Mercy

by Debra Anastasia

  I was starting to feel dizzy. I forced myself to stay near Nix’s face. “He was why I had the app. He was after you. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  His beautiful eyes were pleading with me. I mouthed, “It’s okay. I forgive you,” because I still wasn’t making any noise.

  His lips were turning blue and his eyes were closing longer and longer between blinks. I gave Animal a frantic hand motion.

  “Stay calm, baby. We got this. You got this.” He didn’t stop the pressure. I was unsure if Nix had seen my mouth. I was pressured out of the way by a paramedic.

  Officer Quinn was assessing me. “You need medical treatment.”

  I felt my eyes water. The paramedics were loading Nix up as quickly as they could. He had a neck brace on. I saw his eyes search the room, but they didn’t make it to me. Animal followed Nix out of my apartment. I went to follow, but Quinn kept me in place. Swaying, I was having trouble locking my kneecaps to stay standing.

  I heard him calling for a second ambulance. His partner was standing near Nix’s father. No one was treating his injuries as he bled out on my floor. Quinn told his partner he was taking me out. I pointed to my phone, which was at ten percent. I looked at the screen out of habit. The claw machine it was normally focused on was broken beyond belief. My hands were shaking.

  I managed to close the app down and let Quinn guide me with his arm around my shoulders. “Come on, lady. Let’s get you out of here for a few minutes. How you doing?”

  35

  PEACE

  Fenix

  I was having the nightmares again. My father attacking Mom. The face swapping with Becca’s.

  White light and pain.

  Becca was in trouble. I tried to get up, but nothing responded.

  Becca.

  I used everything inside of me and focused on my eyelids. They opened. Bright. Light.

  “I’m here. Becca’s okay.”

  Animal.

  I felt a sharp bite in my arm. White light. Pain. Why was it hard to take a breath?

  Animal’s voice was in my ear. “He’s dead, baby. No worries anymore. He’s dead.”

  My father. I knew he was talking about my father. My whole body relaxed. All of a sudden I didn’t care if I took another breath. Becca was safe. My father was dead.

  I had peace.

  ~Becca~

  Quinn insisted I go in the ambulance. I was still walking, so I felt like it was excessive. I clutched my phone. I rasped out, “What about him?”

  It was the only question I had. Where was Nix?

  Quinn answered my questions with the same story every time, “The other patient is in the ambulance that left a bit ago.”

  My voice was crazy hoarse, but I could make myself heard. “Can you just drive me? I have to see him.” I pointed at one of the patrol cars in the parking lot. I had no idea which one was actually his. My eyesight blurred.

  “I’m recommending an ambulance for you. They can check on your boyfriend.” Quinn made some hand gestures to someone else in the crowd.

  Boyfriend.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” He’s much more than that.

  I focused on my phone. Eight percent. I tried to contact Animal. I Google searched the word “Animal”. I scrolled through the results. What was I doing? I couldn’t find his number that way. I’d spelled Animal wrong.

  “Here’s your ride. You want me to call your mom?” Quinn again.

  I looked at his face. “Your job’s hard. You’ve been here this whole time.”

  Quinn was distracted. He looked around and pointed to a few other cops. He mentioned that he was coming with me.

  “You don’t have to do that.” I was walking for God’s sake.

  “I have to go with you to the hospital.” Quinn waited while the paramedics assessed me. They had a surprising amount to comment on. I mean, I was standing. I was fine. And then I wasn’t. It was like someone had flipped a switch in my body. Pain in my chest, head and neck engulfed me.

  Quinn shouted to someone, “She’s crashing.”

  Then I was an observer. I could hear. I could see but I felt only pain.

  “The adrenaline was propping her up.” Quinn sounded concerned.

  I hurt. My chest. The inside of my mouth. My neck. Dear God, my neck. I was on a gurney, not sure how I got there. And then the interior of the ambulance was surrounding me.

  Quinn got into the ambulance. A blood pressure cuff was put on my arm. I waited until Quinn looked at me because I was strapped in and the ambulance started rolling with sirens. I wanted to tell him to call Henry. Or someone.

  Quinn found my hand, taking the phone out of it and replacing the device with his own hand.

  I closed my eyes because suddenly I was wildly tired. Like medically induced tired.

  Then I tuned out and sent prayers up for Nix. The same prayer I’d said every night of my life—that he was okay.

  ***

  I woke up when the night air hit my face. I felt stupid lying on the gurney when I knew I could walk, but I had second thoughts when I felt the pain in my chest. The punch. The punch that evil man delivered felt like a bruise that went through my ribs.

  My throat. Part of it felt like he still had his fingers on it. I tried to reach up and feel it, but Quinn was still holding my hand.

  He leaned down as he walked next to me. “You okay?”

  I met his eyes. “Nix?”

  “Who’s Nix?” Quinn pieced the things together. “Oh, is that his name? The man who you were with when I got there? I don’t know. I’m here with you. Henry and Dick are on their way. I found their number.”

  Henry would find out about Nix. They rolled me into a curtained slot. The paramedics began conferring with a nurse.

  “You don’t have to stay.” I felt guilty taking Quinn away from his job.

  He gave me a look that seemed like he expected me to arrive at a conclusion that didn’t happen.

  “Becca, you need a police escort because we don’t know what went down in that apartment.”

  “Oh.” I was still confused. I think I was having trouble thinking.

  “Hey. Hey, she’s fading here.” Quinn let go of my hand and opened the curtain wider.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about until it felt like my conscience was stepping off a cloud. And then there was blackness.

  36

  STEPS

  Fenix

  Animal was next to me. I heard him humming before I opened my eyes.

  “There’s my man.” His voice was so relieved I knew I was in shit shape.

  “You had a gunshot to the upper right of your torso. You’ve been through surgery. Christina and Ember are okay. You lost a lot of blood, but they’re pleased with how the surgery went.” Animal looked more haggard than I felt.

  I coughed a few times. No breathing tube, but I felt the oxygen mask on my mouth.

  Exposed.

  I felt exposed. Everyone here could see my ink. I looked down. All of the focus and pain was in my shoulder.

  “If it hurts, you hit this button. That’s your morphine.” He held up the button I was supposed to hit.

  One forearm had an IV drip, but I used the other one to move my mask. “Becca?”

  Animal seemed reluctant. “She’s here too.”

  I looked around the room.

  “Downstairs. Your father did a job on her, but she’s going to be okay.”

  It was the first time Animal had ever lied to me. I watched his jaw tick.

  I kept the mask away from my mouth. “You’re lying.”

  “Your father’s dead. Becca shot him in self-defense with his own gun. She’s in a medically induced coma because the injury to her throat was pretty intense. He punched her in the chest and then he squeezed her neck so hard that they want the swelling to heal. I’ve seen a lot worse turn out a lot better. You have to focus on you.” He stopped talking as the nurse walked in.

  “Mr. Churchkey, good to see you awake. I’m going to run
your vitals real quick. How’s your pain on a scale from one to ten?” He had a stethoscope and a hospital badge with the name “Asa Withers” printed on it.

  “Eight.” Animal had fed me the most important information. I reviewed the incident in my head.

  “Wow, your heart rate’s spiking.” Asa looked concerned.

  I knew it was my body’s response to thinking about the confrontation with my father.

  I’d failed Becca and let my father touch her, but I had to keep the story Animal had just told me straight. Becca had shot my father with his own gun. That part had to be important.

  I pictured her in a hospital bed here. Somewhere. I wanted to get up and find her.

  Asa didn’t like my numbers. I knew why but didn’t share. “I’ve notified your doctor and the surgeon that you’re alert. They’ll be in shortly. I’m just going to go ahead and pump a touch of morphine into your system. We’ll keep that mask on for now too.”

  The morphine took me away.

  ***

  Animal was gone the next time I woke up. I needed to take a piss like everyone’s life depended on it. I hit the morphine button instead of the nurse call button by accident.

  “Fuck.”

  The morphine took me down again.

  ***

  Animal was back in a different outfit and typing furiously on his phone. I coughed and drew his attention.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty. Your girls are safe. Ember and your aunt are in the family cabin. T’s on watch. Your father’s still dead. Becca’s sleeping too.” He tucked his phone away and tried to smile. “They say that this morphine is making you its little bitch. Never seen a grown man with a shittier tolerance. They’ve got you on the infant dose now. How you feel?”

  I was able to give him the finger. “Last time I woke up I needed to take a leak, but now I don’t. What the hell happened?”

  Animal made a face. “Best you don’t know, buddy.” He shifted in his chair.

  I could feel…different things going on between my legs. “Dammit.” I pushed it out of my thoughts. “Tell me about Becca.”

  “They still have her under, but they like how much the swelling is going down. She needed two small stiches inside her cheek, from a blow gauging from the bruising inside her mouth. Her chest is healing, no internal bleeding. Her windpipe was a concern, but last I heard they were moving away from a surgical option. She needs rest, and that’s exactly what she’s getting.”

  It was like Animal had poured acid onto my brain. All of her injuries I pictured. I felt. I knew how she got them. Classic Dad.

  “Hey, he’s dead, right? She’ll get better and so will you.” Animal scooted to the edge of his chair and patted my arm.

  “How’d you find out all of that? I mean, the medical stuff?”

  Animal wiggled his fingers. “Pretty nurses in this hospital, don’t you think?”

  And I had my answer. Animal had seduced information out of hospital workers.

  “How’s everything else going?” Hopefully, he knew I was talking about Feybi. My shoulder and upper chest were throbbing. I wanted to ask a million other questions, but we were not in a safe place for information disclosure.

  “I called in my army, sweetness. I told you—I can lock this shit down and that’s in place. You heal. Heal your gunshot wound and your head. We’re on the up side of this situation.” Animal gave me a smile and held up my morphine button.

  “Don’t you dare, you assho…”

  And I was gone again.

  ***

  The next time I woke up, I covered the morphine button. Animal was missing, but there was a burner phone next to me. I picked it up. There was a text with a tiger emoji—Animal’s signal for me to know it was him.

  Say nothing.

  I turned the phone over in my hands. Asa was coming in to check on me. Behind him was Quinn. Officer Quinn. The one with a crush on Becca.

  “He’s awake. Don’t let him near the morphine button. Turns him out like a light.” Asa came to the side of my bed.

  Quinn cleared his throat and waited while Asa did a checkup and made notes on an iPad. He asked about my pain levels and double-checked my grip. He seemed pleased.

  “Doctor said I can start you on a clear liquid diet. Are you feeling up to it?” Asa waited.

  I was sort of starving and full at the same time. I nodded.

  “I’ll leave you guys to it, but the surgeon really wants to see you awake.” Asa gave the morphine button a long look.

  I gave him a thumbs-up. The pain was intense and blinding, but I could handle it.

  Now that it was just Quinn and I, I had to ask. “How’s Becca?”

  “You can earn yourself some answers to that question.” He rocked forward on his toes and put his hands in his pockets.

  He was in layman’s clothes, but he was a cop. They were never off-duty. “How about you tell me what went down that night?”

  I put my lips together and bit down on them. I wasn’t saying shit. He’d interviewed Animal. Maybe ID’d me. Maybe got a statement out of Becca. I needed to make sure everything matched up.

  “That’s how it is? Really. That’s cool. You sit here and stew in your own juices.” Quinn gave me a disgusted glance.

  “Where’s Merck? He still work for you?” I watched him as he placed the name of the officer that took care of me when I was thirteen.

  “Merck is way out of our precinct now. You trying to intimidate me, Churchkey?” Quinn didn’t scare easy, which sucked. But if he was handling the case, I needed him to do a good job protecting Becca until I could stay awake for more than ten minutes.

  “Just checking on him.” I wanted to shrug, but that would hurt so I looked at him instead.

  “You know, I’ve been hearing about a guy with a skeleton face for a while now. Thought it was one of those urban legends. Mercy is his street name. You know anybody that responds to that? I mean, it’s a small world for freaks. You probably hang out.” Quinn cracked his knuckles.

  I said nothing.

  “You know you’ll answer to me. Because I have a hunch—and I could be wrong, no doubt—I have a hunch that you’re involved in the reason why Becca damn near died. Gunshots flying around, guys wearing full body tats, a drifter that we’ve had trouble identifying, ’cept I think his dead face looks a lot like yours…I don’t know. Things like that add up to a gorgeous girl with her face beat in and her chest and neck looking like she should have been a fucking corpse. So help me God, if she’s diminished because she was hanging around the likes of you, I’ll demolish you.” Quinn went to the door. “But like I said, just a hunch. How about you surprise me, Churchkey? You offer up your account of the evening like a stand-up guy. And don’t use some punk lawyer in the mob’s pocket to leave Becca as the only person to pay for whatever went down.”

  Quinn walked out of the hospital room and I stared after him. His hunches were right. If Becca had never met me, she’d be somewhere else entirely. My father would have never stalked her. Nor would I.

  I put my head back on the pillow and hit the morphine button. I’d talk to the surgeon later. Right now I had a way to evaporate, so I took it.

  ***

  This time I woke up to Animal shaking me. My eyelids felt like cinderblocks.

  “I’m taking this shit away from you. Lord, it was like waking a goddamn rock. She’s awake. Becca’s awake.”

  I forced my eyes to stay open. “She okay?” I was slurring, but Animal understood me.

  “I’m waiting on news about that. Henry’s going to text me.” He held out his phone.

  I struggled to a better sitting position.

  “I got to call the nurse. It’s a different one than the dude. They really want you to try to eat.” Animal hit the call button.

  He handed me his phone to hold because I was staring at the screen intently.

  I forced myself out of my drug fog. “What are they watching for?”

  Animal looked out the window behind him for a second
. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to decide how much I could take.

  “Just tell me.” I looked at the morphine button. I needed to stop hitting it.

  I heard him inhale and exhale. “She was strangled, baby. You know how that does.” He put his attention on me and it was filled with concern.

  I knew. I’d done it enough times. Of course, no one ever survived what I had implemented. But I could guess. Changes. She could have trouble eating. She could have damage to her throat. If she was deprived of oxygen long enough…

  “She was talking and stuff. I mean, she had all her faculties when…” I trailed off when Animal subtly shook his head.

  The surgeon walked in with a smile. She was slight with skin almost as deep as Animal’s. “Mr. Churchkey, I’ve been calling you Rip Van Winkle. Good to see your eyes open.”

  Our conversation turned quickly to an assessment. I answered all her questions and did all the tasks she asked me to try. She took a look at my shoulder. I saw my wound for the first time as she peeked at the stitches. It looked healthy.

  She gave me an update on my condition—that I had a large tear in two of my muscles, but they were able to remove the bullet. A lot of my discomfort was from the blood loss. Dr. Point anticipated me starting physical therapy in a few hours. She had expectations that I could leave the hospital by Friday morning. I thanked her.

  Animal watched her leave a little too hard. Normally, I would tease him, but his cell phone that was lying next to my leg pinged.

  Henry.

  I picked it up and read out loud, “She’s off the meds, but still asleep. I’ll let you know when we have more. The doctors say her brain activity is good, though.”

  I handed Animal his phone back so he could return a message to Henry. He pounded something out and hit send.

  He moved closer. “You have a lawyer. His instructions are to say nothing to anyone. We don’t want to open any doors that should be closed. You came to visit Becca and there was an intruder. You were shot and Becca discharged the attacker’s gun after you were shot.”

  Most of what Animal had told me was true. I didn’t ask any questions. If that was what he told me, that was what I had to stick to. He hadn’t mentioned that the perp was my father.