Ashes of Merciless

by Odette Michael

  “Maybe I’m getting tired of playing God. You Observers don’t understand. Or the Sealers. You never have to get your hands dirty!”

  His face grew angry. “Listen, Ashley, being an Observer is not easy. In fact, I will have to say it is the hardest. You think it’s easy having to track people while babysitting the Sealers and the Assassins? You think keeping the FBI in the dark is a walk in the park? Observers hardly ever see home!”

  I snorted. “Oh, please. You guys get like three month-long vacations a year. And there’s like forty of you. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “And that’s your problem! You don’t want to hear what anyone has to say. You’re so wrapped up in your own little bubble, bitter against something that you think is only unfair to you!”

  I didn’t reply. What was the point? I rolled my window down a little, hoping the salt in the air would clear my head. Instead of salt, I smelled only iron.

  I refused to tell Shane what I’d discovered. There was only one person I wanted to talk to, but Gage would have to wait.

  Ruth was in danger, and I needed to get to her as soon as possible.

  “Maybe I’m forgetting how young you are,” Shane said, sighing. “It wasn’t right for you to have to start so early. Not many thought it was a good idea. For that, you do have my sympathy. I can’t imagine the emotional distress it must have caused you at such a young age.”

  “You have no idea,” I murmured quietly enough that he wouldn’t hear. Emotional distress was an understatement—it had created a monster within me.

  He pulled into the motel parking lot, and panic hit me.

  “What are you doing?” I cried.

  “What does it look like? Look, I can tell you are unwell. Sleep will do you some good. I’ll drop you off and go get us a bite to eat.”

  “No!” I exclaimed. “Take me home!”

  Shane raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s getting late. I’m tired, and I know you have to be. Besides, I have to take you to Headquarters for our report before you can go home.”

  The panic was a balloon, getting bigger and bigger, and I thought I was going to explode. I ran my shaking fingers through my hair and thought quickly. The idea hit me hard and sat inside my chest like a case of bricks.

  “Ok, you’re right. I am tired and hungry. I’ll stay here,” I said slowly.

  “All right, then. What are you hungry for? There’s probably not many places open this late, but I’ll try to get what you want,” he said kindly.

  His kindness made me feel guilty, but I ignored the emotion. I didn’t have time to feel guilty, and I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust him.

  “There’s a taco place right down the street. I’ll eat a taco salad.”

  He nodded. “Is that all you want?”

  “Yes, please,” I replied, trying not to sound impatient.

  “Ok. I’ll be back soon,” Shane assured me.

  I went into the motel room and immediately unzipped my bag, changing into my pajamas for show. I reached inside the bag and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid, thankful for my preparations. I’d known I most likely wouldn’t need it for my Assignment when I’d packed, but I usually brought things I wouldn’t use.

  I stared at the sleep-inducing drug in my hands. This wasn’t even a risk because it was only a matter of time before they discovered that Mr. Browning was still alive.

  There was no if, only when.

  I paced the room until Shane returned. He handed me my food and sat his own dinner down on the desk.

  I eyed it carefully, thinking fast. I grabbed the empty ice bucket and held it out to him.

  “Shane, do you mind getting us some ice? I would do it, but I’m not dressed properly.”

  He shrugged. “All right.”

  He took the bucket from me and left.

  The guilt was a heady, heavy presence as I uncorked the vial and poured the contents into his drink, swirling his straw around a few times to mix it up. I hid the empty vial inside my bag and sat down to eat just as he returned.

  “Here you go,” Shane said as he handed me the full bucket.

  “Thanks,” I replied, making a show of filling my soda cup with extra ice. I began to eat slowly, not even glancing in his direction.

  It wasn’t long before the drug worked.

  “Ashley. . . I’m feeling a little strange.”

  I looked up at him from my half-eaten salad with an innocent expression.

  “Are you all right?” I asked with forced concern.

  His glazed eyes went bright with anger. “What . . . did you . . . do? Ashley . . . why?”

  He fell out of his chair and slumped to the floor, motionless.

  “Sorry, Shane,” I whispered.

  I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, stuffing my extra cyanide pill in my pocket. I dragged Shane to the bed and hoisted him onto it, panting a little as my side flared. I reached inside his pocket, stealing the car keys and his untraceable cell phone; he would have a hard time contacting anybody in Merciless without a safe line.

  I grabbed my bag and made my way to the car in the slowest pace I could manage without arousing suspicion from onlookers.

  I didn’t have time to think about Shane or anything else. I didn’t even know where I could take Ruth when I arrived. We’d have to live on the run, most likely for the rest of our lives.

  I had to save her. I had to try. No one deserved to die because of someone else’s mistakes, just like no one should have to serve something out of fear.

  I headed for home, ignoring the speed limit whenever I could. I used Shane’s untraceable cell phone to call Ruth. There was no answer, and I couldn’t risk calling Gage to ask for help. I couldn’t drag Gage into this, not yet. When things calmed down, maybe I could contact him.

  “Come on, Ruth!” I said as her phone went to voicemail for the thirtieth time.

  Was she that drunk, or had they gotten to her first? I didn’t give up on calling her in intervals, but the closer to home I got, the more afraid I grew.

  I forced myself to keep my eyes open as weariness set in. Sometimes Ruth’s face flashed in my mind, sending a fresh wave of adrenaline through me. It focused my sight and made me press the gas pedal harder. My heartbeats were the only sound in the car, loud and occasionally fluttering from strain and stress.

  The ride took forever, a small piece of eternity complete with winding roads and traffic. As I neared home, something in the dawning sky caught my eye.

  Smoke.

  Dread filled me, obscuring my throat as my breathing went too fast.

  I rounded the long and lonely driveway with screeching tires. My cry of despair filled the car when I saw the orange and yellow flames.

  I jumped out of the still-moving car and rolled into a crouch on the grass. I got up and sprinted toward my burning home.

  “Ruth!” I screamed as I flew up the front steps, dodging quickly as a piece of fiery wood landed in front of me, blocking the front door. I grabbed a nearby flower pot and threw it at one of the windows, the glass shattering silently due to the roar of the fire.

  As I kicked the glass aside and readied to enter, I glanced once more at the front door to see it slightly open. I couldn’t help the hope that swelled within me as I whirled and searched the front lawn.

  Had she somehow already escaped?

  “Mom!” I screeched.

  I jumped off the porch and scanned the area with greedy eyes. There was something near the honeysuckle bushes.

  I ran to the still form. I fell to the ground and pulled her onto my lap.

  “Mom?” I whispered in a shaking voice.

  I pushed the blackened blonde hair out of her face and sucked in a breath as I saw the blood on her. A large, sharp piece of wood protruded from her chest, right in the middle. Blood seeped out in a steady stream, trickling onto my hands and lap.

  I shook her and held her face. “Mom, wake up! Please, please open your eyes! I’m here. Ashley is here,” I
choked.

  I stared at her ash-streaked face, at a long cut that ran across her cheek. She was hardly breathing.

  I kissed her forehead, and her eyelids fluttered open. Her glassy eyes couldn’t seem to focus, but when she looked up at me, I saw light fill them.

  “Ashley?” she whispered.

  “It’s me, Mom. I’m here. You’re going to be ok,” I lied.

  “Ashley . . . My Ashley. Just like . . . father. I love . . .” I had to put my ear to her mouth to make out her words.

  “Hold on, Mom! Please, just hold on,” I said as I shifted her in my arms, preparing to pick her up.

  As I rose off the ground with her, the thin body was too still against me. I looked down, and to my horror, I saw what I’d seen too many times before.

  I knew when someone had no life within them.

  I lowered her back to the ground and put my fingers against her neck, checking for a pulse.

  I could feel nothing. There was no more light in her open eyes.

  “No.” I shook her again. “Mom, no. Please, no. Wake up, wake up! I’m so sorry. . . . Mom, I said I was sorry! I love you, look at me!”

  She stared up at the smoky sky with lifeless eyes. I fell back, clutching at my chest.

  “Should have killed him. I should have killed him. . . . Why didn’t I kill him?”

  “I told you so,” Ash said.

  “Why didn’t I kill him? Why didn’t you make me? I know you could have. Ash, why didn’t you make me?”

  “I tried! And Ruth is gone, so we need to get out of here! We’re going to be next!”

  “Why didn’t you make me?” I screamed.

  My eyes were burning. My cheeks were wet. I hadn’t cried in years, but now tears poured down my face in streams. I put my face into her hair and sobbed. Sobbed so hard, I felt my heart ripping in half.

  I wasn’t sure how long I wept over her, but I soon realized I was no longer alone. I felt eyes on my shuddering back. I looked over my shoulder, glimpsing a shadow nearby. Rage filled me as the shadow came closer, as I recognized the shape. And then the voice.

  “Didn’t take you for the teary type,” Scott said.

  I rose from the ground. “You did this.”

  Scott held up his hands in an innocent gesture. “Me? You mean setting the house on fire? Possibly. But it’s not my fault the drunken idiot fell on that piece of wood on her way out.”

  We were circling each other now.

  “And you were out here to finish the job just in case she survived.” My words were as sharp as ice.

  “Correct. But I think you are forgetting one very important thing. I didn’t kill her. She didn’t even kill herself. It was you, Ashley, who killed her.”

  I shook my head at him, but the truth of his words hit me like a gunshot.

  “No . . .”

  He nodded. “Yes. See, if you would have just followed orders and did your duty, none of this would have happened. Did you really think you’d get away with what you did? What you didn’t do? It was you. All you, Ashley. No one to blame but yourself.”

  Rage colored everything red, and the world blurred into various shades of scarlet. There was nothing of Ash in the cry that came from my lips, from the way I tackled Scott without thinking. It was all me.

  My weapons belt was inside my bag in the car, and it was too late to curse myself for my stupidity in taking it off.

  Scott took advantage of my anger, my movements irrational and clumsy as we grappled. He punched me upside the head, hard, dotting the red with black, and the pain focused me.

  He was stronger, but I was much faster, and I jabbed at his pressure points. Soon his movements were the clumsy ones, and I kicked viciously at his kneecaps with booted heels, and he finally went down on one knee. I jammed my foot against his throat and pressed down with all my strength, and he fell onto his back. With blissful satisfaction, I watched as he fought for air.

  I replaced my foot with my hands, ready to squeeze the very life from him. He tried to shove me off with muscles that normally would have overpowered me, but my will—my anger—was stronger.

  Too ensnared with watching his face go from white to purple, I barely registered the stinging in my leg. By the time I did take notice, the needle was already deep inside my thigh, and blood seeped out of the wound. The blood was so thick it was black.

  Instantly, everything around me swirled and slowed. My hands slipped away from Scott’s neck, and I fell back onto the grass, the crimson world around me spinning, shifting.

  Through heavy-lidded eyes, I glimpsed the shadow looking down at me. I tried to move, but the very air around me was as heavy as lead.

  “. . . not supposed to kill you,” Scott said, but he sounded like he was a thousand miles away. “Although you have no idea how much I want to. Right now, he wants you alive. Oh, but when the time comes . . .”

  I felt myself drifting away. I didn’t know how to hang on. My right palm burned, and I looked with blurry eyes to my hand. I closed my shaking fingers around the small handful of fiery ashes that had fallen from the sky.

  Chapter 8 Traitor

  Everything was black and heavy. I tried to move, but failed. After much effort, I managed to open my eyes.

  Blinking wearily, I recognized the gray stones. I knew this cold of being underground.

  Headquarters.

  My hands were above my head. Glancing up, I pulled in vain at the chains on the wall. It wasn’t long before that drained me.

  My side ached, my upper thigh hurt, my right hand burned. My jeans were dirty and sooty, and there was a hole in my thigh where the needle had plunged through. My T-shirt was caked in blood.

  At the sight of the blood, grief shook me to my core. My head fell against my chest, and the consequences of my actions threatened to drown me.

  My mother was dead. By saving a stranger’s life, who was most likely dead at this point, I’d killed my mother just as sure as if I’d plunged that piece of wood into her chest myself. I’d saved the boy first and put her life in danger, and then I’d spared my Assignment and put her life in jeopardy again.

  My tears dripped freely now, and I didn’t think I could lock them away this time. I couldn’t feel Ash. If she was there, she was overpowered by my loss and by the throbbing emotions that left me gasping.

  Through my tears, I pictured Gage’s green eyes. I wanted to see him one last time. I wished I hadn’t kept pushing him away out of my fear of being close to another person, and my fear of the future where we couldn’t be together.

  Because now the future was here, and I was going to die.

  I looked around the small room that was my prison. The only thing to really see was the lone chair sitting in the middle of the room. A closer examination of the stone floor revealed traces of dried blood.

  Suddenly, the door that loomed in front of me swung open. I had been expecting him, but dread still filled me as the Master closed the door. He sat down in the chair.

  The room was silent as he examined me. I didn’t look away. I stared into his black eyes, hating him.

  He smoothed the front of his suit, a small smile on his face. “Hello, traitor. It’s about time you woke up.”

  I swallowed hard. “I have questions, and I want answers before you kill me.”

  The Master chuckled. “I don’t think you’re in the position to be asking for anything. That’s why I’m here.”

  “There’s nothing I know that would be of value to you, I can promise you that,” I said truthfully.

  His eyes narrowed. “We will see. But first, I must say your actions have cost the lives of many in what was supposed to be a very simple Assignment.”

  “Lives? Who else?” I asked, trying to mask the fear in my voice.

  The Master smiled wickedly. “Mr. Browning is dead. Very dead, might I add. Ruth is dead. And very soon, you will be dead. Now, tell me where Shane is. His wife and daughter have also disappeared. Care to say where they are?”

  I clos
ed my eyes in relief and sorrow. The Master obviously assumed Shane had allowed me to get away with not killing Logan Browning. I hadn’t trusted Shane, but if he’d disappeared, he also most likely had not known about Browning’s innocence.

  “Ashley?” he pressed.

  “Shane had nothing to do with what happened!” I cried. “He didn’t know! I drugged him and then left him.”

  The Master shook his head. “Even if that’s true, I cannot take the chance that he is also against the goals of Merciless.”

  “Goals of Merciless,” I sneered. “Then tell me why you sent me to kill an innocent man! He must have pushed his wife down a set of invisible stairs, because I sure didn’t see any evidence of anything except for a man who’d lost everything!”

  The room grew quiet, and the spark of black fire in his eyes did nothing but fuel my own rage.

  “Just like your father,” he murmured.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you are like your father. Richard began to question our ways, and he paid the price for it.”

  “My father . . . was killed on an Assignment,” I growled.

  “So he was. An Assignment where our intelligence indicated that at least two Assassins would be needed. So I sent him alone.”

  “You sent . . . What are you saying?”

  The Master leaned closer to me. “Merciless does kill the guiltiest of people. But we do this at a great cost, and that cost includes money. Do you think it was cheap having this underground haven built? Do you believe that paying off law enforcement costs only a few hundred dollars? Do you think our supplies come from trees? Some of our equipment costs more money than many celebrities have.”

  “Get to the point,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “We kill the guilty of unspeakable crimes, and we get compensated for doing so. And on occasion, we get paid larger sums of money to kill . . . other people. For example, Logan Browning. His pregnant wife was in a car accident, but the woman’s mother still blamed Mr. Browning. In her mind, why couldn’t it have been Logan who went out to pick up that gallon of milk? Blood money like this keeps our organization alive, Ashley.

  “Your father began to suspect me after overhearing a certain conversation about an Assignment with one of my most trustworthy Observers. The woman in question was not guilty of anything we would normally intervene with, but her husband was very distraught over her having an affair and was more than willing to pay millions of dollars due to jealousy. Richard approached me and actually threatened me. Your father said he’d turn Merciless against me for the innocent blood, so I made sure he didn’t.”