Into the Dark

by Caroline T. Patti

  Fall in love. Is that what I’m doing? Not being familiar with the feelings associated with love, I’m not quite sure. I’ve seen what love does to humans. It makes them weak, it muddies their judgment; it makes them do things they normally wouldn’t. Sounds about right.

  And it certainly does explain my behavior in all of this. Why do I care so deeply about what happens to her? Why can’t I just do my job? I’ve been saying that it is because of Nathaniel, that I have to know what he’s up to, but is that all, or is there something more?

  Without asking, I borrow Rae’s car and drive Mercy home. We don’t speak, which only adds to the tension, but what can I possibly say to her? Apologizing for almost kissing her doesn’t seem right, but ignoring her isn’t right either.

  My less than stellar driving isn’t helping matters. Every time I take a sharp turn or skid to a stop, Mercy stares deeper and deeper out the window. Her avoidance is killing me. It would’ve been better if she said something, or yelled at me for acting like an idiot.

  Since she didn’t, it left me wondering if she thought our almost kiss was a mistake. It bothers me more than I’m comfortable with, thinking that she might feel relieved that Rae came in and broke things up.

  I have to get my mind right. These thoughts aren’t good for me, especially now.

  Things keep getting more and more complicated. Mercy’s attempt at jumping from Lyla’s body only strengthens my belief that she’s no ordinary Breacher. If she can jump from body to body without killing the host, then we’re in real trouble.

  I had no choice but to lie to her, to tell her that Lyla is dead. It was the only way to keep her from leaving Lyla’s body.

  So far I’ve been able to keep The Assembled at bay. They trust me to take care of things, to use Mercy as bait to draw Nathaniel out and kill him. Though I plan to try and reason with them after, to try and convince them to let me put Mercy back in her body and to live out her normal life, I know that chance is gone if they find out her true power.

  The thought occurs to me then that Nathaniel has known all along what she can do. After all, it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch for Mercy to have inherited the full scope of her mother’s powers. I’m an idiot for not considering the possibility.

  I thought I could give her a chance by attempting to return her to her body, but now I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. It’s not like I can let her go through life jumping from body to body at whim. The power is too intoxicating. She’d be able to manipulate anyone she wants. There’s no way The Assembled would allow it. They’d insist that she be destroyed.

  What kills me the most is that part of me knows they’d be right. It doesn’t matter that Mercy has no interest in breaching, that she isn’t controlled by her impulses. No creature should have that much power. Free will cannot be tampered with. What if she sees it as harmless to breach the store clerk so that she doesn’t have to pay, or breach a teacher to get good grades? Those things might seem harmless, inconsequential to her, but to The Assembled those are crimes punishable by death. And it doesn’t matter if she promises never to breach. The Assembled will never trust her, never believe her.

  I pull the car to a stop in front of Lyla’s house. The early morning light of dawn is just beginning to peek over the house.

  “It wasn’t my intention to keep you all night,” I tell her. My tone is too formal. I can tell from the look on her face she feels the same way. She’s noticed the shift in me, the change, and in return, she’s pulling away. I don’t like it.

  “It’s fine,” she says tersely.

  She gets out of the car and slams the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mercy

  I expect Kate to be asleep. What I don’t expect is Jay asleep in Lyla’s bed. He looks so sweet and peaceful curled around Lyla’s pillow. I hate to wake him.

  Nudging him lightly, I whisper, “Jay.” He grunts and rolls over to face the wall. I shake his shoulder. “Jay, wake up.”

  He rubs his hands over his face. “What time is it?”

  “Around four thirty.”

  “Are you just getting in?”

  “Yeah. Did Kate notice I was gone?”

  “I covered for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  I did, but exhaustion is wearing me down. “I will, but right now I need sleep.”

  Jay pulls back the covers and makes space for me.

  “Are you sure this is okay?”

  “Mercy, it’s fine. Just get in.”

  Slipping out of my Keds, I slide in next to him still fully clothed. Jay’s warm body is exactly what I need to feel safe. The steady rhythm of his breathing is like a lullaby.

  But just as I’m about to fall asleep the strangest thing happens. I’m no longer in the bed, but rather I’m standing across the room watching, like a fly on the wall.

  Lyla and Jay are stretched out on her bed studying. Jay’s head is propped up on several pillows. Playfully, Lyla runs her toe along his leg.

  “Ly, I’m trying to study,” Jay teasingly scolds.

  “I am studying.”

  “You’re trying to distract me.” Jay sets his book down on his chest.

  Lyla coyly smiles. “No I’m not.”

  “I have to do well on this test tomorrow,” Jay insists.

  “Fine.” Lyla retracts her leg. “But I invoke the one finger rule.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Just one finger.” She stretches her hand until it meets Jay’s wrist. “Touching at all times.”

  His left eyebrow arches, questioning her motives. She bats her eyelashes until Jay has no choice but to give into her.

  “One finger.” Jay’s index finger pokes the soft skin on the inside of Lyla’s elbow.

  Jay’s one finger can’t remain still and soon begins exploring. Before long all ten fingers on both hands are searching, seeking her out. Lyla angles her hips toward Jay and with one swift motion he hoists her up so that she’s straddling him. His hands explore under her shirt. She leans forward until her mouth is right above his.

  I bolt up straight. Jay is still next to me in bed sleeping soundly. It must’ve been a dream. I fall back against the pillow and immediately drift off.

  Sometime later I wake to sunlight streaming through the windows. The clock next to Lyla’s bed reads two thirty PM. Jay is gone and I’ve slept the day away. I could easily bury my head under the pillow and kept right on sleeping, but I know I have to get up.

  After I shower and change clothes I begin the hunt for food. Traditionally, Lyla’s house resembles Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. I manage to scrounge up a bowl of cereal and drink the very last of the orange juice.

  The newspaper is on the table. I flip it open and read all about Mr. Andreas’s apparent suicide. He lived alone, had no family to speak of, and even though they scrounged up a few teachers and students to say some nice things about him, it was clear that Mr. Andreas had been something of a loner, which is probably why it was so easy for Nathaniel to take over his body.

  Sometimes I still can’t believe that I’m in Lyla’s body. I realize now that it no longer feels like carrying around a flesh suit, as Nathaniel called it. Without even noticing, I’ve begun to adapt to her height, her gait, even the way she slurps milk from the spoon. With each passing hour I lose more and more of myself and become her.

  It makes me wonder if I will lose myself entirely. Will I let go of who I am and become her? I hope not. Before my thoughts can wander even farther, the phone rings.

  “Hello,” I say as I pick up the receiver.

  “Lyla, it’s Mr. Clare.”

  Dad! My heart sinks to my feet. A lump rises in my throat and my jaw tightens as I fight the tears.

  “Lyla, are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Something’s happened. I don’t want to frighten you, but I need you and Kate to c
ome over as soon as possible.”

  I assure him that I’ll be right there. Then I call over to Wally’s, but I get the answering machine. I leave a hasty message and then try Kate on her cell. Again, there’s no answer and I leave a message.

  After I hang up, I run out the front door and straight to Jay’s house. Luckily, I have Lyla’s athletic body to carry me and it doesn’t take me long. I hope that Kate will get my messages and that she’ll be only a few minutes behind me. Whatever my dad wants to tell me, I don’t want to hear it alone.

  When I reach Jay’s front door I hesitate, but only for a second. As myself, I would’ve knocked. I would’ve waited for someone to answer the door. But I know this is not how Lyla would do it, and I am more than glad to be able to walk right in.

  “Jay!” I call as I run toward his room. “Jay!”

  It doesn’t appear that anyone is home. I search and search, but I find no one. That is, until I get to Jay’s mom’s bedroom.

  Her feet are the first thing I spot poking out on the far side of the bed. I slow my steps and inch closer.

  “Mrs. Sheller?”

  There’s no answer. As I creep closer, I know something is terribly wrong. She lies face down in a pool of blood.

  “Oh, my God!”

  I rush to her side, but am careful not to touch her. I don’t know what to do. “Mrs. Sheller, please wake up!” I plead.

  Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth. I scramble to my feet and reach into my back pocket for my cell phone, but it isn’t there. Shit! I run to the kitchen and try to dial nine-one-one. There’s no tone. Shit!

  I sprint next door to my house. I don’t bother knocking there either. My dad is startled when I come crashing through the door.

  I blurt out, “Next door! Mrs. Sheller! Not moving! Lots of blood!”

  His eyes go wide.

  “Call nine-one-one!” I bark at him.

  He half stumbles, half runs for the phone and gives the nine-one-one Operator the information, or pieces of information, rather, that I’d given him.

  My hands tremble while we wait. The Operator keeps my dad on the phone until the sound of the ambulance fills the streets.

  We both rush outside to greet the Emergency Service Technicians. I explain how I found her. They won’t let me or my father inside the house again. Instead, we’re forced to wait outside.

  After a few tense minutes my dad puts his hand on my shoulder and asks, “Did you call Jay?”

  Jay! Oh, my God! What the hell was I thinking?

  My dad, always intuitive, reads my expression and says calmly, “It’s okay. We’ll call him together.”

  We walk back to my house and place the call. Jay, like Kate, doesn’t answer. I don’t know what to say to his voicemail, so I just tell him to call me immediately.

  As we make our way back outside, the EMTs come rushing out of Jay’s house. Mrs. Sheller’s body is still. There are bandages around her head and an IV sticking out of her arm.

  “Is she going to be okay?” my father asks.

  “We’re trying to get her stable. Taking her to Sutter General.”

  “Can we come with you?” It’s what Lyla would’ve insisted.

  “No room. We’ll meet you there.”

  The EMTs load Jay’s mom into the ambulance and back out of the driveway. The taillights fade as the ambulance speeds off toward the hospital.

  “I’ll drive,” my dad tells me as he ushers me to the car.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The ride to the hospital is torture and not just because my dad is an overly cautious driver. The smell of his aftershave fills the car. The way his hands grip the wheel at the precise ten and two positions, the way he always signals before turning, it’s all so him. And it makes my insides burn not to be able to talk to him like I normally would.

  The radio is turned to his favorite Pandora station. My dad’s inner hippie is evident by his musical selection of sixties and seventies acid rock. In most aspects my dad plays the part of the college professor to a T. He has the tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, the ratty old briefcase that he refuses to replace. But that’s his professional life. I know him better.

  We find a place to park in the same lot where I confessed the truth to Jay. This is the second time in two days that some tragedy has drawn my father to this hospital. It’s not been a good week for any of us.

  The emergency room is bustling. The noise, the rushing around, it’s all too chaotic. My dad ushers me over to the same waiting room chairs where it all began. It’s surreal and nauseating.

  We sit for a while and nothing happens. No one comes to talk to us. Neither Jay nor Kate arrive.

  Lyla would not sit still. She would not wait any longer. She would charge up to the nurse’s station and demand to know what was happening. But before I can do that, I have to find out why my dad called me over to his house in the first place.

  I turn to him and say, “You called earlier and said that something had happened. What did you want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know if now is the right time, but then again, there may never be a right time to tell you.”

  My father has a tendency to do this, to consider things out loud as opposed to in his head. I nearly smile, but I’m too impatient.

  “Just tell me, please.”

  “Okay.” He clears his throat. “It seems as though the hospital, well, the morgue, has misplaced Mercy’s body.”

  Holy shit! My body is missing? Every time I think things can’t get any worse, they do.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “The morgue assures me it’s a clerical error of some kind and that everything will be fine.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “I have to.”

  Every inch of me is tingling and burning, churning with anger, fear, and agitation. It’s impossible for me to sit still any longer.

  “I can’t take this! I’m going to find out what’s going on with Mrs. Sheller.”

  My dad does not look surprised by my outburst. He’s seen Lyla in action before, which is why he doesn’t stop me from storming off. What I really want to do is find my body, but I don’t even know where to start. I have to focus on the task at hand.

  Four women man the nurse’s station. “Hey!” I slap my hand on the counter. “Can one of you give me some information about Mrs. Sheller?”

  Each nurse wears an expression of varying shades of annoyance. Only one looks moderately concerned. The rest look overworked and not in the mood to deal with an unruly teenager.

  The most senior looking nurse slides a pen into her breast pocket and asks me, “Are you family, hon?”

  “Well, I’m dating her son. So kinda.”

  “I’m sorry we can’t give information out unless your immediate family.”

  I am not going to give up. Lyla would not have given up. “Look, she’s divorced. Her ex lives in Utah. I tried calling her son, but he didn’t answer. So I’m it for right now. I’m her family.”

  The nurse comes closer to the glass partition. “Have a seat, hon.” She dismisses me.

  Grudgingly, I walk heavy-footed back to the chairs. When I get there, my dad is on his phone.

  “I left another message for Jay,” he tells me. “And one for Kate. I’m surprised they’re not here yet.”

  “Me too,” I answer.

  An unsettling feeling, a new kind of fear grows inside me. It isn’t right that both Jay and Kate aren’t here. And if I add in what happened to Mrs. Sheller, there’s no escaping the possibility that something much worse happened. I just don’t know what it is. Yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gage

  I can’t sleep. I’m stressed, I’m exhausted and my eyes refuse to close. My brain refuses to rest. I’m tired of wearing out the floors in the warehouse. I need to get out. The streets are quiet. Walking will clear my head.

  Resigned to my duties, I kno
w what I have to do. No longer can I let my feelings for Mercy get in the way of my work. Rae, Zee, and Jinx trust me as their leader. They’ve been willing to go against the orders of The Assembled because I’ve asked them to, but I know now that I was wrong in asking.

  I am wrong on all fronts. It doesn’t matter why Nathaniel wants Mercy. My job is not to ask questions, not to reason with Breacher mentality. It’s time to stop trying to understand Nathaniel, to figure out why he is the way he is. In the end, does it really matter anyway? Nathaniel is a criminal. Period. I was selected to kill him and at every turn I’ve hesitated. No more. My only job is to destroy Breachers. And that’s exactly what I intend to do. I have to destroy Mercy.

  In order to rectify the mess I’ve made, my first order of business is to collect Mercy. I can’t let her run around in Lyla’s body anymore. I shouldn’t have allowed it to go on this long.

  Changing direction, I decide not to return to the warehouse, but instead to go directly to Lyla’s house and find Mercy. I will bring in her in, hand her over to Rae, and let Rae do what she does best: extract a Breacher from a body.

  When Mercy is out of Lyla’s body, I’ll alert a Guide to help her cross over. It’s the one exception I’m willing to make. Most Breachers are jailed, sentenced to an eternity in purgatory, but this is not a fate I want for Mercy. She’s an unknowing Breacher. And it’s partly my fault she even left her body. I should’ve stopped her way before the night of her birthday party.

  With Mercy out of the way, I’ll be clear to hunt and kill Nathaniel and finally finish out my term of service.

  I decide all of this by the time I reach Lyla’s house. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that Mercy isn’t there and that she left in a hurry. The doors are unlocked and her cell phone is on the kitchen table.

  My senses kick into high gear as I run from Lyla’s to Mercy’s. Getting there does nothing to alleviate my suspicions. Mercy’s house is also empty and in a state of disarray. A book is knocked to the floor, the spine cracking under the weight of the pages. From everything I know of Mercy’s father, he would never discard a book in such a way.