Worth Dying for (A Dying for a Living Novel Book 5) by Kory M. Shrum Page A

you’re dragging it around everywhere. Leaking all over the place.”
    “No comprendo,” I said, dodging her insinuations, though I understood exactly what she meant. Killing Eddie was too fresh in my mind.
    “Listen carefully Jessup.”
    God how I’d loved that nickname. Not at first. It sounded too much like ketchup and therefore was vaguely insulting, but after about a month, it’d grown on me.
    “A shitty past is like a leech. It’ll follow you around. It’ll suck all the life out of you unless you cut that thing off. Cut it off or you’ll never get the chance to be happy again.”
    “What would you know about shitty pasts?” I’d asked her. I was reeling from the shame and anger at the impossible task she’d given me. How the hell was I going to forget that I’d killed someone? How the hell was I going to “cut off” all the horrible things that Eddie had done to me?
    It was her face that’d given me hope. She’d put her take out box down and looked out the window. The St. Louis skyline stretched before us. The river glimmering and copper-colored in the sunset.
    “I know,” she said. And it was the look in her face that struck me. I didn’t dare ask another question. Because I had a clear feeling that whatever horrible thing had happened to her was maybe even worse than the horrible things that had happened to me. “You can get past it, Jessup.”
    And I was able to put mine behind me. My father’s abandonment. Eddie’s pervert bullshit. My mother’s rejection. Rachel helped me push through it all. For the most part anyway.
    Cut it off, Jessup. Or it’ll kill you.
    “She wouldn’t betray me.” The present moment comes into sharp focus around me. Ally, still holding on to me, searches my face. “You don’t know her like I do.”
    Nikki meets my gaze at last, eyebrow arched. “You better hope you’re right about that.”

Chapter 11
    Rachel
    I wake up on a park bench. Still wearing these god awful potato sacks for clothes, I look like I should be here. My head throbs and my fingertips are frozen. It hurts even to bend them. I open and close my fists hoping to improve circulation.
    Several crows walk along the pale dead grass a few feet away from my bench, searching for food. Every few steps, one pecks the ground half-heartedly. A man in a long tan coat, one arm wrapped around himself, smokes a cigarette like it might be his last, blowing his smoke straight up into the sky. I haven’t seen anyone relish anything so whole-heartedly since Jessup went to town on an éclair from a delicatessen a couple of weeks ago.
    I reach up and feel the scarf around my face. Why would they take Gideon but leave me bundled on a park bench? They must not be with Caldwell—and yet, they knew about my power and they used the tranquilizer dart on me. Caldwell used similar darts on Jesse before. Or perhaps that’s a ridiculous conjecture. Maybe every jerk gets a box of sedation darts in their Asshole-of-the-Day starter kit.
    My head is clouded. It’s like my hangover came back with a vengeance. My whole body aches as I push myself up off of the bench and onto my feet. I start walking, my head clearing with every step.
    At first I wander toward the hotel. The bench where I was dumped is surprisingly close to the giant Art Deco building. I guess they couldn’t be bothered moving me far.
    As I stand in the adjacent park, trying to decide if I should return to the hotel, or proceed with the plan, my decision is made for me.
    The hotel is swarming with uniformed officers filing in and out of the lobby like honeybee drones. The alleyways on both sides of the building are completely taped off and cars are turned at an angle, working as barricades.
    There is no way I’m going in.
    I don’t see Jessup, Ally, or the kid. If they were taken into custody, I don’t know where they’d hold them. If they got away, they’ll be on their way to Gloria.
    And that is bad for a whole other reason. What has she seen about me