by Warren, Rie
We trudged over the dark swampy terrain. Bright shafts of moonlight through the patches of trees helped guide us. We were an army of men and one woman.
Slade took the lead the farther we got toward the briny water.
“You don’t know where you’re going,” I grumbled.
“I reckon your grandmother’s a sly fox so you better follow my steps.”
Another half a mile, and I heard the buzz of the generator before I saw the cabin.
Then I heard Mamere’s usual friendly greeting when she wasn’t expecting company. “Got me a shotgun and I’ll blow holes right through your skulls if’n you don’t identify yourselves right now.”
“Looks like Angel’s a chip off the old block,” Saint murmured, staying well behind me.
Stepping toward the porch, I saw her shadowy silhouette. “Mamere?”
Floodlights blazed on. Blinded, I flipped an arm over my eyes.
“Ange? That you, boug?”
“Oui. What the heck?” I remembered to mind my cursing just in time. “Storm kit you out with halogen lights or something?”
“And tripwires.” Smugness colored her voice.
I looked back at Slade.
He shrugged. “Tried to tell you. Was walking you all through her traps.”
My own grandmother.
Yeah. Chip off the old block all right.
She came a few steps down the porch after setting the shotgun aside. “Ange. Why, my goodness gracious me!”
Stepping even closer—the halogens calming down so I could see her silvery braid and her Savoie blue eyes only slightly less dark than Storm’s and mine—she scanned the men behind me.
Then she touched her hand to Mercy’s pale face.
“Who is this? What are y’all doin’ here?” Her palm flew up to crack me affectionately on the side of the head. “Grand beedé, first time I see’s you in over a month, and you come trompin’ out here in the dark with a bunch of menfolk and a girl?”
“She’s in trouble.”
In spite of her gruff hello, I knew Mamere loved me.
I knew she’d help us.
“I can see that.” She spun spryly around. “Bring her inside. Quick. Quick! I need to light a fire under your ass?”
Inside, I carried Mercy to Mamere’s room. I settled her on the old iron bedstead, tucking quilts around her that Mamere quickly towed off.
“Angel.” Mercy’s eyes opened blearily. “I dreamed of you. And the hills. And my memaw.”
“I wasn’t a dream, Mercy. It was never a dream or a fairytale.” I bent my forehead to hers.
She was out again just like that. But it wasn’t a relaxed sleep. Mercy’s hands clawed into the sheets, her legs straightened like rigor mortis had set in.
Mamere turned her to her side. She ran a hand up and down Mercy’s back while toeing a trashcan over to the bed.
“Git. Git! Go set up camp outside with those men. Else you’ll be sleepin’ with the gators. And bring me some hot water and more towels.”
I could barely see straight as I crashed around the small kitchen.
Slade stomped inside, smelling of wood ash and cigarette smoke. “Let me.”
He lit the gas burner, filled a big kettle. He poured me some of Mamere’s secret stash, and I glugged it.
“Your grandma isn’t gonna come back in here waving that shotgun at my face for messing in her kitchen, is she?” he asked.
Those were the most words I’d ever heard him speak at one time. I suspected he was trying to distract me.
“Just tell her you know Storm too.”
I stepped outside to breathe in the salty air wafting off the bayou. The men had already made camp of some sorts, and a fire blazed in the pit. Sol stood to one side of the pyre, braising something or other in the open flame.
I smelled chicory.
It smelled like Mamere.
I wandered to the dock where the water bubbled and burbled.
The moon—a crescent tonight—took second place to the stars glittering in the black dome of the sky.
Just like the stars on Mercy’s arms.
She could die at any moment. What the hell was I doing out here when there wasn’t a second to waste?
I ran back to the cabin, slamming inside.
Slade turned off the gas on the range. He handed me a kettle with a potholder wrapped around the handle.
“The water’s hot now. I’m gonna borrow some utensils and plates for the guys. I think Sol’s cooked up a feast out there.” Slade scratched the side of his jaw. “No idea where he produced the food from. Must be as prepared as me.”
Numbly, I nodded. I had no words, no small talk. No thoughts other than Mercy on death’s door.
I took the hot water into the bedroom and set it beside the bed.
Mercy was paler than the fantôme I used to think she was, and I couldn’t live if she didn’t survive too.
“Mamere, there’s something you should know.”
She looked up from dabbing Mercy’s face, the patchwork apron pleated between her knees like the fine lines pleated across her cheeks. “I knows.”
It was then I saw the scissored-off scraps of Mercy’s shirt and her jeans, her boots lying on their sides, empty on the floor.
“I seen the brand and I recognize the track marks. I’m guessing none of that was of her own doing.” With her silver braid slipping over one shoulder, my grandmother stood.
“And I reckon you got to her as best you could. As fast as you could.”
“I could’ve done more.” I could’ve stopped her from going back. The raw truth doubled my pain, and I begged Mamere, “Please tell me you’ll do more.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks before I even realized it.
Mamere dabbed them away.
“It ain’t a weakness to cry for someone you love. I know that well by now.”
I swallowed the great big lump in my throat, looking at Mercy who was still motionless. Tears were pointless. Me crying wouldn’t do Mercy any good.
Mamere stuffed the scraps of clothing and the old boots into my arms. “Take those things outside and burn ’em. I reckon they’re no good to anyone, least of all your Mercy.”
She kissed both my cheeks then pushed me away. “You come back in again without my say-so, and I won’t be so pleasant.”
Outside, I disposed of the clothes. I felt like a zombie. I gravitated to the fire and slumped down onto a log.
“She’s a real ball buster, huh?” Saint settled next to me on an upturned stump of wood.
“Who?”
“Your mamere.”
“Mercy too.”
“Get you a drink.” Sol thrust a plate of food into my hands. “It’s g’on be a long night.”
But I couldn’t wait that long. As soon as I’d stuffed food into my mouth that could’ve tasted like sawdust for all I cared, I ventured back inside.
I just needed to make sure Mercy was still breathing.
Mamere body-blocked me from entering the bedroom. “You can’t do anything for her right now. Jist let me see to her.”
She marched back inside, leaving me hanging in the doorway. She began swaddling Mercy in layers of quilts.
“What are you doing?” Even I could see the dots of perspiration lining Mercy’s blank face.
“She’s cold.”
“What do you mean she’s cold? She’s sweating buckets.” My tone turned downright belligerent, and I hurried to Mercy’s bedside about to throw off the blankets.
Mamere hit me with a sobering look. “You think I don’t know how to take care of an overdose after Joséphine?”
The mention of my mom shocked me into silence. Slammed me into stillness.
“Step off now, and don’t make me slap you sideways, boug.” She pointed to the door, once again ordering me out.
No sooner than I made it to the porch, Mamere called out, “Bring me some ice, Sol!”
He came up to me. “Where be da ice?”
“Sh
e just said Mercy was cold, and there isn’t any fucking ice out here! There’s barely any electricity.”
Slade shouldered past with a cooler he’d retrieved from god knew where. “I brought the ice.”
Saint watched the proceedings with an eyebrow cocked at Slade. “Fucking MacGyver or what?”
Then I heard Revenge murmur, “She must be fitting again.”
I couldn’t listen to this. I couldn’t stand around here and do nothing.
I felt so goddamn useless.
For the next hour that seemed to stretch into days, all I did was pace a track around and around the fire.
I wouldn’t even take a drink, not with Mercy in the condition she was.
I didn’t stop stalking until Mamere appeared silhouetted on the porch. I ran up to her with pounding footsteps.
“Ange.” She cupped both my cheeks. “You’re gonna want to say adieu now.”
Disbelief spilled over me, and I pulled away. “What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t think she belongs in this world anymore. Some things you just can’t fix.”
Fear spilled over me in frigid waves.
Mamere didn’t think Mercy was gonna make it.
Mamere, who’d watched her own daughter die from an overdose.
My legs felt like wooden sticks as I walked into the bedroom.
I’d promised I wouldn’t cry again, but I wasn’t so sure about that stoic shit anymore.
It looked like Mercy was already gone. Eyes closed. Deathly pale. Her breathing so shallow I’d have missed the slight respirations if I hadn’t been watching her chest so closely.
Kneeling beside her, I clasped her hands as if I could pull her back from the grave. “Open your eyes for me. Come on, cher.”
Fourteen
Mercy
“OPEN YOUR EYES FOR me. Come on, cher.”
I could hear the distress in Angel’s voice even though I doubted he was real. Another hallucination, and this time I just wanted to let go.
Whoever it was, he gripped my fingers tighter. Warm firm lips pressed against my forehead.
“Why the fuck don’t you care, Mercy?” His cheek drifted against mine before pulling away. “Why,” he whispered.
My eyelids parted to let in the light. The golden man. My Angel. He was here. It was real.
But I didn’t want to do this anymore.
“Mercy?” He swooped down again, filling my weak vision. “Talk to me. Stay awake for me.”
“I gave up a long time ago.” My fingers ghosted to his cheek, a touch so tremulous I could’ve already been gone.
“Fuck you. Fuck this! I care. I'm here.” His palms smacked down on the mattress on either side of me. “Live! Goddammit, live for me. Live for us. I love you, isn’t that enough?”
His eyes as vivid as a blue sky bore straight into me.
The force of his vitality coursed straight through me.
I struggled against the drugs still invading my system. Struggled to focus.
Struggled to care.
And I found that I did.
“I love you too.”
My words barely a hoarse whisper appeared to power straight into Angel.
He gathered me up in his arms, face in my hair, lips near my ear. “Tell me again. Tell me you’ll live.”
I tried to laugh, but it was more of a gasp. My arms slowly climbed to enfold him as strongly as I could.
“I love you.” I shut my eyes tightly, little tears leaking out.
His body shuddered all around me, and he sniffed. His hands stroked up and down my back, and I realized I was naked.
Naked and in a new place.
“Where are we? What happened?”
He set me back against a pile of pillows he stacked up before tugging a quilt to my neck.
“We’re at my mamere’s on the bayou. She saved you.”
“I thought you saved me.”
A lopsided smile tilted his lips, and his hands kept caressing along my arms to my shoulders. “You don’t remember anything?”
“Just that . . . you were there.” As miraculous as it seemed.
“’Course I was. I’m one stubborn fucking fool, and don’t you forget it. Too stubborn to let you die on me.”
Head ducked to the side, he swiped his face against his shirtsleeve. His shoulders wracked up and down, and I knew he was crying in silence.
I could only imagine what the last how ever many hours had been like for him.
I could only regret the past few days without him.
Still facing away, he said, “I came to get you. The whole MC came to get you.”
“They’re all here?”
He finally looked at me, face damp but less tense with worry. “’Fraid so. Your uncle gave you a hot shot, and you OD’d.”
“I’m sorry you had to see all that.” So sorry my heart broke for him.
“That’s about the damn stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” With a stern expression, he brought my hand to his lips and then to his cheek. “We got you out. Got you in the van. Got you some narcan.”
“Saved my life.”
“Next time you can save mine.”
I smiled weakly. “Deal.”
“It was only a few days. What did they do to you? How much did they shoot you up with?”
“I don’t know, Angel. I didn’t try to stop it.” I closed my eyes as shame crept back in. “Just wanted to feel nothing.”
He sensed I withheld something.
“What else?”
Head averted, I whispered, “You won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
“Another man fucked me.” My voice broke.
“You mean raped you.” His voice sounded like sharp steel.
Then his thumb eased across my cheek. He swept away tears I hadn’t realized I was crying.
“Just one?”
I nodded.
“And that’s all of it? The drugs and the . . . the rape,” he finished hollowly.
I nodded.
“C’mere, my gamine.” He scooped me into his arms, folding us both in the blankets. “That’s enough now. You’ve gone through enough.”
He rocked me like I was a child, and I clung to his warmth and comfort.
“I found the boots and the knife.”
“It was agony just leaving them outside like that,” he admitted.
“It was agony when I left you.”
“Well, we’re not doing any of that shit again, I can tell you.”
I nodded once more, swept along on his calming strength.
When he lay me back down, he inspected me like I was an invalid, and embarrassment at my predicament made me squirm.
He passed his thumb over my dry lips. “You need something to drink.”
Almost before he got the words out, Slade appeared.
“Electrolytes,” he said, handing Angel a bottle of brightly colored liquid.
After popping off the cap, he held the bottle while I took a few sips.
Then Slade came closer to me. He pulled out an IV and a bag of clear fluids.
I knew nothing of this man’s history, but he must’ve witnessed his own fair share of traumas.
“Not any meds. I don’t want any meds. I’m just coming down and I don’t want any more drugs ever.”
“Just saline.” Monosyllabic as ever, Slade rigged up an IV stand using what had to be Angel’s grandmother’s coatrack.
“You’re not half bad to have around in an emergency.” Angel watched Slade work.
“Have to be pretty handy in a crisis when you’re a Marine.” His lips quirked briefly. “I’ll take that thanks with a bottle of whiskey once things settle down though.”
Slade swabbed at my arm, revealing a whole new set of puncture sights.
He didn’t say a single word except, “Light scratch,” when he found a good vein.
He adjusted the drip then held my wrist and checked his watch.
After he was satisfied with my blood pressure
he laid his palm against my forehead. “Probably better not give us a scare like that again. Saint broke a few traffic laws speeding you out here. Sol’s been beside himself. And this one here”—he thumbed toward Angel—“has been a Grade A Asshole.”
“I ’preciate it, Slade,” I murmured.
His cheeks turned a little ruddy, and I wondered if I’d just made the hardened man blush.
He backed out of the room with a gruff, “You’re welcome.”
“Is everyone else okay?” I asked Angel.
“Bien, bien. They’re fine. Camped right outside. Sol made dinner and everything.”
“What about . . . what about back at the White Lair?”
His features carved into harsh planes. “Most of them survived, far as I know.”
Then I had one terrifying thought. “Oh God.” I clamped my hands over my mouth. “What about the other women?”
“The other—”
“You didn’t know, but—”
“Sol overheard something. Your uncle blackmailed you because he knew you’d go back to make sure they wouldn’t hurt the rest of the girls?”
“Oh, Angel.” I’d done it again. I’d put more lives in danger again. “We have to get them. I can’t leave them there!”
I bolted upright and started pulling at the IV.
Angel laid me right back down, restraining my arms. “You’re not going anywhere. Try to take that IV out again, and I’m not even kidding, I’ll strap you to the bed.”
A light kiss to my cheek softened his threat, but I was still frantic with worry.
“Ned will kill them. You don’t understand!”
“Where are they? In those other concrete huts at the back?”
“Yes but—”
“The dogs. Hush now. I know.”
“How did you get past Pit and Bull the other night?” I stilled briefly.
“Sol’s barbequed ribs.” He stood and pointed at me. “Don’t you even move from this bed. Promise me.”
“Promise me you’ll find them.”
He nodded then warned me one more time. “Stay put.”
I heard him yell to the other MC men, and it sounded like they convened at the front of Angel’s mamere’s cabin.
“Got another rescue mission.” That was Angel.
“Good thing I wasn’t planning on catching any shut-eye tonight.” I recognized Saint’s voice.