The Merciless

by Danielle Vega

  The words flash into my head, and I say them without thinking. “Fight fire with fire.”

  There’s a beat of silence. Then Brooklyn says, “Exactly.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The words repeat in my head: Fight fire with fire. It’s not exactly a solution. My arms and legs are bound so tightly I can hardly move, and Brooklyn is nailed to the floor. There’s no way for us to fight. It’s over.

  Still, I keep replaying those words, like something about that sentence can unlock the secret to escape. Brooklyn is oddly quiet, and I wonder if she’s doing the same thing. Or maybe she’s already figured out a plan of her own.

  Wind presses against the far window, and the glass groans. There’s only one candle still lit—the thick white one Alexis brought up here. Its flame flickers, like it’s mocking me.

  Giggles echo through the floor below us, then the ladder creaks. I shoot a fearful look at the door. Riley and Grace are back.

  “Brooklyn,” I whisper.

  “I hear them.” Brooklyn groans, and the rough soles of her boots scratch the floor as she moves her legs. “It’s okay. We have a plan, remember?”

  “Fight fire with fire,” I whisper. The words echo through my head, meaning nothing to me. Fight fire with fire. Fight fire with fire.

  The attic door shudders and falls open with a slap that makes the floor tremble. Still burning, the last candle topples over and rolls to the wall, coming to a stop against a bit of exposed pink insulation. I watch it happen as if it’s a dream.

  The flame leaps to the wall and licks the raw wood hungrily.

  “Brooklyn, did you see that?” I can’t see Brooklyn’s face, just the blood-coated soles of her boots. She taps them together, like Dorothy. Time to go home.

  “All part of our plan,” she says.

  What plan? I want to scream at her. All we had were words—words that definitely don’t have the power to knock over a candle.

  But as the fire spreads, it burns the question from my mind. The very small, very wooden attic I’m trapped in is going up in flames. I yank against the ropes binding me in place. Smoke seeps into my mouth and presses against the back of my throat.

  Riley appears at the attic door as smoke clouds the far corner and rises to the ceiling, thick and dark. She grimaces and waves a hand in front of her face.

  “What the hell?” she mutters.

  Brooklyn snickers, her laughter bouncing off the burning walls. I stare at her boots, shocked. She’s lost her mind.

  Riley hovers on the ladder, the flames reflected in her eyes. Grace’s hysterical voice echoes below, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Footsteps slam against the floor as Grace runs away.

  “Riley!” I shout. “You have to untie me!” The ropes rub away the top layer of skin around my wrists as I twist and pull against them. I hardly even notice the pain. A flicker of orange appears in my peripheral vision, eating its way closer to me. I take shaky breath after shaky breath, ignoring the smoke coating my mouth and tongue. “Riley, you have to let us out. Riley!”

  Riley presses herself against the attic door, searching the floor for something to suffocate the fire. But there’s nothing up here except for the discarded toolbox. Even the bottle of holy water is empty.

  “Help! Help us, please!”

  Riley’s shoulders tense. She shifts her eyes to me.

  “Don’t,” I beg her. All around me, the fire presses in. It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to imagine it crawling over my skin, eating away my hair and my fingernails until there’s nothing left. “Don’t leave me. Please.”

  But Riley’s eyes glaze over, until it no longer seems like she sees me. “The exorcism . . .” she says.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. Blue tendrils stretch over the wood, reaching for us like fingers. I tug my legs apart, trying to loosen the ropes at my ankles. But they hold tight.

  “You can’t leave us here!” I shout. Of all the ways I thought I might die in this house, burning alive is the most cruel. “You can’t!”

  Riley hesitates. There’s a loud crack, and a ceiling beam splits in half and swings to the floor, spraying sparks as it falls. The tiny embers land on my arms and legs and eat through my jeans, stinging my skin.

  “Oh, god,” I beg, squeezing my eyes shut. “You can’t leave us here.”

  Riley’s face turns white, and her lower lip trembles. “Lord, forgive me,” she whispers. Her head disappears as she ducks out of the attic, the ladder creaking beneath her weight.

  “No! No!” I scream for so long that my voice goes hoarse. Smoke fills my lungs, and my sobs dissolve in a fit of coughing. The air around us thickens. It clouds my head when I breathe it in, making me feel dizzy and sick to my stomach. We’re never getting out of here. We’re going to burn to death. We’re going to die screaming as flames eat away our faces.

  Fire crackles, and another wooden beam drops to the floor. It crashes in the corner, lighting more of Riley’s tower of Vogue magazines on fire as it sparks. I cough and cough, unable to catch my breath as I watch the flames grow and move.

  “Sofia,” Brooklyn says, her voice eerily steady, “we can get out of here, but you need to help me.”

  I choke back my sobs, but I can’t slow my rapidly beating heart. “How?” I ask, my voice shaking.

  “Can you walk?”

  I clumsily try to stand, but my legs are angled in front of me, and without using my arms I can’t keep my balance. “No.”

  “Then crawl if you have to,” Brooklyn insists. “Crawl to me. Hurry!”

  Crawl. I breathe in and then out, focusing on that one word. The fire is so close that I can feel its heat flickering at my ankle, but Brooklyn’s not far away. I can make it to her before the fire reaches me. I push past the fears growing in the back of my head. I can crawl. I will crawl.

  I rock my weight to the left and bite back a groan when my shoulder crashes into the floor. Now I’m lying on my side, my legs curled next to me. Brooklyn’s boots are two or three feet away. With my arms still tied behind my back, I can’t use them to pull myself, so I dig my heels into the floorboards and scoot across the attic. The fire reaches Riley’s nail polish and the bottles explode in a burst of colorful glass, showering me with sparks.

  My shoulder aches as I push it over the floor, past Brooklyn’s combat boots and blood-and-soot-covered legs. I push myself farther, and then I’m beside her arm.

  “What do I do?” I gasp when I’m close enough to see her face. She turns her head so she can look at me. In the crackling orange light, her eyes glow red.

  “You need to get the nails out.” Brooklyn cringes, and the skin around her eyes crinkles. “You’ll have to use your teeth.”

  Teeth. If I stop and think about what I’m about to do, there’s no way I’ll go through with it. So I don’t think. I rock my body to the side until I roll onto my chest. I pull my knees up, using my forehead to balance my weight against the floor. Brooklyn steadies me with one leg, and I pull myself up to a crouch. I edge myself closer to Brooklyn’s hand.

  The nail is wedged deep into her palm, and everything—her skin, her fingernails, the nail itself—is coated in a thick layer of blood. I lower my face to her hand and work my mouth around the nail head. Brooklyn gasps as my teeth scrape over her skin. I bite down on the nail and pull.

  The nail digs into my teeth and gums, but it doesn’t move. Blood fills my mouth, and it tastes sharp, metallic. I don’t know whether it’s mine or Brooklyn’s. Probably both. I try not to breathe it in as I pull again. The nail bites into the enamel of my teeth, and blood trickles down my throat. I start to gag.

  “Sofia, come on,” Brooklyn says. “You’ve got this.”

  I bite down again, this time wiggling the nail head with my teeth before I pull. It comes loose in my mouth, and I rock backward, nearly losing my bala
nce. Brooklyn releases a strangled cry and hugs her now free hand to her chest. Before I can even spit the nail from my mouth, she reaches to her other hand and digs the nail out herself. It clatters to the floor when she pulls it loose.

  “Jesus. Fuck!” she screams, sitting. Fire crackles around us, and the smoke is so thick I can barely make out Brooklyn’s face. “Come here,” she says to me. “Hurry!”

  I move toward her so she can untie the ropes at my wrists. The fire grows around us. Between Brooklyn’s bloody hands and the heat of the fire making us sweat, the rope is slick and hard for her to handle. Twice, it slips through Brooklyn’s fingers.

  Fear beats at my skull. We’re not going to make it, I think. But then Brooklyn tugs the knots around my wrists loose, and I’m free.

  I help her untie the ropes around my ankles, then stumble to my feet, not entirely sure how long the floor will hold. Fire moves over the walls and eats the wood. My eyes sting. I blink, but I can’t clear the smoke away. Tears stream down my cheeks. My terror hardens into determination. I’m not dying here. I refuse to die here.

  We make it to the next floor seconds before the fire leaps to the top rung of the ladder. Brooklyn doubles over, coughing so hard I worry she’ll vomit.

  “You can’t stop.” I grab her arm and pull her toward the stairs. My heart beats in my ears, counting every second that passes. The fire is traveling too fast. It’s chasing at our heels, blocking every exit. I’m not sure how much time we have left.

  Smoke billows around us, filling my lungs. I pull my shirt over my face, but it doesn’t help. My chest aches for air, but every breath I take is toxic. I start to choke, and then I can’t stop. My entire body shakes with coughing. Brooklyn straightens and pushes herself down the steps. I slide her arm over my shoulder to help her.

  We make our way to the first floor and down the hall. When we turn the corner, relief floods my body. The door hangs open. I start to run.

  The stairs cave in with a crash like thunder, and the smoke is so thick I can barely see. I tighten my arm around Brooklyn and push myself forward. We cross the front porch and make our way down the stairs.

  I drop to my knees on the ground, and Brooklyn collapses next to me. For a moment I just rest my forehead against the cool grass, gulping down fresh air. Behind us, the fire licks and crackles and spits. Listening to it, I sit back up and look around.

  The sidewalk and road are empty. Riley and Grace are long gone. I swallow the bile that rises in my throat as I picture them stumbling out of the house, ignoring my screams. But I can’t think of that now. We don’t have a lot of time. This part of the neighborhood might be abandoned, but eventually the smoke will stretch high enough that someone will see and call the police. And then . . .

  I turn to Brooklyn, surprised to see she’s already watching me. Her black eyes reflect the light of the fire. She pushes herself to her feet and offers me her hand. Once I’m standing, she pulls me close to her and leans in to whisper in my ear.

  “Tell no one.” Her breath smells like blood and smoke. She steps away from me, then nods once. Without another word, she starts to limp away.

  For a long moment I stand there, watching the house burn. I laugh out loud, and the sound is so shocking and wonderful that my eyes well with tears. I didn’t die. It’s over. I’m free.

  The fire moves through the house like a living thing—wild and desperate and hungry. By the time it’s done, all the evidence of last night will be destroyed. I think about what Brooklyn said—tell no one. If we go to the cops, it’ll be her word against Riley’s.

  I swallow and turn away from the fire. Then I head down the sidewalk, toward home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  My front door creaks open, and I step into the hallway, listening. Silence. Mom isn’t out of bed yet. I hold the knob to keep it from clicking and ease the door closed without a sound. I slip my sneakers off and carry them up the stairs so she won’t hear my footsteps on the carpet.

  I spent the entire walk home debating what I would tell my mom. I want to blurt out the whole story, but Brooklyn’s words echo through my head, warning me. Tell no one. Besides, if I tell her, she’ll just call the cops, and they’ll ask questions I’m not sure how to answer. Best to just pretend nothing happened.

  I make my way to the bathroom and turn the shower on as hot as it will go. I strip down, and my clothes fall to the floor in a heap of blood and smoke and sweat. I shiver as I stare down at the faded pockets of my jeans, then kick them away from me. I should burn them.

  Turning this thought over in my head, I step into the shower—gasping when the hot water hits me. It’s painful at first, but as the water runs over my skin, I start to relax. It stings the raw patches of my arms where the ropes rubbed my wrists, and the mangled cuts around my knuckles burn as water soaks the dead skin, washing away clotted blood and dirt. I tilt my head back and fill my mouth with water, then spit it out to get the blood off my teeth and tongue. The water circling the drain is stained a deep, muddy red. I watch it slip away, feeling the horrors of the night disappearing down the drain with it.

  Nothing happened, I remind myself. It was a nightmare, that’s all.

  Somewhere in the house a door opens, then shuts. I freeze. I wrap my fingers around the shower curtain, trying to remember whether I locked the front door.

  “Sofia?” my mom calls. “Are you up already?”

  I shut off the shower and hurriedly dry myself off. I don’t remember ever feeling so relieved to hear my mother’s voice.

  “Just taking a shower.” I duck out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, where I quickly change into fresh clothes. I grab a plain white T-shirt, jeans, and my faded gray hooded sweatshirt. Since burning them isn’t really an option, I roll my dirty clothes into a ball and shove them all the way to the bottom of the trash can beneath my desk.

  I step into the hallway, tugging my sleeves down over my hands so Mom won’t see the raw skin at my knuckles. Mom is easing Grandmother’s door shut. She glances over her shoulder at me, lifting a finger to her mouth to tell me to keep quiet.

  “She’s still sleeping,” she says. I cross my arms over my chest, cringing when my torn fingers brush against the fabric of my sweatshirt. My mom cocks her head, considering me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “It’s so early. I’m surprised you’re awake.”

  I nod. “I’m fine,” I say, but the word cracks in my mouth. Tears pool in my eyes. I try to blink them away, but they spill onto my cheeks. So much for pretending nothing happened.

  “Sofia?” My mom crosses the hall and folds me into a hug. For a moment I just let her hold me. The tears come faster, until I’m crying so hard my shoulders shake. Mom smoothes the still damp hair off my forehead.

  “Shh,” she says. “Shh, it’s okay. Tell me what happened.”

  “I . . .” I choke back my sobs and pull away from her, drying my tears with the sleeves of my sweatshirt. “I just heard that a friend of mine committed suicide.” I stare at my bare feet, certain Mom will know I’m lying if I meet her eyes.

  “Oh, Sofia.” Mom pulls me to her chest again, resting her chin on top of my head. She rubs a hand over my back in slow, comforting circles. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

  I close my eyes, allowing myself to relax into her. For the first time in days, I feel safe.

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later I’m perched on a stool in the kitchen, the heavy smell of French toast filling the air. I actually smile as I breathe it in. Mom’s never been the best cook, but she’s perfected her French toast over the years. She uses only the thickest, crustiest bread and always mixes brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon into the batter. She takes the frying pan off the stove and slides the toast onto a plate.

  “I know it’s been hard to make friends,” she says, pulling the maple syrup and butter from the fridge. “And after what happen
ed at your last school . . .” She shakes her head, and under her breath, she mutters, “Such a needless tragedy.”

  I shift uncomfortably on my stool and push the French toast around on my plate. I don’t want to think about what happened at my last school, not when my wrists are still raw from Riley’s ropes. But now that Mom’s brought it up, I can’t help seeing the similarities. Both times I thought I knew someone, I thought she was my friend, and in the end I was wrong.

  Maybe there’s a reason these things keep happening to me. Maybe I’m defective.

  Mom sets the pan in the sink and crosses over to me, brushing one of my damp curls aside. “But you can’t give up, mija. I believe in you,” she says. “I know you’ll find your way.”

  It’s the exact right thing to say at the exact right moment, and I blink furiously to keep from crying. Mom places the plate on the counter in front of me, and I cover the toast in a thick stream of syrup. I can’t give up.

  • • •

  I stay awake for as long as I can, but by noon my eyes are so heavy I can barely keep them open. I tell Mom I’m not feeling well and crawl into bed, falling asleep as soon as I pull the comforter up over my shoulders. While I sleep, I dream.

  • • •

  Riley and I are sitting on the train tracks, passing a bottle of red wine back and forth. Red-and-orange light bleeds into the sky. Clouds race above us, their shadows flickering over Riley’s face. Her skin turns dark, then light again. The ground below us trembles—a train’s coming.

  “Truth or dare,” Riley says. She looks perfect, like she did the first day I met her. Her hair pools around her shoulders in flawless spirals, her eyebrows arch high above her eyes. Her cheeks burn pink, so glossy she doesn’t look real. The strange light makes everything about her glow. She takes a drink, and a thick drop of wine oozes out of the bottle and over her chin.

  “Dare,” I say. Riley lowers the bottle, but it’s not Riley anymore—it’s Brooklyn. Black liner surrounds her eyes, making them look too large for her head. The wine running over her chin thickens. Not wine—blood.