It was proof of what had happened.
“Hey! Glad you’re back.”
Ash jumped and looked up.
Her boss leaned against the doorjamb and gave her a curious glance. “Sorry to scare you. Geez, you look like hell.”
Ash leaned back in her seat. “Thanks. Just what a girl wants to hear after a week in paradise.”
Her boss shrugged and chuckled. “Guess I should have thought that one through. I meant it looks as if you used up every minute of your time away and are exhausted, which is what you’re supposed to do and be. Catch up here at your own pace. The only pressing item is the Russell account.”
“Already did it and gave it to legal for review.”
“Great.” He straightened. “I really am glad you’re back.”
Her boss was a really nice, middle-aged guy, excited that his twin daughters were getting ready for high school graduation in a few weeks. He was just a normal guy.
Her job was normal.
This day was normal.
Everything was normal.
Except her mind was so fucked up.
Ash put the knife back in her purse and turned her attention to the work that had piled up.
The rest of the day went as every other day at the office went. That night, she made herself a quick salad, then opened her computer. She was curious to see if Larry and his group had posted their videos to their travel vlog yet. She never had talked with them about what had happened to her in the pit. Nor did she ask what had scared them away while she was in the throes of her vision—despite their promises to not leave her behind. She vaguely remembered some screaming, but it had blended with what she was seeing at the time, so she didn’t know if it was them or if it was her own mind.
She looked up their website from the card they’d given her. Sure enough, she found several videos covering different aspects of their stay in Medellín. Pretty but banal stuff, they had teasers about upcoming videos that were to reveal shocking and paranormal things happening in a little mountain village just recently opened to the outside world.
Ash felt a twist of tension. She reached up to the glass medallion she wore. Instantly, it gave her that feeling of being connected to him. Peace and warmth.
For sure, she had it bad with her made-up guy. She couldn’t seem to move on from Merc.
She pictured the tall, dark blond guy from her fort vision, imagined the calloused feel of his big hands. He seemed so real that it was almost as if he was there with her. Her infatuation with him felt like a dirty secret, something shameful she had to hide from the world. But that didn’t make her release her necklace.
11
Ash met Kiera and Summer for their weekly Wednesday dinner a few days after her return. Her friends were excited to hear about her trip. She knew the tale she had to tell was crazy. They wouldn’t believe any of it—she barely did.
“Okay, spill!” Summer said. “Tell us everything! Damn, but I wish we’d been able to go with you.”
Ash looked at the table, pulling a complete blank. Where would she even begin?
“Wait—don’t start,” Kiera said. “Let’s put our order in so we’re not interrupted.”
Ash looked over the dinner menu, not having much of an appetite. She missed her Saint Merc…a man who wasn’t real, who’d probably never existed. Or if he had, then he was most certainly dead.
Odd the empty spot he’d left in her soul. Surely, this would wear off sooner or later.
The waiter came by. She ordered a salad of some sort with a side of fries.
Summer smiled and said, “Now go. Everything.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning? Your flight out of Denver—was it an easy trip?” Kiera asked.
Ash stared at Kiera. “I’m in love with a man who doesn’t exist.”
Kiera’s jaw dropped. “Not what I expected to hear.” She and Summer exchanged shocked glances.
Summer’s eyes sparked with curiosity as she leaned in. “Everything. I mean it, Ash.”
Ash told them how warm the people of Colombia were, how beautiful it was, and how darkness filled all the empty places.
Kiera frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Something happened in Valle de Lágrimas, and I can’t seem to make it make sense,” Ash told them. “It was just as Sam said—a town still in the middle of all the violence the peace agreements had hoped to settle. Someone had been there before me who did some strange things. I don’t think it was real, but somehow I came away convinced it was. You won’t believe anything I say because it’s too fantastical.”
Summer smiled. “That’s the best kind of story. Let’s hear it.”
“Wait.” Kiera held up a hand. “First—were you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but my mind is messed up.”
Kiera gave Summer a disturbed glance. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Ash told them about the group she met up with, the tour they’d had of the village with its strange pink and orange walls, blank canvases waiting for new murals. She described the decaying bodies sitting in their chairs, facing those walls. She told them about the little weird things, like the man who danced while bullets rained down, blessed medallions, and cursed the death pits.
“He felt like the same guy I had in my vision when we were at the fort planning my trip,” Ash said. “But he couldn’t have been, because the villagers all described him as looking like any one of them, not a tall blond guy.”
Summer blinked. Ash wondered if she’d imagined the slight tensing of her friend’s face. “And the pit? Tell us what happened that night in the jungle. I was so scared for you.”
Ash looked at her friends. Her best friends. They’d been through so much together, from their university days to now. Classes, boyfriends, jobs. Kiera’s husband’s death. Summer’s engagement to Sam. “I think I may have been drugged. I mean, none of it makes sense, but I believed it.”
Kiera nodded. “Or maybe you were hypnotized. I mean, you’re a smart lady, capable of critical thinking. You know that dead people don’t stay in a seated position without any kind of restraints. It’s physically impossible.”
Summer grimaced, then agreed. “It sounds like an exhibit on a Disney pirate ride. If bodies were in chairs like that, then they were made up for show.”
Ash shook her head. “I watched bugs eating the decaying flesh from them, and still the corpses didn’t fall apart.”
“And have you never stuffed peanut butter and birdseed in a pinecone?” Kiera asked. “They could have put real meat on the fake bones.”
“But why would they put on such an elaborate show?”
“So you would come home and tell this fantastic story and others would feel compelled to go see it for themselves,” Kiera said.
Ash thought about that. “I tried to touch one of the seated bodies, but couldn’t. It was like I was blocked.”
“Ew. Why would event want to do that?” Kiera looked horrified. “And maybe you couldn’t because it was all part of their elaborate scheme.”
Ash went silent. She felt as if she’d just left a haunted Halloween house and believed everything inside was real. “I had considered the hypnotism angle. I’m telling you what I saw, but I can’t explain it.”
“Finish telling us about that night in the jungle,” Summer prompted. “You were in there a long while.”
She almost didn’t want to. What a fool she’d made of herself, falling for the village’s tricks. “So the mass graves. The museum showed them having been emptied and explained the healing impact of recovering the bodies. It was deeply moving. Those grave trenches were why we all wanted to go to Valle de Lágrimas.”
Kiera leaned forward, resting her chin on her wrist. “What was out there?”
“The graves weren’t empty. There were three trenches, and the first one had bodies heaped in it. Fresh bodies, I think. The mound was half covered with dirt. The second pit was empty.” God. A
sh could hear the hole she was digging for herself with this story, and she hadn’t even gotten to the worst part of it yet. “I felt that guy’s energy over the bodies and the pits. When I went into the last pit—“
“You did what?” Kiera interrupted, shocked.
Ash didn’t try to explain what had drawn her in. She couldn’t understand it herself. “That’s when I had another vision.” She didn’t tell them that her new friends had left her there, or that she’d felt she’d been guided out of the pit and back into town. “In it, I saw the man I’d been sensing around town trying to end his life. But as fast as he cut his wrists, they healed. The village priest was there. I went to see him the next day. He confirmed everything I’d seen in my vision. He’d used his robe to soak up the man’s blood. He showed it to me.” Ash shook her head. “Something big happened in that town, but I can’t seem to see it in a rational way.” She fingered her medallion, but stopped herself from telling them about it. They wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“I did some research into Valle de Lágrimas the night you went on your adventure.” Kiera gave Ash an admonishing glance. “It took the peace negotiations that quieted the illegal activity in the region before that village could fully be brought into the fold. Prior to that, it could only be accessed via helicopter or a long trek through the jungle, either from the Pacific side or the land side. The government had to cut in a road to bring vehicles in to clear out the graves. It makes sense that a town with sudden access would have new options for attracting tourists.”
“Right,” Summer said. “But how to do that without a big outlay of cash? Come up with something viral, something tantalizing and full of mystery.”
Kiera looked at Ash. “Do you think your new friends were in on it all? Maybe the town hired them to come out and make that video.”
Summer nodded. “They had access to everything, even the mass graves, which I would have thought were off limits. No one stopped you guys.”
“And maybe your vision was just another suggestion made to you in your trance state,” Kiera said.
“That might be true,” Ash admitted. “Maybe somehow they knew exactly what to say to me, but I hadn’t told anyone about what I saw in that pit. I don’t know how the priest would have known what to say or that I needed to see the robe. I didn’t ask him about it. He just led me to it.”
“Could still be the hypnosis,” Kiera suggested.
Summer nodded. “Maybe it was all a massive attempt to gaslight you, or you and your friends.”
Ash shrugged. “Just to drum up business?”
“A desperate attempt to save a dying town?” Summer said. “Like the theatrics of those ghost hunter shows, the more gruesome and dramatic they could make it, the more die-hard their fans.”
“But they didn’t even know we were coming or that my friends were going to video what was happening.”
“Or did they?” Kiera lifted one of her brows, like she always did when she smelled something fishy in a story. She was like a human lie detector, and while Ash wasn’t lying to Kiera, she may well have been the victim of the town’s lies.
Ash shut her eyes as their words confirmed her fears. She’d fallen for it all so completely. “It felt so real. I walked in that guy’s footsteps.” She shivered at a particularly gruesome memory. “He left bodies behind. A lot of them.”
“And you still think he was heroic?” Kiera asked.
Ash stared at Kiera. “I don’t know what to think. He was horrible and wonderful and so filled with anguish. I’m afraid of him, and I…crave him.”
Summer exchanged a look with Kiera, then said, “But it’s all over now. You’re home safe. In time, this will all settle into a memory that you laugh about.”
Ash sent Summer a wounded look, then dropped her head into her palms. “I can’t believe I fell for it.” She shook her head.
Kiera reached over to grip her shoulder. “I probably would have too. Sounds as if the whole village was in on it.” She laughed. “The best haunted ride in the world. They should consult for theme parks.”
Their meal arrived, keeping Ash from jumping up and running outside.
Summer took a bite of her salad. “You know we love you.”
“I know.”
“And honestly, your whole trip sounds totally amazing.” Summer smiled. “What an adventure you had, especially getting caught up in the hoax.”
Ash heaved a big sigh as she straightened, then began to chuckle. “I really fell for it. I mean, I’ve been stuck on this invisible guy with wicked and magical powers who saved a dying town from evil forces.”
Kiera smiled as if relieved to see the fog of Ash’s madness lifting. “You should write a blog about that. Maybe there was some tropical chemical they were putting in your food, something that let their words get past your logical resistance.”
Ash stared at Kiera. If she’d been drugged or hypnotized, had any of it happened? Had she spent her time in Valle de Lágrimas stoned out of her mind, hallucinating the whole time?
She swallowed hard. That meant that Merc wasn’t real, saint or not. Summer and Kiera continued their conversation, unaware Ash had mentally checked out from them.
If they were right, how could they explain his knife? She thought about showing it to them, but she was done trying to convince them.
Besides, maybe they were right. Maybe she was the one who had to let it all go.
After a while, Summer reached over and squeezed her wrist. “Whatever happened, I’m just glad you’re home.”
“Me too. Sorry I’m not cheerier. I guess the trip has finally caught up with me.”
That simple dismissal didn’t sit well with Kiera. Why, oh why, did she always have to see through everything?
“Do you think you should get checked out?” Kiera asked. “Maybe you did have some strange fever. Or maybe there are chemicals still in your system?”
Ash shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. Just still wiped out. You guys mind if I call it quits early?”
“Of course not,” Kiera said. “You go ahead. We’ll cover your dinner.”
Ash pulled some cash out of her purse anyway, then leaned over to kiss Kiera’s cheek. She did the same for Summer, then walked to the door, pleased at how she was keeping it together—at least while they could still see her.
When she stepped outside into the cold night, she had to pause against the wall of the restaurant, fighting a wave of tears.
A couple came out of the restaurant. Ash gave them a small smile as she turned away from them.
What a terrible thing to do to a person, a tourist visiting a foreign town, make her believe in a hero. Fill her heart so full that it was overflowing. She’d almost been ready to pack up her whole life just so she could move back to where she knew Merc had once been. She grabbed the small medallion at her neck, seeking that warm, rich feeling that always came over her when she held it and felt him near.
Her chest eased enough to let a full breath in. She let that one out and took another. She pressed the glass against her skin. If Merc hadn’t once lived and breathed, how could an artifact of his life affect her as this one did?
That was easy. She’d lost her shit.
It was glass woven around dirt, nothing more.
She squeezed her eyes shut, accepting the ease the necklace gave her for what it was—comfort. When she opened them again, she looked toward her car.
Someone was there, leaning against the back hatch. She blinked, but the man remained. A cold flurry of fear spilled into her chest. She knew that man. He was the redheaded guy who’d threatened Summer when she was first seeing Sam.
Ash flashed a look back toward the restaurant, wondering if she should go back inside and get the girls. Or call the police. But when she looked at her car again, the guy was gone.
A family spilled out from the restaurant, laughing. Children and adults. A noisy, happy family. They went down the side of the parking lot where her car was. Ash fell into step behind them. Surely t
hat weirdo wouldn’t assault her with so many witnesses nearby.
It was early April now, so the day’s light was fading, but it wasn’t yet dark. The streetlights had come on, but they weren’t needed to illuminate the parking lot. The family went past her car. She looked carefully all around her vehicle before hitting the unlock button. And then she checked the inside of her car before getting in and locking the doors behind her.
No one was hiding anywhere. How had that guy gotten away so fast and without her seeing where he went? She used an app to turn her lights on at home, then started her car. Her music came on. Everything was so normal. Mechanical. Programmed. Regular. It was that relentless sameness that motivated her to escape in her biannual trips, but she craved that simplicity now.
Why had she suddenly become so paranoid? And when had she become such an easy mark? She left the parking lot and drove home, resolving to get back to reality. She had to put her Merc episode behind her so she could get on with her life.
Life had been so easy before he moved into her brain.
Merc parked near Grumpy’s Beer Haul, the team’s preferred hangout in town. He shouldn’t have come. Being here was too damned close to her. Ashlyn DeWinter, his perfect mate, chosen for him by the Matchmaker. Fuck the demon to hell and back. What Merc was experiencing felt real, as if it came from his heart, mind, and soul, but it didn’t.
He’d survived his mutant transition—he was strong enough to resist this.
Acier was returning to the table with two glasses of beer just as Merc joined the group. He set them down then hooked thumbs with Merc, pulling him close to pound him on the back. “Whoa. Glad to see you’re up and about.”
Bastion slammed his hand down on the table, then jumped up to stand on his seat, his glass held high. “Ho-ho! A round pour tout le monde! My friend is back from the dead!”
An approving roar swept through the room. Merc looked at Guerre and Liege, neither of whom was smiling. He kept himself closed to all of them, maintaining a level of privacy that was rare within their immediate group. He hoped they’d attribute it to his recent brush with death and not for any other reason.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 11
