As the bateau glided across the water, she peeked over the edge, the fine spray of swamp water misting across her face, and saw that they’d left the open water behind, and were in a heavily shaded finger of swamp, the cypress crowding close, owl-faced raccoons watching them from the banks.
She glanced at Mercy’s face. His concentration was fierce as he weaved the bateau between submerged logs and jutting roots.
If the men with the rifles were following them, they were no longer in sight. And Ava guessed, rather than return straight to Lew’s, they would pursue them, too afraid to let them slip away into the swamp somewhere.
Because that, in fact, was exactly what they did.
Mercy finally slowed the bateau and ran it aground on a mucky stretch of grass. He leapt free, landing ankle-deep in the water, and extended a hand for her to balance against as she jumped down.
They slogged through the water, up onto the sloped shore. Nutria scattered in front of them, giant brown rats, wet and slick.
Mercy gripped her hand tight in his, fingers clamping and mashing hers down. “Stay with me, baby,” he said. “We’ll be alright.”
Ava had no doubt, that had they taken a stroll through this stretch of swamp, she could have found hundreds of things to be afraid of. Snakes, spiders, sleeping gators, dark hollows of trees that looked like men crouched and ready to spring. But this was no stroll. Mercy ran – jogged, really – and he wouldn’t let go of her, towing her along in his wake, the underbrush swaying and slapping at them, a melody to the percussion of her heartbeat. They jumped roots and logs and dodged prickly yucca fronds. Her legs burned and ached. Breathing and keeping upright were her sole focus, the threat of capture receding behind the screen of physical exertion.
When Mercy pulled up, she slammed into his back, grasping at his jacket to keep from falling. He was pointing, she saw, when she’d caught her balance.
Through the last layer of trees, there was a ramshackle building on the water’s edge, a small dock, array of outbuildings. Lew’s.
Mercy took a huge breath, chest heaving. “We need to get to the bike,” he said. “Do you remember the combination to the lock?” When she said it aloud for him, he nodded. “Open the door. I’ll keep watch.”
She nodded, hand closing tight on itself in anticipation. “Do you see anyone out there?”
They both crept forward to peer between the tree trunks.
All was quiet.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Ava felt like a drawn bowstring, all tight and quivering, as they stalked carefully across the property, to the outbuilding. Her hand was slick on the lock as she turned the dial. Click. Door was open.
Mercy pushed the door wide and propped the shotgun against the wall. “Thanks, Lew,” he said, absently. To her: “We can’t carry it on the bike.”
She nodded.
They donned their helmets and swung aboard.
Before he started the Dyna, he reached back and covered her knee with his hand. One silent squeeze that said so much, and brought a lump to her throat.
She leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, wrapped her arms tight around his waist. “I’m with you,” she whispered. “All the way.”
Her first thought, when she saw the white van, was Aidan. Aidan was coming, meeting them. Backup. Salvation.
She felt herself relaxing, the awful tension leaving her arms so she could grip Mercy’s waist without shaking. She touched his shoulder. Look.
His head shifted as he turned to regard the white van, sitting up ahead at the cross street, the only vehicle in sight on this long stretch of bayou road.
He slowed the bike as they neared the van. Closer, closer…
Close enough for Ava to realize she didn’t recognize the driver. Or the passenger.
Not Aidan.
She saw the driver window roll down.
She clutched Mercy’s shoulder.
He cranked the throttle the same moment she saw the gun emerge from the window.
She couldn’t hear the shot. She felt it, as it ripped into Mercy, the reverberation moving through him, and then her. The hard shudder of his large body within her arms.
It was like he got slapped. The bike wobbled, dipped. He wrestled for control of it.
And then he got hit again, another shock wave passing through the both of them.
The bike slowed, slowed, slowed…
There was the van, looming up on the left. Then veering over into them.
Ava felt Mercy’s hand covering both of hers where they were linked over his stomach. In one fast move, he pried her fingers loose from one another, and shoved her backward, throwing his shoulders into the movement, heaving her from the bike.
It all unfolded in slow motion after that.
Ava closed her hands on empty air. She felt her body break away from everything solid: no strong back for her chest, no waist for her arms, no seat for her backside. No bike, no Mercy. Just the empty sapphire sky yawning above her, welcoming her, the sun beating down on her. She floated. She flew. Suspended in the sultry Louisiana morning, staring up at heaven, she felt the tiny beads of sweat rolling down her back, trickling between her breasts, gathering at her temples beneath the helmet.
He’d thrown her free of the bike. He wouldn’t take her with him, as he went the final distance. He wouldn’t accept her embrace, here at the end.
You’re falling, stupid! a voice screamed inside her head. Falling. Yes, falling…like the title of the story she’d written. Falling. She was a club girl, born and raised. She knew how to fall off a bike properly.
She closed her eyes and twisted, her body torqueing through the empty air as she pulled up into a ball, and presented the pavement with her left shoulder.
The impact was unlike anything she’d ever felt. She heard her helmet crack against the asphalt. It was like her shoulder exploded, shattering into a thousand fractured bits, and its echoes passed through her in waves that pushed her to the edge of consciousness, the black flickering through her head, her closed eyes. Her lungs and stomach contracted. She made an awful sound that hurt her ears.
She forced her eyes open as she felt herself turn over. She was rolling. Blue sky, black pavement, sky and then pavement again. Her arms and legs tossed limply. She felt like a toy in the hand of a giant, chucked across the street.
And then she stopped, face-down, still awake, unable to breathe.
She heard the squealing tires and the crunching metal and the thumping of car doors.
Mercy.
With a desperate gasp for breath, she heaved herself up, not stopping to interpret the damage to herself. Her left hand refused to move, so she rolled onto her side with the aid of the right, and blinked to clear her fuzzy eyes, struggling to interpret the scene before her.
The van had cut the bike off, and the Dyna lay on its side next to the van. Mercy was on his back, sprawled across the pavement. He wasn’t moving.
Three men had exited the van, and were walking toward him. One had sunlight in his golden, wind-tossed hair.
Larsen. It was Jasper Larsen, getting his revenge at last.
**
Fourteen Years Ago
The smell of rain woke her. Ava turned her head toward the window and breathed in deep the earthy scent of fresh rain, feeling the breeze stroke her face, hearing the soft shushing of the window lifting.
Her eyes opened. Backlit by the street lamp, she saw the window yawning open, silver flecks of rain falling in on top of her desk. And she saw the black shapes of two men climbing into her room.
She screamed.
The men, picking their way carefully so far, clambered over the window ledge. Featureless in the dark, one loomed over her bed. She smelled rain and sweat on him as his hand covered her mouth.
She bit him.
He let out a startled yelp and raised his other hand; she saw the glimmer of metal. He was lifting a knife.
And then suddenly the second man, down at the foot of her bed, was being s
et upon by a long tall shadow. There was a muffled grunt, a gasp, and then he crumpled with a gurgling sound.
Ava heard Mercy’s voice. “Close your eyes, sweetheart, don’t look.”
She obeyed, screwing them tightly shut.
The remaining intruder cursed and yelled. There were the sounds of a struggle. Slick, metallic sounds, heavy wet sounds, things she couldn’t interpret. She felt the tears seep between her lashes and knotted the blanket in her small fists.
Was Mercy okay? The man had a knife. What if he cut Mercy? What if he hurt him badly?
The tears coursed down her face and she prayed for his safety.
Then she heard a loud thump, like something heavy hitting the floor, and then she smelled Mercy, right up close, the cologne he wore and the leather of his cut and the faint flowers of his shampoo. His huge, warm, familiar hands touched her face. “You okay, fillette? You alright? I took care of it. They can’t hurt you.”
The rough pads of his fingers brushed across her cheeks, wiping at her tears, leaving something warm and wet behind.
She opened her eyes, and saw the dim outline of his face hovering above hers in the shadows, his eyes two glittering points, the streetlamp carving down the high, thin ridge of his nose. She read the concern in him, the warmth and love, no different from that of her parents.
The lights flipped on, suddenly, the brightness assaulting her eyes.
Maggie gasped from the doorway. “Oh my God!”
Mercy pulled back from her, straightening. “It’s okay,” he told Maggie. “She’s fine.”
Ava sat up and she saw the two men on the floor, their wide, staring eyes, like they’d seen something that had startled them. Then she saw the blood. So, so much blood. Seeping onto the pale carpet from the gaping holes in the men’s bellies.
Mercy had blood on his hands, smeared up his arms. He was breathing hard, the fabric of his shirt stretching tight across his chest.
“She’s fine,” he repeated. “They didn’t hurt her.”
**
Present Day
Ava watched the three men close in on her husband, and she realized they didn’t know or care if she was still alive. All their focus was on Mercy. The man who’d taken Jasper’s father and uncle that night in her bedroom, fourteen years ago.
They were going to kill him, right there in the middle of this stretch of road.
That was what they meant to do, anyway. Fourteen years ago, the Larsens had been gunning for her, and never suspected Mercy. Jasper was about to make the reverse decision, and it was going to be just as lethal.
Her left arm wouldn’t lift. Useless. She’d deal with that later. With her right, she fumbled the zipper of her purse open, reached in, curled her hand around the grip of the nine mil Ghost had given her.
Pain exploded through her as she staggered to her feet. She pushed it down. No time for that. Ignore it. Deal with it later. Head spinning, she managed to get both legs straight, and then she was standing, and then she was walking toward the men. Her vision swam, the pavement tilting under her.
She closed one eye.
The scene locked into place, still, able to be aimed at.
She tried again to lift the left arm, wishing she could have its support. But it refused to budge.
One-handed then.
She put the first man in her sights. Took a deep breath…
Bam! He fell forward, dead before he hit the ground, unable to break his fall. His face hit the pavement with a sick sound.
Bam! The second staggered, clutched at his arm, twisted toward her, lifting his own gun. Bam!
Then it was just Larsen, his hair a pale halo in the sunlight, as he turned to stare at her, uncomprehending. He was screaming.
Ava had been walking forward as she shot; a handful of feet separated them.
She emptied the rest of the clip in his face.
All of it over, all three of them dead, in less than five seconds.
Her daddy would have been so proud of her aim.
She realized it hadn’t been Larsen screaming, but her, a high, thin, animal screeching. It was what had baffled Larsen, given her that element of surprise.
She closed her mouth and the sound shut off like a valve had been closed. She couldn’t catch a deep breath, and she needed one badly. Her chest ached.
“Mercy,” she whispered.
She went to him, hitting her knees on the asphalt beside him. “Baby.” She pressed her hand to his chest, his throat. “Mercy. Merc. Felix.”
Blood was soaking through his white shirt in two places. His skin, already pale from the fever, was a shocking white, his lips and eyelids drained of all color. He lay on his back, arms flung wide, his left leg pinned beneath the bike.
She found a pulse, but not much of one, and the rise and fall of his chest was shallow.
“Felix,” she said again, helplessly.
Then she heard the approach of an engine.
**
Aidan was clambering out of the van before it came to a full stop, his gun drawn. The white van, parked at a slant in the middle of the road, had stopped his heart from a hundred feet back. He jogged around the front of it now, Tango scrambling to follow, afraid of what he’d find on the other side of it.
He came to a halt when he saw the muzzle of the Glock aimed at his heart. And then he saw who was on the other side of it.
His sister was on her knees beside the van, Mercy sprawled lifeless before her. She leaned over him, her posture protective, the light in her eyes wild and feral. She was snarling at him, her teeth bared. And her finger was inside the trigger guard.
Three dead men lay scattered. Mercy may have been dead too, for all he knew.
“Shit,” Tango breathed.
Aidan lowered his gun, lifting his free hand palm-up in a nonthreatening gesture. “Ava.” He forced his voice to be calm. “Hey, it’s me. It’s me, hon. Put the gun down.”
She blinked. She sat back. Her left arm hung at an unnatural angle, the shoulder seeming too high. Her jacket was scuffed and torn, helmet lopsided and cracked. “Aidan,” she said, without any recognition.
He eased a step closer. “Yeah. Ava, it’s me. It’s Aidan. And Tango.” He gestured to his best friend. “We’re here. Put the gun down, okay?”
She swallowed. “I had to put the other clip in,” she said, woodenly. “It was hard, with one hand, but I did it when I heard you coming. I used all the other ammo.”
“I can see that.” He glanced at Mercy’s pale face. “You did real good, okay? You got ‘em. Now please, Ava, put the gun down.”
She blinked again, and again. “He’s hurt really badly,” she whispered. “He…” Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “Oh, God…” Her gun hand dropped, limp, onto Mercy’s chest.
Aidan knelt down beside her, reached to feel Mercy’s pulse. It was there, but he needed to get to the hospital ASAP.
“It’s okay,” he told Ava, as she bowed her head and her tears splatted down onto Mercy’s ruined jacket. “You’re okay, he’s okay. It’s fine.”
He turned to Tango. “Call 9-1-1 and get Grady over here,” he said of the NOLA member who’d driven them out. “We’ve got to get rid of them” – gesture to the bodies – “before the ambulance gets here.”
Fifty
When the EMTs arrived, there was no evidence of the Carpathians or the white van. “I think the blood can be attributed to you guys,” Tango assured her of the splotches on the asphalt where Larsen and his two companions had fallen. Grady and Tango loaded the bodies and went speeding down the bayou road toward Lew’s. “We’re gonna rustle us up some gators,” Grady said, with a wicked grin.
“To feed the bodies to,” Ava explained woodenly to her brother, as they crouched beside Mercy together, in the relentless heat.
Aidan rode with them in the ambulance. Ava kept her hand curled around Mercy’s wrist, counting his slow, shallow heartbeats, until the paramedic urged her back so he could work on staunching the blood flow.
They were taken to University Hospital, because they had a Level 1 trauma center.
Trauma.
Yes, there was trauma.
Ava tried, again, to climb down from the exam table, and Aidan, propped against the doorjamb, lifted his brows in silent protest, like he expected that to hold her in place. She reached for the stepstool below with her socked toes and wriggled to the edge of the table. Fuck Aidan and his eyebrows.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said. “If they don’t have time to pop my shoulder back in, then I don’t have time to wait on them. Mercy–”
“Is in surgery,” Aidan broke in, stepping close so she’d have to shove him out of the way if she wanted off the table. He was counting on her being one-armed and unable to resist. He was being abnormally patient with her, and it was pissing her off. “You can’t do anything for him except get your arm patched up. He’ll be mad as hell if he wakes up in recovery and hears you’ve refused treatment.”
She made a face; that was true, but she didn’t want to admit it.
“Besides, doesn’t it hurt like a bitch?”
She shook her head. The pain had been so constant and nerve-shattering that she’d allowed it to cover her and transform into a vise-like shroud. She didn’t feel the shoulder. She didn’t feel anything. She’d ceased to be anything aside from the worried bundle of anxiety that wanted, needed, to get to Mercy.
“I need to get to him,” she said, gesturing Aidan aside. He ignored her hand signal, of course. “He needs me. I told him I’d be with him. I–”
“Ava.” He put a hand that felt very much like their father’s on top of her head, his face transforming, looking older and wiser, more like Ghost than he already did. “You’re in shock, sweetheart. Bad shock. And you’re not thinking right.”
She started to protest.
“Mercy is in surgery. This is a real nice hospital, and I’m sure the doctors know what they’re doing. All you need to do is wait for them to update you, and get your shoulder fixed. Okay?”
Fearless Page 74
