Chapter 26
Mercy
The days blur together. Somehow, I pull together a project worthy of a B for my painting class, and then the fall bleeds into winter.
I don’t hear from Sam at all.
Keeping busy around the house helps. With my siblings’ absence and my dad’s impossible schedule keeping the morgue running, things have fallen into disarray.
The dishes keep piling up. My grandmother’s run out of tea and no one has restocked for her.
We haven’t switched out our summer blankets for the winter ones, and squirrels keep breaking into the attic.
I’m on the roof to assess the damage and find their hidey-hole when Kane’s motorcycle roars down the driveway.
He jumps off after skidding to a halt and kicking up gravel dust.
Throwing off his helmet, he lunges for the ladder. “What the hell are you doing?” He climbs the rungs in record time and unsnaps the belt around my waist to claim my tools for himself. “Get down. I’ll fix it. Where’s the leak?”
“It’s not a leak,” I sigh, staring at the blocked gutters. “It’s an infestation. We have friends in the attic, and the gutters—” Stress builds quickly, and I feel it pull at my spine. “I should have been paying more attention. I’ll fix it.”
Kane hooks my belt around his forearm and grabs me by the shoulders. “No, I’ll fix it. Go back inside.” He glances down at the ice clinging to the roof. “It’s not safe up here.”
Scoffing, I puff out a breath. It clouds the air around us. “It’s not safe anywhere, Kane.”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You’ve been listening to Zane.”
“It’s hard to ignore when he keeps spiraling.” I rub my tired eyes. “I thought you talked to him.”
“I did. He’s stressed the fuck out. Again.”
Even with a broken arm, Zane hasn’t slowed down. If anything, he’s gotten more manic, pacing the kitchen and ranting to my poor grandmother. She plys him with tea and manages to make him sit before he hurts himself, but there’s only so much any of us can do. He needs professional help.
I contacted my psychiatrist a week ago and squeezed Zane in for an introductory appointment. He doesn’t know about it yet, but Kane and I have been working up to telling him… Sighing, I pull Kane’s phone from his pocket to check the time. “His appointment is in two hours. Are you taking him?”
Kane’s forehead wrinkles. “Yeah, but…” He turns his head towards the old church they’ve claimed as a temporary base of operations. Zane hasn’t come out yet this morning. “I think you should take him instead.”
“Are you crazy?” My foot slips, and I hold onto Kane to keep from falling. “He doesn’t even like me!”
Cursing aloud, Kane shuffles us away from the edge of the roof.
“Shit, Mercy, you’re gonna to break your neck up here.
” He sighs. “Look, I’ll work on the house today if you promise to take care of Zane for me.
You know the doctor and what to expect. I don’t.
This is out of my wheelhouse.” Meeting my gaze, he smiles wryly.
“Zane isn’t nearly as prickly as you think he is. He’s just been in a bad mood lately.”
“Ever since he met me,” I grumble, brushing the hair from my eyes and tucking it behind my ear. “Fine, I’ll take him, but you need someone to help you up here. My dad’s got an address book with local businesses and people we know who owe us favors. Ask him where it is, or Grandma might know?”
While I’m rattling off instructions, Kane helps me get to the ladder. “I’ve got it. Go wake Zane.”
“He’s not up yet?”
Kane descends after me and jumps down the last two rungs. “Trouble sleeping.”
That must be going around. I’ve hardly gotten a good night’s sleep in God knows how long. “If you slept inside the house instead of out in the cold—”
“No.”
“My dad said you could stay in Malachi’s room.”
“We’re fine where we are, Siren. Don’t worry about us.”
I frown as he lengthens the tool belt and clips it around his waist. “The church is falling apart. Does it even have insulation? Or a roof?”
Kane chuckles and hooks his fingers over mine. “See for yourself.” Kissing my forehead, he pushes me towards the church. “Bring him some coffee and he might actually smile.”
That’s not a bad idea. While Kane hunts for my dad’s address book, I pour fresh coffee into a thermos and grab the last remaining blanket from the hall closet.
We reaaaally need to weather-proof the house, or it’ll be a terrible season.
The fireplace needs emptied, the chimney swept, firewood gathered—the list is endless, and my eye twitches as I think about it.
“While you’re in the attic, Kane, can you check for the box labeled Winter?
It should have blankets and decorations, maybe some fire starter logs?
If it’s not there, it might be in the storage room at the mortuary. Dad’s working, so he can let you in—”
Kane sneaks up behind me and wraps me in a bear hug. “Mercy—” He presses his face to the top of my head and takes a deep breath. “You’re an angel.”
Butterflies flutter inside my chest. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
He shakes his head with a soft laugh. “I’m trying to give you a compliment. Why does something have to be wrong?”
Because something’s always wrong.
“I dunno, I just…” I shrug. “Worry.”
About Zane’s mental health. Kane’s intentions, although sweet on the outside, and what ulterior motives he might have.
Sam’s sudden disappearance. My grandmother’s age.
My dad’s stress levels. My sister Lilith, locked in some mysterious contract, and my brother Malachi, wreaking all kinds of havoc in boarding school across the country.
None of us have heard from him in months, and he’s not returning our phone calls.
Hopefully he hasn’t been admitted to the hospital for psychosis again. Once he turned eighteen, they stopped calling us when he’d have episodes. Like Sam, he’s pretty much vanished.
I bite my lip as Sam’s dad’s assessment of my family echoes in my head. A psychiatric patient abandoned by his own family. My mood plummets as his statement rings true. Malachi is my little brother, and I haven’t been taking care of him.
I haven’t been taking care of anyone but myself.
Sighing, I drop my head onto Kane’s chest. “I need to do better.”
He brushes his hand through my hair. “You’re doing fine. Besides,” he murmurs, leaning back to meet my eyes. “You’ve got me now.” A small smile graces his lips as he pulls me in for a chaste kiss. “I won’t let you fall, Siren.”
My cheeks flush as he presses another kiss to my lips, this one just as soft as the last. “Thanks,” I murmur, not sure what else to say.
“I’ll, um, get going.” I feel his burning gaze on my back as I gather my things and hop down the front steps, making a circuit through the tombstones on my way to the church.
These could be cleaned up, too, although the ones closest to the church have been cleared of leaves and what little snow sticks to the ground.
Is that Kane’s doing, or is Zane doing yard work to cope with his anxiety?
I push open the heavy chapel doors without knocking.
I haven’t been inside in a long time, and the transformation is shocking.
Most of the pews have been broken down into planks and used to repair the walls or patch the hole in the roof, while a select few remain untouched near the pulpit.
The floor, although dated, has been sanded and sealed while the rotted boards have been replaced entirely.
Although there is no electrical wired to the building, a generator hums just outside a long stretch of windows, with cords snaked through a broken pane to power the string lights criss-crossing through the rafters, Zane’s computer system, and various hookups for charging cell phones and running space heaters.
It’s a nightmare for any fire department.
“Zane?” I wipe my feet on a brand new door mat covered in bright pink hearts and a bright orange sticker declaring 75% off!
stuck to the corner. No one responds to my call, but I catch a flicker of movement behind a computer station stacked with four monitors and a whirring desktop.
Beneath the tabletop, I spy slippered feet tapping incessantly.
“I brought coffee,” I proclaim loudly, hoping to rouse Zane’s attention. “I don’t have any sugar or cream—”
Dark eyes and tangled bed head peer around the edge of the closest set of monitors. “I’ll take it black.”
I walk over and pour a generous helping into the thermos lid before handing it over. Zane doesn’t wait for it to cool before taking a sip, grunting the moment it hits his tongue. “Tastes like shit. How old is this?”
I don’t know. Does coffee go bad? “You could say thanks.” Setting down the thermos on his desk, I cross my arms over my chest and stare over his shoulder at the computer screens.
All four of them have different projects pulled up, with two being devoted to fuzzy camera feeds of a bustling office and a conference room while another is rapidly auto-sorting emails.
The final monitor is a crisp video feed of Kane crouching off the rooftop with a flashlight stuck between his teeth and a hammer in hand.
“You were watching me?” Goosebumps trail down my arms. “For how long?”
“Since you got up this morning.” Zane takes another sip of coffee. “You don’t linger in bed anymore, do you?” He hums softly. “You used to sketch in the mornings before class.”
My dreams have been too erratic to try and pin down, so there’s no point in trying to sketch what I can’t see. Rather than tell Zane this, I offer another explanation. “There’s too much to do.”
“Like pretending you’re a carpenter?”
“Like fix up the house!” I smack his arm. “What are you doing, anyway? Playing solitaire?”
Zane stares at me with dead eyes. “Does this look like solitaire to you?” Sighing, he presses his thumbs to the backs of his eyelids. “I’m keeping an eye on Sam, okay? Butt out or I might miss something.”