Finally a light flickers on and the window shade goes up. Mercy, or rather, Mercy in Lyla’s body, stares back at me.
“Gage?” Her voice is muffled through the glass.
“I need to talk to you,” I say and point toward the room, hoping she’ll let me in.
She nods and slides the window open. I help her pop the screen off, and then I climb inside.
“The police are looking for you,” she tells me.
“You were sleeping?” I say to her.
“I must’ve passed out. I don’t remember.” She comes fully awake then. “Jay!” She runs from the room leaving me standing alone in Lyla’s bedroom.
The room is chaotic at best. Clothes strewn everywhere. A pile begins to move. The long tail of a black cat swishes against the floor and settles in. Careful not to step on it, I move around the room carefully.
Lyla is a girl who likes fashion models and boy bands. Every surface is covered in make-up and jewelry. The ceiling is plastered with glow-in-the-dark stars.
“He’s asleep on the couch. Jay, that is,” Mercy says when she comes back. She is still wearing street clothes, jeans, and a t-shirt.
“Do you want to talk here or go outside?” I offer.
“Outside. I don’t want to wake anyone.” She shuffles over to the closet. “Let me just grab a jacket.”
On the chair behind me, half buried in a pile is a black hooded sweatshirt.
I hold it out to her. “Will this work?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
We tiptoe down the hall and out the back door. The yard isn’t much to speak of, mostly crab grass that desperately needs to be sheared and a few neglected potted plants. Mercy leads me to a weathered picnic table and set of chairs.
Silence passes between us. The entire ride over I planned what I was going to say, but being in front of her now, the words won’t come.
“You said you wanted to talk?” she prompts me.
“I don’t know where to start. I thought I would, but now I’m not so sure.”
She half smiles at me, like she understands what it’s like to be tongue-tied. I can’t believe it. Here she is having the worst night ever and she’s trying to put me at ease.
I decide to get straight to the bottom of it. “I know you’re not Lyla,” I tell her.
She snaps to attention; her entire body going rigid.
“I know that’s you, Mercy. Inside Lyla’s body.”
“How do you know?” she whispers, her voice faltering with each syllable.
“I’m going to explain everything to you, but I need you to stay calm. Can you do that?”
She nods, but doesn’t speak.
“I’m a Hunter, Mercy. I track Breachers.”
Unable to comprehend, her brow furrows, nearly knitting her eyebrows together. “Breachers? What’s a Breacher?”
“A Breacher is someone who lives eternally, able to jump from one body to the next.”
“Okay, but what does this have to do with me?” she asks.
I take a deep breath. Time to stop dancing around and just say it. “You’re a Breacher, Mercy. That’s how you were able to take Lyla’s body.”
“Oh, my God.” She leans back into the chair. “Why? Why am I like this?”
“Breaching is like a genetic trait, it’s passed from one generation to the next,” I explain.
Her eyes shoot open. “Wait. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you are a Breacher, Mercy. Just like your mother.”
Her mouth hangs agape as a quick puff of air escapes. Fear, hurt, anger, confusion, her expression says it all. She shakes her head. “That’s not possible.”
“I know this is difficult, but I’m telling you the truth.”
“Do you know how crazy this sounds?”
“There’s more.” With my elbows on the table I lean closer to her. “You’re in danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened tonight in the alley, that wasn’t Mr. Andreas. That was Nathaniel Black. He’s another Breacher. A very powerful one.”
She lowers her head and pulls her knees to her chest. “This isn’t happening.”
“I know this is a lot, but I’ll help you. You can trust me.”
A flicker of anger flashes in her eyes. “How long have you known about me? About my mother?”
“Mercy.”
She slams the chair to the ground as she gets to her feet. “You’ve known all along haven’t you? You didn’t just run into me at school today. You came looking for me.” Her anger morphs into rage as she pieces things together. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You need to calm down.”
“Did you know I was going to die?”
I try to think of what to say, but she reads my expression too quickly.
“Oh. My. God. You did! You let me die.”
“Please, Mercy. Let me explain.” I reach out for her arm, but she yanks it away.
“Stay away from me. I mean it. I don’t ever want to see you again! Go back to whatever hell you came from and forget you know my name!”
Chapter Eleven
Mercy
I slam the door behind me.
“Mercy!” Gage tries the handle, but I remembered to lock it. “Please, Mercy. Open the door.”
“I said leave me alone!” Sinking to the floor, I try to catch my breath.
There is no way I am going to believe Gage. He is clearly a crazy person. But at the same time, some of what he said rings true. I’m not dead like I’m supposed to be. My body may have died, but I’m here, trapped inside Lyla.
I have more questions to ask him, too. Like what happened to Lyla? Am I stuck this way forever or can I get out? And if I do get out what happens to me? What happens to Lyla’s body?
My head aches and my thoughts overwhelm me. I can’t help the tears. Earlier I thought I only had to mourn the loss of my body, but now there is so much more. Nothing I thought about my life is real. It’s all a lie. My mother isn’t the person I thought she was. She wasn’t even human. How am I supposed to deal with that?
Gage knocks lightly on the door. Part of me wants to ignore him, but the rest of me knows that I need him. He’s the only one with answers. I dust myself off and open the door.
He follows me down the hall to Lyla’s room and stands across from me while I climb onto Lyla’s bed. I hug a pillow and sit cross-legged. It’s a few moments before he speaks.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is barely audible.
“I don’t care.”
Gage flexes his hands and takes a deep breath. “I need you to come with me. It’s not safe for you here.”
Involuntarily, my head moves back and forth. My body reacts before my mind has time to formulate and speak the words. “I can’t go with you. I can’t leave.”
Both Kate and Jay appear in the doorway at the same time.
Kate looks from me to Gage and back again, suspicion rendering on her face. “What’s going on?”
Jay rubs the sleep from his eyes. I want to tell them both what’s going on, but now is not the time. I barely understand what Gage is trying to tell me. There’s no way I can explain things to Kate and Jay.
“He heard about Mercy and he came to check on me,” I lie. “He was just leaving.”
Gage looks like he wants to protest, but I don’t give him the chance. I cross the room and stand by Jay. Gage hesitates at first, but after a few seconds he relents. It’s only when I hear the front door open and close that I finally exhale.
“I’m going back to bed,” Kate says and then she leaves the room.
Jay hovers by the door looking unsure of what to do or say. Still stunned, I don’t know what to say to him either.
“Pancakes?” he asks.
Laughter escapes me. “What?”
“It’s what I do for Lyla, when she’s upset or doesn’t feel well. I make her pancakes.”
Right. I knew that. “Um, sure,” I tell him. “But, Jay you don’t have to, I mean, I’m not … ” I can’t finish my sentence.
He finishes it for me. “You’re not her, I know. But I have to do something.”
“Okay.”
I understand his need to do something because I have the same feeling. Things are so unsettled that anything routine, even if it isn’t my routine, sounds heavenly. I go about straightening things up. My hands need to work; my brain needs to focus on a task in order to keep it from focusing on Breachers and Hunters.
I pick up some of the dirty laundry and throw it into the hamper. I have to shove it in because the hamper is already full. Lyla’s closet looks like it has vomited by the way the shoes and belts and clothes spew forth.
I rack the shoes, hang the clothes, and roll up the belts. I tackle the scarves and other accessories next. It takes a while, but I make a dent in the mess. A few pieces of her furniture even have visible surfaces. Instead of making the bed, I strip it and throw the sheets into the wash. Doing so reminds me of a time, a few years ago, when Lyla and I were hanging out in her room on a random Friday afternoon. Somehow, we started talking about death. Between the two of us we have more knowledge of the subject than most.
“Do you think when you die you get to come back at all?” Lyla popped a handful of Skittles into her mouth.
“You mean like reincarnation?”
“No, not like that. I mean do you think you get to like go to your own funeral?”
“I don’t think I’d want to go to my own funeral.”
“Really?” Lyla scarfed down a few more pieces of candy. “I would. I mean, don’t you want to see who turns out to mourn you?”
At the time I had a huge, albeit secret, crush on this guy in our class so I pictured myself dead and him standing by my casket. Maybe he’d lay a rose on top and tell me that he regretted never telling me how much he really liked me.
“Okay. I can kind of see your point,” I admitted to Lyla. “But mostly, I think it would just be too sad.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d be dead.”
“Yeah, but what if you, like, got to haunt people. I’d totally haunt Jay.”
“Jay?”
“Um, hello? I wouldn’t want him to start hooking up with anyone else.”
I threw a pillow at her. “You’re nuts, Ly. You know that right?”
“And that’s why you love me.”
I did love her. I do love her. And I’m worried about her. I’ve been so caught up in my own drama that I forgot to ask Gage about Lyla. There are so many things that I still don’t know about breaching, about my mother.
Jay calls from the kitchen letting me know breakfast is ready. Happy for another distraction, I curl my legs underneath me as I sit at the kitchen table.
Shaking his head, Jay laughs at me.
“What’s so funny?”
He hands me a plate loaded with pancakes. “Lyla would never sit like that.” He sits in the chair across from me.
Uncurling myself, I sit with my feet on the floor. “This feels weird.”
“You’re telling me.”
We eat in silence for a few seconds before he starts laughing at me again.
“What now?”
“You cut your pancakes one bite at a time.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Lyla always cut hers into tiny pieces, remember?”
I do remember. “And then she eats the middle piece first. She always says that’s the way her dad served them to her, with the middle piece missing.”
“Exactly.”
Our enjoyment quickly fades. It’s really starting to sink in that Lyla is gone and I am doing a horrible job impersonating her.
My fork drops against the plate. “I’m sorry. I suck at this.”
“I can help, I guess.”
This must be horrible for him. His girlfriend’s body is seated across from him, but she isn’t in it. Not even my imagination could reason with how strange it must feel.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
“What did Gage really want?”
His abrupt subject change catches me off guard. A piece of pancake sticks to the back of my throat and I cough. Jay goes to the fridge, pulls out the orange juice, and pours me a glass.
When I stop coughing, I say, “Thank you.” I wipe my mouth with a napkin and add, “You heard us?”
Jay set his fork down. “Not all of it. But enough.”
Raking my hands though Lyla’s thick dark hair, I knot my fingers at the back of my neck. “It’s going to sound insane.”
“I think we passed sanity about twelve hours ago,” he quips, his lips pulling up at the edges into a shy smile.
“I can’t even believe I’m going to tell you all of this. I mean, I’m not even sure if I believe it or understand or … ”
“Mercy,” he interrupts.
“I’m babbling like an idiot, I know. And Lyla never does that.” Wadding up the napkin I throw it on the plate.
“What did Gage say?”
I figure there was no harm in just coming out with it. “He told me that I’m part of some freak species called Breachers that can live forever by jumping from body to body. Oh! And the best part, I apparently get this trait from my mother.”
Jay’s eyebrows are buried beneath his curls. If he tries to raise them any higher, they will disappear completely.
“Wow,” he remarks.
“I know, right? It’s insane. All of this is fucking insane.”
“I, uh, I’m … ” Jay stammers.
Echoing his sentiment of utter dismay I say, “Exactly.”
Chapter Twelve
I send Jay home to shower and regroup. As much as I hate to see him go, we both need some time to process everything that has happened. It’s not every day that your best friend dies, and later you find out that not only did she not die, but she took over your girlfriend’s body because she isn’t quite human, but rather some strange race of things called Breachers who can live forever by stealing bodies. It’s a lot for Jay to take.
Once I suggested a shower to Jay I realize that I, too, am in desperate need. Kate and Lyla share a cramped bathroom full of mismatched towels. Over the toilet hangs a picture of a clown that Kate painted in elementary school. The counter is buried beneath makeup and varying lotions and crèmes in different stages of use ranging from nearly full to empty and expired.
Next to the sink are the toothpaste and two brushes: pink for Lyla, green for Kate. I’ve borrowed Lyla’s stuff plenty of times, but using her toothbrush is kind of gross.
Her shower is not at all like mine. Low pressured and indecisive, the water fluctuates between damn hot and damn cold. I shower quickly, relieved to turn the water off at the end.
I need clothes so I have no choice but to go through her drawers. I try to ignore the fact that I have to wear her underwear. Today, like so many other days, it’s going to be hot. Lyla has an array of skimpy clothing for just the occasion. It takes me a while to find something to wear given that Lyla and I don’t exactly share the same taste in clothes. In the end I find a denim skirt that isn’t of indecent length and the Train t-shirt I bought for her at their concert. I dig around in her closet until I find the pair of Keds I know she has shoved in there somewhere.
Doing Lyla’s hair and makeup is quite the chore and I don’t do it nearly as well as she does, but it’s passable. Lyla is addicted to Sephora. She racks up more frequent buyer points than anyone. For my fifteenth birthday she bought me the entire Laura Mercier line complete with primers and blushes, brushes and eye shadows in what she called “neutral hues.” All of it is still unwrapped and tucked neatly into the bottom drawer of my desk. It’s not that I’m opposed to makeup. It’s just that it takes so much time to do in the morning and I would rather sleep.
I find Kate at the kitchen table, reading the paper and drinking cof
fee. She looks tired, worn out. Rings of bluish purple circle her coal black eyes. Her hair, as dark as Lyla’s, hangs in greasy strands around her face. She hasn’t changed her clothes, still wearing the yoga pants and frayed sweatshirt from the night before.
Setting down her coffee she eyes me.
“What?” I ask, worried that I don’t look enough like Lyla.
“I thought you hated Keds.”
“Oh, I do. Mostly. But Mercy always wore them so, you know.”
I hope she’ll buy my explanation. When she reaches for her cup and takes another sip I figure she has.
“I need you to come to Wally’s with me later. The place is still a mess from last night.”
“Okay,” I answer.
She eyes me again, “You’re not going to give me shit about having to clean up?”
Damn! Lyla never agrees so quickly to clean up, mostly because Lyla never cleans anything up. Ever. “Oh, well, I just thought you probably really need my help.” Shit. Shit. Shit. I sound nothing like Lyla. Kate will know something is up for sure.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you offer to help me without some sort of bribe.”
Thinking quickly I scowl at Kate. “Fine. God, if you’re gonna be like this I can stay home. My friend just died you know? You could cut me some slack.” This is exactly what Lyla would’ve said.
Kate shakes her head. Drinking the last of her coffee she pushes back from the table and stands. “I’m taking a shower. We’ll leave in twenty.” Before she leaves the room she turns and adds, “Your turn to take out the trash too, by the way.”
I give her Lyla’s best annoyed face. The roll of her eyes tells me I nailed it.
The trash can under the sink is filled to the brim. Carefully, I pull the red ties and cinch the bag closed without spilling any garbage on the kitchen floor. The bin is still on the curb so I go out the front door. Crossing the lawn I meet with Lyla’s neighbor. He waves.
It takes me a second to remember his name. “Hey, Mr. Sullivan.” I wave back.
“I heard about your friend. Terrible news,” he laments.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a sec? I think I got some of your mail by mistake.”
Into the Dark Page 5
