thirteen
The Angel
“Oh my god, this is my fault,” Mercy groans, dropping her head into her hands and rocking back and forth in Saint’s chair.
“Yeah,” he snaps. “It fucking is. If he dies…”
“He’s not going to die,” Dr. Swift says calmly from where he’s bent over Saint’s bed, extracting the bullet from our friend. “He’s going to be just fine.”
Since hospitals are required to report gunshot wounds to the police, our families tend to avoid them.
My dad doesn’t entirely trust Dr. Swift, who answers house calls to anyone in town, no matter which side of any argument or war they land on, but the wound was a little beyond Hemingway’s capabilities, so here we are.
At least Dr. Swift is neutral, and he’s discreet, so pretty much everyone calls him if they want to avoid law enforcement.
Of course, our family has some connections at the police station too, but it’s harder to deal with shit once reports have been made, and we can’t always count on our guys on the force to answer the call and bury it before cops with other agendas get wind of it.
“Is this really all you have?” Manson asks, emerging from the bathroom in a pair of Saint’s jeans, which are ridiculously baggy, and a flannel, which is even more oversized on the guy’s thin frame. “I feel like a lumberjack.”
“Then sit in your piss-stained panties all night,” Saint growls at him.
“Okay, first of all, those were briefs, and second, that was not piss,” Manson says, huffing with indignation. “Also, I don’t know what that string is on your bathroom counter, but you might want to get rid of it. It’s a health hazard.”
“That’s my hair tie,” Saint thunders, rising from his chair.
“Bro, let’s all calm down and take a breath,” I say. “I think we’ve all had enough conflict for tonight.”
“Trust me, I wouldn’t touch that thing if you paid me,” Manson says, making a face. “It looks like a leprosy outbreak waiting to happen.”
Saint sinks back in his chair, scowling, but his gaze cuts to Mercy.
She’s too busy stewing in her own guilt to notice.
But I know why he’s looking at her—it’s the same friendship bracelet we all made as kids at Bible camp.
We all have them, even if Saint’s the only one who wears his openly like that.
Mine is tucked away with the necklace with our initials on the back in the same drawer where I keep my Bible, my crucifix and rosary, and my Glock.
I should have had that tonight. We left in a hurry, but that’s no excuse. We knew we’d be dealing with the Sinceros, and there’s no one who fights dirtier than a Disciple.
“Want to tell us what you were doing at a Sincero party, little mama?” I ask Mercy.
“I just wanted to find out some answers,” she says despondently, not lifting her head from her hands.
“And did you?”
“Yes,” she says. “But it got Heath shot.”
“At least it wasn’t for nothing,” Heath mumbles from the bed.
“You’re awake,” Saint says, jumping up and rushing to the bed. “Don’t you ever pass out on me again, you dumb fuck.”
“Sorry,” Heath says, grinning weakly. “Did you get my knife?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I ask, shaking my head as I join them. “Your knife?”
“I threw it at those assholes before they opened fire,” he says. “Think I got one of them too.”
“I hope he fucking dies,” Saint growls, taking Heath’s hand. He strokes it while Dr. Swift finishes bandaging our friend.
“What happened after I passed out?” Heath asks.
“You mean after you fainted like a fucking princess?” Saint asks, releasing his hand and shoving his shoulder.
Heath winces but offers a loopy grin. “Yeah, that.”
“We dragged your ass out of there,” I say. “And brought you here. No one else is hurt.”
“Good,” Heath says, his eyes falling shut. “M’s okay?”
“I’m okay,” Mercy says, hesitantly approaching the bed. “I—I’m so sorry, Heath.”
“S’okay,” he slurs. “I’m gonna get mad respect now. I got shot. I’mma have a gnarly scar to show off…”
He drifts off, but Dr. Swift assures us it’s the shot of painkillers he gave him that will make him super sleepy.
He gives us instructions on caring for him and says he’ll be back in a few days to check on Heath.
The bullet went through his shoulder and lodged in his shoulder blade, but it didn’t hit any major arteries, so all in all, I’m calling it a win.
Heath’s a lot tougher than he looks, and I know he’ll handle it like the fucking gangster he is.
“Let’s get back to business,” I say, since Saint’s obviously too caught up in his love-hate relationship with Mercy to be the stabilizing force he usually is.
It’s probably good that it’s forcing me to step up and act like a leader instead of just going with the flow.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s way more fun, but sometimes Heath’s words echo back to me.
He’s not wrong. Even in juvie, I was treated like a fucking king.
It never bothered me, because I am a king, so I should be treated as such.
But kings also gotta do some work and lead their people, so that’s what I’m going to do.
“Mercy,” I say, fixing her with what Mom jokingly deemed “the North face” after she realized my cousins and her own kids all inherited the same icy death glare from our fathers. It’s a tool from my arsenal that I rarely have the need to utilize, being the spoiled prince that I am.
“Yes?” Mercy asks, and I swear the girl has just as effective a front as I do. Except instead of a deadly stare, she has one of the purest innocence. And the girl could teach a master class on deflection. Somehow, she gets out of answering all our questions every single time.
“What were you doing at Sinners Tower?” I ask, unflinching. “No bullshit about just going to a party with friends.”
“I told you, I wanted answers,” she says. “I talked to one of the Sinners, and I think I got something. He basically said that they’re part of the ‘skin trade,’ and that they make girls like E disappear all the time. What is that?”
“Human trafficking,” I say bluntly.
She nods thoughtfully, not a trace of the horror and shock I expected. “I thought it might be something like that,” she says. “Hopefully she’s just a maid for some rich guy.”
And there’s the innocence popping up. She thinks labor is all someone would want from a fourteen-year-old girl.
I try not to think about it more than I already have to. Maybe it’s callous of me, but I’d rather believe Eternity is dead than think about what she’s been going through for the past four years if she’s not.
“Is that it?” Saint asks. “All you found?”
“What do you mean, all I found?” Mercy asks, eyes widening. “This is huge. We know who took her, what they did with her. Now we just need to find out where they took her.”
“And how do we do that?” I ask. “It’s not like some guy swiped his credit card to buy her.”
“And even if he did, we don’t know who sold her,” Saint says. “Just that it was the Disciples.”
Mercy’s quiet a long moment, gripping the edge of her little dress.
It distracts me for a minute. I’ve only ever seen her out of her clogs once, and that time, she was in tennis shoes.
I’ve definitely never seen her dressed up for a party, but she’s smokin’ hot in her little black dress.
I contemplate sneaking into her room when she’s asleep and tossing her clogs in the trash.
Maybe changing out all the clothes in her closet too.
At least cutting all her skirts to six inches above the knee. Her legs are sexy as fuck.
“I have to ask you something,” Mercy says at last, reaching for her cross the way she does when she’s nervous. “Why did you leave her? Don’t get mad. I’m not blaming you. It’s my fault too. I left her too. But after… That initiation y’all did under the bridge…”
I catch Saint’s eye, and then we both look away at once. That’s our burden, our shame.
Because as nice as Mercy’s being, she has a right to ask. She has a right to accuse us. And as pissed as we all were that she turned on us and told the judge, she’s right. She only told him the truth. She never lied. We didn’t want to face our guilt, because then we’d have to admit the truth.
It is our fault.
We left her.
Mercy darts her gaze between us and then wraps her fingers into a tight fist around that cross I remember so well. I wonder if she ever looks at the back, at the word etched into it that became our lives.
SHAME.
Without Eternity, we should take the E from the end of the word, leaving SHAM. That’s more accurate anyway. That’s really why the group split—because we became a sham of a friendship—or proved we always had been one. Friends don’t leave other friends alone even when they ask you to.
Maybe that’s why we were all so pissed at Mercy when she told the truth. Because we were too cowardly to do it. We were pissed not because we didn’t deserve our punishment, but because we couldn’t admit that we did.
Except Heath. I know he blames himself as much as anyone, but we were the ones who convinced him to leave. He should hate us as much as he hates Mercy. Probably more. But the dude’s a sweetheart, even though he’d rip my throat out if I called him that to his face.
“Because we were fucking stupid,” Saint says at last, when I don’t answer Mercy’s question first. “We were kids, and it was awkward to have just fucked our friend. Something that had always been simple was suddenly complicated and messy.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I tell Saint, even though I do it too. “When she told us she needed some space, we argued. We didn’t want to.”
“But we let her talk us into leaving,” Saint says.
“Just like she talked us into doing it to begin with. The ugly truth is, I was relieved when she convinced us she wanted to be alone. I didn’t know how to deal with what had just happened, and I probably wanted to be alone to process too.
That’s why. There should be a better reason, but there’s not.
There was nothing nefarious about it. We were kids, and we didn’t know how to deal with shit, so we left her to deal with it on her own. Are you happy now?”
Mercy is quiet for a long minute, while Saint glares at her like she’s responsible for all of it. At last, she looks up from her knees. “But you didn’t leave her alone,” she says. “You left her with Maverick.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“You said your cousin was there,” she says slowly. “That it was his DNA they found in her clothes. I didn’t know he was there, which means he was already under the bridge when we got there. And when you came back up and met me and Heath, he wasn’t with you, either. Otherwise I’d have known.”
“Maverick didn’t kill Eternity,” I say flatly.
She swallows and toys with the edge of her skirt. “But did he sell her?”