Cruel Mercy (Book 2)

by Lola StVil

  Another angel stands waiting for the typed documents, and once they arrive, floating through the air to him, he waves his hands and they all land neatly in the filing cabinet behind him. I can barely drag my eyes away from them.

  “This is the right place,” RJ confirms.

  The team start walking towards a large rolling door opposite the one we drove in through, and I follow. I am expecting a bare brick building with barred windows and a barbed wire fence.

  What I am not expecting is what I see. A large green field stretches out before me. The field is full of angels. Most of them are engaged in various games of Runner Ball, either playing or watching and cheering the teams on.

  Some just sit around either alone or in small groups. Some run tracks.

  It looks like a large-scale version of a school sports day, only it’s for angels.

  Behind the field stands a tall glass building. I can see angels inside looking out at the field of activity. The building looks like an apartment complex from the future.

  I can see the irony of the name Bliss now. This place looks like a dream existence, but because the angels here can’t leave, it’s anything but blissful for them.

  I wonder briefly how they stop them from just walking off the field and leaving. I can’t spot any fences or enclosures, just a thick red line that I assume is the boundary line.

  I don’t have to wait long to find out. An angel runs a fair distance from the others, chasing a runner who moves as fast as the wind.

  The runner crosses the boundary line and the angel tries to follow him. As his foot touches the line, there’s an audible bang and a flash of blue light. The would-be escapee flies through the air and lands hard back on the Runner Ball pitch.

  The angel’s teammates gather around him as the other team celebrates their victory. I can smell singed hair in the air.

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “It seems so, well, peaceful.”

  “It’s not like a prison in the human world,” Milo explains. “The closest I can come to describing it is like a rehab facility. The staff here work hard to get angels that have strayed onto a bad path back onto a good one. It can take years but they don’t give up on them. They believe all of them can be saved.”

  I nod. That much I understand.

  “So where are the cells?” I ask.

  Milo points at the apartment complex.

  “There,” he says. “That stuff that looks like glass is actually called Dune. It’s like glass, except it’s unbreakable. Where you can see the angels inside, they aren’t there by choice. They are being held in their cells because they caused some form of trouble when they were let out into the field. The Dune is enchanted in a way that means no angel has ever escaped their cell.”

  I scan the field as we begin walking towards the tower block.

  “I can’t see Dylann out here. Does that mean she’s caused trouble and ended up in a cell?” I ask with a shudder.

  “She’ll be held in a cell until the intake process is complete,” Milo explains. “Once she’s correctly processed, she’ll be allowed into the field.”

  We reach the field and begin making our way across it, dodging around Runner Ball games in the process.

  “They all have halos,” I say, surprised I didn’t notice the rings of white light around each angel’s head.

  “Actually, they’re called bars,” Milo says.

  Before he can go any further, two angels sidle up to us.

  “Well it’s about time you ended up here,” one of them says, laughing cockily. He raises his voice to a loud shout.

  “Everyone, look who we have here. Phoenix! Even being taken in by a king couldn’t stop you from ending up where you deserve to be.”

  “That’s enough,” Lucas says, his voice low and dangerous.

  A small group gathers around us and keeps pace with us as we walk. They hurl various insults at Nix. The team all fire insults back.

  “What’s this all about?” I whisper to Ryder in between shouting at the angels around us.

  “A lot of people think Nix should be in here because of who his father is,” Ryder replies.

  “So, they think someone innocent should be locked away because of something his father did? That’s a pretty screwed-up way of looking at the world.”

  “Is it?” Ryder asks. “Because from where I’m standing, Nix isn’t what you would call innocent.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I just keep walking. There’s some truth to Ryder’s words, but locking someone up before they do anything wrong, simply because his father was evil, seems harsh to me.

  I feel a swell of pride as the team defend Nix. Even though only Parker seems ready to forgive what he did, he’s still one of us when it comes down to it, and we’ll still defend him.

  “I get caught with one gram of CP and end up here. And you? You get to go free,” a woman snarls at Nix, her voice dripping with disgust. “How is that justice?”

  Nix shifts awkwardly. He starts to lower his head, the shame clear to see on his face. I slip my hand into his and squeeze it. He looks at me and I shake my head.

  “Don’t give them the satisfaction,” I say.

  He understands me, and keeps his head held high, his eyes fixed on a spot directly in front of him. I keep my hand in his.

  “And look who he’s with,” another angel says.

  “The untouchable Summit Case.”

  “Yeah, she’s not all that obviously. Hasn’t her sister just been booked in?”

  I force myself to do what I’ve just told Nix to do and stare straight ahead.

  We’re almost at the building when an angel comes running at us from the front. His face is twisted in an angry sneer and he’s shouting something I can’t make out.

  He doesn’t slow down as he approaches us. The white circle, what was it Milo called it? The bar? It turns from white to a dark, stormy grey color.

  The angry angel rushes towards Nix. Nix drops my hand and pushes me behind him. RJ steps in front of Nix and me, squaring up to the angel. The angel pulls back his fist and his bar turns blue.

  My mouth drops open as I watch the angel get dragged into the air by some unseen force and hurtled towards the tower. He flies towards it, and I cringe, waiting for his inevitable death as he slams into the building. It doesn’t come. Instead, his body is pushed through the Dune. He stands at the front of the cell, looking out at us, banging his fists off the glass, his mouth moving, still hurling a string of insults we can’t hear.

  The rest of the heckling angels back off a bit when they see what happened to their friend.

  “And now you know what a bar does,” Milo says.

  “I do?” I say.

  I have no idea what just happened.

  “The bar is a way of controlling the prisoners. When it’s white, it means everything is normal. If it goes grey, it serves as a warning that the person is becoming angry and may act out. If they then display violent tendencies, the bar turns blue. Once that happens, it pulls the prisoner into a cell.”

  I nod. I think I get it.

  How can Dylann be in a place like this? She isn’t like the other angels here. She’s just a kid who made a mistake.

  We reach the building with no further incident. As we step inside, I’m shocked at how much bigger it is than it looks from the outside. A large desk sits in an open foyer, and from there, what looks like hundreds of corridors twist away. A bank of elevators sits to our left.

  We approach the desk, which is manned by a Quo.

  “I’m here to see my sister. Dylann Case,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t look up. He types something into the computer in front of him and then waves his hand in the air. It causes a small red flash, and seemingly from nowhere, a woman appears.

  She is large and wears a stern expression.

  “For prisoner number JG555489,” the Quo says.

  The woman looks us up and down.

  “That prisoner hasn’t completed intake ye
t. She isn’t entitled to visitors,” she says as she turns to leave.

  I give the team a pleading look.

  Lucas steps forward.

  “Please. Just let us have ten minutes with her,” he says, all charm.

  She looks him up and down, still not budging.

  “I could always get orders from my father,” he says, trying to play hardball.

  The woman rolls her eyes.

  “You can have three minutes. And only three,” she snaps. “Follow me.”

  I throw Lucas a grateful smile as we follow the woman down one of the corridors.

  “My name is Virginia West. I’ll be your guide for today,” she says in a singsong voice, followed by a mean-spirited laugh that’s more of a cackle.

  “Not in the mood for jokes, huh?” she says.

  I want to tell her of course we’re not in the mood for jokes, she has my sister a prisoner, but something tells me if I get on the wrong side of her, she’ll take it out on Dylann.

  Virginia pushes a door open and steps through. She turns back to face us.

  “Single file,” she orders. “The cells here allow the prisoners to reach their hands outside of their cells. It makes it easier for us to process them quickly. But we don’t know exactly what some of them are in for yet, and some of them might be dangerous. You stay in the center where they can’t reach you.”

  We follow her instructions and she turns away again and starts walking. I am right behind her, and I finally get up the courage to ask what I want to know.

  “How long will you be keeping Dylann here?” I ask.

  Hands reach out of the cells, groping towards us. Some of the prisoners cry and beg us for help. Others heckle at us. One large terrifying looking man catches my eye and runs his hand across his throat, threatening to kill me.

  I feel Lucas, who walks behind me, take a step towards him and I grab his wrist. He looks up at me and I shake my head. With a sigh, Lucas relaxes his taut muscles and drops back into line.

  “She won’t be getting out of here anytime soon,” Virginia says.

  “Huh?” I say. “But she hasn’t had a trial. She doesn’t even have a lawyer.”

  Virginia snorts out a laugh. “It doesn’t work that way here, honey. No one here gets to avoid punishment because of some slick guy in a suit. She’ll be here until she is back on the right path. It usually takes around twenty to twenty-five years for addicts.”

  She says it so casually that I think she’s joking, but the laugh doesn’t come.

  “There must be another way,” I say quietly.

  Virginia shrugs, her large shoulders moving up and then down again like a bear’s.

  “The only other way is to get a pardon from the Kon.”

  I don’t have time to ask her anything else because she stops so abruptly I almost walk into her.

  “Three minutes,” she reminds me. She gestures in front of herself and walks away.

  I step forward. Dylann sits on a hard stone shelf that’s raised a couple of inches higher than the floor. She rocks gently back and forth, her eyes fixed on the wall. She doesn’t look up.

  “Dylann?” I say quietly as the others gather around me.

  She finally looks towards me. When she sees us, her face lights up and she jumps to her feet and runs to the front of her cell. She reaches her hand out and I squeeze it.

  “What happened, Dylann?” I ask.

  “How could you be so stupid as to take CP, and with your family history?” Ryder snaps.

  The others murmur agreement.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” I say.

  “You know I could have helped you get off the drugs,” Parker says softly.

  “Why did you take them in the first place?” RJ puts in.

  “I’m not an addict,” Dylann responds.

  “The first step to getting clean is admitting to yourself you are an addict,” Milo says.

  Dylann actually smiles at that.

  “But I’m not,” she says, serious again. “The CP they found on me wasn’t mine. Of course, they don’t believe that, but it’s true. I was keeping hold of it for someone.”

  She looks down at the floor, watching her toe draw a line in the dirt there.

  “Actually, I was holding onto it so that someone couldn’t get to it.”

  “Who?” I demand.

  “A guy from school,” Dylann admits. A dreamy smile comes over her face.

  “He’s a Quo. He’s kind and sexy, and he makes me feel alive. Like really alive. I…I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

  We all look at each other. I can see my own feelings of sympathy and worry on the faces of the team. It sounds like Dylann has fallen hard for someone who isn’t going to be good for her. We’ve all been there, I think bitterly.

  “He can’t be that great, or he’d be down here telling the guards the truth about the CP,” RJ says.

  Dylann shakes her head.

  “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “Dylann, who is he?” I ask again.

  “His name is Davis Baker. Do any of you know him?”

  We all shake our heads.

  “He’s a really nice guy. He just fell in with the wrong crowd and couldn’t see how to break away from them. I was helping him…”

  She trails off.

  I squeeze her hand.

  “I’m so sorry, Dylann,” I say. “We’re going to sort this whole mess out and get you out of here, okay?”

  Dylann nods and smiles at me.

  “And when we do, I need you to promise me that you’ll stay away from this Davis guy. He’s bad news.”

  She pulls her hand out of mine and backs into her cell. Her smile is replaced with a steely determination.

  “I can’t do that,” she says.

  “Why not?” I ask, angry.

  “We’re angels, remember? Helping others is what we do. And I can’t just stop now because I got into a little bit of trouble.”

  “It’s prison, Dylann. That’s not a little bit of trouble,” Parker says.

  RJ says, “This might not seem like a big deal now. Hell, it might even seem fun. We’ve all had the prison fantasy…”

  “RJ,” Lucas scolds him, glaring at him before he can finish.

  “You touched a nerve there, RJ,” Ryder says.

  “Is that what you think about late at night when you’re alone, Lucas? You and Nikki as a guard and a prisoner? Or is it you and Summit? Maybe all three of you.”

  I feel myself blush but I don’t bite.

  “Can we focus here, guys?” I say. “My baby sister is in prison because of some random addict, if you remember.”

  “Sorry,” says Ryder, but he’s still grinning.

  “I might be your baby sister, Summit, but I’m not a baby,” Dylann says, and all attention switches back to her.

  “Dylann—” I start.

  “And Davis isn’t just some random guy. He’s a friend, more than a friend. I love him. And the one thing our parents taught me is to fight for love. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  I’m lost for words.

  Dylann looks at each of us in turn.

  “Not one of you can say you haven’t done some crazy things for love.”

  She’s right there. But this? Would any of us have gone this far?

  I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m pretty sure I’d have done this for Lucas. But Dylann is so young. I can’t just stand by and watch her throw her life away. I won’t let that happen.

  “Dylann,” I say.

  Virginia comes barreling back up.

  “Time’s up,” she announces.

  We don’t move.

  Virginia rolls her eyes and touches her hand to the front of Dylann’s cell. As I look at Dylann, trying to think what I can say to get through to her, I see the glass beginning to mist over. It’s becoming solid, opaque. Our time really is up.

  Just before the glass is completely white, Dylann speaks up.

  �
�I’m sorry, but I know Davis can get clean with my love and support. And I won’t turn my back on him. If you getting me out means I can’t see him anymore, then I’m gonna stay right here.”

  I’ve failed everyone. The team is barely speaking to Nix after his confession, which he only made because I said there shouldn’t be any more secrets between us. Milo is going to get his heart broken because I haven’t been able to convince him to stay away from RJ. It doesn’t help that RJ seems to enjoy the attention, completely oblivious to what’s actually going on.

  Dylann is in jail because I couldn’t find five minutes to talk to her. And Lucas silently hates me because he thinks I’ve betrayed him.

  So yeah, all in all, it hasn’t been a good few days.

  I couldn’t stand to sit in the lounge with the team any longer as we all rehashed our frustration at Dylann. If she’d have just agreed to not see Davis anymore, it might have been enough to convince the authorities she was “cured.” But of course, she vows she won’t stay away as long as he “needs” her help.

  Part of me wants to shake Dylann, to make her see this Davis guy is bad news. But a small part of me admires her. I can’t help but be impressed at the lengths she will go to for love.

  But is it worth it? All her life our parents taught her to fight for love and protect the innocent? If it’s meant to be, would it be a fight? And if Davis really is innocent, how did he even get started on the drugs to begin with?

  The frustrations of the team and those thoughts swirling in my head were too much, so I escaped to the kitchen for a moment to myself.

  I turn the tap on and let the cold water run over my hands and wrists. The cold feels good against my skin and I stand that way for a second.

  I feel myself jump when I finally turn the faucet off and turn around, coming face-to-face with Lucas. I didn’t even hear anyone come in.

  “You know, you’ll get yourself killed letting yourself be distracted like this.” Lucas grins.

  “I have moves you’ve never even seen,” I counter.

  “I bet you do.” He winks playfully.

  At the same moment, we remember we’re not supposed to be this easy together anymore. I shuffle my feet uncomfortably.