by Leigh Tudor
He turned back around again, but this time with an exaggerated eye roll. “Mechatronics construction.”
“Say what?”
“I’m studying how to develop integrated electromechanical systems, like sensors and actuators and other mechanical systems. But you don’t know what sight words are, so I’m not surprised you don’t know anything about mechatronics.”
“Why are you being such a jerk?”
“Why are you being such a dumbass?”
“Hey, watch your mouth,” she said and then channeled Madame Garmond. “You know that cursing shows a lack of vocabulary.”
“Yeah, well, ignorance shows a lack of intelligence.”
“Okay,” Mercy said, clapping her hands together to distract herself from searching for a blunt object. “Enough of homework. What do you guys do for fun?”
Marleigh raised her hand with the exuberance of a flash mob.
“Permission granted,” Mercy said with a head nod.
“If we’re not studying, we have to go to bed. It’s in the binder.”
“Well, I haven’t read the binder, so we can’t follow a protocol I know nothing about. What do you want to do?”
Marleigh looked at Haley, who held her head down as if she were thinking.
Nate was quick to share his thoughts. “Can we build a fort?”
“Sure,” Mercy said.
Nate made an obnoxious buzzing sound. “Eeiiicck, that would be a no, Einstein. Because we don’t have anything in here to make a fort with.”
Mercy sucked on her teeth, making a popping noise. “You have beds, don’t you?”
He hesitated. “Yeah, so?”
“You have pillows and blankets, right?”
Marleigh popped out of her chair. “Yes! Yes, we do!”
“Then go get them,” she said, splaying her hands to the side.
Fifteen minutes later, an elaborate fort was created with blankets and sheets from their individual bedrooms outside of the common area and others found in empty rooms as if they were buried treasure.
Marleigh wound her way through the aisles of desks covered by blankets and sheets as Haley followed in a more reserved fashion but participated nonetheless.
Nate named the fort the Kingdom of Nate and speared a schoolroom flag into a pillow to establish territorial dominance. Mercy refrained from mentioning the flag was from Tuvalu, a small island country situated midway between Hawaii and Australia and rumored to be sinking, as he was having too much fun and being pleasant for a change.
Distraction, Mercy found, was the secret sauce to conquering embittered attitudes. Art was Mercy’s distraction, and having physical fun that left you breathless with your heart racing was the anecdote for the doldrums for children, or in Nate’s case, children with pre-Jihadist tendencies.
A couple of hours later, yawns took over, and the kids began picking up everything to take back to their rooms as if they were having to dig ditches.
“Why do you have to take everything back to your rooms?” Mercy asked, lying on a cushion she found on a sofa in the hallway with her head propped up on her hands.
“Don’t we have to go to bed?” Marleigh asked, holding a crumpled sheet in her arms.
“Why not sleep here?” Mercy asked matter-of-factly.
Marleigh dropped the sheet with a huge grin, and Mercy caught a small smile lighting Haley’s face as well.
“We can do that? Can we all sleep together?” Just as quickly, Marleigh’s face fell. “But we aren’t allowed to do that. That’s against the rules.”
Mercy shrugged her shoulders. “What rules? I haven’t read any rules in a binder on the counter.”
Nate held a flashlight he’d found in a drawer to his book. “I’m not even tired.”
Ten minutes later, all three were sacked out. Still wearing their clothes and their arms and legs spread out like starfish.
Mercy felt extreme satisfaction at exerting so little effort for so much fun.
Realizing she forgot to have them change into pajamas and brush their teeth, she second-guessed her nighttime caretaker skills.
Screw it. Everyone should wake in the morning with a fair amount of teeth scum and wrinkled clothes once or twice in their lives. Built character and made you appreciate minty fresh breath.
Mercy snuggled down between Haley and Marleigh while Nate decided to crash on top of four desks he pushed together so that he could look out for any enemy attackers.
For some reason, Mercy took his concern to heart as she lay there working through the kids and their situation. It was almost like déjà vu. Nate was the savant to replace Loren, and Marleigh was on the waiting list to receive her cranial incision by good ole Vile.
Asswipe.
Sighing with self-recrimination, she decided once she returned to Wilder, it was back to becoming more circumspect and watching her language. But finding herself back in this dung-heap of a cesspool made her mouth run rampant and her attitude salty.
She turned her head to glance at Haley, who was sure to be pegged as the next lackey to paint future knock-offs, and Nate, the mastermind, to plan for the transfers. Not to mention executing other nefarious jobs for the sake of Jasper’s bottom line.
Mercy had to give Halstead and Jasper credit. They might have been bottom-feeding scum, cashing in on the innocence of brilliant children, but they certainly knew how to identify a working process and replicate it.
Circumstances were different, though, from when she and her sisters were here. Now, the Center appeared to be in financial straits, which made the children’s futures even more tenuous.
She gently shifted and scooted her way from under the deluge of blankets until she could stand and tiptoed into the hallway. She pulled her phone from her back pocket and stared at the screen.
For a moment, she thought about searching out Loren. But, for the first time that she could remember, they were on opposing teams, working against one another.
She stared at her screen and finally made the call. The person on the other line answered.
“Mercy, where in the fucking hell are you?”
“Language, Alec.” she said with a tsk, imagining him pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He did that a lot.
“Mercy, where are you? Are you okay? Have you seen Loren?”
“The Center, yes and yes,” she responded. “Loren’s fine.” Rubbing her forehead, she hoped that making this call was the right decision. But she couldn’t wait on Loren any longer, and neither could the safety of Nate, Marleigh, and Haley. “I need your help.”
“What?” He sounded hesitantly hopeful.
“The Center is almost a ghost town. But I found . . . I found some children, and I need you to come and get them out of here.”
“We’re on our way.”
“How soon?”
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
Hmm, so they hadn’t retreated to Wilder.
“No, wait,” Mercy said, checking the time. She wanted to give them a couple hours of sleep. “Be here at midnight. There’s a door on the west side of the Center, just past the parking area. Come through that door, and I’ll let you in.”
“Security?”
“None to speak of. There’s a security guard at the gate, but trust me, if you can make your way past a mall cop, you’re golden.”
“We’ll be there,” he said. “What about Loren? Is she okay? Can I speak to her?”
“I think it’s best if you don’t. Not right now. She’s in the middle of something that I can’t discuss.”
“Jesus Christ, Mercy. Just tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I can’t.”
Like, literally.
He sighed, and she knew he wouldn’t drop the call, so she did it for him.
Mercy’s vibrating alarm woke her at eleven o’clock at night. She needed just a few hours of sleep to get her through the transfer of the children from the Center and into the arms of Alec and Trevor.
As she sa
t up, her hands instantly cradled her head. The pain was blinding, and she imagined a rogue meteorite puncturing through the ceiling and crashing into her skull.
Migraines were not uncommon to her, but this one was pretty intense and in a different way as the pain was shooting down her back.
Taking deep breaths and massaging her temples, she worked through the pain. There wasn’t time for neurological complications. The children had to be packed up and ready to go by the time Alec and Trevor arrived at the exit door.
She hoped they didn’t demand more information from her because what she did know, they wouldn’t like. Besides, she was one-hundred-percent certain it wasn’t an accurate picture of what was going on.
Turning her head to the left, she saw that Marleigh was out cold, her blond curls splayed out on the sofa cushion where she slept. Mercy turned her head to her left to check on Haley, and her heart stopped.
Mother Mary and . . . and whatever the last guy’s name was, she was missing.
Sitting upright and touching the sheet, she found that it was cold and she’d been gone a while. Longer than a trip to the restroom or to grab an extra blanket.
Quietly, she moved through the nearby corridors and looked inside all the rooms. Not a single biometric reader was enabled, which allowed her to quickly move to each door, press the enter button, and look inside.
Turning a corner, she saw a light shining from beneath a door at the end of the hallway. She scurried over and gently pressed the button, and it swished open, causing an alarmed Haley to gasp at the unexpected visitor.
“It’s okay. It’s just me,” Mercy said with a calm voice. “I saw you were gone, and I got really worried. Can I come in?”
It took a second, but Haley nodded.
Mercy glanced around and saw that the room’s walls were covered with canvases, some large and others smaller. This must have been the art studio as it had wonderful lighting and was covered in tarps and dotted with paint.
“This must be your happy place.”
The little girl didn’t move a muscle or provide any response but watched her with the extreme sniper-like focus.
Mercy walked up to the nearest canvas, and her heart seized. Her hand came to her throat at daubs of paint that were beautifully abstract and at the same time instinctively expressive.
“Did you paint these?” she asked, turning toward Haley, who didn’t deny being the artist, which was as far as a confirmation as she was going to get.
She stopped at another painting, and her hand instantly covered her mouth, overwhelmed at what she saw. A deep magenta background with a whirlwind of white to the side that swirled into deep yellows. A dervish of color that was just as much an emotional as well as a delicious visual treat.
As her eyes took in the wonder around her, she noticed another sensory element enveloping the room. Music.
“What are you listening to?” she asked, moving toward the table where Haley stood quietly before her paints. “Ahh, ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon. Good one.”
Haley remained silent. She glanced at her canvas and then back to Mercy. Torn between returning to her creation and keeping her eye on what could be a threat to her artistic inspiration.
“Please, don’t let me stop you.”
But Haley seemed disinclined to continue. As if Mercy had turned off her inner muse and stymied her creative process.
Unsure as to how to set her mind at ease, Mercy looked around at the abundant resources on the table and felt that creative pull originating from within her sternum.
Twisting her mouth to the side, she picked up a medium-sized canvas and set it on an easel a few feet from Haley who watched her like a doe about to dart into the woods.
Mercy started to mix some acrylic paints and silently create her own inspired art as Haley continued to watch with her hands covered in paint and her torso wrapped in an oversized smock, the hem touching the floor.
Mercy glanced over at Haley as she wiped her hands, watching Mercy with less apprehension and more curiosity.
Mercy smiled. The artistic process of others was always of interest to an artist.
No more than twenty minutes later, Mercy finished enough of her vision to show Haley, holding the canvas at her side.
“You recognize this girl?” Mercy asked.
Haley barely nodded as her eyes roamed the canvas.
“Yeah? She’s quite lovely but also maybe a little lonely.”
Haley didn’t react. Just stared transfixed at the abstract image of herself.
“Did you know that I’m an artist too?”
Haley shook her head once.
“I am,” she said. “And I know and appreciate art. Yours is . . . well, it’s truly special, both emotional and visceral, but in a very unique way. Can you show me how you do it?”
Haley visibly swallowed. And almost imperceptibly nodded. She bent toward the old audio cassette player, rewound the tape, and started the John Lennon song again. She stood in front of the canvas with her eyes closed, listening to the music, and then picked up the paintbrush and began. It took a couple of minutes, but it suddenly came to Mercy that she was painting what she was hearing.
And it was astounding.
For a five-year-old to be able to translate music onto canvas was remarkable.
Mercy’s memory banks wound backward to the various discussions of the staff, amongst themselves, of course, and remembered a conversation concerning artistic inclinations that psychologists knew very little about. One of which was synesthesia, a neurological condition that caused individuals to see music as color.
“Leave her alone.”
Mercy gasped as her head whipped toward the door, and then the air just as quickly escaped her lungs as she recognized pint-sized Nate standing in the doorway.
Oh good, and he had morphed back into his anti-Christ persona, complete with his eyebrows squinted in a pronounced V and his lip curled up on one side.
“Hey there, Sunshine. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“Fuck you.”
That. Little. Shit.
“Okay, that’s it,” Mercy said, plunking the canvas on the table. “I’ve had enough of your dirty mouth.”
“Oh yeah, then you’re really gonna like me telling you that you’re a hypocrite.” He thought again as if it wasn’t offensive enough and added, “And a fucking liar.”
Huh, he must have figured out she wasn’t the late-night caretaker Nancy.
“What are you talking about?” When in doubt, deny.
His eyes narrowed even more as if that were humanly possible. They turned toward Haley and became softer. “You go on and paint.”
She nodded, and he jerked his head in an authoritarian manner that indicated Mercy was to follow him.
Starting out several steps behind, she finally caught up with the miniature hellhound as he reached what used to be a clinician’s office. He pulled a monitor against the wall to the center of the counter and began to pull wires from underneath the cabinet and plug them in.
“You seem to know a lot about computers.”
“I know a lot about everything,” he said, working his way through what appeared to be CCTV feeds. “I recognized you earlier today but couldn’t quite remember where I saw you.” He stopped the feed from the keyboard and then hit another button, and the video began.
Mercy straightened. Shocked to see herself in the courtyard with one of the more ruthless combat trainers. She missed an oncoming brutal sidekick to her head that would’ve knocked her out cold if she hadn’t stepped back at the last minute.
“You fucking cocksucker!” she yelled at her assailant as she came back at him with every ounce of force she had, barely causing him to move aside or react.
“You used to live here.”
She inhaled sharply, twisting her mouth to the side.
The jig was up.
He stared at her with the accusatory glare of a high-paid attorney. “You cursed . . . A. Lot.”
; “That was different.”
Pressing the rewind button, he found another clip. This time, Mercy was yelling at Jasper. “Hey, scrotum head, how’s it hanging?” she goaded.
Mercy inhaled, twisting her lips to the side as she rolled her eyes. You could actually see Jasper’s veins popping out in his forehead and steam rising from his comb-over. On-screen Mercy gave Jasper a theatrical frown and said, “You know you’re just a tiny dick in a lab coat unworthy of the air you’re breathing, right?”
She scratched the side of her nose. “I might have been rather contrary while living at the Center.”
Nate didn’t seem to appreciate the comment as he rewound the tape and turned the video on loopback, which gave them both the lovely advantage of hearing her say, “You cocksucker,” on repeat.
Mercy rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger as the pain returned but at more of a yellow DEFCON three level, indicating time to plan for readiness than, say, DEFCON red. Which indicated an attack was imminent or in progress. “That’s enough,” she said. “You made your point.”
He pressed a key, which stopped her repetitive expletives.
A satisfied smirk appeared on his face as he turned to her with the stoic expression of a henchman, shaking down his mark. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I really don’t care. It’s time we get down to brass tacks.”
Her eyebrows raised at his dictatorial tone.
“I’m going to make you a deal,” he said with crossed arms.
“A deal?” she asked.
“If you help us get out of here, I’m going to let you adopt us.”
Whoa, she didn’t see that coming.
What an imperious miniaturized douche. “Yeah, because I want to parent the son of Satan.”
He shrugged one small shoulder. “My bark is worse than my bite.”
“Says who? Beelzebub?”
“I can be . . . nice. Under the right circumstances.”
Yeah, like if he gets to sleep on a bed of molten lava and eats the heads of small animals with his own personalized pitchfork.
“Sorry, no can do. Trust me, if I was your parent, you’d be on a breathing tube within days.”