Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) by Kory M. Shrum Page B

room.
    “Just wait!” Nikki yells in growing desperation as I resist. She puts herself between me and the door. “Wait, wait ! You don’t know the situation. I don’t know the situation. We have to at least find out what’s happening.”
    I shrug her off again and she gives me the distance. “She’s a woman, Nick. A woman tied to a goddam chair with her face bashed in. In no world is that right.”
    “Women strap bombs to their chests and blow up marketplaces full of children.”
    I blink. My mouth opens and closes. “What is your point?”
    “I’m saying it doesn’t matter that she is a woman. You don’t know what she did.”
    “What did she do?” I ask. I’m clutching the side of my head with my fists to keep them from hurting her. I might just end up tearing my own hair out.
    “I don’t know,” Nikki admits.
    “Then why the hell are you defending him?” I ask.
    “Because I trust him,” she says. “And I think we should at least ask him what is going on.”
    “She is responsible for kidnapping,” a deep voice says. Jeremiah stands in the doorway. He leans heavily against the frame and I see his hands for the first time. They are red across the bone.
    “So that makes it okay?”
    “You happen to know one of the children,” Jeremiah says. He doesn’t waver his voice or gaze. “Her name was Nessa Hildebrand.”
    Nessa .
    “I believe her mother attacked Jesse because the Church told her if she didn’t, then she would never see her daughter again.”
    And she’d almost completely decapitated Jesse. I’d never seen so much blood in my life.
    “And she never did see her daughter again, did she?” he continues, when I fail to say anything. “Because this woman you’re so quick to protect, never returned what she took.”
    The world is rushing back. I lean against the nearest piece of furniture. A desk, chair, cabinet—whatever it is, it’s cold, even through the wool fabric of my coat.
    “I am not proud of what I am doing,” Jeremiah says. He removes his glasses and cleans them with the end of his shirt before replacing them on his nose. “But that woman is part of this. She receives her orders from somewhere . She takes the people, the children somewhere. We need to know so we can get them back.”
    I look at Nikki. Her face is stricken with grief. Tears threaten to spill from the corners of her eyes and the bridge of her nose and cheeks are flushed red.
    “I wouldn’t have joined if I thought this was how you gathered your information,” I say.
    “Our methods escalate as the threat escalates,” he says.
    He’s watching me over the rim of his glasses. He looks like an English professor not an interrogator.
    “And that is why war is so devastating,” I say. I’m dizzy with anger. I try to think of my breath. To slow all of this down but I can’t focus. “Because no one knows when to quit.”
    “If she knew where Jesse had been taken, wouldn’t you do anything to find out?” he asks.
    “Don’t bring Jesse into this,” I say.
    “She is already in this.”
    Jesse— Jesse , it always comes back to her. Jesse dying. Jesse dead. My years of walking in a death-like dream myself. Would I do anything to that woman if it meant saving Jesse?
    “We are supposed to be saving people,” I say. I just want to end this so she’ll be safe. “Is that what we are doing?”
    “Follow me.” He doesn’t wait for me to follow or to refuse.
    He’s already looking through the window at the woman.
    One breath turns into another. Then three, stretching in a long silence. It feels like we’re waiting for something, so I don’t speak.
    “It was my sister,” he says finally. “She wasn’t a death-replacement agent like Jesse. She was just a kid. Thirteen years old.”
    My heart sinks. I don’t like where this is going.
    “When the drunk driver hit us the summer before, she died on impact. My parents and I had multiple injuries but nothing fatal. We were completely devastated to lose