by JB Salsbury
My phone rings. I check the caller ID.
Carrie.
Shit. I send it to voice mail. With the mood I’m in, I’m liable to make the girl cry. With my phone in my hand, I hit up the one person I can talk to.
It rings twice.
“What’s up?” Computerized shots are being fired in the background—typical for a Sunday, or any day, for Damian.
“Sebastian, that’s what.”
“He call you?”
“He conveniently ran into me and the boys while we were eating in Harvard Park. We had Mercy with us, and he was with Omar.”
“Omar . . . That’s not good.”
“No kidding, and it gets worse.” I toss the baseball onto the couch and sit up to turn down the music. “Andy called me this morning.”
“Wait.” The shooting in the background goes silent, and there’s shuffling as if Damian is moving somewhere more private to talk. A door closes, and Damian’s breath huffs. “What did he say?”
“Something about a possible LS revival—everything we thought would happen once Sebastian served his time.”
“They coming after you, or what?”
“I don’t know. If so, I can handle them, but if they come after the boys . . .”
“What’re you gonna do?”
“You know nothing will stand between Esteban Vega and what he wants. I can’t tell Andy because he’ll get cops involved, and—”
“Things’ll get ugly.”
“Exactly.”
“You any closer to adopting the boys yourself?”
“I was waiting until graduation, until I had a better job, my own pad . . .” I pace the room, feeling suddenly anxious to get the next few months of my life done and over within the next week.
“Get on that shit, dude.”
“You think my dad’s gonna give a fuck about who has legal custody of the boys? You think just because a piece of paper says they’re mine, he won’t come for them anyway?” I run my hand through my hair so many times my scalp gets sore.
“Shit, Milo . . .”
“I’ll keep thinking. There’s got to be something I can do to keep them away from the LS.”
Something flickers with movement outside my window. I look up toward the house and find Mercy sitting by the back door, her knees to her chin and her arms wrapped around her calves in the shade.
“Maybe you go to them, ask them point blank what the fuck they’re up to.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Mercy rocks slightly back and forth.
“Listen . . . I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
“Milo, don’t go alone. I’ll go with you if—”
“I know. I’ll think about it.” I hit End and open the window. “Mercy!”
She peers up at me over her knees, and even from here, I can tell her eyes are red and bloodshot. Is she crying?
I run outside and jog up to her. “Hey, what happened?”
She shakes her head, and tears stream down her cheeks. “I . . . I can’t get in.”
What? I step over her to the door, and sure enough, it’s locked. “You locked yourself out?”
“It was an accident. I just . . .” She sniffs and wipes at her cheeks. “I wanted to come outside for a second, and when the sun got too close, I went to go back in, but the door wouldn’t open.” Her voice quivers. She’s clearly scared shitless.
She’s in one of the outfits she bought at the mall. If not for her ghostly white skin, she’d look like any other high school girl in a simple pair of jean shorts and a green short-sleeved shirt. No sweatshirt. Legs exposed and no shoes. No protection from the sun.
“It’s okay. I have a key.” I turn back to my place.
“Wait.” She stands up, but I notice her pale bare feet don’t leave the shade. “Are you leaving?”
I point over my shoulder to my place. “Just to go grab a key. I’ll be right back.”
Her lip quivers, and fresh tears come pouring down.
This is fucking ridiculous. I get why she can’t throw on a bikini and sun worship for hours like other girls, but surely a few seconds in the sun won’t kill her.
“Mercy”—I step toward her and hold out my hand—“why don’t you come with me.”
“No!” She jerks back so hard she slams into the side of the house.
I get closer and fix my eyes on hers. “Trust me.” I hold out my hand again. “The sun won’t hurt you.”
“That’s not true. It does. It has. I’m—” Her lips quiver as she attempts to hold back her tears. “I’m scared.”
“I know you are, but you have to trust me. I won’t let it hurt you.”
Her unshed tears dry up, and she blinks, those pale lashes clumped together with moisture. “What if—”
“No what ifs. Trust me.”
Her eyes dart to the tattoo on my neck. After a few seconds, she reaches out a shaky hand. The moment her palm hits mine, I grip her thin, soft fingers in a firm hold.
“Good. Now come on.” I tug slightly, and she resists. I get an idea, something I used to do with Miguel when he would be too nervous to walk through our house the morning after one of my dad’s notorious parties. “How ʼbout this?” I move to her side and pull her arm around my waist from behind while throwing my arm over her shoulders, tucking her close to my body. Her muscles are rigid, but she’s warm, and she clutches my shirt at my hip. “Close your eyes.”
She looks up at me, and panic flickers behind those pale-blue orbs, but eventually she closes her eyelids.
“Good girl.”
A soft sigh falls from her trembling lips.
I take a few steps, and she keeps pace with me. Her body tenses when the sun hits her skin, but she doesn’t falter. One step, another, and another, she stays with me with only the slightest pinch to her mouth, whether it’s because the sun actually hurts or she’s reliving a painful memory, I’m not sure.
“Open your eyes, Güera.”
She blinks and looks around as we stand together in the middle of the yard, the halfway point between the main house and my room. Her breathing speeds, her hand at my waist grips me more tightly, but she remains still. “I’m okay.”
Is she stating a fact or trying to convince herself?
“You are. Now, let’s walk the rest of the way with your eyes open.”
She nods and initiates our forward steps, making me wonder if she would take off running for shelter if I let her go. I keep our pace slow until we’re at my door and under the shadow of the roof’s overhang. Her shoulders drop in relief, and I motion for her to come inside, smiling when she does so speedily.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She turns toward me with a shy but proud smile. “It wasn’t as bad as it was before.”
I tilt my head, my smile falling. “Before?”
She frowns. “Never mind.”
“You thirsty?” I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and decide against getting a beer for myself. I don’t think Laura and Chris would be too pissed if they knew I drank out here from time to time, but something about doing it in front of Mercy seems wrong.
She takes the bottle and opens it to swallow greedy gulps, making me wonder how long she was locked out in the heat before I noticed.
“Have a seat.”
She sits on the couch, her head moving around as she takes in my room. “This is where you live.”
I look around, trying to see what she sees. Blank walls, nothing extravagant except for maybe my TV and stereo, a bed, a couch, a desk, and the mini fridge. “Yep.”
“Don’t you get lonely out here alone?”
I drop down to sit at the edge of my bed. “No. I grew up in a house filled with people. Morning, noon, night . . .”
LS members were always passed out on our couch, in our kitchen, in the fucking bathtub . . . That seemed like the coolest life ever when I was a teenager. What boy wouldn’t want an unlimited supply of booze, drugs, and women? When Miguel started getting i
nvolved, my view on all of it changed.
“I like having my own space,” I say.
She twists the bottle around in her hands, nervous, but why?
“Why are you afraid of the sun?”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “Because my kind—” Her eyelashes flutter, and she dips her chin. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
What the hell?
Eventually, her eyes come back to me. “My skin can’t take prolonged exposure to the sun.”
“I get that, but you’re scared of it even touching you for a second. How come?”
She sets down her water bottle and pauses. Then she pulls all her long hair over one shoulder and runs her fingers through the ends. I start to wonder if she’ll even answer, but I wait, hoping she’ll eventually fill the tense silence between us.
She licks her lips. “Do you know what it’s like to live your whole life being told you’re one thing, only to find out later that . . . you’re not?”
I think on that for a second. I was born into and raised by a gang. I was told I was a Latino Saint from the moment I took my first breath. I was taught that nothing is more important than loyalty to my LS brothers, laying down my life for them, sacrificing my freedom to protect the LS and its secrets. I was raised to love nothing above the Latino Saints. Nothing was greater, nothing more worthy of my loyalty.
That was before they made my mom disappear, though, before they ripped away any chance we had at living a clean life. Where was their loyalty when they took a mother away from a five- and a twelve-year-old boy? They abandoned three underage kids to avoid getting caught for the blood I know deep down in my bones is on their hands.
“Yes, I think I do.”
“They tell me I’m just an ordinary girl with an abnormality, but I still feel different. I still feel like . . .”
“An angel.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, eyes wide. “You know.”
“I figured it out, and Laura . . .” I stop there. I don’t know how Mercy would feel about our foster mom filling me in on the details.
“You don’t believe me.” Those white brows pinch so tightly together her forehead turns pink.
No, because it’s insane. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” I run my hand over my face and search for a lighter topic. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.” Her voice is timid, as if she’s afraid of what I might ask next.
“You never went to school before.”
She shakes her head.
“But you’re smart. I mean, I think you’re smart.”
Her cheeks turn a little pink, and the color looks great against her pale skin. “I was taught to read and given many books to study, but there’s still a lot I don’t know. I attended classes in the facility that helped.”
Facility. How could I forget? I smile, acting relaxed. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
A tiny flicker of a smile pulls her pale lips. “Okay.”
I cross to my modest stack of DVDs. Most of them are Miguel’s superhero movies or horror flicks, and there’s no way Mercy can handle The Ring or Saw, so I pull out the one with the least violence and hold it up. “The Amazing Spider-Man?”
Her head tilts adorably as she squints to see the DVD case. “He’s a spider?”
“Yeah, kind of.” I hit all the buttons on my TV and pop in the disc. “You familiar with superheroes?”
She squints up at me.
“Superheroes, ya know? They’re like people, but they have superpowers like they can see through walls and fly—”
“Fly?”
The enthusiasm in that one-word question has me staring at her, and sure enough, her eyes are wide with excitement.
“Yeah, the cape, the superhuman strength . . . ?”
She stares blankly at me.
“It’s kind of complicated. You’ll have to watch to understand.” I hesitate for a second before I drop down on the opposite side of the couch. I’ve had a few girls in my room and never questioned whether I should sit close to them, but everything with Mercy is different. She’s not a date or a hookup. Is she a friend? A charity case, my good deed for the year?
I grab the remote. “You hungry or anything? I’ve got chips or Chex Mix—”
“No thank you.” Her eyes narrow on the television as the screen explodes with color with the opening credits.
“Can you see it all right?”
A hint of pink colors her cheeks. “Yes, thank you.” She squints anyway.
For the next however long, I zone out while Andrew Garfield in a skin-tight suit does his thing. From time to time, I peek over at Mercy. She jumps when something blows up, gasps when Spider-Man falls, and exhales loudly when he saves the kid from the burning car before it plummets into the water. During the more romantic scenes, she leans closer to the television, her elbows on her knees, and sits really still.
Now that I know a little more about her background, I wonder if Mercy has ever been kissed. Has she done more? I’ve heard stories about fucked-up religious cults—child brides, forced procreation, and a crap ton of child molestation. I can’t stomach the possibility that someone as sweet and vulnerable as Mercy might have been subjected to anything so vile. Even considering it makes me homicidal.
When the final credits roll, I’m antsy, as though I need to run a couple miles or hit some heavy weights.
“What did you think?”
She looks over at me with excitement in her eyes. “I liked it a lot.”
“Yeah?”
She nods and sucks on her bottom lip before releasing it to speak. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“What? An action movie?”
Her eyebrows pinch together. “A love story.”
Yeah, and watching you watch it was one of the hottest and yet most innocent turn-ons I’ve ever experienced. “You’ve watched Disney movies with Jules. Those have love stories.”
Her hand goes to her throat, where she rubs it red. “Not like this one with Peter and Gwen. This was more . . .” She blows out a big breath, rustling a few strands of hair hanging close to her mouth. “I don’t know the word.”
“Sexy.”
“I guess so.” Her cheeks burn a deep pink, and she tucks her chin as if to hide her embarrassment.
The color is so beautiful on her pale skin that I dip my head to catch it before it fades. “Did you like watching them kiss?”
Her gaze darts up to mine, but only for a second. “Yes.”
“Have you ever been kissed like that?” I’m already yelling at myself to back the fuck off, and I’m holding myself to my end of the couch with every ounce of will I have.
She laughs, not a deep hysterical laughter but more of a shy chuckle. “No.”
She’s never made out with a guy. I guess when you’re raised to think you’re an angel, you’re kept pure in every way. Gracias a Dios. “But you have been kissed.”
She flips her hands around on her lap. “Only my hands, my feet, my forehead. My parish and Papa—that’s it.”
Parish? I ignore that for now and scoot closer. The idea of touching her feels wrong, as if I’m going to burn in hell for tarnishing one of God’s most perfect creations, but then I mentally kick my own ass for falling for the lies they brainwashed her with. It’s too easy to believe Mercy is an angel.
“What’s it like?” She brings her fingertips to her mouth, and I bite back a groan at how subtly arousing it is to see her pale fingers on her flushed lips.
“It’s fun—if you’re kissing the right person. Kissing the wrong person is no bueno.”
She nods as if understanding Spanish, which further confirms my theory that she’s from Mexico, but my pulse hammers in my veins and has me axing all ideas that don’t involve my lips on hers. I can’t remember ever being this excited to be with a woman before.
I scoot a little closer. “Do you want to try it?”
“With you?”
I shrug. “No, I’ll go grab someone. I’ll be ri
ght back.” Then I chuckle, and the tension in her shoulders seems to relax a little. “Of course with me. I wouldn’t trust your first kiss to just anyone.”
“Um . . .” She clears her throat.
I hand her the water bottle. “Here, drink.”
She does, and a sick, sick part of me loves how easily she listens to me, how freely she gives me her trust. You don’t deserve it. If she knew the things I’ve imagined where she’s concerned, she’d stay far away from me.
She hands back the water bottle, and I scoot closer to her until our thighs touch from knee to hip. I wish I had shorts on so that I could feel her bare skin against mine, but it’s probably best that I don’t.
Turning to face her, I run a lock of her silky white hair between my fingers. She dips her chin, her lips curving up in a bashful grin. Vulnerable, shy, and so modestly sexy—I never even knew that was a thing until Mercy.
“What are you thinking about?” I tuck her hair behind her ear and barely resist running my fingertip down the long column of her throat.
“I’m not sure how to do it.”
“Do you want me to teach you?”
She turns toward me now. “Yes.”
I can’t believe this is happening. I’m not the guy who deserves this kind of honor. However, the very idea of her giving her first kiss to anyone else is a unfuckingfathomable.
“Lick your lips.”
Her pink tongue darts out, and I watch in absolute fascination.
“Good.” My voice cracks, and I give myself an internal beatdown so that I pull my shit together and don’t blow this. “Now”—I lean in until I can feel the rush of her hot breath against my mouth—“just relax.”
“Okay.” She nods ever so slightly.
“Close your eyes.”
Those pale eyelids slide closed, white lashes fanning against her flushed pink cheeks.
“Good girl.”
A tiny sigh escapes her lips, and I make a note to say that more often because she seems to like the reinforcement.
My heart beats wildly. I keep my eyes open to watch for any sign of discomfort as I slowly and softly press my lips to hers. I allow them to linger there, letting the soft pillows of her lips mold to mine for a few drawn-out seconds before pulling back.
