sixteen
The Merciful
I have never felt such sin in my life, such burning lust in every cell in my body, every pulse of my heartbeat between my thighs, every breath and thought. Father Salvatore has invaded every one, bringing me to levels of shame I never thought possible.
He’s a priest, a man of God, above such base instincts.
And there I was, more craven than the lowest sinner in the deepest pit of hell, picturing unholy acts that should never even be imagined, tiptoeing along lines that can never be uncrossed, biting my lip to keep from saying things to him that would damn us both. I scold myself fiercely as I walk away, cursing my weak flesh, my carnal urges.
Of course I was imagining that I saw the same primal hunger burning in his coffee irises as he looked back at me, waiting for my answer as if his entire life hung in the balance, depending on that one word I’d speak. I knew what I had to say, even if every lesson I’ve ever learned in Bible study and Sunday school taught me otherwise. I knew that any other answer was not just dishonest but impossible.
And I knew in that moment that my worth, my value, my purity, were in his hands. I will never be able to deny him, to say anything else to a man of the cloth. He’s a leader, a father, my shepherd. My obedience to him is programmed into every cell in my body, into every lesson I’ve ever learned and every belief I’ve ever held. He holds the fate of my eternal soul in his beautiful, gentle hands, the ones that stroked my rope-burned wrists and danced over my bitten throat as softly as a feather.
He would never betray that trust.
I know he wouldn’t. He’s a good man.
I did my homework, looking him up after the first day of classes, when each time I met his dark, transparent gaze, I felt a sizzle of connection. I know it’s only because I confessed to him the most shameful things I’ve ever told anyone, that we alone share the knowledge of my sinful nature.
Or we did, before Heath.
But Father Salvatore didn’t steal them from me. He let me lay them at his feet, let me reveal them myself, expose myself to him in a way even more devastating than the way the plague doctor revealed me to the Hellhounds last night. Last night, I had no choice. I didn’t get to make that decision. When I told Father Salvatore, I wanted him to see. I wanted him to know my sins, to know me in a way that’s intimate beyond my physical body.
I’m so distracted I barely notice the footsteps behind me. When I’m halfway back to my dorm and they haven’t disappeared, I’m finally dragged from my daze. Glancing over my shoulder, I halfway expect to see the priest behind me. My heart stops at the thought, but there’s no one there.
Suddenly, the heat churning inside me is replaced by an icy shiver as I notice the leaves on a row of bushes swaying even though the day is still as if we’re trapped under a glass dome. Sweat breaks out along my back, and my fingers shake as I clutch my books tighter to my chest. Is someone following me?
Turning, I start toward the dorm again, pulling my blazer closed around me even though the late summer day is sultry and oppressive. The footsteps begin again, keeping pace with me, not trailing off when I hurry even faster, almost running. I glance around nervously, hoping someone will be out for an early lunch or skipping class like me, but the gravel path back to my dorm is empty.
Classes last all morning, but I couldn’t face another one after that encounter with the priest. All I want is to go back to my room and scrub my body until it burns all over, until my skin hurts too much to feel the incessant, throbbing need between my thighs. I go over Father Salvatore’s stats to distract myself from the crunch of gravel behind me.
He moved here two years ago—two years after I left Faulkner. Before that he served at a big Catholic church in Boston while he got his PhD. This is his first job as a professor. He went to seminary school in New York. I couldn’t find much about his childhood or background aside from his age and birthplace. Though he’s only thirty and grew up with plenty of social media available, I couldn’t find him on any of the usual platforms or even an old, abandoned Myspace page with Tom as his only remaining friend. He may have private accounts, but I’m not a hacker, so all I could do was search through a few hundred guys named Dante Salvatore.
I’m almost to the dorm when the footsteps have drawn so close I’m sure the person behind me is going to grab me. I consider running, but clogs on gravel is not a combination that’s going to get me far. Finally, I spin around, my books tumbling from my arms except a thick religious studies text that I keep tucked to my chest. This time, he’s too close to duck behind the bushes, and I come face to face with one of the Sincero boys.
“What do you want?” I ask, glancing around to check that we’re still alone. The idyllic campus is empty, the last drops of dew sparkling in the late-morning sun, the leaves on the trees and bushes hanging heavy in the heat.
“We want you,” he says, cracking a grin that doesn’t begin to touch the cold silver of his eyes.
My blood runs cold as I remember one of the girls gossiping on the first day of school, saying they always travel in a pack. Or was that the Hellhounds?
Either way, his use of the word we has me taking in the deserted campus again. Are there more of them than I can see, hidden in the bushes or waiting to emerge from around the corner of the building?
“Why?” I demand, shifting my stance in my chunky clogs. I grip both edges of my book, hoping he doesn’t notice the adrenaline and fear coursing through me.
“Do I need a reason?” he asks, stepping closer.
“Don’t touch me,” I warn.
“If you’re the sacrifice, your entire purpose in life is to be touched,” he says. “Touched… Tasted… Fucked.”
I watch the otherworldly color of his eyes heat like mercury in a thermometer, and he rolls his lips in, wetting them and letting his gaze rake over me in one slow pass.
“I’m not the sacrifice,” I say firmly. It’s not a lie. I told them I was out, that I didn’t want to be there, and they let me go. That means I’m not, no matter what their leader said before that. They didn’t sacrifice me, after all.
A wolfish grin spreads across the Sinner’s face. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says, reaching out and sliding his fingers through my hair, sending a rush of tingles over my scalp and down my back. “See, we can’t fuck with the Hellhounds’ sacrificial lamb. But since you’re not off limits…”
My gaze darts around, but we’re still alone.
“Come with me like an obedient little lamb, and no one gets hurt,” says the silver-eyed Sincero boy. Then he thrusts his hand behind my head, jerking me forward.
I bring the heavy textbook up with both hands, slamming it into the bottom of his jaw. His teeth snap together so loud I can hear the crack when they meet. He stumbles backwards, his free hand flying to his chin, his other hand tightening on the back of my neck. Dropping my book, I duck and twist at the same time, doing a quick corkscrew under his hand to get myself free and end up facing him again.
“You bitch,” he snarls, baring his teeth and swiping for me as I toss my hair back, cursing myself for wearing it down.
I deliver a quick throat jab that leaves him gasping for breath and grabbing his neck with both hands, his eyes so wide I can see white all the way around the eerie silver discs of his irises.
“I told you not to touch me,” I remind him. I glance around again, making sure there are no more of them before swiping my books from the ground and straightening. “And when you can talk again, you can tell your brothers I’m no one’s obedient little lamb.”
I turn and hurry inside, where I see one of the Sisters sitting behind the front desk. She quickly slips her phone under an open Bible and gives me a guilty smile. I hurry past her and up the stairs, my heart hammering, my fingers tingling, the gnawing feeling inside me so strong I can almost hear it, like rats inside the walls of an old house.
When I reach my door, I stop, a scream of frustration nearly bursting out of me. I just wanted to go inside and kneel on the hard floor and pray until my knees are bruised, or take a cold shower, or anything to keep from exploding. Instead, I come face to face with a message that’s not nearly as easy to ignore as the paper shoved under my door the night Heath took me to the crypt to hear my own confession.
A scripture is painted on my door in dripping blood, the crooked letters making every hair on my body stand on end and my brain scream, RUN!
All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.
I struggle to swallow, even my throat shaking. Reaching out, I carefully pluck the pin from the picture below the letters. Blood runs over the image, an old-fashioned polaroid, obscuring it partially. I smear it away with my thumb, my heart pounding. The image is as fresh as the blood, captured only this morning. In it, Angel is holding me to him, his mouth claiming mine.
My first kiss, immortalized in all its gory glory.
A chill wracks my body, and I glance up and down the hall wildly, sure I can feel someone watching.
I’m alone.
But someone could be watching from one of the other rooms, hidden from my view but able to witness my terror. I fumble my keys, thrusting them roughly into the lock with shaking fingers. My blood-slicked palm slides on the knob, and another wave of terror crashes over me before I get my grip and rush into my room, so relieved I could cry.
It’s short-lived.
The moment my back hits the door and my brain catches up with my eyes, I know I won’t be relaxing anytime soon. The mattress is flipped sheet-side down. The drawers have been yanked out and all the clothes have been dumped. Shoes and blazers and skirts lie haphazardly strewn across the floor, along with notebooks and papers. One of my books lies on the floor, the pages bent and torn from being trampled by careless feet. My whole room is trashed.
I lurch toward the bed, searching for Raphael. My mind is reeling as I paw through the clothes, then find a pile of blankets and pillows. I shake out the blanket, almost crying with relief when his tattered brown body flops out of the sheet. I cradle him to my chest and sink down beside the bed, pressing my back to the mattress and dropping my head back to say a silent prayer of thanks that he’s okay.
At last, I kick off my clogs and root around in my bag for my phone.
“Hey, Mercy,” Aunt Lucy says cheerfully on the other end. “How are classes? I hope I haven’t heard from you because you’ve been so busy with your new friends on campus.”
My voice shakes when I speak. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, her voice softening. “Do you need to come home? What happened?”
I squeeze my eyes closed and hold the phone to my ear. If I tell her, she’ll worry. If I tell her, Heath will send her my confession.
He has to be behind this. He and Angel and Saint are trying to scare me. It’s just a more intimate version of a brick through the window.
I can deal with those boys.
What choice do I have?
“I just… Haven’t made any friends,” I admit.
“Oh, honey,” Lucy says. “I’m so sorry. I was afraid I kept you too sheltered.”
“It’s not you,” I assure her. My aunt has done so much for me, given up so much, gotten me so much help. I can’t give her more to worry about, more guilt about things that aren’t her doing.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asks. “Do you need to come home this weekend?”
I think about it, about the comfy bubble of her home, all rounded corners and ambient lighting, the smell of essential oils and homemade cookies. I imagine sinking back into the life that kept me safe for so long, the two of us sitting side by side, crocheting while we watch romantic movies where the woman always dies at the end, crying into our hot cocoa with the little marshmallows she bought because she knew I loved them.
I shake the picture from my mind. I love my aunt, but I’m not like her. I can’t live my life in a soft haze of cushioned contentment. I need purpose.
“Saint goes here,” I say at last. “Did you know that?”
“Honey…”
“You did know,” I say, closing my eyes and massaging the bridge of my nose. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have gone if you’d known?” she asks.
Yes, I would have gone. I would have run into his arms and begged him to forgive me for doing the right thing, for telling the truth.
But I don’t say anything to my aunt. I owe her so much. She took me in when I had nowhere to go, let me live with her for four years without a single complaint, as if she wanted a kid all along. But I never got attached to her the way I did with my parents. Maybe I was too old, already fourteen by the time I was rehomed with her. By then, I couldn’t trust anyone.
“Besides,” she says. “Your mother thought maybe you two could reconcile.”
There’s a weighted silence while I try to swallow, to remove the knife of betrayal that slices into me with her words. It’s not fair, the things I expect from her. But life was never fair to me, either.
“You talked to Mom,” I say flatly.
“She’s my sister,” she says, an edge of pleading in her voice.
“You’re right. It’s fine.”
“Maybe it’s time you saw her too,” she says, her words tentative, an offer more than a suggestion. She never knew what to do with me, how to raise a traumatized teenager whose mother dumped her off like a stray. She did the best she could, and I can’t fault her for loving me the only way she knew how. She’s more than I deserved.
“I have to go,” I say. “I need to clean my room.”
She sighs. “I love you, Mercy.”
“Love you too.” I hang up and drop my phone, silently battling the demons clamoring inside me. I need to get them out.
Instead, I let them pull me under for a moment. I remember the fight I heard that night, when I realized how my parents felt about me. Dad’s words confirmed my deepest fears, the feelings I’d always had. I was an outsider. No matter how many times Saint picked me, no matter how many times Mom told me I was part of the family, I didn’t belong. I had to be picked, which meant I could be put back.
“I only told her to tell the truth,” Mom argued. “She’s not lying, Jim.”
“The truth is going to get our son locked up,” he said.
A shiver always goes through me when I replay that part of the conversation. He knew Saint was guilty. That’s when I knew too. Before that, I didn’t know what to believe.
“She’s going to ruin our family,” he said. “You’re really going to let her do that to our son? Our actual son?”
“She’s our actual daughter,” Mom said.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “You didn’t give birth to Mercy. We didn’t name her. Saint is our son . Are you going to watch him go to juvenile hall because of some misguided need to prove otherwise, to show everyone we treat her like our real daughter when everyone knows she’s not?”
And Mom didn’t say otherwise, didn’t argue again, and that’s when I knew she felt the same, that deep down, neither of them had ever loved me the way they pretended—the way they loved Saint.
“It’s not our job to decide his punishment,” Mom said instead.
“He made a mistake. Does he deserve to have his whole life, his future, ruined because of it?” Dad asked. “If she’s part of the Soules family, she should protect our name the same way I’m trying to protect it. The same way I thought you’d protect us. You’re a Soules now. I thought you understood what that meant when we got married, but maybe you never did. Maybe only blood understands.”
“Thou shalt not lie,” she said. “What would we be teaching her—both our children, in fact—if we made an exception for one of God’s commandments to protect our son from justice?”
“It’s not justice and you know it,” my father yelled.
That’s when I snuck back to my room, lying in bed wondering what I should do. Lie and protect my brother who always protected me, or tell the truth and trust that God would protect me?
It wasn’t until later, when I’d told the truth to the judge, when I’d not only sent my brother to juvie but also his two friends, that the phone calls started. Calls that made my mother turn pale even though she said it was the wrong number and hung up without saying anything else. Calls that made Dad go in the other room and make his own phone calls afterwards. There were a lot of fights for a month, and then there was a brick through the window. That’s when Mom packed me up and took me to my aunt’s for a few days.
“Just until this all blows over.”
That’s what she said. She said she’d stay with me, but a week later, Dad ordered her to come home. Mom was a godly wife, an obedient one who did as the head of her house told her to do. By the time I realized it would never blow over, it was too late. She was gone.
Not too long after, my aunt told me that Saint had come home. She said I could go home too, but I knew better. If I was wanted at home, my parents would have come to get me. If Saint wanted the little sister he’d always asked for, he would have come to pick me up like he always did. He would have picked me even after what I’d done.
But he never came, and neither did my parents. They sent generic birthday cards where Mom signed for all three of them. Sometimes she’d write, “We love you.” But the words were as meaningless as the checks enclosed.
I didn’t need birthday cards. I didn’t need cash. I needed my family.
I needed Eternity. I needed my other friends, the ones who were gone forever, long after they’d served their sentences.
They didn’t need me.
They have each other.
They have their families.
They have the truth.
And I want all of it.