“Always,” came the teen’s reply.
Tears smarted at her niece’s answer. I couldn’t love her any more if she were mine.
“Don’t come out unless I say so or you need to.”
“Understood.”
Mercy shoved the radio back in a pocket and studied her camera views.
Where is the bastard?
THIRTY-SEVEN
I have a brother.
It’s as if someone attempted to erase only child across my heart, but the words still show through the smears. They added sibling in tentative script; the word is awkward and harsh. It doesn’t fit. Yet.
My best friend is my brother.
I’ve always known our affection went deeper than friendship. I look at him now and my heart is happy; it knows the truth. Perhaps if I had listened closer to my heart, I would have realized it for myself.
But the man outside is also my brother. My brain refuses to accept this fact.
“Will Gabriel set the barn on fire?” I ask Christian as I peer out of a loft window, my stomach in my throat, worried sick over my daughter.
Morrigan.
Burning.
Living deep in the woods, my mother had a great fear of fire. One that she passed on to me. Not just a fear of forest fires but also a personal fear. “They burn witches,” she often told me.
“We aren’t witches,” I’d reply.
“It doesn’t matter. They believe we are, and that is all it takes.”
“This isn’t the seventeenth century.”
“Hmph. Don’t sass.”
My mother’s words echo in my brain as I search the grounds for Christian’s brother.
“It’s too wet,” answers Christian. He stands with his body to the side of a window as he scans outside. “Everything is covered with snow. It’d be nearly impossible to get a fire going.”
I look at the smoking Hummer without comment.
“When we were kids, he got in trouble twice for fooling around with flammables.” Disgust fills his voice. “Makes me wonder how many times he didn’t get caught.”
“We can’t see him,” I report down to Mercy on the lower floor.
“Keep watching. He’s somewhere,” she answers back. “Can you see his vehicle?”
“Barely. Not much past the headlights,” I tell her. Out the opposite window I can see the barn. No smoke. A small reassurance that Morrigan is still safe.
“Gabriel is no longer a child,” I tell Christian. “What he’s done is unforgivable.” Tears burn in my eyes and my throat grows tight. “My mother . . .” I can’t speak.
Christian looks ready to cry. “I’m so sorry, Salome. I know how special she was.”
“I liked your father. I’d always hoped the two of you would repair your relationship. I tried to reason with him.”
“He’s stubborn.”
Like his son.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was my father?” I whisper. “You’ve known for years.”
He won’t turn from the window to look at me, and I see his father’s stubbornness in his spine.
“You didn’t tell me you were friends with my father. The man who practically disowned me,” he lashes back.
“That’s not the same and you know it.”
He has the grace to nod, and I can tell he is struggling to tell me the truth.
“I don’t know. A lot of reasons.”
I wait.
“I wasn’t positive it was true. I didn’t want to spread a rumor.”
“But now you believe it is true?”
“I did some snooping around after you begged for a place to hide. I found out there was no way your father could have been your birth father . . . he was in jail at the time.” He finally meets my eyes. “I found your baptism record. Your birthday isn’t what you think it is.”
“When is it?” I whisper, my knees weak.
“Sometime in September, I think. Not March. You’re about six months younger than you believe.”
I examine his face for lies. Truth permeates the air around him, and I struggle to find my breath.
“It wasn’t just that,” he continues. “You were my closest friend . . . I didn’t want anything to change. If you knew, we’d be different.” His voice falters on the last word.
“You don’t know that.” But in my heart I knew he was right. Our friendship was—is still special, and perhaps an unknown family bond made it that way. I don’t hate him for his silence; I could never hate him. I’m disappointed.
I search for hints of myself in his face. Maybe around the mouth . . . the shape of the eyes.
“I always believed I had genes of violence . . . my father did horrible things.” My voice trembles. “I tried to live up to those genes. I acted out . . . I fucked around and played with people’s emotions, blaming my father for making me who I was.” I cover my eyes. I can’t stand the sympathy in Christian’s. “But it was just me all along . . . not his genes . . . That was who I am.”
I shudder. None of my life is what I thought it was.
“There he is!” Mercy shouts from downstairs. “He’s on the other side of his vehicle.”
I strain my eyes, but I can’t see any movement on the other side. “Is he leaving?” I yell down to Mercy.
Get to Morrigan. Now.
“I don’t know,” said Mercy. “I think he would have left by now.”
I move to the rail and look down to the first level. “Can we get to the barn?”
“You’re going nowhere. I’ll get them out.” Mercy looks up and our eyes lock. “I need someone to watch him and cover me.”
This is true, but I know she also stated it as an excuse to keep us inside. I admire and now trust this FBI agent. She’s tough, and her heart is good. I regret we met under these circumstances.
“He’s coming out!” Christian shouts behind me.
I turn around and Christian lunges at me, knocking me to the floor, crushing me with his weight.
The window shatters, and I cover my head against the shower of glass as the gunshot reverberates outside.
Mercy dived next to the woodstove as the shot destroyed an upstairs window.
Damned glass.
She looked up at where Salome had stood a second earlier. She’d vanished.
“Christian?” Mercy shouted.
The crash of breaking glass and another gunshot made her crouch lower.
“We’re okay, but two windows up here are destroyed.”
Abruptly another shot shattered the small main-level window at the front of the cabin, and the cold outside air blew across her cheeks.
No worries. It’s too small to climb through.
“Aunt Mercy?” Kaylie’s tinny voice sounded from her pocket.
She slid out the radio. “We’re okay. He’s shot out some windows, but they’re too high for him to get in. The two of you need to stay put!”
“Got it.”
The air roared with another shot as glass shattered upstairs again.
“Get down here!” she yelled and darted for her laptop.
Christian and Salome thundered down the stairs. “He’s using tree trunks as cover,” Christian pants. “I couldn’t get a shot.” He directed Salome to crouch on the side of the woodstove that Mercy had just left.
Mercy enlarged each view on the screen. “I can’t see him. Dammit!”
I’m putting in more cameras next week.
“What about the barn?” Salome begged. She huddled by the stove, seeking the protection of the iron.
“I can see the barn door. He hasn’t gone back there.”
Christian moved toward the small broken window, his rifle raised.
“Get back,” Mercy snapped. “He hit it once, he can hit it again.”
“Send out the whore!”
Mercy’s head jerked up at Gabriel’s shout, her fingers frozen on her computer’s keyboard. Christian paled and looked over at Salome. Her eyes widened and then sparked in anger as she jumped to her feet.
“I believe he means me.”
“You’re not going out there,” Mercy ordered.
“Of course not. But as long as his focus is on me, I know Morrigan is safe.”
“Gabriel!” Christian cupped his mouth and shouted toward the small broken window. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This isn’t about you, Christian!” Gabriel answered. “It’s that fucking witch!”
Salome laughed, making an odd sound as if she were laughing and choking at the same time.
Her spine tense, Mercy hissed at Christian, “You don’t know how to handle this.”
“And you do?” he snarled back. “That’s my brother out there. He’ll listen to me.”
“He’s beyond listening to anyone. His brain has moved into his finger on the trigger.” Mercy struggled to recall the negotiation rules from her FBI workshops. To keep him talking was all she could remember.
“I’ll send you to hell, Gabriel Lake!” Salome bellowed. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she grinned, a crazy shit-eating grin that made Mercy’s skin crawl. “I’ll fucking curse you!” Her cackle was high and distorted, straight from every child’s witchy nightmare.
Christian stared at her, his rifle clenched to his chest. “Are you nuts?” he whispered.
“He’s terrified of me.” Salome choked on her tears and giggled, a wet clogged sound. “He’s always believed I was a witch.”
“You would see him? When?” Christian still looked rattled.
“Our paths would cross here and there in the past. He always gave me a wide berth.”
How can I use that to our advantage?
“You’ll burn, whore!”
“That’s not the way to speak to your half sister, Gabriel!” Her whoops echoed off the ceiling.
She’s falling apart.
Yanking her focus back to their safety, Mercy took another look at the camera angles. Gabriel had moved into her forward camera’s view, crouching behind the roasting Hummer.
“Can you keep him distracted? Keep yelling at him?” she asked Christian and Salome. “I’ll sneak out the back, go wide, and try to get a clear angle.”
Salome nodded, but Christian grabbed Mercy’s arm. “What are you planning to do?” Terror and worry filled his face.
Mercy was stunned at the anguish for his brother on his face. “He’s a threat, Christian. He murdered your father and Olivia. He won’t stop until Salome and probably the rest of us are dead too.” Why does he think I gave him a gun?
“But . . .” He couldn’t finish his sentence, his gaze darting between her eyes.
“I understand.” She laid her hand on his. Gabriel was Christian’s brother. He had every right to be rattled at the thought of his brother being shot, murderer or not. “I’ll only do what he pushes me to do.”
His face fell, but he nodded and pulled his hand away.
“Good luck,” he told her.
“You’re not my sister!” Gabriel roared. “You’re the spawn of a whore!”
Mercy pointed at Salome. “You’re up.”
“I’m going to curse your dick, you asshole!” Salome shrieked. “You’ll never get it up again!”
Well done. She flashed Salome a thumbs-up.
Mercy slipped out the back door and silently went down the steps. If she veered left, she should be out of Gabriel’s line of sight until she reached the edge of the woods. Then she could circle behind the barn and move closer using the cover of the trees. It was a long and roundabout way, but she didn’t see another option.
Gabriel shouted an unintelligible threat, and Salome started to chant at the top of her lungs. A singsong string of nonsense to Mercy’s ears, but eerily familiar to what she’d heard at Olivia’s deathbed. Goosebumps rose on her arms.
That ought to rattle him. Especially if he believed Salome had powers.
She was almost to the barn when more shattering glass followed by a muffled whoosh made her stop and check the house. No shots had been fired. Fresh smoke rose from in front of the house. It’s the Hummer. Something else ignited. The sounds repeated and a fresh burst of smoke appeared over her house.
Flames flashed in her upper windows.
He threw Molotov cocktails through the broken windows.
Her heart stopped as her world tilted off center.
My home. My work.
A barrage of miniexplosions sounded. Glass containers exploded as Gabriel threw them at the front of her home. Flames flickered in her small lower windows, and she took two steps toward the house, her gaze fastened on the back door, silently begging for Christian and Salome to appear. Get out!
“Aunt Mercy? What’s happening?” Kaylie was in tears.
She grabbed her radio. “He’s throwing Molotov cocktails into the house.” Vomit surged up her throat.
“It’s on fire?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mercy choked out. “As long as everyone is safe.”
“Those were the sounds we heard in the barn . . . he was emptying the canning jars. He must have used them and the gas—”
Mercy cut her off. “I’m almost behind the barn. I want you two to get out of the cabinet and meet me outside the back door. We can’t take the chance that he sets fire to the barn next.”
“The back door is fastened from the inside with that chain and padlock.”
And the key is in the kitchen.
A major fuckup on my part.
They couldn’t go to the front of the barn; Gabriel would see them immediately. “There are bolt cutters in one of the cabinets.” Mercy closed her eyes to think. “I think the third one. As soon as you’re out, I want you to head east. Don’t stop. I’ll radio you when it’s safe.”
“We’ll leave tracks in the snow.”
“I don’t care. Just get moving. He’s occupied at the front of the house.”
Movement out of the corner of her eye made her turn to see Christian and Salome darting away from the house to the woods. Mercy exhaled noisily, her mental load lightened.
Everyone was out of the way. Now to get the girls farther away.
Mercy awkwardly jogged through the deep snow. A minute later she reached the back of the barn and pressed her ear against the door. Clanking sounded from the other side. Kaylie had found the bolt cutters.
Two feet of snow piled up against the outside of the door, nearly as effective as the padlock for keeping the girls locked inside. Mercy dug at it like a dog, exertion heating her face. Finally the door could open enough for Kaylie to squeeze through. Morrigan was right behind her. Mercy hugged her niece tight to her chest, wishing she’d left the girl back in town. “You need to head through the forest.”
“What about you?” Kaylie pleaded. Her gaze went from Mercy’s bulletproof vest to the rifle slung over her shoulder. “Oh.”
“My mother?” Morrigan whispered, clutching Kaylie’s arm. Her eyes were huge in her delicate face.
“She’s fine,” Mercy promised. “I saw her get out. You two need to start moving. No stopping.”
“I love you, Aunt Mercy.” Kaylie’s voice cracked and she wiped her eyes.
“Love you more.” Mercy ached to hug her again, but time was too tight. “Go.”
She watched the two figures lumber through the snow, Kaylie towing Morrigan behind her.
Mercy darted back to the tree line and continued her trek to get Gabriel in her sights.
Truman stopped and turned off the ATV, not trusting his ears.
More explosions?
Two more far-off detonations sounded, and more smoke rose in the direction of Mercy’s cabin.
Fire.
Mercy? Kaylie?
Images from his past of a burning car flashed in his mind, replaced by the recall of a recent burning barn. His healed burns prickled and stung under the skin of his neck and thigh at the memories, the old injuries echoing in his nerves. Every fiber of his muscles wanted to run in the opposite direction. His heart was thick in his throat as he restarted the ATV, his focu
s on Mercy and Kaylie. I might be walking into a nightmare. He shut down the terror that tried to take over his brain. Please be safe.
His progress had been painstakingly slow. The vehicle wasn’t capable of much speed, and the snow made it feel as if he were crawling.
Am I too late?
THIRTY-EIGHT
Smoke and flames billowed from all her windows.
Frozen in shock, Mercy’s muscles threatened to shatter.
I won’t cry. It’s just boards and bricks.
But it was more than that. Her cabin was the result of years of backbreaking work. It had kept her centered and grounded.
Now she floated with no tether, anxiety and panic taking her higher. Her aspirations and dreams burning as she watched.
Her soul crumbling, she leaned against a tree, closing her eyes to block the burning of her core.
Knowing she had a fallback position had kept her sane, and her brain threatened to tip over into the dark.
Not now. Don’t think about it now.
Four months earlier it was all she’d had. Now she had Kaylie. Her family. Truman.
Thoughts of Truman brought her back down to earth, helping her focus, and she sucked in deep breaths, exhaling for long seconds, slowing her heartbeat.
Her cabin could be rebuilt. Some supplies were still safe in the barn.
She opened her eyes and pushed away from the tree, dragging her grit and tenacity up from the very bottom of her rattled soul. She had a mission. A deadly one. She drew her handgun and led with it gripped in front of her, tuning out the sounds of the fire.
Just you and me, Gabriel.
She wasn’t sure of his location. There’d been no explosions for several minutes. Just the roar of the flames. They stretched out of her windows and licked the edges of her roof. Steam rose from the shingles, and she had a stab of regret about the expensive solar panels.
Doesn’t matter.
Concentrate.
On her right she was nearly even with the front of the house, but she didn’t see Gabriel or his vehicle.
Shit. Where are you?
She crouched, scanning her surroundings for any movement. Nothing. She moved from tree to tree, her pace slower, more intent on the hunt. Sweat covered her upper lip, and she brushed it with her sleeve. She holstered her pistol and unslung the rifle from her shoulder.
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