Why had it not occurred to her to use that ability for another purpose? Not for hurting, but for healing? Instead of taking, couldn’t she give?
She turned when she felt the first echoes of what seemed like a distant energy field bounce off her from behind. Right away, however, she could tell that it wasn’t distant, it was just weak. She moved to her knees, laid a hand on Scythe’s chest and tried not to panic at his pale, drawn face.
Her fear turned to excitement, however, when she noticed that she could touch him for the first time since she had entered the column. Apparently, Edillian had been forced to drop whatever wall had prevented her from doing it earlier. She immediately reached for him, her chest bursting with the stinging emotion that resulted from the marriage of heart wrenching relief and joy. Remembering herself at the last minute, she pushed away as much of the disturbing feelings she was battling with and poured into him the affection he would be used to.
Scythe, she whispered, and then tried not to panic a second time. Edillian was hovering over Scythe’s center, his energy well, and they were fighting to see who could hold on to it. Mercy could tell immediately that Scythe was barely clinging onto it. She lowered her wall in one small place, just enough to let one thin thread weave its way toward that spot.
Then, soft words stole her breath. My Mercy. She didn’t have time to roll around in them like she would have, though, because his weak voice communicated two things to her. Aside from the sincerity of his affection was his belief that he was without hope. All the reasons for holding her at a distance were dust to him now, at what he thought was the end.
She smiled, accepting the first and gladly denying the second. As she made the connection she was seeking, she said, Now, don’t go dying on me. You know I’ve been working very hard for the day when I’d get to hear a certain pair of words, and not from the freak in the tank, either. She hastily tightened her grip on her ribbon, because it had automatically started to draw on him. She felt her way around her own power, trying to find a way to reverse the instinctive drain.
It terrified her when he could only find the strength to nod with his thoughts. He didn’t even have enough energy to form words. Then, as he went completely silent and started to slip away, her instinct kicked in again. She stopped thinking and just did. She pushed herself through the ribbon into him, and the ribbon widened with the amount of energy she sent.
His body convulsed under her hands, and her determination wavered. Was she hurting him? Was this the right thing to do? Since she was doing something she had never done before, she wasn’t sure. She bit her lip, wondering if she should stop. But in the next few seconds, while she was debating, she felt him grow stronger. Then, she was heartened by the return of his voice. It was soft, but growing louder. It was also definitely agitated, which she thought had to be a good sign.
Mercy...
It was working! She pushed forward.
Mercy! What are…? He convulsed again and started spitting the energy back at her.
Hold still and take what you need so we can get out of here, Scythe. Can you break away yet?
She felt him struggle, still resisting what she was sure was the only way to help him. Because he was so frail, she easily pushed past him, force feeding him a generous amount of her energy. Her power was filling up his well and began to intermingle with his power; the two swirled around each other, and then hers disappeared underneath.
Mercy...Stop! Something’s wrong...he protested, but she ignored him. She could feel his power now against the skin of her distant body. It was not anywhere near a healthy level, but it was a victory nonetheless.
She wanted him stronger...stronger!..so she increased the amount she was funneling into him. It was hardly affecting her levels at all. As far as she could tell, she was no weaker than when she had started. He, on the other hand, was growing in her mind. She watched him turn his attention to the boy, and she could almost hear the growl that rose up in him. She shared the feeling, grinning darkly up at the body floating above her.
He had hurt them, taken from them. Nobody...she seethed and she didn’t know if it was her or him...Nobody got away with hurting her/him.
How should we kill him? they wondered. While they thought about it, Scythe, stretching and flexing with new, strangely hot energy, started jogging up the line toward the boy. It progressed into a run. Then, he was flying up it.
Let me take care of him, Mercy/Scythe said, gathering her power into a tentacle and getting goosebumps at the idea of smashing through the glass to get at the flimsy body. Smashing through the body, or better yet, tearing into it, tearing it apart…
Some part of the familiar urge irritated Scythe/Mercy, who stopped and looked back down the line just as he reached the top. It was not easy to turn away from his prey, because he could almost smell the kill, it was so close. However, he managed to do it because he’d been fighting that impulse for a long time. As always, the distraction Mercy provided helped him maintain control.
Some thing was not right…
Mercy, Edillian whispered in his ear.
Mercy?
Mercy/Scythe finished crafting her weapon, a nasty looking thing that pleased her quite well. It had a forked tip on the end, so that once it pierced him, she could whip it across the far side of his body, hooking him, and then yank it back. If she did it just right, she could pass through the glass without breaking it and smash him up against it a few times before pulling back on him and breaking the tank with his body. It was going to make a sweet bloody mess when all that thick glass broke on his body…
Mercy/Scythe shot it at him, letting it pass through the wall of the tank. Then she adjusted the energy so that it impaled him in the chest. His body was jolted back and then swung forward, twisting in the cords and wires. Into his sallow world, another color flowed, spreading through the liquid in wispy, twisting, smoke-like clouds from two tiny holes the size of a pea. She sniffed, but, disappointingly, she couldn’t smell it.
Mercy, Edillian whispered, even weaker now than before.
That word really bothered Scythe/Mercy. It bothered him more when Mercy/Scythe laughed, throwing her head back and then spitting, “It is better to finish you off now. Letting you go would be stupid. I’m not letting you get another chance at us, Edillian.”
When he heard those words, Scythe/Mercy recognized the danger: the malice was something he knew how to contend with. Mercy, however...
Scythe/Mercy stepped back from Edillian, sliced through the bond between them easily with the power he had amassed, and returned along with the rope that pulled back into his body. By the time he arrived there, Scythe had become himself again. He looked down at his well, and then along the thick cord that fed it. Mercy’s energy ran into the well, and his whole body tingled. It was not like Harmony or Miriam’s healing ability, which used power to repair. This was Mercy’s essence, being poured into him, building him up at the cost of her very life. It didn’t threaten her yet, but it undermined her, weakened her foundations.
Looking out at Mercy, he could see the effects of both the blending of their powers and the unprotected exposure to the more aggressive elements of his personality. She had soaked them up, and some part of her he had never seen before embraced them. Together, they had fed on their shared energy, the pure overwhelming amount of which had caused a feeding frenzy.
Mercy, he said at the same time he made his first attempt to sever the conduit which fed him. It wasn’t until the second time, after putting forth more effort, that he was successful. Let it go.
Disoriented by the sudden absence of half her personality, she stared at him blankly. Slowly the aggression faded, now that he had cut her off from the more ruthless side of himself. She shook her head and stared at the tank. He’s a danger to us. He tried to kill you.
I know. Straining, he tried to sit up but could only manage to prop himself on his elbows. He leaned against her and wrapped her in his arms. When she sat stiffly in his weak embrace, he reached u
p and gently turned her to face him. Your name, the name of my heart, is Mercy.
She hesitated only a handful of seconds more, before the string that had pierced the boy evaporated. Shaken, she bent over until her head rested against his shoulder; she rubbed her face against him and mumbled, “Scythe.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t help at all. She couldn’t hide from the truth. Keeping her thoughts turned from him, she agonized, I almost killed again. The moment...the moment I relaxed my guard...I don’t think I...I’m not safe...
“Mercy, let’s get out of here. There are some things I see in your eyes that I want to talk to you about. Things that weren’t there when I last…”
Already, he was worried about her, reaching out to her. He could barely sit up, probably couldn’t stand. Less than a handful of minutes separated him from the moment of his death, and his whole concern was her. Her hand curled into a fist, gripping onto the cloth of his shirt as the emotion overtook her.
She kissed him. It was not the gentle kiss of her vision, nor the passionate ones of her daydreams. It was not sweet in the way that she had always believed their kisses were meant to be. It was a storm. She clung to him desperately, easily pushing him in his debilitated state over and back onto the floor. Her hands took a hold of his face as if it were the only thing keeping her from falling a thousand miles into darkness. Her mouth covered his, and she took his breath and held it for herself. Then, her lips fiercely kissed him over and over, starting with his mouth, and then traveling around his face.
She had wrapped her ribbons around him and through her touch she knew he could feel, along with her love for him, all of the apprehension that had filled her at the thought of what waited outside for them.
She managed to keep secret from him the thoughts that haunted her, but she couldn’t escape from them herself. She had betrayed Jaelyn, ripped one of her sick children away from the chance at life, gone back on her promise to help. She had let herself forget why she had made the pledge in the first place, and why Scythe, who had again chosen to spare the life of someone who had wronged him terribly, would wear a different expression when he learned what the sins were that sat in her eyes. She still felt her commitment to serve Jaelyn with her life like a manacle around her neck. Her life was not her own to give, and because of that, she wasn’t free to accept his heart, even if she wanted to.
Each kiss was a stubborn refusal of what had to come, and the tears that accompanied them confirmed the futility of her denial.
He breathed, “Mercy,” but the affectionate way he usually said her name was this time burdened with worry. His hands, which had wound their way into her thick hair gently pulled her away so that he could look into her eyes. “My Mercy, we will work it out, all of it.”
“You...you don’t even know…” she stuttered, thinking of the things she had to confess to him, and the insurmountable problems that they faced once they left the column’s barrier.
He drew her down for a firm kiss that cut off her words. The second, slow and tender kiss that followed cut off her thoughts. She lifted her head when he lightened his hold on her, looking down at the crease between his eyebrows. It looked like he was in pain, but when he opened his eyes, she saw painted there not hurt, but yearning, and a desperate passion that matched her own. “You will tell me everything, and then, my Mercy, we will work it out.”
His words, rich with the confidence that had made him a natural leader even at an early age, spread their soothing balm over her wounds and steadied her frayed nerves. She wanted to believe that if he said they could find a solution, then maybe they could.
She nodded, reached down and wiped her tears from his face. He took one hand, kissed the salt from her fingertips, and then pulled himself with some effort all the way up to a sitting position.
“I don’t remember this place. Where are we?” His gaze lingered on Edillian, who hung limply inside the tank and watched them.
“Inside one of the columns.”
“Inside? How do we get out?” He stared up at the ceiling, taking in the ruined machinery and frowning.
“I...might have done that…” she said guiltily.
“How?” he asked, clearly astounded by the amount of damage.
“I’m not sure. When I found you, I got...really upset, and then I used my power to lift it up.” It was her turn to be confused. “I don’t know how it got back down, though. Maybe it fell. I guess we were lucky it didn’t fall on us.” She made an uncomfortable grimace at the thought of what the heavy impact would have done to their bodies. Eeeww.
When she looked back at him, she was startled to find that his attention had returned to her.
“You are amazing, my Mercy.”
She didn’t have an answer for that look. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at her that way. She wasn’t amazing. She was a disaster. “A train wreck,” Cord had said, and he’d been right.
He frowned worriedly again and said, “Come on, I want to get out of here.”
She nodded, even though she couldn’t disagree with him more. Here, even with Edillian, was much safer for her than out there. Here was where they were lovers. Here was where she had accepted his heart, held it tenderly, and given her own.
But, here was already gone, wasn’t it?
There was where he would find out that she had taken what she couldn’t keep. There was where she would make him suffer. It stung her that he wanted to go there so badly. But, where else was there to go to? Nowhere. There was no where else to go, but out of the column. Idly thinking about her vision, she wondered if they had been heading there from the beginning.
He started to stand, and she helped him up, enjoying the way he easily relied on her support. She remembered the time when she realized that she wanted to help him, to be the one to watch over him, to hold him up just like this. It was a bittersweet sensation, to finally be able to do something for him just as the night fell over them.
Once he was all the way up, he pulled her into his arms and laid a light kiss on her hair absently. Finding no other solution, he said, “It looks like you’ll have to raise it up again. Can you?”
She let her power become an extension of her arms, hooked the bottom of the cylinder and lifted, a faint memory from the first time she had done it skipping forward and helping her at the last moment. The heavy column was a little resistant, probably because it wasn’t the same shape it used to be and none of the mechanisms attached to it at the top were bending quite the right way anymore. Even so, she was able to lift it up and hold it there until he stepped out from under it.
That was when she noticed that she couldn’t move. Her legs. Her power. Her voice.
Frozen.
She watched him straighten up, pulling energy from who knew where to move on his own and walk away. He was speaking softly to the air next to him, and her heart beat in her chest faster and more jarringly the further he got from her. Then Jaelyn appeared in front of her, taking over her world the way she had already taken over their minds.
The woman had transformed since Mercy had seen her last. She moved stiffly forward, ducking her head under the column before stepping into the space recently abandoned by Scythe. The warmth that still lingered on her skin from Scythe’s hug was chased away by the woman’s cool aura. Her pasty, sunken face was flat, her mouth a thin line. Everything was still but her eyes...her eyes were howling.
Mercy let the barrier fall to the ground with a huge, thundering boom.
Chapter 46
Jaelyn let the force of the blow carry her down to the ground, falling nearly on top of the girl she had struck fully across the face. That was it, the last of her physical strength. It was a waste to use what little she had left on such a base, spiteful action, but she didn’t regret it.
She crouched like a wounded animal over Mercy, immersed in a sea of pain: every inch of her body ached, her head pounded with the effort of the multiple mind control...something that was usually as easy as breathing for h
er...and her heart was torn asunder.
Of the three, the last was the most debilitating.
Years upon years of work was destroyed. She had given her life, wrung her hands and her heart, twisted herself time and again to be strong enough to do what had to be done. She had crafted herself into what was needed to bring forth an irreplaceable crop. Now she sat at the end of the long season, aghast at the possibility of a ruined harvest.
She collapsed onto her knees, propped herself up with one hand and clutched the throbbing second one to her chest. Her labored breathing was the only sound in the small space. She closed her eyes for a moment and fought the weariness that pulled on her. It would be so easy to just fall, right then. She wanted to give in to the exhaustion, to just rest for once. She had not rested since...she could not remember when she had last rested.
A barking laugh coughed its way out of her chest: one sharp, loud note. She sucked air in, held it for a second before releasing it, and opened her eyes. Mercy lay motionlessly, her head to the side, staring forward blankly. A large, red welt was blossoming across the side of her face where Jaelyn’s power assisted strike had landed. The tears that had welled up in her eyes threatened to spill out.
The sight of her infuriated Jaelyn. She, who cried for broken lives, didn’t have any tolerance for selfish little girls who cried for their own broken hearts.
Jaelyn looked up at her child, her real child: the baby she had cradled in her arms and sung to under the stars and handed over to her husband with a kiss just before she had left the city on business. She looked at the blood that had wormed its way out of a small puncture beneath his ribs and then spread out like a fan in the tank.
“You have hurt my son,” she seethed and tried to reach him, but it proved to be more than she could do. She had to let go of something else to do even that one small thing. Damn. She freed Scythe’s mind, after giving him a simple suggestion that would only buy her a little more time. Then she opened a window to her son.
Mother… He wrapped himself with her arms and dug in deeply, covering his head. I wasn’t...I couldn’t do it…
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