Chapter 15
fifteen
The Merciless
“What do you mean, you’re going back?” my brother thunders, his voice louder than even the surf.
I climb to my feet, extricating myself from the group. “I mean, I came here for a reason.”
“Is the reason called kidnap?” Walker Delacroix asks. “Because, same. Dab me up, Kidnap Club.”
He holds out his hand, but I ignore it and face the boys, my boys. The Quint, Cinco de Mercy—or what remains of it.
“I’m grateful you found me, so grateful. You have no idea. But when they grabbed me at Thorncrown, I didn’t fight back. I went with them because I wanted to find Eternity.”
“Did you?” Heath asks quietly, with none of the anger I expected.
“No,” I say, my throat tightening. “I need more time. I haven’t seen her, but there are more rooms in the asylum, floors I haven’t even been on.
I asked around every chance I got, but it’s hard to get answers when there are guards standing over you every second.
There was a girl I asked, and I think she was about to answer, but they made us shut up.
A boy overheard me asking another time, and he said ‘there are ghosts in the attic.’ I know how that sounds, but I have to know.
I can’t get this close and then walk away. I have to know if she’s here.”
“Or if she was,” Heath says, standing and brushing off his jeans.
“So, none of y’all are leaving?” Walker asks. “I got you here for nothing?”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” Saint says, standing too.
“Oh, that’s right,” Walker says. “It was for Mercy. So y’all could ride in like white knights and rescue your damsel. Except it doesn’t look like she needs or wants rescuing. She said it herself. She came here willingly. You made me think my family was sex trafficking, and it wasn’t even true.”
“Hey, we didn’t make you believe that,” Angel says. “You believed it without question. You must have already had doubts if you didn’t outright think it to begin with.”
“The fucking audacity,” Walker says, shaking his head. “And you, especially, North. Up there on your high horse acting like your family is one single grain of sand better.”
He picks up a handful of sand and tosses it at Angel before turning and striding off down the beach in disgust. “You might check the Boneyard for your friend,” he calls back over his shoulder, and then he’s stepping past the turn in the rocks, out of sight of the hidden alcove where we huddle.
“Good,” Angel says. “Now that he’s gone, let’s get this operation underway.”
“Still not sure why he was here,” I say. “But you were right. They are trafficking girls. I can’t just leave them here. Whoever wants to come—”
“Wherever one of us goes, we all go,” Father Salvatore says, cutting me off, his words filled with finality that slices straight through my heart.
For them, it’s not even a question. And not just my brother and my boyfriend, not just my childhood best friends, but our father too.
The father of all of us, the one we all needed, one who loves and watches and accepts us as we are—sinners who are still worthy of salvation.
“Okay,” I say, tears blurring my eyes. For so long, they had each other’s backs, no matter what.
Now they have mine. “Thank you. I love you. All of you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it back.
” I turn to Angel, and he slides an arm around my lower back and pulls me to him, drawing me up on tiptoes.
He leans down, planting a hard kiss on my lips.
“I know, baby girl,” he says. “I never doubted it for a second.”
I cradle his cheek, seeking one more kiss before I pull back. I turn to the group. Father Salvatore has joined us, and we all stand around contemplating our next move.
“We need to find out if she’s here, or if she’s been here,” I say. “They did mention that men sometimes buy the girls permanently.”
“We saw that,” Father Salvatore says. “There were mentions of an auction on the site Nathaniel found.”
I nod. “Okay, that’s a good lead. First, I want to make sure she’s not here. So we need to search the place. Maybe Nate can check the cameras?”
“And the graveyard,” Heath says quietly, nodding in the direction Walker disappeared.
“They’ll have records,” Father Salvatore says. “If we can find those, we can at least know for certain what we’re looking for. Much less risk than trying to access to the entire asylum to search room by room.”
“And I bet I know just where to find those,” I say, remembering Dr. Augustine’s little cottage out back.
I beam at Father Salvatore, and he looks away, like he can’t bear to accept my admiration.
Someone needs to teach him the lesson he’s taught the rest of us so well—that there’s no shame in his desires. But now is not the time.
He clears his throat. “Nathaniel said they might be hard copies, but we’ll have service once we’re back there, so we can call him if we need digital access.”
“Then let’s bounce,” Angel says. “Before the tide comes in any further.”
We start back down the beach. The tide rises with each wave that crashes, but instead of the steady rhythm that they take on a normal beach, they’re churning and irregular, running sideways instead of forward half the time.
There must be riptides and other currents formed between the mainland and the island, and combined with the shape of the shoreline, it makes messy, frothing, and extremely dangerous waters.
“Is everyone feeling up to the hike back?” Father Salvatore asks as we hurry along the diminishing strip of sand.
“Not much choice,” Heath says. “I’m not staying here.”
“We might all be staying here if we don’t get off this beach soon,” Saint says, hugging the base of the rocky cliffside as a wave rolls up, almost catching his feet.
We pick up our pace, and my heart starts hammering.
We all know how to swim, thanks to the sweltering summer heat in Arkansas that had all our parents packing us off to pools, rivers, creeks, and lakes every chance they got, but taking a dip in the icy Atlantic in April sounds like a recipe for hypothermia.
Not to mention that the waves might dash us to pieces against the stones once they rise high enough.
We fall into grim silence, rushing along at a pace that’s just short of a jog.
The waves rush up around our feet and ankles, so cold my bones instantly ache once my shoes are soaked through.
Without a word, Saint grabs me around the waist, tosses me over his shoulder, and starts to run through the churning, sloshing water.
“I can walk,” I protest. “You’ll wear yourself out carrying me.”
“You’re slowing us down,” he grunts, not releasing me. “Your legs are too short.”
“Rude,” I mutter, burning with humiliation not at his insult, but at the thought that I’m the burden, that it’s my fault that they’re all going to be wet and cold on the walk back. It’s not like I could have done anything about it, though. I can’t help how I’m built.
“Rude would be leaving you,” Saint says, reaching the incline at last, where the cliff face ends and we can scramble up the sandy, crumbling dune. He drops me onto my feet. “I’m not leaving you. Ever.”
“At least until a girl who’s not your sister comes along,” I mutter, starting up the slope.
Saint grabs me and spins me around in one motion. “Not ever,” he says, his eyes burning into mine like twin firebrands. “You think I fuck anyone like that? I don’t. Only you, Em. Only ever you.”
I want to kiss him, but the others are behind us, crowding in, trying to keep going.
So I turn back, not wanting to slow them down again.
Even though they came all this way, and Saint’s telling me otherwise, I haven’t unlearned the things I was taught all my life—that if I’m too much trouble, I’ll be discarded, shunted off on someone else.
So I turn and continue up the hill. “What about Ronique?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
“Who?” Saint asks.
I can’t tell if he’s joking.
“Your girlfriend?” I say, bitterness creeping into my tone.
“My girlfriend’s name is Mercy.”
“I thought that was your sister.”
“My sister, my girlfriend, my favorite filthy little cum slut,” he says. “Now shut up before I bend you over and fuck you right here in the dirt.”
I swallow hard, my pulse fluttering and my core doing the same at his words.
I shouldn’t be able to feel that way when I’m wet and cold and exhausted, not to mention already sore from their roughness last night, but I can’t stop my body from wanting what it wants.
And now, I don’t try. Father Salvatore taught me to accept myself, never shaming me for who I love or what I enjoy, never shaming my brother for wanting me back.
He endorsed this, encouraged us to explore our desires and submit to our bodies’ demands.
Now, when I think of the next time I’ll be with Saint, I feel no shame, only anticipation and a touch of trepidation, knowing he’ll hurt and humiliate me… And that I’ll get off on it.
He may have fought it longer than I did, but we’ve both accepted it now.
I always wanted it, even before I admitted it, and long before he did.
Even when I fought them, when I ran from Heath, when I begged them, I was always willing.
I was begging for them to take the shame from me, to let me be free, and now I am.
I was never fighting them, not really. I was fighting my own desire.
And now I’ve embraced it, thanks to Father Salvatore.
When we reach the top of the incline and are out of sight of the looming mansion that in the early dawn’s light appears abandoned save for one murky yellow light from an attic window, we stop to regroup.
“Does anyone need to rest?” Father Salvatore asks, looking from one of us to the next.
He produces a handful of nutrition bars from his pocket and a single bottle of water.
“It’s not much of a breakfast, but I didn’t know we’d be staying so long.
Take one and have a drink. We’ll find more food and water at the hospital. ”
“Damn, you’ve been holding out on us,” Heath says.
He looks a little pale, but he got more rest than anyone, having fallen asleep almost as soon as we sat down in the overhang below.
I dozed on and off throughout the early morning hours too, but not nearly enough to make up for the strenuous fight last night.
I test my bruises as we eat in silence, passing the bottle around and taking turns sipping the water.
I notice Father Salvatore doesn’t have anything, but he refuses when I offer to share. I reluctantly finish off my bar, knowing that taking care of us is what makes him happy.
We walk in silence, hugging ourselves against the cold wind that’s blown up, sweeping over the island in damp, salt-scented gusts.
It looks like a storm is blowing in from the east, and I’m glad we decided against going back to the mainland.
Still, pushing through the wind as well as the exhaustion only tires us out more.
But at last, after what feels like hours, when the murky morning light has crept through the brewing storm clouds to drench the island, we come over a slight swell and see the asylum rising through the trees.
Against the howling wind and tossing trees, the hulking old building looks steadfast and impenetrable, foreboding as an ancient, evil god crouching under the ominous, dark clouds, waiting for us.
I point to the doctor’s small house with its neat white paint, dwarfed by the huge stone building and insignificant in comparison. “There,” I say. “That’s where we cut off the head of the beast.”