbing in gentle circles. I focused on those movements, let them calm my nerves and frazzled brain, then cracked one eye open.

The kitchen in Rufus’s apartment. Lucky transport. Wyatt was behind me, whispering soft words of support. And apology. I turned my head. Each muscle in my neck protested. Wonder and pride shined in his face.

“That was impressive,” he said.

“Hurt like hell,” I replied.

“Side effects are a bitch.”

I groaned an affirmation. “How’d you know I’d end up here?”

“I didn’t. When you didn’t reappear, I panicked and started looking. Nadia found me in the stairwell.” His hands continued to massage my back and shoulders. “But on the plus side, we know you can move through solid objects.”

“Yeah, and it feels like I’m being ripped apart.”

“Want to practice some more?”

“Fuck you, Truman. I need aspirin and a nap.”

He scooped me up into his arms, and I let him. The blinding headache had turned to a debilitating throb. My stomach swirled and threatened to empty. I imagined it was some sort of magic-induced migraine. Only time would fade the pain enough to let me think properly. Until then, I simply allowed Wyatt to settle me on the sofa, tuck a blanket around my shoulders, and watch over me while I tossed on the edge of agonized slumber.

The nap lasted longer than I’d planned—the bits of sunlight that had peeked through Rufus’s dark curtains were gone—but I woke refreshed. The ache still lingered on the very edge of my senses, no longer strong enough to affect me. I focused on the room and the soft hum of nearby voices.

Wyatt, Nadia, and Rufus were gathered around the dining table. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but Rufus had his cellular phone out and open. The apartment was otherwise quiet, almost serene.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Wyatt’s head snapped in my direction. He grinned. “Almost eleven at night, Sleeping Beauty. We need to go, if we’re going to manage any recon before reinforcements arrive.”

“They’re coming?”

Rufus angled his wheelchair to face me. “I called in a few favors. Three o’clock at the gas station, like you said. They trust me enough to trust you.”

“Great.” I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the sofa. Dizziness blacked out my vision for a short span, but I covered with a sunny smile. “You said something earlier about weapons?”

As promised, the hall closet hid a large black trunk. Nadia produced a key to the arsenal. Wyatt and I delved inside without waiting for permission. I strapped a pair of serrated knives to my ankles; their weight was familiar and comforting. Always more secure with guns, Wyatt slipped into a pair of shoulder holsters and checked the ammo on two modified Glocks. I tucked a similar gun into the back waistband of my jeans. We found six clips of anticoagulant rounds, took two each, and gave the other two to Nadia.