four #2
“Right,” he says. We smoke in silence another minute, watching the downpour.
“Thing is, you never forget them, you never stop missing them, but you get used to it, y’know?
You think she’s never coming back. And then she does, and you’re like, shit, it’s been however many years, she’s so different.
But you kinda just accept that. This is who she is now.
Of course she’s changed. The hardest part…
I think it’s realizing how much you’ve changed.
You look at yourself through her eyes, see what she sees now when she looks at you compared to who you were when she left. That’s the hard part.”
I don’t know what to say to that because I’ve never thought about it.
I’ve thought about seeing her again a thousand times, more than a thousand.
Every single day, I’ve thought about Eternity.
I’ve already reminded myself she’s not a kid anymore, that she’ll be different if we meet again.
But I haven’t thought about how much I’ve changed, all the things that have changed me.
Eternity was a kid when she was taken, but so was I.
Duke tosses the cigarette butt onto the wet pavement. “What are you doing after this?”
I drop my head back against the stone wall, letting the smoke curl up from my lips in a cloud. “I gotta get going.”
“Same,” he says, but he stays.
He eyes me, his gaze moving up and down my body, assessing the damage we could do to each other.
I think, it would be easy to pull him into the crypt, to find a corner in the murky depths and beat away the frustration and turmoil in a few quick strokes, fists clenched around each other, teeth on stubble, hot tongue on rain-misted skin, fevered breath curling into the hollow of his throat.
But there are people who are easy come, easy go, and then there are people who look simple enough but once you let them in, they stick on you like a burr that you can never quite shake.
I can’t do that kind of complication right now.
I’m still figuring all of it out myself.
And maybe I’m reading all this into something that doesn’t exist, that isn’t there any more than my sister is there in the shadow of the sanctuary when I step inside, around the next turn in the tunnel when I explore the maze with my friends—the ones who remain.
“I gotta go,” I say, and I flip my hood up and jog through the rain. My insides are all churned up and messy, and I can’t stop thinking about what he said, about how much I’ve changed. Juvie did that to me. Juvie and Mercy.
I’m in her room before I can think better of it.
“Why did you tell the judge I killed my sister?” I demand.
Mercy scrambles up from a nest of pillows and blankets she’s made on the floor, dropping the book she was reading. “What?”
“You told him I went back and killed her,” I say, rage shimmering through me. “I was with you. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie,” she says, backing around her bed. “I didn’t tell him you killed her. I told the truth.”
“Then why did everyone think I did it? Why did they think I fucked my own sister?”
“I—I don’t know,” she cries. “I told them about what you did, when we were kids. The thing I confessed.” Her voice flags, and she looks away.
“The thing you liked,” I say flatly.
“I… He asked,” she whispers. “If you’d ever done anything like that before.”
“And you thought that was like raping and murdering my own sister?”
“No,” she cries. “I—I’m sorry, Heath. I didn’t know that’s what they’d think. I just told the truth.”
“You told them I was up on the road with you when they went under the bridge?”
“Yes!” She throws up her hands. “I told them everything I knew.”
“Then why do they think I was there?”
She swallows and looks away again, crossing her arms over her chest. She put the bed between us, but I consider diving over it, grabbing her, shaking the truth out of her.
Instead, I shove my hands into my pockets, hiding my clenched fists.
People think I’m violent because I am. That’s what they told me, over and over, for so many years that sometimes I’d almost convince myself I did it, that I went back, like they said I did.
Until the question whispered in the back of my mind, in the depths of the darkness . Did I?
I know I didn’t, but sometimes, while I lay awake, delaying the nightmares, I’d replay it, and I’d add in what they said, until I didn’t know if it was imagination or memory.
“They found DNA that matches Angel’s in the right amount,” she says, hugging herself tighter.
My heart jolts. “That matches hers?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I can’t find a DNA test for her.”
“What do you mean, you can’t find a DNA test?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
She swallows hard, resolutely refusing to meet my gaze. “I’ve been doing a little digging.”
“On my sister?” I demand, heat pulsing in my temples. My knuckles ache against the unyielding steel of my knife in my pocket.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Saint’s helping.”
“Liar,” I roar, lunging across the bed.
She shrieks and cowers against the wall, and I catch her upper arms, pinning her flat against the cinderblock.
“Saint wouldn’t lie to me,” I say, seething with anger.
Would he, though? Before Mercy came back, I wouldn’t have believed him capable.
But she’s always been his weakness. When we were kids, he’d do anything for her.
He would have jumped in front of a train for her, fought a lion with his bare hands, defended her to the death if someone threatened her.
As much as he pretends to hate her, he said he was going to fuck her.
So how much has really changed? It pisses me off that she has me doubting him.
He’s my brother, and nothing is supposed to come between us, least of all his bitch sister.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaks, quivering in my grasp.
“Tell me why.”
“Why?” she repeats.
“Why they think it was my DNA. Why you’re looking. Why after everything you did, you’re still trying to ruin my fucking life. What did I do to you that makes you hate me so fucking much, that after all this time, you’re still trying to destroy me.”
“Destroy you?” she asks. “I’m not—”
“Liar,” I snarl again. “You want to play innocent, but I know you, Mercy Soules. I know the darkest corners of your evil little heart. I know you’re not some fresh spring lamb.
I know you liked what I did to you back then, and you like what I do to you now.
You want to pretend you’re all sweet and innocent, but you’re just like us.
You always were. That’s why you were one of us. ”
“I’m not trying to destroy you,” she says. “I’m trying to find her.”
“Then why the fuck are you involving Saint?” I growl.
“Why are you having him lie to us, after everything? Taking away the one person who—who—” My voice cracks, and my breath burns in my nose, closes off my throat.
I rip my knife from my pocket and flip it open, holding it to her throat because I won’t show her how much it fucking kills me to know he still loves her more than us, more than anything, even after everything.
“He caught me,” she says, her voice desperate as I press the knife to her skin. “He made me tell him, and he said he’d help. That’s all.”
I scrape the sharp edge up her delicate neck, over the pulse I can see racing through her ivory skin. The sound of her whimpers of terror makes my cock stir, but pissed as I am, I know I can’t unleash myself on her, tear her apart like the heathen I am.
“And what did you find?”
She grips my wrist, her breath heaving, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Please, Heath.”
“I love the sound of you begging,” I growl against her cheek, catching a fat tear on the tip of my nose and following the tear track back up her cheek. “It makes me so hard. What about you? Does it make your pussy wet?”
“Yes,” she whispers, her voice trembling, her eyes falling closed.
“I knew it,” I say. “You loved it when I fucked you with my knife, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So don’t pretend you’re fucking innocent,” I say harshly, gripping her hair in one hand and the knife with the other, holding the blade to her artery. “Tell me what you fucking found.”
“They matched the DNA to Angel,” she says.
“And one more, they said would have been a cousin or—or half uncle. And they found the body, and I don’t think it was hers, but they said it was and closed the case.
It was sloppy and wrong and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Heath.
I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble.
I never meant for you to get sent away.”
As if she doesn’t know the knife could end her life in an instant, she drags herself away from the wall and throws her arms around my neck, sobs wracking her body. I stand there for a second not moving. I never expected an apology from her. She’s my enemy. She’s supposed to fight me, not… This.
“It’s okay,” I hear my voice say, and then my arms lift and wrap around her.
I fold my knife and slip it back into my pocket before sinking back with her in my arms. She curls into my lap, clinging to my neck like she can’t bear to let go.
Her head rests on my chest, and I feel her hot tears soaking my shirt, plastering the fabric to my skin.
I feel my heart pounding against her cheek, and she must feel it too, but she doesn’t move. Not for a long time.
At last, I kick off my shoes and lay her down, toss aside my jacket and pull her blanket nest on top of us in a big, messy pile.
Even though she’s usually fussy, she doesn’t protest. She lets me tuck her head under my chin, cradle her against me.
After a long time, she relaxes, her breath deepening as she falls asleep still nestled in my arms.
I lay awake, thinking about how long it’s been since I held a girl.
Maybe not since we were kids, and then it was her or my sister, nothing like this.
Or maybe it was just like this—simple, uncomplicated.
This isn’t romantic. It’s comforting, affectionate.
It’s something you do with a girl you love, and it’s been a long time since I loved a girl.
I’ve never loved a girl like this. I’ve only ever loved Eternity, and that was in a different way.
And I loved Mercy—I always loved her. After what she did, I decided I was never loving another girl in that way, the way that makes a guy dumb.
Sometimes I can’t tell if I still love her and I’m pissed about it, or if I hate her.
I thought we were even after Christmas, but it hasn’t changed everything.
I think I’ve forgiven her, especially after her apology today, but it still doesn’t bring the relief I wanted.
Eternity is still gone. The Quint is still fucked up.
And I still don’t know if I can trust myself to let her in, much less Mercy herself.
It pisses me off that she was going to look for my sister and not even fucking tell me, and it pisses me off even more that she roped my friend into keeping that a secret from me.
Saint may be her brother, but she gave him up when she turned on us.
He’s mine now. She has no right to come in here and try to get between us.
Or maybe that’s not what she wanted. Maybe she wants the same thing I’ve always wanted—answers. And maybe, finally, we can get them.