Dying Light by Kory M. Shrum Page A

Jesse
back.”
    I can’t hold the first two
times Jesse was taken against her. She was kidnapped—but this time
is different. She went willingly and it is hard not to be angry at her
recklessness.
    I’m sure Caldwell made some threat,
but still. What are we going to do now?
    I rock in my seat as Gloria slides off
the highway onto an exit ramp. Two turns later and we pull up
outside another apartment building. It’s similar to Gloria’s last
Chicago apartment except darker and less inviting.
    I resist the urge to lock the car
door. “You’ve slept here right?”
    Gloria gets out of the car. “We’ll be
safe here for now.”
    That’s enough to get me to throw open
the door and exit the gold Cadillac. Gravel slides beneath my boots
and I hear a cat yowling from somewhere between the two brick
buildings. I close the door and peek around the corner to see an
alley with dumpsters and a herd of feral cats. Their little yellow
eyes glow in the dark.
    “ Safe,” I repeat. “The
cats think so anyway.”
    Nikki places a hand on my back. “She’s
holding the door for you.”
    I glance over and see Gloria is in
fact holding a door open for me.
    “ Oh sorry.” I lift my bag
up on my shoulder and shuffle across the dim lot, casting one last
look at the sagging brick buildings before I dart inside with Nikki
bringing up the rear.
    The hallway is long and the same
squash yellow as Gloria’s kitchen back in Nashville. The wallpaper
is some kind of fleur-de-lis design in repetitious patterns from
top to bottom. Gloria hobbles up one floor, her cast scuffing the
stained, industrial carpet on the stairs. She comes to a stop
beside a door that was once white. Three brass numbers hang beneath
a peep hole.
    222.
    The hallway smells like curry and
someone is playing a TV way too loud. Upstairs, a baby is
crying.
    The deadbolt is reluctant to give into
Gloria’s key turning, so Gloria bumps her hip against the door. The
bolt clanks open.
    We step inside and Nikki locks the
door behind her. The room is cold and smells stale. I maneuver
around an armchair and go to the window, pulling it open a couple
of inches to let the fresh air in.
    “ It’s freezing outside.”
Nikki drops her bag on a gray loveseat.
    Goosebumps rise on my arms. “ We just need to get things
circulating.”
    The lights click on, three weak
40-watt bulbs casting halos of illumination around the
room.
    “ You’re not a fan of
luxury, are you?” Nikki’s eyes slide over the secondhand furniture,
the shag carpet the same color as the hallways, and the general
cramped nature of the room. The cabinets of the kitchen nook are an
old wood laminate and my guess is that there isn’t any food
here.
    Gloria slides into a seat at the oak
kitchen table. “I have all of my needs met.”
    I’m wrong about the food . I find a handful
of cans in the cabinet above the stove and several 2-liters of soda
in the fridge.
    Gloria removes her laptop from her
pack and opens it on the tabletop. “You two can share the pullout
bed.”
    “ Where will you sleep?” I
ask.
    “ I won’t.”
    “ Gloria,” I begin, intent
on scolding her. She’s even worse at taking care of herself than
Jesse.
    Gloria sighs. “If I need to sleep,
I’ll take the chair.”
    Gloria is at least twenty years older
than me. Probably twenty-five. She doesn’t need to be sleeping
upright in a chair in her own place. I can sleep on the floor, shag
carpet or no and Nikki can sleep in the chair. Of course, I already
know that will be a losing battle. Nikki won’t let me sleep on the
floor.
    Nikki leans over my shoulder, peering
into the open cabinets. “Boxed mac and cheese and canned chili.”
She kisses my temple. “We’ll have chili mac.”
    My stomach rumbles. “Better get on
with it.”
    Gloria doesn’t look up from her
computer, already deep in her task. “There’s some cookware in the
drawer under the stove.”
    I leave Nikki alone in the kitchen to
do her thing and sit at the table beside