Saving Mercy

by Abbie Roads

  Mac sat in a chair in front of the window, wearing one of those hospital smocks that would make the most testosterone-loaded hulk look like a pansy. Knobby knees and skinny calves jutted out from under the gown, and a thick pair of white socks—that had a decidedly feminine flare—covered his feet. Next to him was a pole holding his IVs.

  Cain let out the breath he’d been holding. “You look better than I expected.” It wasn’t until that moment that he realized the image of Mac shot and bleeding on the cabin floor had dominated every thought of the guy. “Though I’m hoping this isn’t a fashion statement you plan on adopting.”

  “You don’t like my dress? I asked for one with ruffles, but this was all they had.” His gaze slid from Cain to Mercy, then back to Cain. “So…you’re together.”

  It wasn’t a question, more of a statement of something he already knew and wanted Cain to confirm.

  “Yeah. We are.” He glanced at Mercy. She wore a smile that was a sister to the one in the elevator. The word sorrow came to mind. But sorrow here and now didn’t make sense.

  Cain let go of Mercy and stepped closer to the man who’d saved him from his father. The man who’d taught him how to be a man. He bent down and gave Mac a hug. The first time he’d ever hugged him.

  Mac grabbed on. Holding Cain tightly as if making up for lost time. And Cain let him. Finally, when Mac released him, he stepped back and damn… Were those tears in Mac’s eyes? No way.

  Mac swallowed and nodded his head absentmindedly. “That means a lot to me.” He thankfully turned his attention on Mercy. “You clean up nice.”

  On the way to the hospital, they’d stopped at a department store, and Cain had bought Mercy some clothes and underthings. It hadn’t been until he paid that it dawned on him how vulnerable she was without money, clothes, an ID, a place to live. He was more than willing to take her in and help her out. Indefinitely.

  “And you’re looking a hundred times better than the last time I saw you.” Mercy went to Mac, leaned down, and hugged the guy.

  When Mercy pulled away, Mac gestured toward the bed. “Have a seat.”

  “So what’s the doctor say?” Cain asked as he and Mercy sat on the edge of the bed across from Mac.

  “They won’t let me out of here until tomorrow. They’re being overly dramatic. Yes, it was a gunshot wound. Yes, I’ve had surgery. But I’ve been up. I’ve been walking around—as long as someone drags all this shit behind me.” He gestured toward the IV and machine. “I’ve eaten and taken a piss. What more could they want?”

  Mac was a cantankerous asshole whenever he got sick. So this was normal, a sign that everything was gonna be all right. But then Mac’s face went serious.

  “Cain.” He paused, waited until all Cain’s attention landed on him. “I told Dolan no. That you would not work Liz’s case. I’d never do that to you.” He balled his hands into fists. “I don’t know what possessed him to make you go there.”

  Cain had thought Mac wanted him to work the case. Never crossed his mind that Dolan—the fucker—could’ve been lying. Note to self: don’t believe everything Dolan tells you. He was gonna have a chat with the guy next time he saw him. A his-fist-meets-Dolan’s-face kind of chat.

  “I ripped a hole the size of soccer ball in his ass for doing that to you, and he just took it. Hell, I half expected him to bend over and tell me to do it again. Something’s wrong with him. He’s not acting right. The Dolan I know wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Sympathy and sadness etched deep grooves around Mac’s mouth. “I can’t even imagine what you went through. I know how bad it is for you normally, but that…that…that had to be…”

  “Yeah. It was.” Yesterday’s memories crept out of their hiding place and bombarded him with images and a shame he wanted to forget. Mac had seen Cain have headaches, but he’d never seen anything like yesterday where Cain’s body revolted to the point he hadn’t been able to talk about what he’d seen until today. Hopefully, that wasn’t going to be the new norm.

  Mercy slid her arm around Cain’s waist and leaned in to him, the gesture oddly fortifying. If she was still here, still with him despite what she witnessed yesterday, there was hope.

  “I’m glad Mercy was with you.” A bit of the light returned to Mac’s face.

  Cain was glad too. He’d walked through hell, and she’d been the cooling breeze that kept him going.

  “Dolan tell you what I saw?”

  Mac nodded, his expression one of being lost in thought. “The Dawsons and Liz are connected. Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Exactly what Dolan said.”

  “The easiest explanation is usually the right one.” That had been one of Mac’s mantras ever since they’d started working together. “Edward Payne. Dolan said they’re looking for a connection between him and the Dawsons but can’t find anything.”

  “I don’t think it was Payne.”

  “Really?” Mac’s brows shot skyward. “The blood tell you that?”

  “Not exactly. It’s more of a feeling. It just doesn’t seem like something he’d do. He’s too…”

  “He’s too GQ to get his hands dirty,” Mercy added. “I spent two years with him and never once saw a hair out of place or a shoe not shined or him smelling like he hadn’t just showered and fumigated himself in expensive cologne. I can’t imagine him getting messy.”

  “Our guy seems almost…spiritual. Like he worships the process. Payne is more simpleminded. I think his role begins and ends with his fixation on Mercy.” Fixation made it sound like the doctor was just a superfan. Obsession was a better word, but still didn’t encompass the effort Payne was willing to expend to get Mercy. He would not be given another chance.

  Mac looked down at his lap like he had some really bad news to give and didn’t know quite how to deliver it. “This”—he gestured at himself and the equipment attached to him—“is my fault.”

  Cain shook his head so violently his eyeballs had trouble keeping up. “I shouldn’t have called you. Shouldn’t have involved you. Shouldn’t have tried to lea—”

  “I told Edward Payne where you and Mercy were.” The words that came out of Mac’s mouth were foul and disgusting.

  Mac told Payne? No, Cain must’ve heard wrong. Must be misinterpreting Mac’s meaning. Cain searched for any other logical explanation, but there was none. He couldn’t think of what to say, but then one word popped out. “Why?”

  “I-I thought you were in trouble. Big trouble. Liz was dead, and then you call to tell me about taking Mercy from Liz. You were the last person to see Liz alive.” He raked a hand through his wiry gray hair. “I was trying to keep Edward Payne from finding out you took Mercy and, worse, filing charges against you. And I needed to talk to you face-to-face to see what you knew about Liz. It wasn’t on my radar that you taking Mercy could’ve been a good thing. At least not until I saw her. Talked to her.”

  Cain’s mind flashed back to what Mac had said when he’d called to tell him about Mercy. What’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Talk to me. Whatever it is, you’ll be fine. We’ll get through it. I’m here for you. Always have been. Always will be. Cain could read between the lines. Mac—his closest friend—had thought he’d killed Liz.

  Cain’s stomach squirmed like a hundred worms were rolling and writhing around in there. “Fucking. Son. Of. A. Bitch. You thought I…” He couldn’t say the word out loud. “…hurt Liz?”

  Mercy leaned into him, wrapping both arms around him, holding him tight. The comfort she offered warred with the betrayal beating him from the inside out.

  “When you said you had taken Mercy from Liz…and Liz was dead… God. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Cain…” Mercy’s voice was soothing, trying to offer calm compensation for everything he’d just learned about Mac.

  “So you’ve expected for years that I’d go all psycho killer.
Turn into my father?”

  Mac didn’t need to say anything; Cain could see the look on his face. Guilty as charged.

  Cain’s world wrenched itself off its axis. If he hadn’t been sitting, he might’ve fallen. Mac had been the one person who always believed in him. But it had been a facade.

  “Holy. Fucking. Christ. So this”—he gestured back and forth between the two of them—“was what? Your way of keeping an eye on me all these years? A way of making sure I stay in line so I can keep doing my work for the FBI?” His volume rose to shouting range. He shoved up off the bed. Couldn’t sit there one moment more with all this…this…shit boiling inside him.

  “Cain, it’s not like that.” Mac’s volume rose, matching his own.

  “Then how the fuck is it?”

  “I made a mistake. I should’ve trusted you. You’ve never let me down. Ever. I should’ve known you were doing the right thing. You always do the right thing. I was wrong. And all of this is my fault. I don’t know exactly what happened after I got shot, but I put you both in danger. And for that, I will always have regret.”

  “I-I-I can’t be here right now.” Cain stalked off toward the door, but stopped and turned when he realized Mercy wasn’t with him.

  She sat on the bed, eyes aimed at the floor—not even able to look at him. She thought of him the same way Mac did. Like he was a time bomb, programmed to detonate into a killing machine at some unknown date and location.

  His heart shriveled up and died.

  It didn’t hurt. Actually, he felt numb, incapable of feeling anything. In an odd way, that was the worst feeling he could imagine. It made him too much like his father. He turned and headed toward the door again.

  “Goddamnit, Cain,” Mac yelled at his back. “It’s because you’re my son. Maybe not biologically, but I love you like a son. Like a goddamned son. I know you’ve got hang-ups about the whole father-son relationship thing, but it’s the truth.”

  Cain’s footsteps faltered. Father-son always meant Killion and himself. Not what he and Mac had. That was something different. Something he’d thought was healthy. The real kick in the ass was that Cain didn’t know what was worse: that Mac thought he could kill, or that Mac had seen past his facade all these years to the monster within.

  “I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Mac spoke softly, each sentence packed with feeling. “The reason I did what I did was because I love you. Because I wanted to protect you. Only I made a mistake. I should’ve trusted you.”

  Cain wrenched open the hospital door, ignoring Mac calling his name. When he emerged into the hallway, he was different. He’d just severed himself from everything he’d thought was good in his life. All that was left of him was his father’s son.

  Chapter 15

  It’s a myth that all serial killers mutilate, torture, and kill animals before they evolve to humans. Many start out with humans and evolve in their method of mutilation.

  —Lind Patrick, PhD, forensic psychologist

  Mercy’s heart didn’t break watching Cain’s pain. Nope. Instead, the bloody organ bashed against her sternum, trying to crash through the bone barrier and run after him. It belonged to him and wanted to be returned to its rightful owner. She grabbed her chest—a futile effort to keep her heart from tearing her apart from the inside out.

  Her gaze locked on the negative space where Cain had stood just a moment before. Even though he wasn’t there, she could still see the echoes of his image. She could still see the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his muscles strained and twitched as if he carried a burden too heavy to bear—hurt. But hurt couldn’t be measured in pounds. It was measured in time—the days, months, years it would take to heal. And Mac had very nearly severed Cain’s heart from his soul. She had witnessed him bleeding shame all over the room.

  More than anything, she had wanted to staunch the flow, to help heal his wound with her understanding and complete acceptance of him.

  Yet, she had added to Cain’s pain. She’d let him assume she sided with Mac.

  The truth—the hard fact she’d been avoiding with excuses—was that she couldn’t walk away from Cain. Weakness wasn’t normally a word she equated with herself, but Cain was her soft spot. The only chance she had to save him from herself was by letting him walk away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Disgust sliced through Mac’s tone. “Don’t just sit here fucking staring at the door. Go after him.”

  “I can’t.” Her voice sounded pitiful and pathetic.

  “The hell you can’t.” He nearly shouted the words.

  She suddenly felt like a five-year-old being yelled at by her father. Her stomach burned from swallowed guilt.

  “He needs you.”

  “I know.” No sense in arguing with the truth.

  “Right now.”

  “I know.” Oh God, she knew. The pain of seeing him hurt and not doing one thing to ease him—she’d endure a thousand years of the Center to never feel this ever again.

  “So go after him.”

  “I can’t.” The words came out sounding as brittle as she felt, like if anyone touched her, she’d splinter into a thousand shards of regret.

  “Why not.” The words weren’t a question. They were a demand for an answer.

  She forced her gaze away from where Cain had last stood and looked at Mac. Saw anger glaring back at her. Knew he hated her for not easing Cain’s pain. She hated herself for the same reason. “To keep him safe.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “Why do you say that?” Mac spoke fast, leaned forward in his seat, waiting for her explanation.

  “I’m the girl who lived. And I keep on living when everyone I ever care about dies. My family. Now Liz. And if I stay with Cain—something will happen to him too.” She took a breath, expecting some form of understanding to fire on Mac’s features, but he stared at her as if she had a nose growing on her forehead. He didn’t get it. “Dr. Payne is still out there. He’ll find me. What he did to you—shooting you—was bad. What he’ll do to Cain will be worse. The only way to protect him is to be away from him.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit.” Mac leaned back in his seat, winced from the movement. “Jesus. You and he are too damned much alike. Always thinking you’re gonna hurt other people. You want to know the truth?”

  The truth? She knew the truth. Lived the god-awful truth every day.

  Mac sat forward and grabbed her hand in his. His fingers verged on gnarled looking, but the way he squeezed her hand spoke of deep strength. “Look at me.” He waited for her to lift her eyes from their hands. Waited for her to look him directly in the eye. “You’re a fucking coward.”

  His words hit her harder than any physical blow, reverberating inside the dome of her skull like a gong upside the head. She tried to yank her hand away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go. Righteous rage pounded through her. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  A smile that wasn’t really a smile touched Mac’s mouth. “Of all the people in the world…” He spoke slow and soft, as if the words themselves carried too much power to be uttered too fast or too loud. “…I’m one of the few who knows exactly what you went through.”

  A tear snaked down her cheek, followed by another and another. Why was she crying?

  “I was there. I found you. I found Cain. Every day, I carry the burden of knowing what you both went through. You think I didn’t blame myself? Think that maybe if I’d worked a little harder, a little faster, I could’ve prevented what happened to your family? To you? Saved Cain a bit of the torment?”

  He glanced away from her. For a moment, stoic torment pinched his features. It was gone by the time he looked at her again. “Those thoughts nearly destroyed me. Your everyone-I-love-dies attitude is bullshit. Deep down, you know it too. You’re not trying to protect him. You’re trying to protect yourself. You’re afraid of getting hurt aga
in. Afraid that if something does happen to him, you won’t be able to deal with it. So you won’t even open yourself up to the pain.

  “Wake up to reality. Love is painful. You hand your beating bloody heart to someone and hope to Christ they don’t pulverize it. Hope is all you get with love. There are no guarantees.”

  She wanted to deny every word he spoke. But she couldn’t. Was she afraid of getting hurt? Yes. Was she afraid she couldn’t handle losing another person? Yes. Was she a coward? Yes. Yes. Yes. “How do you know this?”

  “You think I haven’t battled back my own inner coward while raising Cain? I was scared shitless during those early years that he was going to turn into his father. But that didn’t help him or me. He only blossomed when I decided to love him unconditionally—no matter what he did, no matter how much it might devastate me later.

  “I fucked up this shit with Dr. Payne. But I can’t make it right without him. I’m begging you—go look for him. He’s probably long gone, but maybe he waited for you. Maybe he waited.”

  Maybe he waited for her.

  She went from sitting on the bed in Mac’s room to sprinting out the door and down the hallway. Hospital staff congregating at the nurses’ station stared at her as she streaked past, heading for the door marked STAIRS. She didn’t have time to wait for the elevator.

  On a leap, she bounded halfway down the first flight. It was almost as though her feet had sprouted jet packs to give her extra airtime. Or maybe the universe had decided to give her extra juice to help her reunite with the one person who was truly perfect for her.

  She pictured him sitting in the old beater truck he’d driven today. He’d said his car needed to be cleaned of blood before he could drive it again. Pictured him staring straight ahead, warring with himself about whether or not to leave. Then she pictured his face when he saw her. Imagined the relief she would see in his expression.

  She’d fix everything. Herself and him. Him and Mac. Once she explained all of it, he’d understand.