A Lover's Mercy

by Fiona Zedde

  “Either you want the truth or you don’t. I don’t deal in half-lies.”

  She sighs, and it looks like a painful thing. A gaze flickers toward where Abi has disappeared. “Fair enough.” But I see where her fingers dig deep crescents into the edge of the small steel table.

  Mai isn’t going to like this at all. It’s one of the new pieces of furniture we bought to replace what her family destroyed.

  “You have the truth, Mandaia.” Her name, spoken so casually without the usual caustic bite, feels strange on my tongue. “It’s your business what you do with it.”

  I want truths of my own from Mandaia Redstone. Answers to questions like, who pressured her to help get Ethan free? Did she know what their end game was? But as surely as I have these questions, I know she won’t give me the answers.

  It’s all right, though. I’ll dig them up for myself. Later.

  Condensation slides down the bottle of water Mandaia hasn’t touched in minutes. Her fingers begin smoothing out the marks she made in the table.

  “Things have always been difficult with Mai,” she says softly, as if talking to herself. “As for my part in all this, I haven’t exactly made her struggles any easier.” Before I can put enough brain cells together to form an answer, she pushes on. “No one in the family will say a word about your past…hobby as the Absolution Killer. I’ve spoken with each of them and they know better than to open their mouths about the matter without my permission.”

  Suspicion raises my hackles. “Do you expect my thanks for that? Some favor I can’t refuse?”

  “What I expect”—she leans hard on the word, eyes flashing a familiar amber fire—“is for you to take care of my daughter.”

  Mai can take care of herself; that’s the real and honest response. But I climb off my asshole high horse for a moment and release a quiet sigh. “I haven’t had much success with taking care of the people I love, but I’ll do my best with her.”

  “You love her.”

  “Of course.”

  Bracing herself against the table’s edge, she gets to her feet. A suddenly old woman. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks?”

  The corner of her mouth twitches into something that might be called a smile on some distant planet. She disappears down the hall to find her younger daughter. When they begin talking, I grab my bottle of still-cold water and lean against the window. The day is still beautiful. Atlanta’s mismatch of tall buildings glitters under the sun. Behind me is music and tears, my tias’ determined celebration of life, Abi mourning the one Mai escaped from.

  Somewhere out there, Mai is laughing. Soon enough, she will come back to me and we’ll seek shelter in each other’s smiles. We’ll share the massive batch of tamales with my tias, and the trust, the acceptance, between all four of us will continue to grow.

  It’s more than I deserve, but I plan to hold tight to this happiness.

  The bottle of mineral water hisses when I twist off the cap. Cool on my tongue, the water washes down my throat like a cleansing. A sensation of renewal. It feels good.

  Chapter 27

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  Mai appears in the doorway of our living room, a mirror of when she left earlier. Like in my fantasies from this afternoon, she is loose and beautiful after spending the day with her friends and good liquor. Sunset hovers more than an hour away, and the softer colors of the late afternoon bleed through the sheer curtains and suffuse Mai’s skin.

  My heart trips from just looking at her.

  Sitting up in the couch, I put aside the book I was reading. “Your mother and sister came for a visit while you were gone.”

  I keep my voice low, aware of my tias quietly talking and playing Scrabble in the guest room.

  A gasp of concern and apology. Mai rushes to my side and drops to her knees in front of me. Her eyes desperately look me over. “What happened? Did my mother hurt you?”

  “No.” I nearly scoff, but then I remember not so long ago and in this actual apartment, that’s exactly what happened. “She wanted to ask me some questions. I gave her the answers. She should be calling you at some point.”

  Mai drops her head in my lap, hands convulsively clasp my thighs. “She already did. About an hour ago.” Her fingers are trembling and cold. “I just…don’t know what to make of her lunch invitation.”

  That was fast. “You should accept it.”

  “Really?” She looks up at me, her eyes wide in surprise. “What…what changed your mind?”

  “You love your family. You need them.” It’s a truth neither of us can escape. “Your mother is asking your forgiveness and ready to do what she can to make you happy.”

  “Her not trying to kill you would make me happy.”

  “Then we’re already there. She and Abi came by and left everything in one piece, including me.” I lean down and press a kiss to her unsmiling mouth. “That should make you practically dance on the ceiling.”

  “This isn’t a Lionel Richie video, Xóchitl.”

  I huff a laugh and trail my fingers along the tiny braids above her hair. “You kn—”

  That particular ring of Mai’s cell phone cuts me off.

  “Uh-oh.” I release her with a reluctant sigh. “You’re being summoned.”

  “It’s not like that,” Mai says, already moving away from me. Her high heels clatter to the floor along with my fantasies about how the rest of the night would end. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I know.” Her stilletos clack together when I scoop them up from the floor and follow her to the bedroom.

  “It’s me,” she says into the phone while tugging off her pretty dress. She throws it on the bed with a regretful look in my direction. “Got it. I’m on the way now.”

  She ends the call and tosses the phone next to the dress, already Mercy in head-to-toe oxblood leather, her skin supple yet hard enough to stop bullets. She’s another of my fantasies come to life.

  “Bad traffic accident.”

  “Can’t they handle that on their own?”

  “Don’t be a baby.” And with that, she is gone, slipping through the window like smoke.

  “She’s as bad as you.” My Tia Ana comes from the direction of the guest room on silent feet. “Always wanting to save the world.”

  “I don’t want to save the world, Tia. I just want to kick its ass—huge difference.”

  “Whatever you say, love. Just be careful out there.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, not sure why I even bother trying to fool her.

  “Go on.” With a knowing laugh, she waves a hand at me and heads back toward the room. “We’ll make sure you two have a nice, healthy breakfast in the morning.”

  Not wasting any more time, I slip on a new outfit bought especially for a night like this one and head out after Mai.

  They were right to call her. It’s not just an accident; it’s a disaster.

  A highway overpass cracked in two. Cars on both ends of the missing ten-foot section crumpled together. People screaming and crying. A few douchebags taking video with their cell phones instead of trying to help or even getting out of the way.

  Underneath the overpass, thirty feet below, the missing section lays in pieces. It’s crushed cars, people.

  God damn…

  As if all that isn’t bad enough, a tractor-trailer hangs half on, half off the broken lip of the overpass, its two front wheels hanging in thin air. The cab of the truck points down to the steep drop below. There are cars everywhere.

  Why is there bumper-to-bumper traffic in Atlanta at seven o’clock on a Sunday evening? Because it’s Atlanta, that’s why.

  The tractor-trailer groans and see-saws from the edge of the broken overpass. Movement behind the steering wheel catches my eye.

  Seriously?

  The driver is
still in the truck and trying to crawl into the back and away from the drop that would kill him and anyone still left in the cars just below. It’s a shit show, and I’m not sure if they can get out of this without any more people dying.

  “What’s the status?” I hear Mai ask one of the cops.

  But it’s obvious enough. Everything’s fucked up. Looks like some kind of explosive went off and took out part of the highway. The flaming remnants of a car exhales dark clouds of smoke from underneath the hanging truck. Other cars have already fallen into the jagged gap of concrete, crushed and warped from the impact. People nearby scream for rescue and crawl from vehicles in danger of going up in flames.

  The cops are here. Ambulances and fire trucks, too, all with their sirens and lights blazing. Even more emergency vehicles are coming, but it’s much more than they can handle.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she shouts as I take in the chaos through her eyes. Then she rushes in to get at the big, dangling problem first.

  “Mercy!” a woman screams from one of the flaming cars. Her feeling of relief at seeing Mai comes at me like a massive wave.

  Are these people stupid? Don’t they get it? Mai alone isn’t enough to get them out of this mess.

  Shit.

  Already regretting my foolishness, I leap from the top of a car where I’ve been watching and drop down between the crack in the overpass and down, down to the road below. Scorched air and smoke rush over my face.

  The smell of melted plastics, cooking human flesh, and burnt paint chokes me. My foot splashes in a puddle of blood as I run to the first car.

  At the steering wheel, a woman slumps over unconscious, blood flowing from the gash in her head. Something inside the car is hot and blowing smoke.

  “Help her! Please!”

  A man tries to yank open the car door and get to her. Pieces of broken glass dig into his hand as he frantically pulls at the door. With one arm hanging loose and bloody at his side, he looks ready to pass out, too.

  “Please, help! I don’t know what to do!”

  I rip the car door off its hinges and toss it aside, then handle the stuck seatbelt the same way. Carefully, I lift the woman out of the car. She’s barely any weight at all.

  “Come on! Follow me.” With the limp woman in my arms, I race from the smoking car, making sure her man is keeping up with me, or at least enough not to get roasted when the car blows up.

  Suddenly, the car does just that. I drag the man in front of me so anything flying from the exploding car hits me and not him or the woman in my arms. A breath of heated air licks over my back, but I don’t stop running.

  Once we’re a safe enough distance away from the flames and chaos, I prop the woman on a concrete pylon and push the man down next to her.

  “The ambulance is coming. Stay here.” Then I leave them to find more.

  As fast as possible, I grab people from their cars and pull them to safety, tucking them away from the flames and deadly fumes while keeping part of my attention on Mai and the truck she’s trying to keep from falling into the chasm.

  Babies. Old people. Teenagers. A set of twins on the way home from some kind of sporting game.

  I hear the creak of the tractor-trailer. Feel Mai cool and calm, grabbing the driver out of the swaying truck cab, balancing carefully so he won’t fall and she doesn’t, either. She has him and is taking him away from the truck, nimbly running away from the see-sawing vehicle.

  “It’s falling!” a man screams.

  Yep. That’s definitely what it’s doing.

  A quick scan of the minds I can feel confirms there’s no one else under here in danger of being crushed by the truck. But the truck’s fall won’t be such a pretty thing, either. Mai is busy. She has the driver safely in the arms of a paramedic and is about to rush back to the truck when it lets out a dying screech.

  A chorus of screams rises up.

  I rush out into the open and look up in time to see the truck cab tip over the open edge of the highway crack and nosedive toward me and the other cars down here. Shit. It’s still hooked to the trailer.

  A loud cry. A child. I suddenly feel it, a mind that I missed before. The young boy must have been passed out when I did my last mental scan of the area.

  How many others did I miss?

  I curse again and quickly scan the area looking for another option other than the stupid one running through my head.

  It’s not stupid, it’s crazy, but it’s just crazy enough to work. Mai’s voice comes through loud and clear in my head.

  I don’t have time to be surprised. The truck is falling and people are terrified, scrambling away from the howling weight of the semi.

  Without the humans around, this decision would be an easy one to make, but things are what they are.

  Let’s do it, Mai!

  The truck’s fall and the decision to save it feel like they take forever, but it’s barely a second.

  Mai jumps off the overpass. Screams of warning and wonder rise as her body flies into the air and down toward the falling truck. It’s a long way down, and none of the humans know what the hell she’s trying to pull. I know what she’s doing and even I don’t have much faith in it.

  A beat later, her tail whips out and wraps around the railing. She grabs the back of the trailer, hands crunching into the steel the same moment I leap up, high and hard, grabbing the cab.

  The truck bends where the cab connects to the full trailer. Motor oil bursts from the truck and splashes in my face, hot and viscous. At least the back of the trailer isn’t open.

  Carefully controlling the awkward weight of the semi, I float-fall back down as slowly as possible with gravity threatening to drag me down hard the whole way. Motor oil slides down my face and into my mouth. I spit and try not to gag.

  Above me, Mai’s tail slowly lengthens and unwinds like a winch, giving her the space to move down as slowly as the truck’s descent will allow. Together, we lower the truck to the ground. It lands with a hard, ground-shaking thump, crushes a string of empty cars.

  Wide-eyed, Mai releases her end of the truck and lets go of the overpass railing with her tail.

  Damn, it worked.

  A rush of amazement comes from the humans, but hell if it doesn’t also feel like my own.

  “Okay.”

  With the truck safely on the ground to the wild applause going on, she walks around the ruins of the burning cars and comes up to me. Dirt streaks her face. Her breath comes in deep gasps.

  “Thanks for helping,” she says.

  “I couldn’t let you do all the work.”

  She laughs, and it sounds like relief. “Can’t you just say ‘you’re welcome’ like a normal person?”

  “How boring would that be?”

  Mai’s smile is small but radiant. “Thanks for stepping in. I know you like to watch but having you in the thick of things is nice.”

  Wait. “You knew I was following you?”

  “Sure. Maybe not from the beginning, but you’re not as subtle as you think.”

  A flush of embarrassment threats to catch my face on fire. “I need to work on that.”

  “Not really.” Her voice is as gentle as the unexpected touch of her fingers in the small of my back. “I like that you’re an open book to me. Mostly open, anyway.”

  Sirens shriek between here and the hospital a few miles away. Bright lights flash blue and red against the background of night. Around us, people rush and news helicopters circle. It’s late. Past midnight at least.

  With the worst of it done, people are suddenly interested in us, in me. I feel their thoughts. And through their eyes, I see us, or at least I see me. Dressed all in black with my face covered, an exact shadow replica of Mai.

  Time to get out of here. “See you at home.”

  Mai will probably stay and help with the c
leanup.

  She grabs my arm. “Thank you for following me. Thank you for loving me.”

  “Please, don’t…” My tongue swipes over my dry lips. “It’s impossible for me to do anything else.”

  A hint of a smile briefly shapes her mouth. “And that’s just one of the reasons I love you so much.”

  Her words implode inside me. Shudders of gladness ripple up my spine, down my arms, through my entire body. “Yeah?”

  Although I knew how she felt, this is the first time the words have left her lips.

  “Yeah,” she confirms with that same tiny smile.

  My laugh bursts out. “That’s…okay.”

  Then, because I’m about to start grinning like a fool, I leave.

  I take off in the opposite direction from the mob of reporters. Soon, I’m back at the house, slipping into the window and then stripping off my clothes in the bathroom.

  She loves me.

  My laughter is soft and private in the shower-steamed bathroom. I can definitely live with that.

  As I step, smiling, under the heated spray of the shower, the bathroom door opens then closes. The shower is glassed in, but there’s a wall hiding my view of the actual bathroom door.

  It can only be one person.

  “Mai?” I call out anyway.

  “Who else do you expect to follow you home and get into the bathroom with you?”

  The teasing note in her words makes me smile. “I thought you were going to stay a little longer.”

  “I’m needed here more,” she says, her voice coming closer.

  “Why? Because you weakened me with your declaration of love and want to make sure I’ve survived the aftermath?” The smile makes my cheeks ache but I wear it the whole time I scrub myself raw with my washcloth and tangerine-scented soap.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you can handle that.” She pauses, her delicate footsteps sounding gently against the tile floors. “You…you know this hero thing isn’t what I expect you to do, right?” Mai steps into view wearing shorts and a tank top and sits down on the padded bench seat across from the shower. The seriousness of her words pushes away my smile. “You don’t have to save people because that’s what I choose to do. This isn’t a condition of me being with you.”