“Um, actually—”
He cuts me off. “It won’t take long. It’s right inside.”
“Okay.” Dragging my feet, I follow him into the house. “Mr. Sullivan?” I say to the empty room.
Behind me, he closes the door. Startled, I whip around. “Sorry,” I say, catching my breath. “I didn’t see you there.”
He turns the deadbolt. With the slow click of the lock he blocks the exit. Most of these homes are identical, so I know that I can make a run for it through the kitchen if needed.
“Why don’t you have a seat? It’ll just take me a minute to find that mail.”
“Really, I have to go. My sister is waiting.”
Mr. Sullivan leaps toward me. He thrusts his hands around my throat. I stagger, coughing and choking. He slams me into the wall. Stars fill my vision. Flailing, I try to pry open his grasp. This makes him squeeze tighter. Slowly, the room darkens.
Suddenly, Mr. Sullivan releases his grip and sinks to the floor. He clutches and claws at his back, but he can’t reach the knife that’s protruding from his skin.
My lungs burn for air.
“Did he hurt you?”
I hadn’t noticed there was someone else in the room. He’s a severe looking man with defined cheekbones, deep set brown eyes, and a chiseled nose and chin. His dark hair is slicked and sharply cut.
“I don’t think so.” My voice is still weak.
Above Mr. Sullivan’s body a black cloud rises. It swirls and eddies and finally morphs into a man. I stumble backward in a failed attempt to flee.
The severe-looking man rushes at the black cloud man and thrusts a tiny dagger into its heart. The black cloud man evaporates into wisps of smoky nothingness. The severe-looking man grins smugly.
Chapter Thirteen
“What the hell was that?” I choke out.
“That was me, saving your life.”
I back away from him. “Who are you?”
“Nathaniel Black.” The right corner of his mouth pulls into a grin, though it’s more half smirk, half snarl. “Pleasure.”
Stupefied, words are lost to me. Nathaniel Black: one of the most powerful Breachers. Nathaniel Black: the Breacher who killed Mr. Andreas. Nathaniel Black: the Breacher who is after me.
“Feel free to thank me.” He rubs his hands together, clearly proud of himself.
Boldly, I fire, “You killed Mr. Andreas!”
Nathaniel shrugs and says, “Occupational hazard.”
His arrogance and disregard for life spark an ember of disgust within me. “But in the alley, you attacked me.”
“I had to get your attention.”
“There are other ways to get someone’s attention.”
His lips pull up into a tight line. “Fear is a very effective attention getter.”
“So by killing me, you were trying to get my attention?”
Nathaniel’s expression changes dramatically. Gone is any semblance of the playful smart-ass he’d been as he charges toward me. Inches from me, he says in a low, guttural voice, “If I wanted to kill you, Mercy, you’d be dead.”
Gulping, I inch backward. “Then what do you want with me?”
“I’m sure Gage already filled your head with all kinds of stories.”
“He said you wouldn’t stop until you get what you want.”
Mr. Sullivan’s body lies lifeless just a few feet from me. Blood pools beneath him, thick, nearly black, like sludge.
“Gage is not one of us, Mercy. It would be best if you remembered that.”
“He’s trying to help me.”
“Wrong!” Nathaniel roars. “He’s a Hunter, Mercy. His sole purpose is to find and slaughter Breachers.”
My head spins. I don’t know who to trust or what to believe, but judging from the dead body at my feet, Nathaniel isn’t all that great of a guy. Before I can decide whom to believe, I have more questions.
“Who was that?” I gesture toward Mr. Sullivan’s dead body.
Nathaniel nudges him with his toe. “That was one of Ariana’s goons.” Perceptive to my confused look, Nathaniel continues before I ask the obvious question. “Who’s Ariana? Well, she’s your mommy dearest.”
My limbs go numb. “That’s impossible,” I spit. “My mother is dead.”
“In theory.”
Needing to sit down, I lumber over to the couch and lower myself into the cushions. Leaning forward I put my head between my knees.
“Try not to vomit on the rug,” Nathaniel says. “We wouldn’t want to leave Lyla’s DNA at a murder scene.”
My second murder scene in less than twenty-four hours. This is not the kind of record I was hoping to set.
Nathaniel sits on the coffee table in front of me. Being so close to him ignites my skin to tingling. I can feel the electricity coursing through me and the air around me is full of static.
Learning my mother was a Breacher is one thing. But Gage didn’t say anything about her still being alive. He’d lied to me by omission. My skin buzzes with the knowledge that if he lied to me about that, there’s a chance he’d lied about other stuff too.
Nathaniel said that this thing, this Breacher inside of Mr. Sullivan, was one of Ariana’s goons? If that was true, that meant that not only was she alive, but that she sent someone to kill me—her own daughter.
I look up at Nathaniel, too tired to fear him. I half say, half whimper, “He was trying to kill me.”
“He was trying to kill this body,” Nathaniel corrects me.
“I don’t understand. Why would he want to kill Lyla?”
“Think of this more like a flesh suit.” Nathaniel picks at my hair, Lyla’s hair. “You’re not much use to anyone inside of that thing.”
Shivers of disgust ripple through me. To think that he could call Lyla, my best friend, a flesh suit is unacceptable.
“So you have no regard for human life at all? You think it’s fine to go around killing people?”
“It’s either them or me. Which would you choose?”
I fire the nastiest look I can muster. He eyes me sideways. “C’mon. You haven’t at least thought about it?”
I turn my back to him. “I’m not going to talk about this with you.”
“Why not? I’m the perfect person to discuss this little dilemma with.”
Frustrated, I leave the couch. It’s too much to be this close to him.
“You’re a smart girl, Mercy. I know you’ve put the pieces together. If you want out of that body, you’re going to have to kill it.” He ends his sentence with a sing-song note.
The truth is finally laid out before me. When Gage told me that Breachers could live forever by jumping from body to body, I hadn’t been strong enough or brave enough to ask him how. Maybe that’s because I already knew. Somewhere deep inside, inherently, I knew. The only way to get out of Lyla’s body is to kill it. For good.
I suppose it was stupid or naïve to think that when I left her body she would reappear as if nothing had ever happened. Regardless, that’s what I’d hoped. I’d clung to the hope that maybe Lyla wasn’t gone, just trapped even further inside herself, and that once I left she’d resurface.
“I can’t kill my friend,” I tell him.
“Then you’ll live in her body forever. Either way, she’s gone. You didn’t die, Mercy.” He comes around to face me. “She did. And the sooner you accept that, the better.”
His words tear through my chest and I succumb to reality.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Either choice is hell. Pretend to be her. Kill her.
“We should get out of here.” Nathaniel takes my arm.
Yanking it away, I say, “I’m not going anywhere with you!”
“This won’t be the last time she sends someone after you, Mercy. She’ll keep coming.”
“That’s what Gage said about you,” I remind him.
The expression on his face
is a mixture of irritation and displeasure, as though my words sting.
“Fine. Let’s see how far you get on your own.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gage
Zee forgives me for taking the Ducati. I pay him off with a new stack of diapers and the special wax he always uses. I don’t have the heart to tell him, or any of them, for that matter, that I’d failed. Mercy wouldn’t listen to me. Not that I blame her exactly, but without being able to tell her everything about her mother, I left there feeling worse than ever.
I didn’t intend to keep secrets from her. I was merely trying to dole out the bad news in small doses, not wanting to tell her anything I didn’t think she was ready to handle. It was enough to learn that her mother was a Breacher. I didn’t even know how to begin to tell her that her mother was the oldest, most feared, most dangerous and evil Breacher in creation.
I wander around the warehouse for a while, thinking, pacing, trying to come up with my next move. I know I need to give Mercy time to work things through, but how much time is enough time? If it were solely up to me, I’d be on my way back there now. I try to remember that Mercy’s method of thinking is nothing like mine. She’s half human, half Breacher, and that makes her emotional status questionable at best.
On my last lap through the warehouse I stop in the room set up for Mercy’s body. It’s dark and quiet except for the steady beep of the heart monitor. Her hair is losing its reddish sheen. The pink in her soft, round cheeks is nearly invisible. She’s fading with each passing moment. A body without a soul cannot last for long.
Rae comes through the door and goes straight to the bags of fluid to check their levels without saying anything to me.
“It didn’t go well,” I tell her.
“What kills me, Gage, is that you expected it would.” Rae’s blond hair swishes across her dark blue shirt as she works, as golden bright as a surfer girl’s. Her appearance is the exact opposite of her personality, which leans toward dark, brooding, and sullen. Her sapphire blue eyes rarely show any kindness behind them. Rae is hard, determined, and focused. She is a Hunter through and through.
“I wasn’t able to tell her anything about Ariana. She threw me out before I had the chance.”
Rae laughs. “At least the girl has some fight in her. She’s going to need it.”
“Tell me honestly, Rae. Do you think I’m doing the right thing by wanting to help her?”
Rae pauses, hooks a new bag to the IV line and turns to face me square on. “I think you’re letting humanity creep in. I think your judgment is compromised. But if I was in your position, I might do the same thing.”
“So you understand?”
“I understand that we do things we shouldn’t or wouldn’t normally do for the people we love.”
Her words surprise me. It’s unlike Rae to ever talk this way. But it isn’t just her mention of the word love that throws me off; it’s the implication of her statement.
“You think I love her?”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. It’s a look I’ve come to know well.
“Gage, you know you do. We all know you do. You held out showing it for a long time, but I knew from the first time you looked at her.”
She’s right. But that doesn’t mean I have to admit it out loud.
Rae lowers her eyes, fixating her gaze on the floor. “Gage, it’s against the rules to love a human. You know it isn’t going to end well.” She tilts her head up and her eyes lock to mine. “So, stop. You aren’t human, you don’t have to give in to whatever it is your feeling. Get yourself in check, for all our sakes.”
Patting my shoulder before she exits the room, Rae leaves me alone with Mercy’s body, alone with my thoughts, and with the aching pit in my stomach that tells me she’s right.
The sound of footsteps running down the hall breaks my contemplation. Jinx, holding onto the doorframe to steady himself, skids to a stop.
“We’ve got trouble.”
Close on Jinx’s heels, I run to the Observation Deck. Jinx slides back into his seat behind the controls, his hands working deftly as he uses the touch screen on the table to bring the board of monitors to life.
Usually split into multi-screen, picture-in-picture monitors of multiple locations at once, Jinx works until the board shows but one location: the house next door to Lyla’s.
“What did you find?” I ask, my hands gripping the rails.
“We got a reading about ten minutes ago. Definite Breacher activity.”
“Nathaniel?”
“Yeah. But not just him. Watch.”
Jinx zooms in on the house and at first nothing happens. No heat source, no energy mass.
After a few seconds, not one, but two energies emerge on the screen, red and yellow blobs shaped as humans.
“What just happened?” I ask Jinx after one of the energies goes dark.
“Don’t know. But look,” he points. “The second energy remains for a while, maybe ten to fifteen minutes.”
“How many humans?” I ask him.
“Two. One alive. One dead.”
“I’m going over there,” I tell him.
“Alone? Not a good plan, Gage. Take Zee with you.”
“Tell him I’ll call him if I need him.”
Not wasting any time, I hustle across the warehouse to where I left the Ducati. Zee blocks my path.
“Uh-uh,” he says. “No way. Not again.”
“I need the bike, Zee.”
“Do you remember crashing your car, Gage? How you wrapped that little beauty around a tree?”
My Mercedes. I remember the accident vividly. But that is beside the point.
“I brought the bike back safely last time, didn’t I?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re likely to do it again.”
“Mercy could be in danger. Are you going to argue with me about your stupid bike, or are you going to get out of my way?”
His right eyebrow arches high on his forehead. Calling the bike, the one human possession Zee allowed himself to love, stupid, was not my smartest move.
“I’ll drive.” Rae’s heeled boots clack across the floor. “Don’t even bother trying to talk me out of it. I’m going.”
There’d be no arguing with her. We head over to her car, a feisty, classic red Midget. We arrive at Lyla’s house in no time.
I knock on the front door while Rae goes next door to investigate the scene. By the time she gets back to me, I’m still knocking.
“Jinx was right. One dead.” She crosses the lawn. “It’s not Mercy. Looks like the old guy who lived there.”
I wipe my hand across my mouth. “I don’t like this, Rae.”
The look on her face tells me she doesn’t like it either. Something is up and we have to find Mercy.
We creep around the side of the house and peer through the windows. It doesn’t look as though anything is disturbed. It simply looks like they aren’t home.
“What do you want to do?” Rae asks me.
I consider our options. We can go back to the warehouse and wait, but I’m too restless for that. The only real choice is to look for her. I’m not going to be able to sit still until I know she’s safe.
I decide Rae and I should start from the beginning, that we should go back to the place where everything went horribly wrong.
“Let’s go to Wally’s,” I say to Rae. “That’s where the party was last night.”
Rae drives through the city streets at breakneck speed. She’s a much better driver than I, which is partly the reason I hadn’t bothered to replace my car. With Rae at the wheel I can focus, keep my thoughts on Mercy instead of oncoming telephone polls.
Wally’s looks different in the daylight. A few police cars and some crime scene investigation units are still on the scene. This means we’re going to have to be discreet. The last thing I need is to spend hours in an interrogation room.
“Pull up to
that corner,” I tell Rae.
“You saw all the cops, Gage. It’s probably better if you stay in the car.”
“Are you offering to go talk to her?” I can’t hide my surprise. “Tact isn’t exactly a specialty of yours.”
Rae turns the keys and shuts off the engine. “I will be a perfect angel.”
Her tone is less than reassuring. “I think I’ll risk it,” I tell her.
Rae turns toward me and puts her hand on my knee. The warmth that radiates from her touch is both unsettling and calming all at the same time.
“Gage, let me help you. I can. And I want to.”
She’s cracked through my exterior and she knows it.
“I’ll be back soon.” She exits the car and walks toward Wally’s leaving me to stew and worry.
Chapter Fifteen
Mercy
Wally’s is a mess. The aftermath of the party makes it look like a confetti hurricane has blown through. The tables, pushed to the sides in order to make a dance floor, are covered in plates, cups, bottles, and all sorts of trash.
Kate works behind the bar, clearing and scrubbing and putting things back in order. She gives me the chore of sweeping the floor and putting the tables back in their usual places. Clearly, I drew the short stick. It’s getting easier to understand why Lyla complained about working at Wally’s all the time.
Trash bag in hand, I traipse around the room clearing the tables, deciding the floor will have to come last. Once the bag is bursting, I head out toward the alley to the dumpster.
My entire life changed in the alley. I just didn’t know it at the time. Mr. Andreas’s body is gone, but the blood spatter remains. An officer catches me staring and shoos me along.
“Mercy?”
A stunningly gorgeous girl saunters toward me. She moves with grace and purpose. Her blond hair has that beachy look, waves here and there and a ton of natural shine. It’s the look Lyla is always trying to achieve. Lyla would’ve drooled over her wardrobe as well. Skinny jeans tucked into stiletto boots with a fitted tee and cropped jacket, she is just off the pages of a magazine.
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