by Amity Cross
I sat straight up in bed with a gasp, my eyes wide, my skin beaded with sweat. My racing heart was beating painfully inside my chest as I gulped in lungfuls of air.
I'm in the cottage, I’m in the cottage, I'm in the cottage. I repeated it like a mantra, trying to grasp onto some sense of reality.
“X?”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the remnants of my dream from my waking mind.
“X…” came her more worried, yet persistent voice.
Her hands came to rest on my back, and I jerked away. “Don’t.”
“What’s going on?”
It felt like ice. Her hands felt like ice. I knew they were warm, comforting, but they hurt. I’d never reacted to her touch in such a way. “I don’t know.”
I did know, but I didn’t want to acknowledge my weakness, even though she’d pledged herself to me at my worst.
My past was catching up with me.
“X…” She reached out for me again, her expression full of worry and I threw the covers away and stood before she could take hold.
Mercy stared at me, the hurt plain in her eyes. The air was clammy against my sweaty skin, and for the first time, I was ashamed of my nakedness in front of her. My strength was faltering.
Ignoring her silent pleas, I strode into the bathroom and turned the shower on, twisting the hot water tap as far as it would go and adding a dash of cold.
Not waiting to test the temperature, I stepped into the flow as steam billowed into the room. The water pounded against my back, the heat searing my skin. Pain and sex anchored me in the here and now. I needed to be here. Present. I couldn’t make any mistakes, not now. There were too many variables, and things were no longer as clear-cut as I had hoped it would be.
Be the man you were trained to be.
Monster, murderer, emotionless, empty, soulless…devil.
It felt like an age before the bathroom light flicked on, and Mercy stepped into the shower behind me. I jerked, my head rising as awareness flooded my senses.
“Shh…” she murmured, running her hands up and down my back.
It wasn’t a memory. It was a fucking omen. Death and pain awaited us, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to fucking do.
I turned sharply, wrapping my arms around her as my mouth found hers. I kissed her roughly, forcing my tongue against hers. I needed her. I needed her body. She was real…this was real.
I pressed her back against the tiles, my cock hardening against her stomach, and she lifted her leg, wrapping it around my hip. I knew what she wanted, what she was trying to give me, but I wanted something else. Something a little more selfish than she deserved, even if I was in the middle of another episode.
With a growl, I pulled away and grasped her hips, my fingers biting into her skin. It was becoming red underneath the hot water, the temperature a little too much, but she didn’t complain once. I knew she liked the pain. In that way, we were the same.
Without so much as a word, I turned her around and lifted my right hand to the hair at the nape of her neck. I pressed forward and pulled her back with my left, forcing her ass against my crotch.
“You know what I want,” I hissed, beginning to grind against her.
She opened her legs and wiggled against me, complying as I knew she would. Letting her hip go, I fisted my cock and began stroking the head against her pussy, shuddering as spikes of pleasure ebbed through me. This was so fucked up, but fucked up was all I had. It was the only thing I could grasp onto.
Rolling the pad of my thumb around her puckered hole, I ignored her clit, ignored her cunt and went straight for the thing I ached for most. Pressing my thumb inside her, she gasped, her palms hard against the wall in front of her. Twisting my other hand into her hair, I held her tight to keep her from flinching away as I invaded her body from behind.
Removing my thumb, I positioned my cock, desperate to feel the moment when I filled her with my orgasm. She stood without complaint as I stretched her little by little, her moans growing louder and her breathing sharper. She pressed back as I pressed forward, and soon I was balls deep in the one place that would forever be mine. I’d be the first and last.
Letting go of her hair, I ran my hands up and down her back, shaking as I held onto my release, relishing the feel of her tight little ass around my cock. Yes, this made me feel a lot better.
I began to move, slowly at first, easing out as her muscles clenched before pushing back in. Tightening my grasp on her hips, I guided her over my shaft, concentrating on my pleasure, focusing on this. This moment was all I had.
Mercy moved with me, rearing back as I fucked her ass, her cries growing as her own pleasure built. Her thrusts became desperate, harder, and my body answered hers. I quickened my pace, my balls flaring, filling, aching, until I couldn’t hold on any longer. Losing all sense, I pounded into her hard and came. There seemed to be no end to it as she clenched tight, milking everything I had until I had no choice but to fall back down into reality.
Grasping her hair, I tugged backward, and she stood tall with my cock still buried in her ass. Turning her face, she found my mouth with hers and kissed me, her tongue wet and desperate against mine. It was so intense that I found myself falling, breaking that little bit more. Her blue eyes were ice, and the blood from my dream felt like it was falling around us, coating everything I touched. One day, maybe one day soon, I’d be responsible for her death. It was a sign.
I might not pull the trigger, but I’d set her on this path when I could’ve stopped it.
Letting her go, I pulled out roughly, ignoring her cry of pain as I stepped from the shower. I dismissed her like a thing, like an object…
I grabbed a towel and dried myself off, tossing it onto the floor and staggering into the bedroom. Blood was everywhere in my dreams.
Like the monster I was, I just took without a care for the consequence. She’d let me, so who was to blame? Perhaps both of us in equal measure.
“You won’t talk to me,” Mercy said, following me into the bedroom. “How can I help if I don’t know what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t help, that was the problem.
Without a word, I turned and slid back into bed.
Closing my eyes, I let myself drift off, and this time, it was into a dreamless sleep.
When morning came, and I finally woke, it was to an empty bed.
Sitting up, I listened, expecting to hear sounds from the bathroom or the kitchen to signal Mercy was up and getting ready for the day. I knew that I had to apologize for my behavior, but it was a foreign concept. I never apologized. For anything.
Fuck, the whole notion of a relationship was still very much alien. I had been approaching this with the mentality of a partnership, and it was in a way, but I had been visualizing it as I would a contract.
I was a fucking moron.
As I listened, it became apparent that the cottage was silent. Empty.
I threw the blankets aside and rose, pulling on the jeans I’d discarded on the floor the night before. Finding the bathroom empty, I padded through the living room and found the kitchen cold and dark, but it was something pinned to the front door that finally caught my attention. Something that hadn’t been there the night before.
A knife was imbedded in the wood, its tip piercing a piece of white paper. The knife that I’d given her so she could practice her aim out in the yard.
Typical…she’d left me a note. I strode over to it and tore it down, reading the words she’d left for me.
X, I need some time. I will be back tonight. Mercy.
I slammed my fist into the wall and cursed.
I was losing her.
My fucked up inability to cope with my past, to not want to know, to fucking disappear, had pushed her away. There was no other reason she’d leave. I had been fine with not knowing, but apparently, she was not. She hadn’t been truthful with me, and the bite of betrayal stung the shredded remains of my heart.
I was l
osing Mercy Reid.
Ten
Mercy
He wouldn’t talk to me.
X was never one to share his thoughts and feelings, but this was different. Something was very wrong.
There were things he’d never tell me, things that would go with him to the grave, but something had changed last night. First, when I’d disappeared in to the city, he’d gone someplace, maybe to follow up something Weiss had told him. He was angry with me, but I’d expected that. Then, when he’d woken from another dream…it didn’t feel typical. Usually, he’d find his solace in our bodies together, but he’d pushed me away as if my touch had burned him. The sex we’d shared in the shower had become violent with him in the dominating position, much like it had been when we first met. It didn’t feel right in my heart, and for the first time since he’d walked into The Gambler’s Inn and called me a bitch, I didn’t know what to do.
X's sudden downward spiral made me think he was regressing, that all the things we’d been through up until now had been for nothing. That was worrying enough, but there was another problem I didn’t know how to face.
The woman Mei. That was a can of fucking worms if I ever saw one. If I told X Intelligence had approached me the moment he’d turned his back, he’d snap even further and then there would be nothing I could do to save him.
More than ever, I believed he had to face his past before he could move forward, and his denial was doing more damage than good. What was I meant to do? He wasn’t leaving me with much choice, and I feared I would have to give him up before I could win him back forever.
Before X could wake, I dressed in the dark and slipped out to the car, my boots sinking into the snow that had fallen overnight. I needed to get away and think.
I drove all the way across the moor in the gray light of the early morning, the landscape looking alien underneath its shroud of white ice. My life seemed to be full of metaphors lately. The world had changed overnight, internally and externally.
Exeter was already beginning to bustle with the day’s activities by the time I found myself driving through it. People were on their way to work, or school or whatever it was they did. Normal people with lives, families, jobs… Regular people with regular dreams. I wondered what X had dreamed about before he was conditioned. He would’ve been in his early twenties, maybe in University, maybe working… What if he had a family out there who were looking for him? My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. What if he had a girlfriend or a wife he’d loved… What if she was looking for him?
I pulled the car up into a spot and killed the engine. Silence descended as I stared out the window. The snow wasn’t nearly as pretty here. It had turned to brown mush in the gutters, the road wet and slippery. Across the street was a lone phone box, and a sense of fate prickled at my heart. Was it a sign? My life was full of them after all, and it wasn’t like they were common in the age of smartphones. I glanced at the sky through the windshield like I’d see the god I didn’t believe in laughing his ass off at me.
Settling back in the seat, I stared at the phone box and wondered if I should call the woman. Agent Mei.
She only wanted a meeting, which could mean anything, but I had the opportunity to control how it happened. I could talk to her first, get more information. It was clear X needed help, but I wasn’t sure that involving Intelligence was the right way to go about it. They’d cage him like a beast, no matter what she promised.
I curled my hands into tight fists and began to shiver as the warmth began to seep from the interior of X’s car. I wondered how he’d coped when he found me gone. If he would be even more pissed at me for leaving before he woke. That was the point, right? He wasn’t coping.
Opening the door, I stepped out onto the street. It was just a phone call. If I didn’t like what she had to say, I could just hang up and walk away. No harm, no foul. I could go back to X and try something else because abandoning him was not an option.
I jogged across the empty road and slipped inside the booth, the door closing with a bang that made me jump. Shivering, I grasped the handset and pressed it against my ear. I dialed the number Mei had given me and closed my eyes as it began to ring.
She just wants to talk. I just want to talk. I need to ask the right questions. I need to help X.
“Hello?”
Mei’s voice echoed through the receiver, and before I could lose my nerve and hang up, I blurted, “What do you want with him?”
There was nothing but silence, and I wondered if the call had dropped out. I began to shiver even more violently, shoving my free hand inside my jacket. Then, I finally got an answer.
“We just want to talk to him,” Mei replied, sounding like she hadn’t believed I was going to contact her. “Nothing more.”
I didn’t exactly trust her word. The world had shaped me to be distrusting of everyone…everyone but X. “What assurances can you give me that he will walk away after?”
“Mercy, all I can give you is my word.” Her voice was calm, even, confident. Well-fucking-trained. “We will set the meeting in a neutral location. No surveillance, no backup, no wires. Just me and him.”
“Why? I don’t understand what you want.”
There was a rustling as Mei shifted her phone, and I tried to remember how long the call had been connected. There was no doubt in my mind they’d run a trace, and at any moment a tactical team would be surrounding the little phone booth I huddled inside of.
“I can’t tell you. All you need to know is that he’s a person of interest.”
I snorted at the irony. “Let me guess, it’s above my non-existent clearance level?”
“We want to help him, Mercy. We know what he’s been through.”
I stilled, the blood draining from my face. My breath caught, and I shook my head, almost dropping the receiver. “You can’t know.”
“I think…” She paused as a rare note of emotion came through in her voice. “We think we know who he is.”
I fell against the side of the booth and pressed my palm against the opposite window to steady myself. They knew who he was.
I was desperate to help X, but the cost of betrayal might be too great. But what if they could help him come to terms with his conditioning? What if they could reverse it? Was it even possible to undo such severe brainwashing? If they knew who he was, they might be able to give him his life back. I might lose him in the process, but if there was even the slightest chance…then I had to know.
“Can you help him?” I asked, my voice wavering.
There was silence for a moment before she replied. “Yes. We can help him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and made the call.
“What do I need to do?”
Eleven
Mercy
I hung up the receiver, my fingers numb with the chill of what I’d just done.
Had I just betrayed the only man I’d ever loved?
I did it to save him. I had to trust Mei. I had to save X’s soul like he had mine when he came with me to kill Sykes. He’d left me with little choice but to take matters into my own hands.
Drawing in a deep breath, I stepped from the phone booth. X would come back to Exeter to speak with Weiss, and that was when they’d approach him. They’d talk to him and at the end of it, give him a choice. Go with them and get the help he needed or walk away. Perhaps that choice would be the thing that saved our relationship, but maybe it would never be enough.
Turning, I gasped as a dark figure lunged for me. I twisted to the side, using the phone booth as a springboard. I shoved hard against the glass, putting distance between me and my assailant—who I now saw was a rough looking man—and me.
Intelligence? Somehow, I didn’t think they’d be that stupid, even if they’d traced the call.
“Who are you?” I cried as I twisted out of the way of a punch.
“Who the fuck do you think, little girl?” His voice was harsh, as if he’d been gargling turpentine, and the hint of a crude green
ish tattoo peeked out from the collar of his bomber jacket. He was too thuggish to be Intelligence, which meant one thing and one thing only.
No!
I stumbled as I realized the reality of the shit I was in, and it was enough for the man to lunge and curl his hands around my neck. I thrashed against his grasp, but he was too strong and I was stuck. His fingers squeezed around my throat, closing off my airways.
“Royal Blood,” I gasped, desperately trying to hold on to consciousness.
He smirked as a black van screeched to a stop beside us, the side door sliding open.
Fuck…I had to get away. The only way that was going to happen was to trust in the things X had taught me. It was the only chance I had. A clear mind, a level head and zero emotion. So, I did the exact thing he’d kept trying to beat into my head over and over since we arrived at the cottage.
I turned off my emotions. I turned them off and I fought.
Grasping the man’s shoulders, I jumped with as much force as I could muster and kicked forward. Catching him by surprise, his grip slackened as his knees buckled, and I managed to twist free.
Gasping for breath, I stumbled as two more men jumped from the van and came straight at me. I reacted instantly, reaching for the knife in my boot. My hand grasped the hilt and I pulled it free. With the flick of a wrist, I sent it hurtling through the air.
Everything seemed to slow down, and for a sickening moment, I thought I’d missed my mark, but there was a dull thunk as the knife imbedded into the chest of one of the men. It sunk right into his flesh, right to the hilt, and he fell hard, his eyes wide with shock. His friend hesitated, and I stepped forward, my fist raised to strike, but I wasn’t fast enough to counter him before the first man I'd knocked to the ground collected himself.
Pain shocked through my side and I staggered, a boot sinking into my ribs with enough force to break bone. My eyes widened as the man in front of me struck, his fist slamming into my temple.
Stars burst through my vision, and I felt myself falling, the world spinning and tumbling until it turned to darkness.