Season of Mercy

by Melissa Storm

  Hunter called her out instantly. “You can’t decide whether or not you’re a princess. You’re sending off mixed signals left and right. How’s a guy supposed to keep up?”

  “He’s supposed to stop trying.” She smiled despite herself, but luckily Hunter didn’t seem to notice as he led the way over to a small truck.

  “This is me. Hop in.”

  At least they wouldn’t be riding in the cruiser this time. That would have done Sofia in for sure.

  “You seem sick a lot,” Hunter said as they both buckled in. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She laid her head against the cool glass of the window. Maybe she would throw up before the night was through.

  “Is it a nervous thing, or do you have some horrible infectious disease I should know about?” Hunter backed his truck out of the parking lot, and they were on their way.

  Sofia began counting down the minutes back to her apartment. Not long now and this night would be over. Tomorrow would also be horrible, but then she could finally be free. Go back to normal. Whatever that was…

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said when she felt his eyes on her.

  “Yeah, you don’t much care for talking. I noticed when you ran away. Been doing a lot of that lately, too, huh? What does that make, three times in one night?”

  Accepting a ride from Hunter had been a huge mistake. She should have walked, even if it took her all night to reach home. She groaned. “What do you want, Hunter?”

  “I already told you what I want. A chance.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “And I already told you, I’m messed up and not looking for a relationship.”

  “You keep saying that, but I also know this isn’t the real you. I’ve met that person, and she’s incredible. She’s the one I want to get to know.”

  “She’s dead,” Sofia answered flatly. “Or at least in a very serious coma.”

  “Might she be revived by true love’s kiss?”

  She opened her eyes and found Hunter staring at her once again—definitely not the safest when it came to driving.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll ask my dog when I get home.”

  He laughed. “You never run out of comebacks, do you?”

  “And you never run out of lines,” she shot back.

  “Then it seems we both have each other figured out.”

  “Seems that way.”

  They drove the rest of the way in a tensely charged silence. When at last they reached Sofia’s apartment complex, she grabbed the door handle before Hunter even had a chance to park.

  But he stopped her from exiting by placing a firm hand on her shoulder, sending a tingling sensation right through her. Why was it such a challenge to get her mind and heart on the same page?

  “I’m not giving up on you. If you ever change your mind about me, I’m just a phone call away.”

  Sofia nodded, mumbled her thanks, then crept away into the night.

  Why was it that Hunter refused to give up on her, but she’d already long since given up on herself?

  An unexpected call from her boss awakened Sofia the next morning. She almost refused to answer. After all, this was supposed to be her day off. And after the night she’d had and what was planned for this evening, there was no way she could cover a shift--even if the store owner begged and offered her holiday pay.

  Sofia forced a cough after putting the phone on speaker. “I can’t come into work today, Jean. I’m not feeling great.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not doing too great, either.” Jean sighed before continuing at an agonizing slow pace. “Sofia… did you know… that your registers… were more than… two hundred dollars off this week?”

  “What? No, I didn’t,” Sofia answered honestly. She’d just woken up and already she had a migraine.

  Jean took a deep, shaky breath on the other end of the line. “There are holes… in our inventory, too.”

  This Sofia did know—and she hated herself for it, especially since she simply couldn’t admit the truth. “I have no idea what happened. I promise I didn’t steal from you.”

  “Well, I know you wouldn’t steal,” Jean said all in one breath before going back to her broken way of speaking. “But somebody certainly… is. Have you… spotted any… suspicious shoppers lately? Anything… out of the ordinary that… I should know about?”

  Sofia shook her head furiously and prayed Jean wouldn’t review the security footage. “No,” she insisted, perhaps too adamantly. “Honestly, there haven’t been that many shoppers at all.”

  Jean let out another beleaguered sigh. “Yes, I know… that, too… I hate to say this…” She sighed yet again. “But you may need… to start looking for another job… I can’t keep… running at a loss.”

  “No!” Sofia was startled by the passion in her own voice. Wolfie lifted his head from his paws and tilted his head in confusion. “Don’t give up yet,” she continued. “I’ll keep an extra careful watch on the store. I’ll put in unpaid overtime. I’ll find a way to keep things going.”

  “I appreciate your… dedication… Sofia. Really, I do… But there might not be… anything we can do…. The mall has been… collapsing… in on itself for years… Everyone shops… online now.”

  Sofia rubbed little circles into her temples, desperately hoping she could coax out a plan to fix everything. “You might be right, but we at least have to try.”

  Jean sighed at least three more times before saying goodbye, and with each resigned expulsion of air, Sofia felt her conviction grow. Things had gotten even worse than she’d anticipated. Her choices were now beginning to take choices away from others. What would Jean do without her store? Sofia had passively watched from the corner as Preeti stole hundreds in merchandise and had apparently also weaseled cash from the register. Jean shouldn’t be the one to pay the price of keeping Sofia’s secrets.

  None of this was fair.

  Sofia had to find a way to set things right and, unfortunately, that would require something she had very little of.

  Money.

  She now had “lost” inventory to replace, a large wolf hybrid to care for, and an unknown number of additional rescues coming her way later that night. She still wanted to repay the pet store for the supplies Blinky had stolen on her behalf, too.

  But her Etsy sales had all but dried up. She wasn’t even covering the cost of materials anymore. If only she had some way of making quick cash, then she could fix everything.

  She stayed in bed for a very long time, weighing her various options. In the end, only one made any sense at all.

  But it scared her senseless. Still, she had to find a way to justify it to herself and then take the plunge. No other options existed. Not anymore.

  Pulling herself to a sitting position, she patted the bed so that Wolfie would jump up and cuddle beside her.

  “Good boy,” she said as she hugged him around the neck. “I did a good thing by saving you, right?”

  Wolfie licked her face, covering it with a fresh sheen of doggie slime. His tail thumped merrily on the mattress.

  “I love you, too, boy.” Sofia laughed, but the mood still felt heavy. “Wolfie?” she ventured. “If something will happen no matter what… Like if someone will do wrong with or without your involvement… but getting involved yourself means you have power you wouldn’t have had, power to do something good… then is it really so wrong for you to intervene?”

  Wolfie didn’t understand. Sofia hardly understood herself.

  She tried to explain it a different way. “People will buy them one way or another. If I sell, then I’ll have the money I need to pay back Jean and the pet store and to help the other dogs. If I don’t sell, then I won’t be able to help. So, what’s the greater crime? If I act, I can help those people and dogs. If I don’t, then I can’t. Don’t you get it?”

  Wolfie barked to show his support.

  “Good boy! So, you do understand…”

  She gave
her canine companion another warm hug.

  “You understand exactly why I need to sell drugs.”

  Unable to wait even a second longer, Sofia wound up at the Ridge well before anyone else in the group. Apparently being fashionably early wasn’t really fashionable at all. But waiting at the bar eased her anxiety somewhat. It was better to be here than pacing around her apartment.

  Finally, at five past eight, D-Man joined Sofia in her waiting. “I hope that’s nothing too strong.” He took a seat beside her at the counter and gestured for the bartender. “Going to need your head on straight for what comes later… Yeah, one Bud Light, please.”

  She stared into the bright red liquid lining her glass and shrugged. “You can relax. It’s just a Shirley Temple.”

  “Virgin, eh?” His cue ball scalp turned pink as he smiled.

  “One-hundred percent,” Sofia said before taking an exaggerated sip from her mocktail. She’d always ordered Diet Coke at bars before, but Hunter had gotten her hooked on Temples at the Miners Pub.

  Had that really only been a week ago? It felt like an entire lifetime. So much had changed, including Sofia herself. Which reminded her…

  “I have a favor to ask,” she said as the bartender slid a tall glass of foamy lager Matt’s way.

  He wrapped both hands around the pint and grinned at Sofia. “What’s up?”

  “I need money.”

  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t actually seem all that surprised. “So, you need a job?”

  The air hung thick around them. What if he said no? Sofia would truly have no options left. She needed this. Needed Matt to understand. “Please.”

  He leaned back in his chair and kicked his heels against its legs. “Let’s see how tonight goes first. I’d hate to think I’m a bad influence on you.”

  “Well, you can’t corrupt the already corrupted,” she said with a frown. “I’m looking forward to tonight being over.”

  D-Man took several large gulps from his beer and shuddered. “It’ll get worse before it gets better. When you see the dogs…”

  “No, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “You’re going to see it, though, unless you plan to do the whole thing with your eyes closed.”

  “Who knows? Maybe I will,” she answered, draining the rest of her drink and wishing for maybe the first time ever that she’d ordered something with a little liquid courage swirled into the mix.

  Sofia ordered another Shirley Temple, and they sat nursing their drinks in silence for the next several minutes.

  “Blinky! Pretty! Over here!” D-Man waved his friends over and greeted them happily. Sofia, on the other hand, felt like a venomous snake ready to uncoil and sink her fangs straight into Preeti. She hadn’t liked helping her steal clothes, but for this girl she hardly knew to steal from her register as well? Yup, that brought out the mama snake in her.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she muttered, slipping off the stool and slithering away. When she returned from the powder room, the rest of the group had arrived and grabbed a pair of tables in the back of the tavern. Sofia squeezed in beside Matt and tried not to wince as he stuck his arm around her. Part of their plan involved making the others think they had become an actual item. That would make it easier to leave unchallenged when the time came to infiltrate the fighting ring.

  “Missed you,” he said, giving her a wet kiss on the cheek.

  “Aww, so cute!” Preeti trilled.

  “So elementary school!” Blinky scoffed. “What’s next, holding hands?”

  D-Man grabbed Sofia’s hand and laced his fingers between hers, waving their joined fists back and forth for all to see.

  “Ridiculous,” Blinky grumbled with an eye roll that ended in a twitching spasm.

  As the night wore on, Sofia became thankful for the constant contact with Matt. Holding his hand kept her focused, kept her nerves in check. A couple hours later, he brought his face close to her ear and whispered, “It’s time. Are you ready?”

  Sofia squeezed his hand in confirmation, and a moment later, both of them were standing on their feet before the group.

  “Me and my lady are going to head somewhere more private. See you lugs later.”

  They both mumbled their goodbyes and took off into the dark night. D-Man had helped retrieve her car from Scarlett’s apartment complex earlier that afternoon, but now she needed to abandon it again and drive with her partner in crime to their pickup location.

  First the cargo vans, then the dogs.

  “Where’d you park the vans?” she asked after they’d shut their doors and settled into Matt’s musty sedan.

  “Not far from here. By a U-Haul store. Shouldn’t take us more than five minutes to get there.”

  They didn’t say much more as they drove toward the rally point. Matt’s nerves seemed to be every bit as frazzled as her own. Neither would feel better until they’d finished their mission and delivered the dogs safe and sound to the old textile factory holding ground.

  Sofia’s heartbeat quickened as she spotted a pair of headlights following them out of the Ridge’s parking lot. D-Man must have seen it, too, because he took several more turns than were needed to reach their location.

  Still, it wasn’t enough.

  When they parked, the other car parked with them. And Preeti emerged from the driver’s seat with a triumphant smirk. “I knew you two were full of crap. Now tell me what’s really going on.”

  Sofia wanted to scream. Preeti’s ambush was not part of the plan. They hadn’t even begun the rescue and already it had gotten mucked up.

  “I’m not going away until you tell me why you’re creeping around like a couple of characters from Scooby Doo,” Preeti said as she crossed her arms and stared both of them down.

  “Preeti, go away. Seriously, get out of here,” D-Man hissed.

  But the caramel-skinned girl dug her heels in with a dramatic huff. “No way! If you’re going to have some fun, I want to be a part of it, too. So stop holding out on me and cough up the deets.”

  D-Man glanced toward Sofia, who glowered at Preeti.

  “Not going to spit it out? Well, fine, that’s just fine.” Preeti pulled a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from her purse and shook one out.

  Nobody said anything as she lit the Marlboro and lifted it to her lips.

  “You want to wait? I’ve got all night, but it seems like you have someplace to be, and it isn’t some roach-infested love nest, so don’t try to pull that one over on me again. You may have fooled the others, but not me.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Sofia blurted out, unable to control her mounting rage for even a moment longer. She thought of Jean’s call earlier that morning, of Preeti greedily stuffing stolen garments into her bag, of her standing between them and the dogs who needed to be rescued now.

  Preeti simply smiled between slow drags on her cigarette.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing? Do you know who you’re hurting?” Sofia clenched her fists at her sides, and it took all her muster to keep them there.

  “No, and that’s the point. I won’t know until you tell me.” Preeti spoke slowly as if Sofia were her intellectual inferior, all the while wearing her hideous grin.

  Sofia couldn’t remember ever hating anyone this intensely. Not even Celeste and Allie back in her school days when she’d been little more than a victim. Well, Sofia was all grown up now, and unwilling to stand for anyone’s crap. She’d had more than enough now. Sofia grabbed the burning cigarette from Preeti’s fingers and stomped it into the ground.

  “Hey, that wasn’t cool!” Preeti had murder in her eyes that Sofia was sure matched her own.

  D-Man thrust himself between the two women, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “Both of you, stop. Just stop!” Turning to Preeti, he said, “If I tell you, then you’re a part of this, too. You have to help and you can’t tell a soul. Not even Blinky.”

  Preeti nodded, and the greed of the forthcoming knowledge flas
hed in her charcoal eyes.

  D-Man took a step back and recounted his discovery of the fighting ring with none of the tears or shortness of breath that had punctuated his words when he first shared it with Sofia.

  “So, you see…” he concluded, “we have to rescue them, and since you just had to know, now you’re a part of this, too. So, are you girls ready?”

  Preeti shrugged, seeming to be completely unaffected by the plight of the dogs or the risk of the mission that lay ahead. “Sounds more fun than wasting the rest of the night at the Ridge. Let’s do this.”

  “Okay, good.” Matt tossed a pair or keys to Preeti, who caught them in one fist. “Sofia and I will take the lead. You take up the rear. It’s about ten minutes from here. I’ll explain the rest once we’re inside.”

  Preeti had the audacity to laugh as she spun the keychain around her index finger. “This will definitely be more fun than the Ridge. Ready when you are.”

  Matt nodded, and Sofia followed him into the waiting van. There would be no turning back now…

  It was time to save some dogs.

  The twin vans pulled up to the old strip mall on Eureka. A vacant storefront sat between a dry cleaner’s and a nail salon. Not a single light illuminated the parking lot as Sofia and her two accomplices clambered out into the open air.

  “Didn’t this place used to be a laundromat?” Preeti’s voice shot into the night like a siren. For being a seasoned criminal, she sure struggled to keep a low profile.

  Sofia groaned.

  D-Man said, “Shut up and take a big, long breath of fresh air while you still can. You’re not going to want to once you get inside.” He fiddled with the lock until it popped open, and the three of them stepped inside.

  Immediately, the aforementioned stench hit Sofia hard in the lungs—a vile combination of excrement, sweat, and blood.