Mercy

by Rhiannon Paille

  “Your, what?”

  “Flat … apartment, it’s downtown.” Michael shifted the binder to the other arm and Maeva noticed he wasn’t wearing a brace. Maeva frowned, acutely aware of the way his Adam’s apple bounced when he talked, and the tiny red dots on his neck, shaving, most likely. She averted her gaze, realizing too late she was checking him out.

  “We don’t have a downtown,” she said, pulling as much of the calm, cool, and collected attitude out of herself. Her heart had to stop thrumming, her palms had to stop sweating, and she needed to stop staring at his mountains for knuckles, scars indented in the skin on the back of his hand.

  He shot her a wry smile. “It’s not like Leeds but …”

  She shook her head trying to clear her mind. “Nobody lives downtown. That’s what I meant. There’s nowhere to live.”

  Michael shrugged. “I live on Main, above the Candy Corner.”

  “Seriously?” She didn’t expect her assassin—stalker—psycho, to live above a candy store.

  He smirked and there was nothing menacing about it. “Do you have a problem with it?”

  “No … just …” She couldn’t say it to his face, not at school. He was acting like he hadn’t told her he was going to kill her, and it was so bizarre.

  “After school?”

  She sighed, she had choir practice after school and sundown was around four thirty. She nodded. “After choir practice, what’s the address?”

  “105 Main,” Michael said, walking away. She shook her head, hardly believing she just agreed to go to his place, and trudged towards her next class.

  ***

  Chapter 21

  Assassin

  It was dark outside by the time practice was finished. Flat fluorescent lights lit the hallways, white linoleum, gray lockers, and white brick walls. Krishani leaned against a row of lockers, a door pin rubbing against his spine. He had time to get his jacket, keeping his binder firmly under his arm.

  He pushed the wave of emotions down, reminded briefly of the Carnelian Flame and her ability to build a dam, keeping all the things he felt behind thick cement. He tilted his head to the ceiling and closed his eyes, seeing red behind his eyelids. He hadn’t seen Tiki in so long. He didn’t know where the Flames were anymore. Other than Cossisea and Klavotesi, the Valtanyana hadn’t found the rest. They were perpetually lost in the vast vacuum of space. Whether they found hosts, he didn’t know. And why would they? Flames were the embodiment of magic, older than time, created in the First Era. Mystery shrouded their existence, and since Kemplan erased all lore regarding them, they were like ghosts.

  Kaliel came down the hallway, her eyes on the floor as usual. She wore a green tee and dark skinny jeans, her curly black hair pulled up in a bushy ponytail. She frowned at him when she reached her locker, flipping the lock around and yanking it open. Krishani noticed chestnut highlights in her hair.

  “I could have met you there,” she said, pulling on a scruffy black sweater and flipping her hood up. It didn’t fit her head with the ponytail, but it stayed while she pulled on her jacket and shoved the hood down. She wound a tricolored scarf around her neck and pulled on thin gloves.

  He had thought of that. School ended and he thought about walking home in the cold, but his lungs felt too heavy. January weather wasn’t like December weather. During Winter Break it was cold, but it didn’t include gusts of wind up to ninety kilometers and temperatures as low as minus forty-five. As much as he loved the feeling of numbness in his extremities, the burning pain of thawing frostbite was worse than the usual burning aches. He pressed his lips into a line.

  “I don’t have a car.”

  Kaliel closed her locker and pulled the backpack over her shoulders. She met his gaze, her eyes softer than usual. “How’s your wrist?”

  The doctor prescribed brace was on his bedside table, beside the knife and the eight bottles of poison. He flexed his wrist, even though it was sore.

  “Never better.” He passed her, moving to the front doors. Wincing at the cold, he held it open for her. She pulled her scarf over her mouth and wrestled her keys out. He followed her to the Sundance and she unlocked the doors, putting her backpack on the back seat. He slid in, frowning as she searched the bag. He raised an eyebrow when she sat in the driver’s seat and pushed a metal cylinder into the ignition column.

  She cranked the key and the Sundance rumbled to life. She let out a breath, running her hands along the steering wheel. “It won’t be cold forever,” she said quietly, talking to the car.

  Krishani pulled his seatbelt across his chest and snapped it into place. He tried not to smile, instead of trees she talked to cars. It was intrinsically something very Kaliel about her.

  “Sorry. The Sundance is a little beat up.”

  “Is your ignition busted?” Krishani asked. His knowledge of cars was limited to what he had of other people’s memories and frankly, the amount of time he spent in North America was scarce compared to Europe and Asia. Cars were something new, perfected in the last thirty years, which, compared to the thousands of years of knowledge he had, was nothing.

  She nodded. “Turned it off one day and the key was stuck. I ended up pulling out the whole cylinder. Earl got my key out.”

  Krishani sat back, looking at the plowed sidewalks illuminated by orange street lamps. It didn’t take long to drive from Valley to Main. She passed the rotunda, the lake a black sheet. She parked in one of the stalls in front of his building. She didn’t say anything and he felt like there was a wall between them.

  He stifled the cold and pulled out his keys, ushering her up a flight of stairs to the second level. She looked nervous as he unlocked all the dead bolts and kicked the door with his combat boots. She casually took off her scarf and coat, folding them over the back of the couch. He went down the hall, checking to see if Elwen was home. He pushed the partially open door.

  Elwen looked up from his laptop. “You’re home late.”

  “Maeva’s here,” Krishani said, not wanting the attitude, amusement, or snide comments. Elwen looked surprised, but smoothed his features to nothingness when Krishani narrowed his eyes.

  “Should I say hello?”

  Krishani pressed his lips together. “You have to work.” He didn’t wait for Elwen’s remark as he closed the door and went back to the sitting room. He already tore Elwen apart, suspecting he was the reason Cossisea showed up. Elwen swore he didn’t make the call, and Krishani had no choice but to believe him.

  Kaliel sat on the sofa chair in her black sweater, rolling up frayed edges with her fingers. He didn’t know how to act around her. Technically Elwen would applaud him, but the last thing on his mind was ending her life. He moved to the fridge, grabbed two bottled waters, and offered her one.

  She had an uncertain expression on her face as she cracked the cap. She took a long sip and put it on the coffee table. Turning to the backpack she left beside the chair, she hoisted her binder out and flipped to the photography section. She read through notes and stopped on the hand out Mr. Weir shot across the tables during class.

  Krishani took a sip, water hitting his scratchy throat. He was so used to symptoms that some of them didn’t register anymore. He entirely forgot what it was like to have a clear throat, his always scratched, burned, or prickled, with the occasional lump that made it hard to swallow. Water helped, and food helped more. He was hungry, but stifled it because she was there and he didn’t want her to know he was dying. He waited for her to say something and glanced at the island where his binder was. He crossed the floor and took it, zipping it open and spreading it on the coffee table.

  Kaliel watched him, her expression unreadable. After reading and rereading the assignment a few times she looked at him, helplessness in her expression. She glanced at the door and fidgeted. “Apparently it’s not just portraits.”

  Krishani pulled out the one page photocopy and strained to read the typed English words. He tensed. The project included a series of emotive portraits base
d on personality.

  Kaliel let out an exasperated sigh and sat back in the sofa chair, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers. She looked at the window. “I have to get to know you.…”

  Krishani cleared his throat. “I know everything I need to know about you,” he said, keeping his eyes on the paper. He flipped over the sheet, a series of questions on the back, prompts. He turned it back over and glanced down the hall, hoping Elwen wasn’t going to come into the room and break all the awkward tension.

  Kaliel propped her head on her fist and glared at him. “Because of your mad assassin skills?” Sarcasm colored her words.

  Krishani felt his chest pinch and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His stomach rumbled; the need to finish this and get her out of his flat gaining against the lingering need for her to stay. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  She shifted, her eyes crackling with fire. He noticed flecks of amethyst in her irises. “I think we should.” She licked her lips and flipped to a blank page in her binder, pulling a pen out of one of the pockets on the inner front cover. She leaned forward, so close he smelled her body spray. “I want to pick when, where and how.”

  Krishani groaned. He put his head in his hands. “Can we do the assignment?”

  Kaliel laced her fingers together and he noticed her knee bouncing, her breathing shallow. She let a long silence hang between them. “At the waterfall, after grad, single bullet to the head.”

  He glanced at her, completely mortified. Anyone else would have told the police. He should have been dealing with an officer forcing him into counseling, all because of some death threat. He gritted his teeth. It wasn’t a threat, and Kaliel seemed to know that.

  “Please,” she added, tucking her head toward her binder. She put the pen on the paper and wrote down the title of the project: Fuck My Life. She scratched it out, smiling to herself and wrote: Emotive Portrait Project. She glanced at him, the sheet of prompts in front of her. “I want you to shoot yourself afterwards.”

  Krishani didn’t think he could feel more awkward. She talked about her death like it was unimportant. He squeezed his fist trying not to think about explosions and looked at the prompts, the page blurring. He frowned, and noticed her writing things on the loose leaf. Withdrawn, stood out among other adjectives.

  “You want a murder suicide?” He wasn’t having this conversation with her. She was a Flame, a weapon of mass destruction, a catalyst. At the same time she was a girl, an awkward, strange, brave girl. The Kaliel he knew wasn’t like this.

  She nodded; pressing her lips together and took a deep breath. “Tell me something nobody knows about you.”

  “Nobody knows anything about me.”

  She pulled a face. “I can’t write assassin on here.”

  “I’m not an assassin.”

  She threw the pen down and crossed her arms. Krishani wanted her to leave, he wanted to cave in on himself and pretend like none of this was happening. And he wanted to eat, take a handful of pills and black out.

  “You have to tell me something.”

  He blinked, the dam of emotions crumbling. “I used to be in love … with a girl.” He didn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her. She used to be everything and she sat there casually asking him who he was. He didn’t know how amnesia worked for Flames, if it was because she was put in the body too young, or because she suppressed it. Maybe it was something Tor did. He crushed the thought, not wanting to hate Tor for keeping her hidden from the Lands for so long.

  “What was her name?”

  Krishani didn’t expect her to ask that. He looked at her and she had her knees up on the couch, the pen twirling between her fingers. She angled herself so she could see him. He glanced down the hall. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She didn’t react. She shifted and wrote something in her binder. “What about your family?” she asked, in succession with the prompts. He rubbed his hands on his black jeans.

  “They’re dead.”

  Kaliel frowned. “All of them?”

  Krishani nodded. He didn’t have parents, siblings, and he wasn’t a Child of Avristar. Istar and Atara weren’t his kin. Neither was Adoron or the Brothers of Amersil. He was nothing but a monster following the will of a master he hated. When Morgana died, rule of the Vultures went to Darkesh, and he had ways to make Vultures suffer. Darkesh liked to prolong the hunger until it was a blinding screeching braying alarm.

  “Not … Tom, but I don’t have anyone else.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kaliel said, hesitantly writing it down.

  Krishani didn’t want to feel heavy. “What about you?”

  Kaliel shrugged. “I have my parents, and my brother, grandparents. All my aunts and uncles live in Toronto, or Halifax.”

  “Do you like it?” He didn’t know what it was like to have a family. Once upon a time she was the only family he wanted. Pain mushroomed across his temple and he winced, taking a long sip, draining half the bottle. He sat back, hoping the headache would subside.

  She looked uncomfortable. “Do you really care?”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He grabbed the sheet and glanced at the prompts, skimming through them. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Kaliel narrowed her eyes. “That’s not fair.”

  He smirked. “I can’t write victim on here.”

  She let out a sigh and glowered at him. “I sing. I hike. I hate winter. And I’ve never kissed a guy. Happy now?”

  Krishani gulped, feeling warm. “Never?”

  “The only guy I wanted to kiss was gay.” She went back to rolling up her sleeves, avoiding his penetrating gaze. He knew from her body language she was embarrassed, but he couldn’t let it go.

  “Who?”

  “Rob. He comes to Red Boot.”

  Krishani raised an eyebrow, a stab of jealousy and anger in him. “And you wanted to kiss him?” He tried to sound like he was confirming what she was saying, not that he knew Rob too.

  Kaliel buried her head in the circle of her arms. “He’s been really nice to me.”

  Krishani made a noncommittal noise, not really agreeing or disagreeing. “I guess he would be.”

  “What?”

  “Because you’re pretty—but I guess that’s not why—for him.” Krishani looked at his binder, hoping she didn’t pin him. Pux used to be her best friend, obviously he’d be nice, he just didn’t think Kaliel—Maeva would be able to develop feelings for someone else.

  Kaliel dropped her knees and twisted to her backpack. She pulled out one of the cameras from school. Ignoring the comment she flipped open the back, popping in an old style film cartridge. He watched her delicate fingers work at looping the film through the camera and click it into place. She adjusted the settings and held it up. She snapped a photo, no flash going off. He glanced at the one lamp in the corner and the blaring track lighting above the island in the kitchen. He moved to his feet, glancing out the windows facing the back lane. It was dark outside, bright back porch lights illuminating the lane. He clicked on the other lamp in the room.

  Kaliel had the camera in front of her face. “Don’t smile,” she said, adjusting the lens. He froze, unsure where to put his hands, dropping them to his sides.

  “There isn’t enough light you know.”

  She smirked. “I’m trying to capture your dark side.”

  He stilled while she took another photo. She didn’t seem afraid of him anymore. She smiled wide and put the camera down. He moved to the couch and sat on the corner closest to her, picking up the camera. He wordlessly pointed it at her but she held her hands up to block her face.

  “I’m not photogenic,” she said, her voice loud. She moved her fingers so she could see him, her eyes tinged with amethyst flecks. He snapped the picture anyway, hands on her face, fingers framing her eyes. She let out a groan.

  “Stop moving around,” he said quietly, not sure how to explain everything else he was feeling. He didn’t kno
w who gave her the impression she was ugly, but he had the urge to find them and make them understand what ugly was. He took a few more photos regardless of her objections, and even managed a faint smile out of her.

  “You’re wasting the film. We only have one roll.” Kaliel pulled her fingers down her face until they rested on her mouth, and her backpack buzzed. She flinched, zipped up her sweater and threaded her pen into its slot in her binder. In a swift move she fished her phone out of her pack and skimmed through the messages.

  Krishani lingered, gnawing hunger roiling through him. He was going to pass out if he didn’t eat something soon. She frowned at the screen, and something about her expression made him believe whoever it was didn’t like her very much. She began packing up her binder and camera. She shot him an apologetic look.

  “Sorry, that was my mom, wondering where I am.”

  Krishani glanced at the microwave. It was a few minutes past seven. “She doesn’t let you stay out?”

  Kaliel rolled her eyes. “She does, but she has to know where I am.”

  “And you didn’t tell her you were here?”

  She stood and hoisted the bag over her shoulder, dropping it by the door as she pulled her coat off the peg. She settled heavy fabric over her shoulders and faced him, a withered expression on her face. “She’d freak out if she knew I was here.”

  Krishani raised an eyebrow, everything he’d ever said to her at the forefront of his mind.

  Kaliel picked at her fingernail. “She thinks every guy is out to …” She took her scarf off the wall and wound it around her neck, zipping her jacket and pulling her boots on.

  Krishani felt queasy. Tor had a lot to do with the way things turned out for Kaliel. He shifted foot-to-foot, dizziness lancing into him. He wanted to reach out and pull her into him, make her believe she was safe, but her mom was right. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She pulled on her gloves and met his eyes, blinking a few times. “But you have to.” She didn’t let him answer, wrenching the door open and clamoring downstairs. Krishani leaned out the hallway and watched until she pushed through the glass door. He slammed the door and whirled, pressing his head against it. Elwen emerged in the hallway. Krishani moved to the kitchen, glancing out the window. Elwen opened the fridge and popped open a Red Bull.