The Merciless

by Danielle Vega

  “You like?” Brooklyn asks. Riley opens her mouth, then closes it again. Brooklyn frowns. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you impressed?”

  “I—” Riley’s body flies backward, and the words are ripped from her throat. She slams against the lake house wall. The gray siding shudders as she slides to the ground. She looks dead, but then she lifts a trembling hand to her face to push her hair out of her eyes.

  Brooklyn stops a few yards away from the house. Flames lick at her toes and feet, but she doesn’t seem to feel them.

  She lifts her arms, holding them out to her sides like a cross. In the dim light her skin looks ghostly white, and the injuries from Riley’s knife and the matches stand out in stark contrast. The red cuts and clotted blood seem almost fake, like they were drawn on using that cheap, oily paint that comes with Halloween costumes.

  Before my eyes, blood moves back into the wounds and disappears, and the skin stitches itself together, leaving behind only faded pink lines. The stub of her pinkie stretches and grows, becoming whole again. It’s like watching one of those nature shows where time speeds up and a flower blooms in seconds. The evil hovers around us, thick and suffocating. I couldn’t run now, not even if I wanted to. The air weighs down my limbs like mud, holding me in place.

  Brooklyn’s scars grow fainter, then disappear completely. She rubs her hands over her arms, grinning. “That was fun,” she says.

  Riley releases a choked sob. She lowers her head again, and her hair swings over her tear-stained face. She clenches her hands in front of her.

  “Hail Mary,” she whispers. “Mother of God . . .”

  “Your God doesn’t care what you have to say,” Brooklyn snarls. “Now, do you want to see a real crucifixion?”

  Brooklyn throws Riley’s body backward, slamming it against the side of the house again. Riley’s arms shoot out from her sides—forming a cross. She groans, struggling against some invisible barrier holding her in place. She releases a choked, terrified scream.

  Brooklyn stands directly in front of Riley. Fire eats the earth behind her, crackling and spitting in the wind. Smoke turns the air hazy. It looks like a mirage.

  Brooklyn glances at me and winks, like we’re sharing a joke. She tugs the hammer out of the back of her jeans.

  “Sofia, help me!” Riley screams. She throws her head against the wall behind her, making the wood crack. “Help me, help me, please!”

  I want to look away, but I don’t. It feels cowardly, like if I can’t save Riley, the least I can do is watch her die. Maybe that’s Brooklyn’s joke. Once again I’m forced to watch something terrible happen, helpless to do anything to stop it.

  Brooklyn’s lips curl into a wicked smile. She pulls a long silver nail out of her pocket.

  “Hold still.” She positions the nail directly in front of Riley’s palm. “This is going to hurt. A lot.”

  She swings the hammer, driving the nail deep into Riley’s hand and pinning it to the house behind her. Riley screams. Brooklyn swings again and again. I imagine the nail piercing skin and bone and muscle. Bile rises in my throat. I scream, too. The sound rips from my body and echoes until my chest burns and my throat goes raw and my head aches.

  I don’t scream for Riley. I scream because I’m next.

  “Now, this is a crucifixion,” Brooklyn says. I wrench my head up in time to see Brooklyn position a nail over Riley’s other hand and swing her hammer. I throw my hands over my face, clenching my eyes shut. I don’t want to watch anymore, but my eyes flicker open and I stare at Riley and Brooklyn through the spaces in my fingers.

  Riley’s body slumps and her weight pulls against the nails in her hands. The fire has reached the house now. It spreads over the grass below and climbs the walls. Gray paint bubbles up beneath the flames.

  “H . . . hail Mary . . .” I try to pray. But the words get stuck in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to picture the statuette of the Virgin on my grandmother’s windowsill. But I can’t hold her in my head. It’s like she’s deserted me.

  Brooklyn flips the hammer in her hand and digs the clawed edge deep into Riley’s chest. Riley opens her mouth, but instead of speaking, she releases a wet, gurgling sound. Blood bubbles around her teeth. Brooklyn yanks the hammer through her ribs, ripping her thin white T-shirt to shreds. She relaxes her grip on the hammer, and it clatters to the driveway. Her arm shoots forward and she pulls something from Riley’s chest.

  A heart. Riley’s heart.

  Riley’s head slumps forward. Still holding her heart, Brooklyn turns to face me.

  My legs tense, but I don’t run. There’s not a place on earth I could run where Brooklyn wouldn’t find me. I know what’s going to happen next. If I stand here and face it, then at least I won’t die a coward.

  Brooklyn steps toward me. I try to be brave, but the sound of nails crunching through Riley’s skin echoes in my head. When I close my eyes I see Grace strung up on the shed, her blood dripping onto the driveway. Brooklyn’s not a fan of quick, easy deaths.

  “Why so glum?” Brooklyn says. She drops Riley’s heart, and it hits the ground with a heavy, wet thud. I stare at Brooklyn’s shoulder, at the feathered tail of her Quetzalcoatl tattoo as she walks toward me. I focus on the tattoo to keep from picturing blood blossoming on Riley’s T-shirt, or the half-circle gash on Grace’s neck, or the way Alexis’s fingers curled toward her palm. Still, my hands tremble. I don’t want to die.

  “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Brooklyn asks. She tucks a spiky strand of hair behind her ear. Blood coats her hand like a glove, and she leaves a line of red along her cheek.

  “Figured what out?” I whisper. All around us the cicadas buzz.

  Brooklyn pulls me close to her. She whispers into my ear, “The evil lives inside you already.”

  The buzzing insects become a train’s whistle. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push the memory away. But I can’t help it. Images of that night on the tracks flicker behind my closed eyes. I see the headlight in the distance. I hear Karen screaming.

  • • •

  “Sofia, get off the tracks!” Karen drops her beer and grabs my arm, trying to pull me away. I don’t move. The train honks again. I blink into the headlight. It’s close enough now that I can’t look at it directly.

  “Oh my god!” Karen says. “Sofia, come on. This isn’t funny!”

  She tries to pull again, but this time I wrap my fingers around her wrist and tug her forward. She’s so surprised that she stumbles onto the tracks next to me.

  “Does it look like I’m fucking laughing?” I hiss at her, and I dive out of the way as the train crashes forward.

  • • •

  I open my eyes, and Brooklyn’s watching me, grinning. Something stirs inside me, something thick and suffocating. No. I scratch at my skin, leaving red marks along my wrists. The evil is inside me. I feel it. I scratch harder to tear it out of my body, drawing blood. In my head, I hear my grandmother’s raspy voice. Diablo, Diablo . . .

  But then the feeling stretches, spreading up my spine and into my arms and legs. It uncurls in my chest like an animal. It feels warm now, powerful. Like fire. Brooklyn grabs my wrist. I stare at the trail of blood around my arm and feel something new. Hunger.

  “You’re not going to kill me,” I say. It’s not a question. I already know the answer.

  “Don’t be silly, Sofia,” Brooklyn says, dropping my hand. Her eyes glow red, like she’s lit from within. “We don’t kill our own.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First of all, I’d like to thank one of my very favorite people, Rebecca Marsh, for having cool editor-like friends who don’t seem to mind when you corner them at a birthday party and spend the entire night talking about how you really, really want to work with them. And, of course, and even bigger thanks to Emilia Rhodes, who didn’t hold that against me, and who seemed to think that
spending 45 minutes fan-girling over Buffy the Vampire Slayer qualified me to write a horror novel. To all of you wannabe writers out there who might be reading this, I really don’t recommend this approach.

  Next, I absolutely could not have written this book without several hundred amazing people, most notably Josh Bank, Sara Shandler, and Katie Schwartz at Alloy, for being so supportive during the whole process, as well as Ben Schrank and Caroline Donofrio at Razorbill for some truly fantastic editorial notes and direction (also for the cookies. I feel like there have been a lot of cookies). Felicia Frazier, and the rest of Razorbill’s sales, marketing and publicity team have also been amazingly supportive in ways I could not believe. After nearly five years working in children’s book marketing, I know how many people it takes to make a book a book. Thank you all for helping me make mine!

  I also have to thank my mother, who thought it was completely appropriate to let me watch Stephen King movies and read horror novels when I was still in grade school. Let’s just chalk that up to research, okay? Thanks, also, to the rest of my fantastic friends and family, for letting me complain when things were hard and building me up when I got low. Seriously, I know the best people ever.

  And, finally, I have to thank my husband, Ronald, for reading every pass, even though he hates horror. Prepare yourself, babe. The next one’s going to be even scarier.