In the distance in front of Selena, a ghoul shrieked, the sound answered by one off to her right…and then by one behind her.
The hair on Merc’s neck stood up. Fuck. It was only a simulation, one of many they would run that day, but it was spectacularly real.
The ground rumbled as the ghoul in front of Selena charged forward. When it was near, the ones beside and behind her ran out of the brush covering them, breaking branches, screaming in that uncanny way they had, like dogs in pain.
With only her knives for self-defense, Selena had to let them get close. Too fucking close. The short, curved blades Acier had crafted just for her weren’t throwing knives; they were meant for swift arterial strikes.
Selena didn’t yet have the skill to throw a false projection of herself to distract the monsters, so into the meat grinder she went, somersaulting, slicing, rolling, leaping, cutting.
Merc was impressed with her strategy and fearlessness. She was definitely a great addition to the Legion. The guys were teaching her about her new physical abilities and how to maximize her mental skills. The latter was harder than the former, and it was what made Merc wish fucking Santo would show up and help. He could teach mind games like no one else. He was the architect of the training camps they’d all been caged in. He’d watched to see who would be the first of the captive mutants to break free of the mirage of boundaries.
That guy was Liege in their camp. Flynn in the Omni’s camp—he’d been transferred out before Liege had made his big discovery.
Two of the ghouls were down. Selena was bleeding everywhere. And because Acier’s simulation was so real, she felt the pain of each injury, but she didn’t tap out.
When the last beast charged her, it leaped into the air. She tucked low and struck at its femoral arteries, then cut the tendons behind its knees—adrenaline would have kept the ghoul moving, though it could no longer walk or crawl. She caught its forearm and flipped it to the ground, but she wasn’t swift enough to avoid its wicked claws, which sliced at her ribs. Still she knelt on its back and pulled her knife across its throat. It flopped around for a bit, then went limp.
Selena stood and wiped the blood from her face with the back of her wrist. She straightened and grinned at them, a gesture that survived the termination of the simulation. With it ended, her mock wounds and the associated pain vanished. She looked thrilled with herself and sent the three of them a victorious glance.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I love you guys,” she said.
Bastion waved that off. “Bah! It is not them you love—it is only me.” He stepped toward her as he spoke, stopping when his body touched hers. She wrapped her hands around his neck, knives still in her tight grasp, and kissed him.
Merc looked at Acier and shook his head.
When the spontaneous embrace ended, Acier looked unamused. “Selena, don’t be complacent. We still have a long way to go, and you are only beginning to use your powerful new skills. You’ve got to get to the point where you’re using your mind more than your brawn.” He frowned as he nodded at Bastion. “Next time, leave the Hulk at home so you can focus.”
“I am not the Hulk,” Bastion roared, then gave Selena a half-grin that made her laugh.
Merc didn’t have to hear their private convo to know what he was suggesting to her. He laughed too.
“Acier, the point of the sim was to see how she fared with her custom blades, not to trounce the world of ghouls. Sel, how did they feel?”
“Great. Like extensions of my own hands. They’re perfect.”
Acier nodded, his lips pressed in a tight line. “Then I’ll make the holsters for them. You still need a long knife, so you can sever the ghoul heads after the fight. Let’s figure out a holster system that works for you, with the shotguns and the knives.”
Merc took a mental step back from the group as he watched them chat. The world of warriors was first nature to him. He’d been a fighter for more than half his life. What he’d never learned to do well was be a civilized man. His constant focus was survival, not the gentler art of smelling the roses along the way.
Liege could balance both. Maybe Merc should get some pointers—he definitely needed them if he ever hoped to find a way to make his world less terrifying for Ashlyn. She needed the roses, and lots of them. Maybe he should chat with Summer too. She knew Ash better than any of them.
And she did roses for a living.
Then again, what were the chances Ash would choose him and this twisted life he led?
32
Ash was awake before her alarm went off. She went into her kitchen to grab a coffee. Her house was filled with cheery morning light, just like every other spring day. Rain showers, if there were any, wouldn’t come until the afternoon.
She closed her eyes and pretended that this was just another day. She smiled, thinking how bored she’d been with this very routine before she first went to Valle de Lágrimas, but now she craved wrapping the feeling of it around her like a security blanket.
She went through her usual morning prep: made her bed, showered, dressed, packed lunch. She hadn’t been food shopping since her return, so she had to take a pack of tuna, dried fruit and nuts, and a granola bar. She filled a travel mug with more coffee, then locked her house and got in her car.
Yep, normal was desperately underappreciated. At the office, she parked in her usual spot, then draped her badge over her neck. She went through security, then took the stairs up to her second-floor office. She touched the area above where her bug bite was. Thanks to Guerre’s abilities, it was healing rapidly. She’d been able to cover it with her hair so she didn’t have to wear a bandage and field a ton of questions about what had happened during her second trip to Colombia.
Thinking of Guerre gave her pause. It wasn’t possible to have one foot in the realm of her cherished normal existence and the other in the supernatural world of mutated beings with extreme skills.
She had to choose, one or the other.
She closed her door, then dropped into her desk chair. She hadn’t processed any of this. She had a super skill, but she was still a regular human. Was it such a leap to accept that Merc and his friends had undergone medical procedures that enhanced their own senses and abilities?
She logged in to her company’s site to catch up on work that had happened in her absence. For a fact, normal things, normal routine, normal days were a gift. She was never going back to Valle de Lágrimas. Damn, she was glad that was all behind her.
Her next trip would be someplace heavily populated, ancient, maybe, with lots of museums and cool architecture.
In time, she could relearn how to ignore her psychometry.
But what to do about Merc?
She couldn’t keep him in her life, acknowledge that who and what he was was real, but pretend that everything else had not been.
A knock sounded on her door just before her boss stepped in. “You’re back!”
She smiled at him. “I am. Thanks for the time.”
“Your friend any better? Get things resolved?”
No. Nothing’s resolved. The whole world is fucked and no one even knows it. “I think so. It’s all good.”
“Great. We’re having a staff meeting in an hour. I know you haven’t had time to catch up, but it’s best to just jump in with both feet.”
“I’ll be there.”
Ash spent the next hour reading her emails and project reports. She printed out a few things, made some notes, felt generally ready for the meeting. It was awesome having the privilege of getting back to normal.
The people already seated in the conference room—her peers, friends, staff she’d worked with for years—greeted her with wary cheerfulness. They’d noticed her odd behavior from before, and of course had realized she’d taken a second break from work, though none of them knew she’d been back to Colombia. She was certain her boss hadn’t said anything to them about her situation, but in the absence of information, they’d made their own stories about her.
>
She took a seat at the table and listened to the generic Monday discussion about sales, upcoming events, manufacturing woes. She looked around the table, seeing familiar faces that fronted minds uninitiated into the deeper reality surrounding them all.
If they knew about ghouls and Omnis and mutant fighters, would they all be sitting around this table, jointly helping to move the company forward? Or would they be running for the hills? And how many of them would survive being hunted? They were moms and dads, some were soft-around-the-middle corporate loyalists, others gym rats, and then there were the secret social media influencers with dreams of getting out on their own, living double lives.
They were soul-beautiful, all of them. Kind. Earnest. And ignorant.
The ghouls were going to eat them alive.
Ash blinked tears away as she set her focus on her stack of papers. The people here were the same they’d always been. They were her people. This was the company she’d given years of her life to, the job that paid for her house and car and Wednesday nights with the girls.
The company was also what bound her to a reality that could no longer contain her.
She had to accept that reality.
Like night and day, knowledge and ignorance couldn’t exist in the same space.
She was suddenly itching to step out of her skin. She sent a frantic glance around the table, hoping the meeting was ending soon. Her boss was watching her. He knew something still wasn’t right with her.
Ash drew a calming breath and focused on pulling her shit together. She’d wanted this, she reminded herself. She wanted normal. Boring Monday status updates, pushing paper, being part of something that let her feel valued. But now, the confines it imposed were making her panic. Why? What did her extreme emotions mean for those around her? Worse, was she somehow summoning Flynn to her?
The meeting finally broke up. That was an hour and seven minutes she’d never get back.
Did she want them back?
“Ash, you okay?” her boss asked, having followed her back to her office. “Did you come back too early?”
Ash blinked. “I think I just need to get back to my routine. I’m fine. It’s all good.”
“Great. Take a look at the Oakland account. We need to…”
Ash stared at her boss as he ran down the problems that account was having, a repeat from what was covered in the meeting.
“I got it,” she interrupted him. “I’ll get on it.”
She remained standing until he left her office, then she went through the files stacked on her desk, searching for the Oakland papers. A while later, she got up to look out her window, feeling compelled to step away from her desk.
Merc was out there, standing on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, grinning as he faced her window.
She sucked in a breath as she flattened her hand against the window. All the sharp fragments of her mind coalesced into something more cohesive than she’d been dealing with that morning—seeing him made life make sense.
She hurried out to see him. Someone tried to talk to her, but she didn’t stop. Outside, she ran to Merc. He caught her up in a big hug and kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in a year. She stood on tiptoes, her arms wrapped around his neck.
He moved his thumbs over her cheeks. “You’re crying.”
“I’m not crying. I don’t cry.” She wiped at her wet cheeks. “Can they see us?”
“No.”
She kissed him again.
“Want lunch?” he asked.
She nodded, leaning her forehead against his chin.
“What do you feel like?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
He smiled. “Kinda hard to take lunch without eating.”
She looked up at him, then shot a glance up to her office. “They’re so normal. They have no idea what’s really out there.”
He stared into her eyes, his face tense as he tucked her hair behind her ears. He did a quick check of her bug bite, then said, “Nor should they. It’s my job, the Legion’s job, to let them have their lives.”
She put her hand over his heart. “Their energy is so slow. It moves around them as if they’re their own universes. Your energy feels like jet fuel, fast and far-reaching, spreading for miles out from you.”
“Your awareness of energy has grown since you’ve opened yourself to it through your psychometry work.”
She held his gaze a long moment. “I’m like a bug caught in a doorjamb, about to be crushed when someone shuts the door.”
He chuckled and caught her face in his hands. “I love you. I love the way you see things.”
She took hold of his hands, lifting one to kiss his palm. “I love you too.” She looked up at him. “What are we going to do?”
“Anything. Anything you want. Anything that will get you to eat again. So what’s your poison? Burger and fries? An organic salad? A whole-grain protein bowl?”
Ash laughed. “You’ve been eating Summer’s cooking.”
He nodded. “Bastion gives her the keys to the kitchen twice a week, and then only because Liege insists.”
“They do have very different cooking styles, from what I can tell." Ash laughed. “So, there’s a food truck around the block that has delicious burritos. Want to try that?”
“Lead the way.”
Ash took Merc’s hand. They left the office complex. Along the way, they must have become visible, for she noticed the looks Merc was garnering. Women instinctively felt his power.
Merc took her hand and kissed her knuckles. You are the only female I see.
She felt a warm, melting sensation ripple through her. She didn’t care who watched them as they stood in line. “I wasn’t jealous. More proud of you. You are a beautiful man.”
“A beautiful man you said you loved.”
“I do.”
He lifted his head and looked around them as if searching for a spot they could have a private moment. She laughed at his frustrated expression when he found none.
He groaned as he leaned close to her. “I don’t think I could maintain our invisibility shield while we’re fucking. I lose my sense of everything around you.”
They gave their orders. Merc paid, which was good, because Ash had run out without her purse.
A few moments later, they took their plates and found a place to sit. “Let’s go eat at your house.”
Ash blushed, just from the heat of his words. “We can’t. I’ll be late getting back to work.”
“So be late. Better yet, quit.”
“And do what?”
“Be my fuck buddy.”
She choked and took a quick sip of her iced green tea.
Merc forked his fingers through hers. They stared into each other’s eyes for the length of a few breaths, lost to the world around them. At least, Ash was.
“I’ve never felt this way, Merc.”
“Never?”
She shook her head. “You?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t, because of course he had with his wife.
“No. That was different. We were kids. It was intense, as all things are when you’re a kid. But by the time we were married, I took it for granted. I regret that. I promised myself, if I ever had the good fortune to find someone who filled my heart, that I would be a better man.” He sighed. “I just didn’t want to find my love through the Matchmaker.”
“Because of the curse?”
Merc nodded.
“Do you think we’d be as attracted to each other without the curse?”
“We would. Chemistry is chemistry.” He cut into his burrito. The plastic fork and knife looked like kid utensils in his big hands. He nodded at her plate. “Eat. Or I will have to take you back to the fort and force-feed you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would. I take your health very seriously.”
Ash cut into her burrito and took a bite. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She managed to eat half of it before being too full to finish. She pushe
d her plate toward Merc, who’d eaten all of his.
“How did you end up with your name?”
He took a bite of her burrito. “I’m moody, they tell me. Mercurial. And mercenary. And merciful. All the ‘m-e-r-c’ words.”
Ash nodded. “All of them fit.”
“Yeah. So they shortened it to Merc.” He grinned at her. “We had, like, a day for branding, so it is what it is. I’m just glad they didn’t pick Mercy for me.”
He polished off the rest of her burrito in a few more bites, then wiped his mouth and took a long draw of his strawberry lemonade. The straw made a slurping sound. He kept sucking up what he could, laughter in his eyes for how it irritated her.
Finally, he set his drink down, then took their trash to throw it out. “Want to head back?”
“No. But yeah.”
He reached for her hand. They walked away from the tables and the people gathered around the food truck. “I felt your panic this morning.”
Ash sighed. She wasn’t surprised, but when he hadn’t communicated with her, she thought he’d unplugged.
“Consider it a blessing that they don’t know what they don’t know,” he said. “It’s the only way they can live in peace, just as it’s why you can’t.”
“I’m afraid of what you’re asking of me.”
“I’m only asking that you be true to yourself. Whatever outcome that might bring.”
Merc wasn’t the only mutant who visited her office. Flynn was outside her office window later that afternoon. She’d watched as people walked past him. No one seemed to see him—one person almost appeared to walk through him.
Astral projection, Merc had called it. She tried to reach out to Merc in her mind, using their ever-present connection, but she couldn’t. Flynn was interfering with her mind again.
Come talk to me, Flynn said, speaking right into her mind.
Ash shut the blinds and stepped away from the window. It was late. Almost everyone else had already left for the day. She thought about calling Merc, but she seemed frozen in place.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 31
