twenty-one
The Merciful
Angel carries me home this time, laying me down and carefully tucking me into bed with my clothes still on. He sinks onto the edge of the twin bed and strokes my hair back. I catch the briefest glimpse of his tan palm, the white scars that match mine still visible.
“You okay?” he asks, his eyes kind and sympathetic.
“A little sore,” I admit. “But I’ve been worse.”
“Stay right there,” he says, standing and going to my desk. He opens the drawer, and my heart jolts, but he only pulls out my bottle of ibuprofen and comes back. He hands me a couple and a glass of water, his strong hand propping my head up while I drink.
I sink back onto the pillows and look up at him. “What does it all mean?” I whisper, hoping that he’s the one who will tell me the truth, now that I have him alone. He was always the sweet one, a regular little boy, the jokester despite his tough world.
He shakes his head. “I wish I knew, lamb.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I press.
His lips tighten. “I’m going to protect you,” he says. He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. My eyes fall closed, my cheeks heating as I remember where that mouth has been, what it did to me. I can smell myself on him, my shame still lingering on his lips.
“Promise?” I whisper, gripping the edge of the afghan.
“I promise,” he says, dropping his forehead against mine. “But I lied about one thing.”
“What?” I whisper, my voice barely a breath.
“Gluttony isn’t my favorite sin,” he murmurs, stroking the strawberry blonde locks spilling over the white pillowcase. “You are. You’re my favorite sin, Mercy Soules.”
A tremor goes through me, but I can’t speak. My throat is too tight, my head spinning too fast.
After a long moment, he stands, tucks the sheet tightly under my chin, and switches off the light. The door opens, and for a moment, his large frame is silhouetted there, my protective, avenging angel. Then the door swings closed, and I hear it lock. My heart flips. He has the key. That’s how they’ve gotten in all these times.
I wait in the dark, my heart pounding, for a long time. When I’m sure he’s gone, I slip out of bed and turn on the light. I slide down and sit on the floor, leaning against my bed. A wave of dizzying shame crashes into me when I see my shoes set neatly under the edge of the bed, where Angel put them after carrying me home because my legs were too weak to hold me after what they did.
I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. When the burning in my veins doesn’t subside, I give in at last. Forcing my shoulders to relax, I find a hairpin that fell from my hair when Angel undid my bun and pick up one of my clogs. I hold it in my lap, turning it as I pry off the sole with the edge of the hair clip. I can already feel the fear and desperation fading, single-minded focus replacing the weeks of tumult and torment tumbling through my mind.
I set the sole of my shoe on the floor beside me. Gripping the small black rectangle inside, I pull it free, the Velcro making a satisfying ripping sound. I couldn’t have it rattling around in there, making people suspicious. Kicking my other shoe away, I pull out my drawer and push aside my bible, finding the two-inch adapter that plugs from my regular phone charger into the burner.
I thought about taping it to the underside of the drawer, or even the inside of the back cover of my bible. But as any good sneak knows, the best hiding place is in plain sight. If someone saw it taped into my bible, they’d know I was hiding it. When they tossed my room, they would have known it was important. No one would give it a second thought when it’s thrown in a drawer with an extra charging block, a spare pair of earbuds, a pair of headphones and an adapter for that, my e-reader and charger, and an aux cord still in the package.
I plug it into my charger, then push the other end into the phone. It blinks on a moment later, still charging, and I sigh with relief. Of course it still has minutes, but I never know when the cheap phone will crap out on me.
I sit back on the bed and punch in the number from memory. Then I hit call.
My contact answers on the fourth ring, just when I think he’s not going to pick up for an unknown number.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s Mercy.”
“Well, if it isn’t my little sparkplug,” he says. “Where the fuck you been?”
“Around,” I say vaguely.
“Haven’t heard from you in months,” he drawls. “I was beginning to think you left town.”
I came back to town, but he doesn’t know that. He probably assumes I’ve always lived here, and I let him. For our arrangement, it’s best if we know as little as possible about each other. For two years, I’ve been sneaking up to Faulkner when I needed a break from the monotony of my aunt’s safe house and he needed me. But I haven’t lived here in all the time I’ve known him.
Until now.
“You’re a man who can get things for people, right?”
“What kind of things?”
“The things people call on burner phones to ask for.”
He hesitates a long moment. I’ve never asked for a favor before, but I don’t know many people involved in illegal activities, and I can’t exactly ask the boys I grew up with.
“For a price,” he says at last.
I sigh. “Of course. What’s the price?”
“For you?” he asks. “How about a date? You like pie?”
“Everyone likes pie.”
“Great,” he says. “Downtown Diner, say, Friday night?”
My mouth waters at the memory of Scarlet’s famous homemade pies. But then I imagine walking into the diner like nothing happened, looking into the scarred face of the owner, pretending I didn’t put her son behind bars.
“I’ll have to take a rain check,” I say, pulling my cardigan around me as if I can stave off the chill of that thought. Scarlet would probably drop arsenic in my pie if I dared to step through her doors.
He groans. “Rejected again. I’m starting to think you don’t really love me.”
“Be for real,” I say, laughing awkwardly. “A guy like you? You don’t need a date with me. You must have five other girlfriends already.”
“But none of them are quite like you.”
“Flattering as your words may be, they won’t change my mind.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he says. “Not every guy can say he went out with someone famous.”
That makes me snort. “I’m famous to exactly one person—you. No one else would even look twice if they saw me.”
“I’d bet money that the amount of double takes you get walking down the street would break records.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
“Then you seriously underestimate your hotness,” he says. “Why do you think I keep asking?”
“Because you’re a shameless flirt, and you know I’ll say no.”
“Alright, well, I do in fact have one girlfriend, and she’s going to get pissed if she finds me talking to another girl while I’m at her house, so what do you need, Red?”
“I need case files,” I say. “For a case that happened four years ago.”
“That should be easy enough. Your lawyer could probably get them for you.”
“It’s a juvenile case. They’re all sealed files.”
He pauses. “You know this is highly illegal.”
I laugh at that. “If it wasn’t, I’d be emailing, not calling you on a burner.”
“That’s fair,” he says, chuckling a little as well. “Do you know the case number?”
“There’s actually three,” I say. “I have the names of the boys. I need to know everything there is to know about the case.”
“Anything for you, my little psycho.”
“You can get them?”
“Lucky for you, I have connections,” he says. “So yes.”
I sink back on the bed in relief, closing my eyes and drawing a breath. It’s past time I know what I’m dealing with. Past time I got justice for Eternity.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll work it off… Whenever you have an opening.”
“Two weeks,” he says. “Friday night.”
I pick up the cross hanging around my neck and slip it between my lips, twisting it to bring the arms against the tender inside. I press my lips together and jerk it out, wincing at the pain before the salve of warm blood spreads over my tongue. I let it calm me, spreading over my jangling nerves like a blanket of dew on a summer morning.
“I’ll be there.”
I hang up without waiting for a response. After erasing the call from the call log, I stand and pull open my drawer, wipe down my phone with rubbing alcohol, and wrap it in tissue before shoving it into my clog. Then I leave my room, pulling the door closed and making sure it’s locked. After slipping off my clogs, I descend the stairs silently and peek around the corner. The nun at the desk is snoring, her head back and her mouth hanging open.
Finally a lucky break.
I sneak past her and hurry across the deserted campus, hugging my cardigan closed against the damp chill. I check over my shoulder every few steps, the hair on the back of my neck prickling with paranoia. I swear I hear a soft footfall in the grass, but when I turn, there’s only the wind. Ducking my head, I break into a slow jog. If I’m caught, I’ll be questioned. Why am I out after curfew, sneaking around campus alone, in the dark?
It doesn’t matter what excuse I come up with. No one would ever guess the truth.
When I reach the dining hall, I check around me again before I circle behind it, pull open the corner of the dumpster, and bend to pry open my clog. I drop the tissue-wrapped phone into the bin and fix my shoe. I’ll order a new phone tomorrow.
For now, I’m relieved of any evidence.
Pulling my cardigan tighter around me, I hurry back to my dorm. The moon turns the dewy grass silver like the eyes of the Sincero boy who called me a whore. I look away, shame burning through me. He’s right. I can still feel their fingers inside me, the stretch, the damning ecstasy of being seen that way, treated that way, humiliated that way. At the reminder, heat pulses inside the dull ache of tenderness they left.
I hurry to my building just in time to catch a flash of pink disappearing around a corner inside, so quick I can almost believe I imagined the person inside the dorm. Heart beating, I yank open the door and charge in, ignoring the nun, who lets out a startled snort as she wakes. I race up the stairs with her voice echoing behind me, asking where I’ve been. The clatter of my clogs masks any other noise, and I curse the necessity of them.
If I was a better person, I’d go back and obediently answer the sister’s questions. But then, if I was a better person, I wouldn’t have snuck out at all. Guilt chews at me with the realization that I ran because I knew she wouldn’t bother to come after me—and because I needed to know who else is sneaking around. Which girl is spying, and is she doing it for the Hellhounds or the Sinners?
My guilt isn’t enough to send me back to confess that I snuck out and take my punishment, and my curiosity is stronger than my sense of duty. I need to find the spy, to get answers from her.
I reach my room and lurch to a halt when I see the answer to my question waiting.
There’s blood on the door.
Another message scrawled in dripping red.
On the day of judgment, they will give account for every careless word they speak.
This time, there’s no picture. It takes me a second to identify what they left instead. I lean closer, then sway on my feet, my stomach lurching sickeningly. My hand flies to my mouth, silencing the scream that lodges in my throat.
It’s not a message. It’s a warning.
Affixed to my door with a long, iron nail is a human tongue.
The gruesome sight draws my eyes like a magnet. My heart beats double-time, spelling out the terrible truth before me.
He knows.
What’s Mercy up to? And who’s leaving her threatening messages in blood? Find out more about Mercy and her men in book 2, Of Angels & Absolution.