by Ace Gray
He smiled as he watched his thumb glide across my lip, and when he shifted his hold, he simply notched his fingers beneath my chin and raised my face to meet his. He leaned closer, and his scent filled my lungs, the warmth of his skin radiated against my face. My eyelids fluttered shut as I waited for Dantè’s kiss. My heartbeat ticked up just waiting for it. His minty breath puffed against my skin, crisp and cool, and I held my breath.
“I believe in you Mercy Graves. I believe that you are talented. I believe you will sell your photographs in this store. I believe in you.”
I sighed.
“And I believe you will not get another kiss from me until you at least try.”
So I did. I pushed open the soft blue toned door and into the shop, and heard the tinkle of the shop bell for the first time. I almost jumped I was so on edge. Why would a shop choose me, why would they carry my work?
I held my breath as I waited for a hello or creaky footfalls. None came. The silence within even scarier than daring to walk through the door. My father’s words still rung in my ears from time to time: I was nothing, I’d become nothing, I was a set of holes to be used.
The door jangled behind me again, and before the words welled up and swallowed me whole, a hand reached for my free one and squeezed. I settled back into my skin.
“I believe in you Mercy Graves,” he said before a lithe, “Hello,” called from the back room.
He used his elbow to nudge me and I bumped into the nearest display before I managed to say, “Hi,” back.
She was everything a grandmother should be when she stepped out from the back room, her silver hair piled high on her head, and her glasses sliding down her nose.
“Well hello, sweetheart, what can I do for you and your handsome friend here.”
I looked over at Dantè where he casually leaned against a cabinet. He just shrugged when she called him handsome. Then he winked and it melted the fear, the inadequacy in my veins.
“Well, I was wondering if you’d be interested in selling my photos,” I said, my voice unfailing, strong.
“She really is amazing,” Dantè added, looking directly at me.
Patty swooned ever so slightly before she unequivocally said yes.
“I wish I could pay you more. Any news on his case?” Patty brought me back to the present.
I simply shook my head against the crook of her shoulder.
“You know he wouldn’t want this. You know he wouldn’t stand for this.”
And I did. Or I thought I did. The time without him was starting to make certainties a little more fuzzy. I would have thought that he’d need me on those long cold nights in prison, that he’d want to hear my voice and hold my memory, but…maybe I didn’t know anything at all.
“I’m gonna step outside and make a phone call,” I said, my voice faltering beneath the weight of the conversation. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, sure,” she brushed me off and gave me a full squeeze.
I stepped outside of the shop and took a deep breath. The salt brine that rolled from the ocean filled my lungs. I took two more of the steadying breaths before I dialed the number that had gone silent in my phone.
“Hi you’ve reached Mackenzie Relle, and I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep.”
I waited for the sound.
“Hi Mackenzie, this is Mercy Graves.” I gathered all my strength and fortified my voice. “I need you to call me back. I need answers.” I wouldn’t let myself slip into the rough tears that I wanted to. I wouldn’t let myself falter. He had been my strength then, he had to be it now too. “You owe me answers. I’m paying for it after all.” The voicemail cut off before I had a chance to beg with a final, “Please.”
If only she knew how I paid for it. Each day with my life deteriorating into shambles. Each day as if loneliness and hopelessness were the currencies I traded in.
The phone rang in my hand almost immediately after I’d let it fall from my ear. I whipped it up to my ear, answering without looking.
“Hello?” The desperation I’d been able to hide before was gone.
“Merce?” It was Rousse.
“What’s up?” I tried to keep my heart from crashing to the ground and ceasing to beat.
A few hisses preceded his words, Diego and Danger if I wasn’t mistaken. “I fucking know,” he spat at them before he started speaking to me again. “Look, I have some bad news.”
I tried to swallow but I couldn’t. What could be worse? How much further could I fall?
“I got our property tax statement today,” he started again then stopped to deal with the hisses behind him again. “Long story short, the rent is going up. Like, a lot.” There was a tightness in his words, somehow a hesitancy too. “You have one of the bigger rooms, so I think it’s going to be $500 more a month.” Since Rousse owned the house outright, he only charged us for utilities and random stuff like this, which I thought we split equally. I’d never asked questions—I’d never even formally moved in, Dantè just brought extra suitcases to pick me up one day—and since he’d left, I just paid what he’d always paid.
“What?” I shrieked without checking myself.
“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” The thick emotion in his voice was genuine. “I know it’s terrible timing but…”
“I don’t have the money, Rousse. You know I don’t. It’s all going toward…” I trailed off. I hadn’t told them that I was fighting to bail Dantè out. Something had held me back.
“I know, Mercy. I do.” He kept gaining. He missed my hesitation. “We could get a roommate,” he offered.
The hisses beside him amplified and he swore at Diego. I heard the whip and jostle of the phone being handed off.
“Mercy.” Diego’s voice replaced Rousse’s on the phone, excitement palpable with his labored breathing, his higher pitch. “Mercy, you can room with me.”
I gasped, a sob threatening to choke me where it lodged in my throat. Money had always been the reason, I repeated to myself. But now I knew I couldn’t leave that place. I couldn’t leave the house that was the only home I’d ever known. The only place that held something real and tangible of Dantè’s. I couldn’t leave the ones who’d loved him best. The ones who had known. I should have but I couldn’t. Not now. Not with my heart broken as it was.
The wind whipped up, salt and sea and sun swirling around me as if it meant to tell me. For a second, I swore pineapples danced on the whorls themselves. But then I shook those fantasies off. I shook all of them off and accepted my fucked up reality. The one I was always meant to face.
I was nothing without Dantè Rouge.
And with a barely there whisper, a small sound I swore the wind tried to wipe away, I said yes.
Three Weeks Later…
I squared my shoulders as I sat staring at the prison I’d walked out of three weeks ago. Max had offered to come but she’d done it from behind a manila folder with a pen between her teeth as she poured over a new case. I’d had a flash of memory that put Mercy on my couch, chewing on my pencil as she wrote poetry devoted to stars and moons and entire solar systems. How had that girl upended me?
I’d shaken her off and pushed away from Max.
And now I was here.
Taking deep breaths and staring at the gray slab stone that loomed in front of me.
I couldn’t help but feel like walking in would swallow me whole. They’d realize I wasn’t supposed to be on the outside and lock me back up. Max’s couch wasn’t glamorous but it was comfortable, and the way the sun and her sweet coffee woke me up was the definition of simple pleasures. Revenge—my purpose—would evaporate in the heat too.
But without talking to Priest, without some sort of resource or friend, I’d never make it anyway. I blew out a deep breath and walked into the mouth of concrete hell.
I felt it. The wrath that seemed to seep out of the walls and into my skin. The moments I’d stolen with Max were just that. This reminded
me of who I’d become. Of why I’d been shaped into it. I straightened my spine and narrowed my gaze as I greeted these demons like an old friend.
When I finally settled into a chair across from Priest, I even welcomed wicked. I smirked and felt the glimmer in my eye.
“Ya look good, boy.” He smiled as he leaned back in his chair, his arms crossing naturally on his chest.
“A soft place to sleep does a body good.”
He chuckled. “I bet. What are you up to these days? To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Tell me something, Priest.” I ignored his questions in favor of something bigger, grander. “If you had to do it again, would you? Would you kill the kid and his girl? Would you do it all?”
I wanted to hear it from him, it was why I came. I wanted to know if the spark of an idea I’d had looking over the employment list should form into something bigger. Darker.
Priest studied me slowly, his eyes sweeping up and over me then back again. Then his smile grew. “I wouldn’t.”
I sat back as my heart dove in my chest and felt the confusion—disappointment—crinkle up my face. What was I supposed to do now? Sit back and take it? The hole inside me was just too deep; Priest himself had made it dark.
“I’d plan it out and poison them,” Priest started back up with an ominous tone. “I’d make it slow. I’d make it painful. I’d make him want to die. I’d make him beg.”
Laughter bubbled up, slow at first, from deep in my belly, but then it poured out, shaking my whole body. Priest just watched me with that glint in his eye, and his amused smile hanging limply on his lips. I let my laughter run its course before I sat forward.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold, huh?”
“If you do it right, death is the easy part.”
I knew he was right. I’d only lived a few years of it. Of someone ripping away my loved ones, my life. Ripping apart the things that made me, me. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have begged them to kill me in the end. If there was anything left of me in the end. I suppose I was in the process of destroying my soul as it was.
“You asked what I was up to these days?” I circled back to Priest’s original question. “I’m in roofing.”
“You were a software engineer.” He shot me a look.
“Danger worked for this crew.”
His look shifted, still evaluating. “Good,” he finally answered, “but eventually you’ll need to be better. Think bigger.”
“I’ll get there,” I said confidently.
“I know,” he said with complete certainty. “That’s the only reason I’m going to tell you this.”
He leaned in as far as the guards would let him and crooked two of his fingers, signaling I should do the same. I shifted, and the chair creaked beneath me. He shot me a small, evil smile then began to whisper.
I waited two weeks before I walked into that dark forest with a shovel slung over my shoulder. I’d told Max I was going out, and she was so consumed, gnawing on that pen cap again, she hadn’t really asked questions. She’d become a good friend, and I trusted her more than I should trust ever again, but this… this was between the liquid silver of the moonlight and me.
The sounds of the shovel sliced into the silence, metal on wet dirt, and the thump of a hard root. I adjusted my thrust and went again at the base of the tree. I dug and dug, feeling sweat bead on my brow and stick my shirt to my back. My hands were similarly damp and ached when the splice of the shovel turned into the clang of metal on metal.
I slid on the gloves in my back pocket as I crouched down. Blindly, I traced the edges of the box, then dug down along the sides. I pried it from the wet earth and set it on my knees, barely able to breathe.
This was going to make the difference. It was going to change what I could do. What revenge could really mean.
I blew out a deep breath and balled my fists, hoping it would steady my fingers.
They would pay. With this gift from Priest, dearly. The things I could take from them…The things they’d murdered to take from me…And now the ways I could take them back. A smile spread across my face as I imagined their faces when they finally figured it out.
That smile turned bright and beaming white, brilliant even in the moonlight, when I popped open the box to find the neatly stacked and banded bills that made up Priest’s fortune.
Five Weeks Later…
I didn’t want to make the phone call. I didn’t want to fucking find out. But I had to. For all our sakes.
I slid out from between the twins sharing my bed, only Theodore reached for me in his sleep. Tiffany didn’t flinch. I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, as I grabbed my phone and slipped from my bedroom in the early morning light.
“Dude, put your dick away,” Diego hissed at me from his doorframe. “We have a new roommate.”
“If Bert can’t handle me in all my glory then he’s not gonna last long here.” I rolled my eyes.
“I need him to last.” Diego’s words were sharp as he spat them at me.
“Mercy only has her shit in your room. Don’t think I haven’t noticed her sleeping on the couch every night.” I shot him a lazy smirk, and I turned on my heel for the back patio. His muttered curses shut firmly behind the sliding glass door as I stepped outside.
It was my favorite view. The waves were far below, always a soundtrack to my musings, and if I wandered out far enough, I could watch them lap on one tiny crescent of sand at the base of the cliffs. The tall redwoods made a thick forest canopy above and only let glimpses of the sun or moon dot the forest floor. The forest floor littered with downed trees, vines, moss, and memories. Memories of my former best friend’s downfall. Memories that I reveled in.
And that put me in fucking jeopardy now.
I sucked in a deep breath as I pulled my phone up and flipped to the number I’d saved from the caller ID the time she’d called the house. My chest was tight and this odd feeling coiled in my stomach as I pressed call.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end was hot. It was a talent of mine to tell.
“Well hello,” I purred, prepared to charm her, “is Mackenzie Relle there?”
“That’s me.”
“Are you the advocacy lawyer assigned to Dantè Rouge’s case?”
“Was,” she said simply, and I could imagine tiny shoulders shrugging.
“I’m sorry?” I turned my voice up in question, trying to play dumb rather than let my temper ice me over.
“He won his appeal, he’s free and clear. Has been for almost two months.”
Two months? Two fucking months and the prick hadn’t come to see us? Hadn’t been to see Mercy? But why? And how?
“I had no idea,” I managed amidst my thoughts. “I don’t even know…”
“He’s in the next room if you want me to get him.”
“What?” A single shotgun laugh split my word into multiple syllables. I just couldn’t believe that the Dantè I knew had ignored us and shacked up with his lawyer instead.
“Let me guess, you’re one of those friends he has no desire to see.” Her sweet voice asked with a little bit of snark. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“Why wouldn’t he want to see us?”
“His secrets are his own.”
A shiver wormed down my spine. Dantè Rouge didn’t have secrets.
“Did you need anything else? Any information on the case specifically?” Mackenzie’s voice sharpened, defensive in my silence.
“If we wanted to find him, do you know where we could?” My voice morphed to match hers, icy, keyed up for a fight.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“And…”
“I can already tell you don’t deserve to know.”
My phone beeped three times in my ear, telling me she’d hung up. She’d confirmed all my worst fears, given me no plays, then hung the fuck up. My fingers went white as I clenched my phone similarly to how I clenched my jaw. The muscles in my neck flared and popp
ed as my breathing went heavy just before I roared into the forest behind me.
“What the fuck, dude?” Diego had stepped out onto the patio with me, my tantrum covering the sound of his footsteps. “I told you not to scare Bert.”
“He’s out. He’s free,” I growled.
“What?” Diego sucked in a deep breath and stepped up next to me, staring out on the same specter I was seeing underneath the tree canopy.
“He has been for almost two months.”
“But he hasn’t come for her.” Fear dripped from each of Diego’s words.
“It’s always about Mercy, huh? Not a fucking thought for me? Or Rousse? Not even your sorry ass?”
“I’m nothing without her and I don’t even have her yet.” That off-kilter fire crackled behind the bright color of his eyes. Brighter.
“Watch it. If you come unglued, she’ll leave. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. You can love her, but obsession will cost you. It’ll cost us all.” I sighed. “I know someone else who felt like nothing without her. Nothing without us.” I let the frost in my voice overtake the early morning sunlight starting to surround us.
“I know,” he answered, barely more than a whisper.
“You remember what that cost him, right?” I turned on him and puffed my chest up before I grabbed the extra fabric of his hoodie. “Are you ready to pay with your life too?”
Her chest rose and fell so softly, a barely there movement that my entire world hinged on. Her breaths were mine. In. And out. I’d been holding myself back as best I could, waiting for her, wishing for her, but it was getting hard. So very fucking hard. I could make those breaths quicken, I could make them race. In. And out.
Why didn’t she feel the same? Why couldn’t I make her?
There were moments I swear she saw it—saw me, saw us—but then it would fade. I would notice her pull back into herself. Pulled back into memories of him. Of them. I wanted to spit out the bile that rose in my throat.
