“I’ll cover them. You find my daughter,” Ian said as they moved out, and added, We’ll meet you at the lot.
Scythe nodded, understanding completely that you indicated a group of three.
They split up and Scythe and Anora made their way toward the center of the complex, an area that was bursting with the sounds of gunfire and shouting. The gunfire in particular made him very nervous, and he knew it would grate on him until they located her. They hunched down, hugging the wall, as soon as they heard the echoes of someone running down the passage ahead of them. A man ran past, crossing their hallway for only a second, and continuing on without seeing them.
Scythe and Anora stood and approached the intersection, moving cautiously until the man’s scent hit them. It was heavy with sweat, including that tangy odor that fear always induced, as well as food, some kind of oily product, soap, and a few other elements, one of which was a scent he recognized.
One quick look in all directions and then he was off, chasing the man who smelled like Mercy’s blood.
When heard her voice ahead of him, he became lightheaded with relief. He knew he had to assess the situation before he barged in, but it was very hard to make his feet go slower. Somehow, he did.
“This is pretty safe,” she was saying, and he could tell from her tone that she was very tired. She added with a short Ahh of recognition, “You mean, safer for you.”
“That’s right. I need to get you up now, and ready to go.”
“But not safer for me, right?” She was arguing with her terrorist captors. Why was he not shocked in the least?
Scythe stepped up behind the man who he couldn’t help thinking made a terrible soldier.
The boy was flustered by her questions, “Um…” Poor fool. He knew what that felt like.
“Wouldn’t it be great if there was someplace where we could both be safe?” she said sadly.
There was something about her voice that chased away the giddiness that finding her had brought forth in him. He glanced across at her, although he had raised his hand to strike down the man in front of him. That’s when he realized that she was looking right at him. She was talking to him. Was she asking him to do that? To find a safe place for them?
“I don’t think that’s possible, miss…” Scythe brought his hand down on the back of the man’s neck and he fell like a rock.
“That’s too bad.” She said, frowning at his answer.
“Mercy.” Scythe dumped the body next to the door that closed with a light swish and a click.
He knew Anora would cover the door, but they had to move quickly; he wanted to be long gone before anyone one else showed up, and he absolutely didn’t want to be traveling with her under fire. However, he hesitated. He wasn’t sure if it was her expression, or the way her power felt, or the fact that she hadn’t automatically reached out to him with her ribbons and spoken to him like she usually did, but whatever it was worried him.
He didn’t pick her up right away like he wanted to, because he knew without knowing why that he had to be careful. Instead he lowered himself to a crouch in front of her and said gently, “I told you, I don’t like that scent.”
“I know. I am sorry.” When she sighed, the air burst out of her chest like… His eyes followed the movement and then every one of his thoughts slowed down; the distance between each one continued to stretch out until, hovering in the midst of one, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to grasp the next.
Her chest. The vest that he had given her and insisted that she wear. It had two holes in it, and beyond the holes were two round shiny metal…
She should be dead. If he hadn’t seen the vision, if he hadn’t made her wear the vest...
She’d be dead, for sure.
His mind finally came to a halt over a perfect shot to the heart.
A little mound of bulbous silver...kind of pretty how it sparkled. He had sent that same little mound into how many people and not felt a damn thing. Little splattered shiny mess...the proof of a failed journey to drive itself into and steal her away...tiny, evil pretty shiny thing. Had he put that thing there? No, but he had...he had put that into someone else’s Mercy...
Then, a voice jolted him, bringing him back to himself.
“Thank you for the vest.” She took his hand and held it in her lap. He hadn’t even known he had lifted it. Why was it that he did the oddest things when she was around?
“I’m glad you are safe,” he said. Not glad. Not just glad.
“I think...I will never be safe,” she whispered, and she sounded like she was eighty years old.
He blinked. He had never heard her talk like that.
“But,” she continued in that same wise, old woman tone, “if I have you beside me, then at least I won’t be scared.”
He didn’t know what to say. A hundred things were fighting their way to the front of his head and they were all yelling at the same time. One was very loud. I will. I will stay beside you. Could he do that? He nodded.
“Unfortunately, you’ll probably be scared enough for the both of us, right?” She choked out a laugh. There she was again, the normal, awkward Mercy. He was much more comfortable around her.
“I was scared,” he said sincerely.
He could see that his statement bothered her, and she shifted as if she wanted to comfort him. But she instantly stopped, grimacing at the pain caused by those two bullets and who knew what other injuries. Instead she finally did what he had expected her to do from the start. She used her power to touch him, embracing him with her mind. Scythe…
Yes? He said, Yes, but what he meant was, Yes, anything. That’s what the touch of her voice in his head made his soul want to sing every time she wrapped him up like that. Anything.
I...really don’t want that monster to kiss me...before you do.
He sat back, startled by both her suggestion and the sudden change in subject. Kiss her? His heart started to beat uncomfortably fast. Why had she said, “before you do”? Had she seen them kiss in a vision of the future?
She waited for his answer.
He couldn’t…he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have a plan for something like this, so he sidestepped. “As a brother?”
“Sure.”
She was just a child by Human standards, and by his own oath, his sister. It was true that he could kiss his sister. The Kin were very affectionate within the family; kisses were frequently given and heartily received. The problem was that, even though he had said, “As a brother,” it didn’t feel right to kiss her like that. And, he didn’t know why it didn’t feel right.
Why…?
He didn’t want to think about it–wasn’t ready for any of that–so, without thinking any further, he decided. He decided to see if this felt right. He kissed her. And then he knew.
He watched her smile and didn’t think about what any of it meant. He just watched and enjoyed it.
Hearing Anora shuffle beyond the door, a clear message to move things along, he commented, “I’m still planning on you not being kissed at all by him…”
“I know. Me too, but if it doesn’t work out, at least we’ll have beat him in that one thing.”
He would never be able to wrap his head around the Young sense of humor. It wasn’t funny to him. No amount of clever wording was going to make her rape into a joke he could ever laugh at.
However, he knew that making jokes comforted her, and he really wanted to do that, so he tried to think of something to say. Maybe she would find another truth funny, one that comforted him.
“Don’t worry, my Mercy. There will be a beating,” he promised. “I know that your chest hurts. Do you want to try walking, or do you want me to carry you?”
That same look he had seen when she first came appeared out of nowhere. It was the one she wore on the floor of the bathroom after being tormented by painful contractions and still wanted to get up by herself. I can do it myself, it said. “Just help me up...slowly.”
“Stu
bborn girl.”
His father used to say that to his mother when she wouldn’t accept help in her relations with the Kin. She was convinced that he shouldn’t interfere by soothing things over between her and his family.
She would explain to her husband, “You have to let me take care of it. Otherwise, they won’t truly respect me; they’ll just be honoring you. I want them to respect me.”
“Stubborn girl,” his father would say with acceptance. And respect. And one more thing.
The memory ended, and the next one started. Scythe found himself at the home of a wealthy Kin family. There were many faces he didn’t know…
Then something happened that hadn’t happened before.
The new memory ended abruptly. The next memory was...
Scythe crouched across from Mercy and leaned forward until his lips touched hers.
Time slowed in the memory, crawling when it was old enough to run.
Her scent, even tinted with the blood from her scrapes and cuts, did what it always did. It gave him the chills, and in that moment he let them run tingling along his spine and up into the back of his neck. His mouth, which had parted only slightly, closed and pulled just a tiny bit on her soft, cool lips. A wisp of her breath entered his mouth, and rolled over his tongue and he tasted it. It was like nothing he’d ever even dreamed of. Now, he’d dream of nothing else.
When the last second had ended, and he began to pull away, time hurried to catch up.
The memory ended.
The music in the twilight soared, lifting him to places he thought he had lost.
A memory started...
Scythe crouched across from Mercy and leaned forward until his lips touched hers...
It repeated twice more.
Then the next one started, and Scythe found himself at the home of a wealthy Kin family. There were many faces he didn’t know…
-----------
The light poured through the door, rolling down the stairs and pooling on the cement floor of the basement. Temper tilted her head and squinted through heavy lids at the dark shapes that swam through the brilliant yellow toward her. She blinked, shook herself and peered more intensely.
Little scattered details showed themselves to her first and then wove together. A blue collar, buttoned all the way up, a pocket with the emblem of a tree and two swords, a hand skimming over the handrail, purposefully avoiding the touch of rough, old wood. A straight, long, tailored suit that hung well below the waist, blending with matching pants. A pair of fine leather shoes, the type she had seen gracing the floor of her cousin the King’s meeting halls.
She smiled and bit down on the transmitter embedded in her cheek.
Gotcha.
-----------
When she had awoken, she felt the difference in herself immediately. Fuller. Stronger. Vibrant. So bloated with energy that it seemed impossible that she could also be hungry.
But her radiance only shone for a short distance: a new, small star in the vast universe of her soul. In the cool darkness that surrounded it, Mercy hovered. She stared, appalled, despising not the guilty star that deserved it, but herself for having created it.
She was a killer. A selfish, greedy murderer.
He is definitely going to hate me. Everyone will, when they find out what I’ve done, what I am.
Every minute now, she lived in two worlds. There was the real one, where she leaned her hot forehead on a cool window, and watched the warm rain fall on the inside of the car. And, overlapping that one, was the world in which the one tendril that connected her to a young boy lifted off his still body and returned to her, bringing with it something terrible: a burst of power, his power, the last bit of him that remained in this world. Without the slightest pause, without the chance for thought or choice, that energy fused with her own.
It was like poison, the way their union made her blood rush excitedly. It was like heaven, feeling her power grow not larger but deeper, richer, fed on the flesh of another. More sinister than any base emotion she had ever experienced was the satisfaction, the smirk, the glow of contentment it felt about the discovery.
It? What a joke. She wasn’t naive enough to think that her power had its own personality. The truth was that her power had never had a feeling before, had never wanted anything. It wasn’t another person inside of her. It was part of her. She had done it all.
She had wanted to reach out and touch them all, everyone she could reach. Somewhere inside of her, a part of her that she didn’t even know existed wasn’t satisfied with just a touch; it wanted a piece of each of them. She had hunted them down and taken what she wanted and, when she found out she could take it all, she did. And she had done it again. She had killed them, five helpless, injured people, and used their power to strengthen herself.
Did it matter that she hadn’t done it on purpose, that it was the result of some instinctive behavior? Did it matter that she wouldn’t have done it, if she had had a choice?
Did it matter to them? No. Her excuses didn’t have the tiniest impact on the fact that they were dead.
She had killed before on only one occasion, in self-defense, but she had broken away from him before he had died, leaving him to suffer alone and selfishly sparing herself the full impact of her decision. Because she had not been there at the very end, she didn’t know if the untalented, unpowered Human that she had murdered then had the same energy cache the five from the center did. She didn’t know if it was a powered trait or something that everyone had. What she did know was that she could heal herself, body and spirit, by stealing the energy of powered people as they died.
Mercy Young. Cold blooded killer.
She was a shimmering, beautiful, powerful sun, orbiting in the thick oil of a new existence that was so terribly distorted and evil that she would have given everything just to be back in hell. At least in hell, only she had suffered.
She would have given everything to make it all go away. Since she had woken up, she had contemplated giving up everything, even her life, many times. But, that way wasn’t open to a member of the Young family. If Cord didn’t have the right to die for his crimes, then Mercy couldn’t escape that easily either. She had sinned, and she had to spend her life, now, making up for that.
After a while, the punishing thoughts began to wear her down. She just didn’t have the energy to keep up the attacks on herself, so she let her hatred sink down, soak in, and settle. When that was finished, she had been pleasantly surprised. She thought that easing up on herself would be a relief, make her not feel so bad, which she didn’t deserve, and which she was convinced would lead her to hurt others again. That was something she was determined to avoid. But, even though she wasn’t actively berating herself, she could still feel the disgust all the time in the background, so she knew everything was all right. That sharp emotion kept cutting at her, making sure she remembered even when she was occupied with other things.
Look out the window at the trees flying by.
Look at the face of the doctor calling out to him, telling him to hold on. Feel the fear of death, an all-consuming panic that made everything else fall away.
Read the sign that announced the border to a new county, listing Kin population, distance to the principal city, and the county motto: Land of Green Acres.
Shiea’s power was the smallest of those that merged with her own, probably because her control wasn’t that good and she didn’t have a strong talent. Or maybe it was because she was so young, just a child, when Mercy killed her.
Cord drove the car, took care of getting food, and slept when he needed to, which was less and less as they got closer. She suspected he rushed because he wanted to get the trip over with. Sometimes they spoke, usually about how or when to do this or that, or some other mindless thing. Eventually she lost interest in those decisions and just followed where he led.
She lifted her head at the sight of the old barrel that marked one of the last roads they needed to take to their home. Her home. Where
she was going to have to face her family. Where Scythe might be, if he had returned during their trip. She hoped he was home, because she yearned to see him, even though she feared meeting him, even though he would hate what she had done. She still wanted to touch him.
“He might be home,” she said, mostly to herself.
“He probably is. You’re going to look really stupid for rushing home.”
“Like I care about that.”
Roland’s last thoughts had been of his home and wondering who would feed the cat. He was more angry, in the end, about who was going to take care of his cat than he was about dying. Anger fueled by fear had stretched across a thin line from him to her.
“Hmph. Regardless, we’re both going to be in it deep, for the rest. I’m hoping he’s not home, because I can already see his face when you tell him we arranged for you to get captured and messed up royally for a computer and a hard drive.”
Messed up royally was right. He had no idea.
The burst of energy sped through her body, a soothing balm that erased the soreness in her body, rejuvenated her very cells and shot her with bursts of adrenaline and endorphins that gave her a physical pleasure like none she had ever experienced. Her body still remembered the feeling that had wrapped her up and carried her away five times. Not far away, not far away at all, she still hungered for another taste.
She didn’t react to the memory, or the reminder of her new hunger. It was not the first time, or the twentieth, that she had thought of it. It was not the fiftieth.
She looked over at him, “I am sorry, Cord, for putting you through this, and I am really grateful that you came with me and that you rescued me from that place. Thanks.”
He nodded. “Well, just remember that and make sure you put those pretty brown eyes in front of your ugly ass boyfriend when he gets that look. ‘Cause we both know he’s gonna be raging mad.”
“He will not, and he’s not ugly.”
He rolled his eyes. “He will, and he is, to everyone but you.”
Halfblood Legacy Page 37