Saint (Mercy Book 2)

by JB Salsbury

  “I feel . . . powerful.”

  His thumb brushes the bare skin of my shoulder, sending a wave of tingles down my body.

  “And sensitive.”

  “That’s the MDMA.” There’s a smile in his voice.

  I lick my lips, and it’s impossible not to fall into the incredible feeling of my own tongue.

  He chuckles. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you? What else do you feel?”

  I meet his eyes and blink to focus. “Relaxed.”

  “That’s the valium. I’d say you’re ready.” He stands and, gripping my shoulders, lifts me up.

  I sway on my feet and allow him to take most of my weight as he leads me to the bookcase. He pulls a device from his pocket and hits a series of buttons that I sluggishly feel like I should pay attention to but can’t. The locking mechanism releases, swinging the bookcase off the wall to reveal a door with only one lock. After he unlocks it, he guides me through a dark passageway as the rhythmic beating of drums warms my ears. If it weren’t for the knife strapped to my thigh, I could easily forget why I’m here, what I’m meant to do, but I push back the fog of drugs and focus on the warm steel that is my only promise of escape.

  Heavily scented smoke fills my nose as I’m led into the sanctuary. The space is larger than my room, but it only has a red rug and a single towering chair. Papa takes a seat on the chair and tugs me onto his lap. My legs feel wobbly, and I make sure to keep my thighs clenched as I place myself on his right knee. He runs his fingers up and down my spine, sending rainbows of pleasure throughout my body, igniting my skin with the need to be touched. My eyes burn with a fierce need for Milo, for his hands, his kiss, and his whispered words in my ear.

  Mi alma.

  His voice calls out in my head, reducing my drug-induced rapture to an annoyance.

  “Bring them!” Papa calls lazily toward the door.

  A column of light pierces the darkened room. I recoil, and he pulls me closer to his chest, cradling me in his arms with my nose buried in his neck. He smells wrong, but the touch feels right.

  “Shh, Angel, I’ve got you,” he whispers. “Once they’re all in, you’ll be safe to open your eyes.”

  Milo

  “HEY, YOU GONNA be okay?” I’m checking on the woman who barfed in the back of the van.

  We’ve been driving for about an hour. The twists and turns finally got to her, and she puked at her feet. Thankfully she’s two seats down and sitting on the opposite side, so my shoes are still clean, which is more than I can say for the poor shmuck sitting next to her.

  “She gets carsick,” her friend answers in Spanish while rubbing the woman’s back.

  One by one, people pull up their shirts to cover their nose and mouth as the stench of vomit makes everyone a little queasy. I pull up the neck of my sweatshirt and do the same, offering the poor girl an apologetic look when she curls up in embarrassment.

  The van eventually slows and comes to a stop.

  “Thank God,” one dude says as he scoots toward the back door, waiting to be released from our stuffy and stinky confinement.

  The back door swings open, and the driver is there with a handful of black fabric. “Come out one at a time for your blindfold.”

  “Hey, I didn’t pay fifty thousand pesos for this shit.” Felipe motions to the vomit then the blindfold. “Why all the secrecy, man? We ain’t gonna tell nobody.”

  Driver hands Felipe a blindfold. “If you want in, you wear it.”

  He hands out the black fabric bags, and one by one, we slip them over our heads. From the tiny glimpse I got before I wrapped my head in black fabric, it looked as if we were in some kind of concrete garage, but that doesn’t tell me shit if I ever need to make it back here without an escort.

  I measure my steps to avoid the puke in the van and step out only to be told to stop and press my palms against a wall. A pat-down. I should’ve expected it.

  Driver’s rough hands smack against my shoulders then freeze on my ribs. I’m slammed face-first into the wall. “You got plans for these guns?”

  “You can’t be too safe.”

  He grunts and removes the nines from their holsters. “Anything else I should know about, or do we need to strip search you?”

  We? So he’s not alone. “Nope, just the two guns. That’s all I got.”

  He grunts in my ear and gives me a thorough pat-down before shoving off of me, barking for me to keep my fucking face forward.

  Blinded and clumsy, we’re guided through a doorway, and I’m hit with the smell of something burning. Not a fire as much as some kind of flavored smoke. I’m roughly shoved forward, and I fist my hands to keep from grabbing the pushy fuck and beating his ass. I made it this far; I can’t mess it up now by getting kicked out.

  Faint music becomes louder as we get farther down what I’m beginning to think, thanks to driver ping-ponging my ass off the walls, is a hallway or corridor. Suddenly my shoulders are gripped and turned and guided through a doorway. I bump into a body and stand still.

  “Remove your blindfolds,” a man says, his voice different from the driver’s.

  I rip the fabric from my eyes and search the room for Mercy, for someone who might look like her or give me some kind of hint as to whether or not this is the place she was once kept, but I’m sorely disappointed when all I see is a bland, blank room.

  “What is this?”

  “We’ve been ripped off!”

  “Some kind of joke?”

  The tension in the room thickens as the people get angry, but the driver holds up his hand.

  “The sanctuary is through this door.” He points over his shoulder with his stubby thumb. “You must stay on the red carpet at all times. We ask that you be quiet and keep your hands to yourself, do you hear me? Under no circumstances do you touch the healer. If you break the rules, you will not only be removed immediately, but you and your family will be cursed.”

  There’s a collective gasp, but I don’t give a fuck about curses. I just want my Mercy back. My heart throbs violently and my skin tingles with an awareness that she’s close, which is fucking crazy. Wishful thinking, hope, whatever this feeling is, I’m wearing it like clothes.

  “Bring them!” The command comes from the other side of the door.

  The music gets louder when the driver opens the door behind him. I peer around the bodies to peek inside, but it’s impossible to see anything in the dimly lit space. We walk silently in single file into the room, and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dark after coming from the bright light of the holding room.

  Incense burns along every wall, fogging up the air. Drums beat from speakers placed in every corner of the room. I squint at the front of the room as a structure comes into focus.

  A chair, blood red, the back so tall it has to be six feet high. A shadowed figure sits in the chair. I blink harder, rub my eyes, and curse this fucking smoke. Pushing my way to the front, I stumble and stop as the tip of my shoe hits the edge of the red carpet.

  I blink.

  Focus.

  The view is an image even my worst nightmares couldn’t conjure.

  A man sits tall and proudly in his throne-like chair with my Mercy draped in his arms.

  “Motherfucker.” I bite my tongue as equal parts relief and fear mix in my veins. My muscles coil for a fight, my legs itch to lunge, and my pulse roars in my ears, but I smother my instincts and just try to breathe.

  She’s here. She’s fucking here!

  This piece of shit took her from me.

  For that, he’s going to die.

  “You are on holy ground,” the man holding my life, my fucking soul, says in Spanish. “You will remain still. Angel will go where the spirit leads.”

  He nuzzles the top of her head that she has buried in his neck, and a stab of violent jealousy has me nearly jumping to take her. I force my feet to stay glued to the carpet. She doesn’t move right away. I begin to wonder if she’s hurt until she finally lifts her head.

/>   I flex my fingers as nervous energy courses through me. Stay put, Milo. Do not fuck this up.

  The man I assume is Papa helps her to her feet. I grind my teeth that the sick fuck has her sitting on his lap. I can’t take a full breath when I imagine the power he’s had over her, the things he could have her do without her consent. My muscles coil when she stumbles slightly. He’s got her fucking drugged.

  He, that piss-shit, stabilizes her, and she swings her gaze out over the seven of us, but I know, although she’s looking directly toward us in the dark, she sees nothing.

  She walks toward us, and I can’t help but notice how beautiful she looks. It seems weird to feel attraction in a time like this, but all her pale hair is pulled out of her face and her long, slender body is draped in a dress that billows around her feet as she walks to make her seem as though she’s floating. She turns to respond to something that asshole says, and her back is bare so low that the two bee stings above her ass, as well as her tattooed wings, are on full display. I’ve kissed every inch of that skin, memorized every dip of her delicate spine, her body I’ve worshipped with my own. I haven’t seen her in what feels like forever, and she’s never looked more beautiful.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d believe she was every bit the healing angel we were told to expect.

  “Angel, over here,” the guy next to me mutters.

  “Do not call to her,” Fuckface answers in Spanish. “She will go where she is led.” He nods to Mercy. “Go on, don’t delay.” That he says in English with only a bare hint of an accent.

  No wonder Mercy had no clue how to speak Spanish even though she lived in Mexico most of her life.

  Mercy goes first to the woman who threw up in the van, just two people down from where I’m standing. She’s little more than an arm’s-reach away and I find myself leaning toward her. My mind scatters to think of a plan that won’t get us both killed. I have a decent amount of experience spotting those capable of killing and those who just talk a big game, and these people would slit our throats and drop us in a desert grave without a second thought.

  Mercy lifts her pale hands and cups the woman’s face, making her gasp then crumble into tears. Mercy watches with rapt attention, her white eyelashes moving slowly on drooping lids. The woman mumbles on and on about how she lost her children to an illness and how she is sick and believes it’s an ancestral curse. She asks for Mercy to break the curse and cast a spell of protection over her family. I know Mercy can’t understand a word of what the woman is saying, but no one else would know by looking at her as she absorbs the woman’s sadness.

  The dickhead comes up behind Mercy and places his hand on her hip while lowering his lips to her ear, I assume to translate. His hand grips and squeezes, and Mercy melts back into his touch.

  What the fuck?

  My thoughts spiral downward as I wonder if Mercy enjoys being back here. I wonder if she lied and knew where Papa was all along, if she came here of her own free will. Is it possible she used me to get back to this place? She said she wasn’t rescued, she was taken away. She could be so fucked in the head from all this that she thinks all this angel shit is normal, that this is where she belongs.

  No. I shake my head. No, I don’t believe it. Whatever drugs he has her on are making her like this.

  In my minutes-long freak-out, I missed Mercy’s whispered words that were quickly translated by the man at her back. When she moves on to the next person, it’s more of the same, her standing close, her touch, her eyes fixed on theirs.

  I remember what her otherworldly gaze felt like. When we were in her room in Los Angeles and she was still Angel, she touched me, set her gaze on mine, and picked away at my soul. I would’ve sworn on my mother’s grave she was an angel then. My skin vibrated with the awareness of her touch, and her eerie blue eyes dug deep as if they could pull the truth from me.

  My heart slams behind my ribs and my palms are soaked with sweat when she makes her way to the next person, the man standing to my left. Just when she reaches her hands up to cup his face, she freezes and turns her gaze to me.

  With all the control of a practiced con artist, her expression does not waver. She takes a side-step and stands directly in front of me. Oh God, I want to touch her. I want to grab her and pull her into my arms and lock her safely there. I want to bury my face in her neck and tell her I’m sorry, that I’ll never let her go again, that from here on out, I’ll do whatever she wants and fuck the consequences.

  But I remain still. My eyes are locked on hers as she peers down at me. Those blue orbs that I’ve seen dance with humor and life are missing their spark, but I see a fire flicker behind her drug-induced glaze. My Mercy is in there, and she’s fighting to get free.

  She doesn’t touch me like she did the others, and I wonder if she’s so messed up she doesn’t recognize me. It isn’t until her eyes drop to my neck and her lip quivers that I know without a doubt she does. She steps close, and I’m bathed in the scent of the expensive oils that make her skin practically glow in the low light. She reaches shaking hands up, and the second her palms meet my jaw, she whimpers.

  “Angel?” Assface gets close, too fucking close. “Are you okay?”

  She nods. “Sadness.” Her eyes stay glued to mine, and I watch them fill with tears. “So much sadness.”

  “That’s why he’s here,” he says to her in English. He looks at me and asks, “No es cierto?”

  “Si. Perdí mi amor. Mi alma.”

  Mercy chokes back a sob.

  “La quiero de vuelta.”

  “He lost his love,” Asshole translates. “His soul. He wants her back.”

  She nods and steps forward until our bodies are flush. She pushes up on her toes and pulls my face closer to hers before she dips and puts her lips to my ear. “I love you.” Her lips brush against my neck, a hidden kiss placed on the tattoo of the Virgin Mary. “This ends tonight.” Her words are slow and slurred, and just when I think she’s going to walk away, she moves to my other ear. “Don’t leave me here.”

  Hidden from view, I grip the fabric of her dress at her stomach, bunching it tightly. Her hand grips mine, and I discreetly slide her ring back onto her finger. She gasps but doesn’t pull away.

  I drop my chin so my lips brush her temple, where I whisper, “Never.”

  She backs away, and I’m forced to release my hold on her. She balls up the hand with the ring as if she’s trying to protect it and tucks it into the sleeve of her gown.

  When she steps away, the daze I’m in clears and I realize we’re running out of time. What the fuck am I going to do to get her out of here unnoticed? If I take out the big man here, his men will come running in. Who knows how many more he has outside of the two who escorted us in here.

  I have one more weapon at my disposal. It won’t be enough to kill but enough to slow someone down so I can get Mercy out of here safely. That’s my only hope.

  When this is over, I’ll take out the muscle then run and hunt the premises for Mercy.

  Mercy

  I’M SWIMMING AGAINST the current of my mind. The drugs in my system tell me to relax, not to care that Milo is here, that he found me. They tell me it’s no big deal, but my heart screams against the dulled reaction. My soul reaches through the haze, and I cling to that fight. Papa walks me to the red velvet chair and I slump, feigning exhaustion while my body hums with energy.

  Papa faces the people in the room. Even though I can’t see Milo well, I feel him watching me. The speech Papa gives in venom-filled Spanish is no doubt meant to instill fear to ensure their silence. I pick up on words like “death” and “punishment.” When the door at the back of the sanctuary opens, the light shines in my face, but this time, I avoid looking away. I welcome the energizing sting to my eyes, the awakening of my blood, and I bring myself to sitting as I watch them file out of the room.

  The tall shadow at the end of the line is Milo. I imagine he’s looking back at me, trying to communicate something that my weak vis
ion can’t pick up. All too soon, the door closes behind him and Papa is lifting me to my feet and guiding me back to my room.

  I pretend the drugs have made me sloppy, and I stumble through the passageway only to collapse onto my bed.

  “You were wonderful tonight.” He turns his back to close and lock the door.

  I slip my hand beneath the long skirt of my gown and reach between my thighs. “Thank you, Papa.”

  “I wanted to start you off with a smaller group. Next time, there will be more.” He’s closing the bookcase and reaches into his pocket for the device that seals it.

  I pull the blade from my thigh and move quickly, silently. He turns just in time to catch me, but not soon enough to stop the arc of my arm. “Yes, Papa.”

  He doesn’t move fast enough. I bury the blade into his throat. A gruesome spray of blood bathes my face and arm. His eyes go wide, and he falls back against the shelving. I back up, fearing he’ll grab for me, but he fumbles at his neck, trying to pull the knife free.

  A gurgling sound comes from his mouth, along with a river of blood.

  “It was the only way,” I whisper as his body drops hard to the floor, unmoving.

  I step close to see a large pool of red crawling out beneath him, getting bigger and bigger by the second. His mouth is open as blood spills from his lips, but there is no movement. I pull a set of keys from his pocket, and when he doesn’t react or respond at all, I’m hit with the reality of what I’ve done.

  I am a murderer.

  Pushing back against the dizzying effects of the drugs and adrenaline, I scamper to the hallway door. There are multiple locks and even more keys. My hands shake as I try each one, hoping Milo hasn’t left yet and that I’ll be able to find him. Time is running out. If I don’t get to Milo before he leaves, I’ll be stuck here. Once Papa is found, I’ll most certainly be killed.

  Milo

  AFTER BEING ESCORTED into the holding room outside of the sanctuary, I’m still vibrating with anger and impatience. The group is quiet, but judging by the smiles and less tension-filled expressions, I’d say everyone is happy with what they got and hopeful for their future. Everyone but me. I’ve yet to get what I came for.