Saving Mercy

by Abbie Roads

  Cain walked along the side of the house to another window. Same blackout curtains. The next window more of the same. Around the corner of the house. And then he was at the back door.

  Once upon a time, when the family who lived here was killed and one child lived, this door had been all glass. Now he stood in front of a solid mass of steel with no fewer than four locks on it—all of them dead bolts. This door screamed stay out, and yet he reached out and grasped the knob.

  He anticipated resistance, but it turned under his hand. He expected each millimeter of movement to be the knob’s last, but he turned a full revolution and the door opened with a quiet whoosh of sound. Before he opened it all the way, he spared a quick glance toward where Dolan should be rounding the side of the house, but when he didn’t see the guy, he stepped inside.

  Dust coated the air, tickling his nose and making it hard to breathe. A nightlight with a small bronze bulb had been plugged into the outlet beside the door, its meager light providing just barely enough illumination to see by.

  He stood in what had once been the family’s dining area. A table. Four chairs. He could practically picture Mercy as a child sitting in one of those chairs, innocently eating a meal with her family and having no idea that evil would visit in the night.

  To his right, the kitchen was a wide-open space of counters and cabinets. The main house spread open before him into one large room with a hallway on the left leading to the bedrooms. Dead ahead were those massive front windows—blacked out by thick, dark drapes. And then he realized the only reason he could see that far ahead was another nightlight must be on in the living area.

  He moved forward, his boots making small crackling noises against the ancient linoleum. So much for the element of surprise. The flooring changed to carpet when he left the dining area and headed into the living area.

  A large console TV. A couch. A love seat. In the dim light, everything looked so 1997-normal it was hard to believe death had visited the house. Yet the moment he’d passed from linoleum to carpet, he entered the kill room. The place where all those years ago his father had murdered Mercy’s family and tried to murder Mercy herself.

  The air changed from dust-coated to a wet penny tang so sharp Cain could practically taste it. He recognized the scent. Blood. His heart turned to stone, heavy and inanimate and fucking painful. Oh, Mercy. Her name was prayer and plea.

  And then he saw Assface sitting in a chair, head bowed forward as if in deep prayer or deeply asleep. Cain opened his mouth to launch a verbal assault and jumped forward, ready to grab him and deliver another beatdown, but then he saw the cords binding the guy to the chair and froze.

  Payne had been tied palms up. His ankles were tied to the chair’s legs. Cain wanted to believe Mercy had secured him, defeated him, but even in the elusive light, wide-open gashes were visible on the man’s wrists. The blood he smelled had come from Payne. It didn’t take a degree in medicine to know the guy was deader than roadkill.

  Mercy. Where the fuck is Mercy. Cain’s mind screamed the words. Then they bounced around his skull, echoing off each other until they meshed and blended and became one word.

  Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

  He stepped closer to Payne. Then he saw her lying on the other side of the chair in a massive Rorschach of her family’s dried blood.

  Cain’s heart had a head-on collision with his sternum. The impact reverberated throughout his body, threatening to buckle his knees and knock his sanity off balance. Her lying there—in the exact spot her family had been murdered—was a sick, fucking twisted joke. The kind that carried no humor, only horror.

  One moment he was five steps away from her, the next he was kneeling beside her, gathering her up out of that mass of twenty-year-old blood, cradling her against him. Her body was a deadweight, head lolling on her shoulders as though it would snap off if he didn’t support her neck.

  “Mercy. Come on. Wake up.” He pressed his fingers to her neck, feeling for her pulse.

  Yes. The pitter-patter of her heartbeat was a miracle against his skin. He didn’t bother standing. He just scooted them back away from her family’s blood, back away from Payne, away from the wall that loomed over them.

  She wore the same clothes she had earlier.

  But earlier seemed years ago. Earlier was when they’d spent the morning making love. Earlier was when he took her clothes shopping. But then earlier had turned into too late when she stayed with Mac instead of coming with him. No matter how this ended, she would never be his. The only way he could live with that was if she survived.

  He glanced around the open living area. Where the fuck was Dolan? The guy should’ve been here by now. He needed to get her out of here. No way should she ever have to relive the horrors that happened here.

  He started to stand, to carry her out of the house, when his gaze snagged on the wall. On an image the shadows nearly obscured. An image both fascinating and terrifying. An awful action portrayed in a wondrous manner. A blood painting with grotesque beauty.

  In the picture Cain had a pair of wings. A massive pair that portrayed strength and masculinity and something either purely divine or purely evil. He stood over Mercy, and she knelt at his feet staring up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks, and yet her expression was one of naked devotion—fucking devotion—despite the knife he held, buried to the hilt in her throat. The look on his image’s face was one of self-loathing, anguish, and defeat. As if the good inside him was dying along with Mercy. And the monster was about to emerge.

  Cain’s heart clenched, released, clenched, released like someone had a pair of those resuscitation paddles pressed to it and was repeatedly hitting the on button. His stomach heaved and his throat kicked open. Something awful wanted to escape from deep inside him. He laid Mercy on a clean patch of carpet, then crawled hands and knees away from her, gagging as he went. His body shook, his arms almost couldn’t support him, but then his fingers found a patch of wetness. A patch of salvation. A patch of blood.

  Blood. It still carried hints of a body’s comforting warmth. Instantly, the only thing that mattered was the blood.

  He raised his fingers to his face and smeared the drops on skin. It felt so wonderful. Comforting. Soothing. His head fell back on his shoulders.

  “Just the way I taught you.” The voice came out of the dark, a bull’s-eye to the heart of Cain’s being. But that voice couldn’t be here.

  Snap—the flick of an old light switch, and the room flooded with what seemed like a thousand rays of light. Light so bright Cain couldn’t see for a moment. Didn’t want to see.

  He closed his eyes, allowing himself a few more seconds of blessed denial before forcing them open and turning to face the voice.

  A prison guard stood in the area between the kitchen and living area, bloody hand on the wall switch. But he wasn’t really a prison guard.

  His father stood there, tall and arrogant, wearing the uniform. Both his father’s hands dripped crimson. Ptt. Ptt. Fat droplets landed on the carpet and were smeared over the wall switch.

  For a moment, or maybe a year, Cain gave denial free rein, allowing himself to think that he was going to wake up from a nightmare. He’d be back in bed holding Mercy, and everything was going to be all right.

  The thing about lying to yourself is that you know you’re lying.

  Weight settled in his chest, on his shoulders. It was the weight of the past, the present, and what was to come. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to shoulder the burden.

  “Your friends won’t be joining us.”

  His father’s words squirmed into his ears. Dolan. Dolan was dead? And the Hale Security guy? Cain wanted to say something, but couldn’t form words as his mind flashed back to the prison. His father and the guard had been friendly. Friendly in a manner that wasn’t possible for a man like Adam Killion. A man who possessed no feelings, no conscience, no soul. An
d then Cain remembered how for a split second he’d thought the guard had been his father.

  The truth struck him like a bolt of lightning, shooting a wild combination of adrenaline, fear, and fury through his entire body.

  Cain knew everything.

  Knew his father had brainwashed that guard into trading places. Knew his father had been going on excursions outside the prison walls, courtesy of twenty-three hours of isolation a day and a guard who shared enough of his appearance to pass as him—if no one looked too closely. Twenty-three hours was plenty of time to leave, kill, return, and be seen.

  His father had been the one to paint all those blood portraits of him. His father had killed Liz. And the most horrifying thing was that he understood the words his father had used hours ago. I created her for you. He’d created Mercy for Cain to kill.

  Chapter 20

  It’s okay to be curious. Embrace the curiosity on the Killion Tour. Our knowledgeable guides have met with Adam Killion and can share personal stories from their time with him. Tour stops: the Ledger house, the Center of Balance and Wellness, the Killion home, and the Killion Tour gift shop, where you can watch eight solid hours of film relating to all things Killion, examine genuine memorabilia, and write your own letter to Adam Killion.

  —Killion Tours brochure

  Cain might’ve been thirty years old and the same size as his father, but seeing the man looming over him felt as if he’d stepped into a time machine and emerged the scrawny, weak kid he’d once been.

  This was all too familiar. The way his father stood. The way his father spoke. The way blood dripped off his father’s fingers. The way his father pressed palms to forehead, then wiped his hands down the length of his cheeks to his neck, leaving a foul, bloody trail that made him look part Halloween ghoul, part butcher.

  Cain recognized himself. He looked exactly the same when he was done with his blood work.

  And yet the color of all that blood satisfied something inside him. There was no color like it. Burgundy, crimson, scarlet—the names were pale comparisons to the shimmer and shine and wonder of fresh blood.

  “It feels good, doesn’t it?” His father’s gaze locked on the smears of Dr. Payne’s blood Cain had wiped on his own face.

  Those smears turned to acid against his skin. Sweat slicked his underarms. A bead of it formed above his top lip. His hands went shaky. His body went weak. He recognized the sensation.

  Shame.

  He wanted to wipe off the blood—the evidence that he was just as demented as his father—but he couldn’t move.

  Years ago, he should’ve walked away from the blood work. Stopped being around it. But he’d sold himself a lie—that he was helping solve crimes. Serving justice to people like his father. Really it’d been a form of self-pleasuring the whole fucking time. He could see that now.

  “I tried to tell you. Everything has been about you. I saw something inside her and knew she was yours. I saved Mercy for your soul. I spared her for you to kill when you were ready. You understand the power to be gained from death. Her death by your hand will enlighten you in a way few ever experience.”

  I don’t want to be enlightened. Cain didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. Words were dangerous. Words would be used against him.

  “Greatness is locked inside you. All you have to do is bathe in her blood, and it will all be yours. I know you want this.”

  No, he didn’t want this. None of this.

  “Quit denying the part of you that wants to kill. To kill her.”

  Cain met his father’s eyes—something he never dared do as a child—and moved his head back and forth. Even that tiny form of denial—disobedience—seemed a struggle. He couldn’t break the bonds of ten years of childhood-conditioned fear. His first memories were of cowering from this man. Fearing this man. Of doing anything to avoid this man’s wrath.

  “What’s her life worth to you?” His father spoke as if it was a question, but it wasn’t. He was making a point.

  What’s her life worth to me?

  Her life was worth more than the brilliance of autumn leaves and the snowy hush of winter. More than spring blooms and summer sunshine. Her life was worth more than soft rain showers and starlit nights. Her life was precious beyond measure to Cain.

  “Is her life more important than…” His father tapped his chin, fingers leaving bloody smudges. “MacNeil Anderson’s life?”

  Cain’s mind shuddered to a halt. For long seconds, all he could do was blink until his brain clicked back on and the words—those horrible fucking words—knifed him straight in the heart.

  “A dear friend of mine has a gun to MacNeil’s head at this very moment, waiting for my word to execute him or save him. Which do you choose?”

  The room distended, got longer, wider, taller; the floor sank out from under Cain. He felt as though he was falling, but he hadn’t moved.

  He wanted his father to be lying. Wanted the man to be playing some terrible mind game, but he’d never been one to joke or one to lie.

  Mac doesn’t deserve to die. He’d done nothing wrong—other than take in a boy who was more monster than child and teach that boy to be a man. Mac may not be related to him biologically, but here in this moment Cain understood something he’d never known before.

  Mac loved him.

  Twenty years ago, Mac had been a man in his late thirties. Vital. Strong. Someone who didn’t have to take on the responsibility of a deranged kid. Yet he had. He’d taken on Cain. Even homeschooled him because the media wouldn’t grant any privacy to Killer Killion’s Kid. Mac had seen the worst of him and never run. Instead he’d been a steadfast supporter and protector.

  Cain wanted a do-over. He wanted to go back to earlier in the day. He wanted to sit and listen to Mac and acknowledge what he’d said about loving him like a son. He wanted to tell Mac he loved him like a father. Because he wasn’t sure Mac or any of them were going to get out of this alive.

  His eyes felt scratchy and a bit wetter than normal. He couldn’t lose Mac. Couldn’t. But then his father’s words echoed through his head. I created her for you. Cain felt that. Owned that. Couldn’t escape it. And hated himself for it.

  No way could he lose either of them.

  He was no longer a small, weak child. He was at least the same size as his sire. It would be a fair fight. Even if it was a fight to the death. No one was going to hurt Mac. And no one was going to hurt Mercy.

  Fury, anger, and rage got him to his feet, rising to his full height and meeting his father’s gaze as equals. Fucking goddamned equals. He shifted to block Mercy from his father’s view.

  “Son.” His father paused, waiting for Cain’s full attention.

  That word—son—spoken so often by this man during Cain’s childhood had always signified ownership and his total subservience to his father. Wait, ownership? There was that word. A word that was attached to the symbol that just happened to be on the wall.

  “Son.” His father’s voice was low, menacing.

  But now, all these years later, knowing what his father wanted from him, the word son no longer carried the power it once had.

  He wasn’t his father’s son any longer. Now he was Mac’s son. And he was going to make damned sure nothing happened to Mac.

  His father pulled a gun from the back of his pants. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. But it won’t work. I have a gun. You come at me, I’ll hurt you. If I have to hurt you, then I’ll kill her. And I won’t be nice about it.”

  Defeat threatened to pull Cain’s rip cord, threatened to shove him back down to the floor. He locked his knees.

  “I asked you a question. Is she more important than Mac? Would she be worth the sacrifice?”

  Cain didn’t say anything.

  Silence stretched long and thin between them. Somewhere in the house a furnace kicked on, the low hum of
it almost comforting in its abject normalcy.

  “How about your twin sister?”

  The words hit him like blows from an MMA champ. Each one wounding Cain’s already battered soul.

  “I thought that would surprise you. By the look on your face, I just confirmed something you already suspected. Guess Dolan wasn’t very good at keeping secrets.”

  Daught was real. Daught had been taken. Daught was in danger.

  “I named her Daughter. She looks a lot like your mother and has many of her traits. She works as a mental health counselor helping people. She is patient and kind. She doesn’t envy or boast. She’s not proud. She doesn’t dishonor others. She isn’t easily angered. She doesn’t delight in pain and sorrow. She trusts, hopes, perseveres.”

  Daught was a good human being. She was the light. Cain was the dark. And more than anything, he wanted to meet her.

  “Are Mac and Daughter’s lives worth sacrificing for Mercy? Two for the price of one? Just think of all the positive Daughter could do in her lifetime. I was going to make it three for one with Liz’s life, but that was just too many variables in play. Anyway, Liz and I created some beautiful art.”

  “I won’t do it. I fucking won’t do it.” Cain’s voice sounded confident, so different from the war of the worlds raging inside him. “You try to hurt her, and I’ll fucking kill you.” His lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl.

  His father reached into his shirt pocket and removed a flip phone. Without looking away from Cain, he opened it, pressed a number, and held the phone out in front of him for Cain to hear.

  “Yes,” a disembodied voice said on the other end of the line.

  “Put MacNeil Anderson on the phone.”

  The sound of shuffling on the other end echoed loud through the room. “Fucking son of a goddamned—” Mac’s tone was full-on angry.

  “Mac!” Cain yelled.

  “Cain?” The anger melted from Mac’s voice. “I know what your father wants from you.” He spoke rapidly. “Don’t you do it. I’m not worth it. I’ve lived a life. None of this is your fault. It’s all his fault. Don’t you ever forget that.”