by Rie Warren
As soon as I pulled out of Mercy, she sprawled completely flat-out on the bed.
I chuckled at her sated appearance, quickly discarding the condom.
Then I joined her to scoop her into my arms.
Did that whole big spoon/little spoon thing with the woman of my dreams.
“Okay, cher?”
She nodded, but I needed to see her face.
I started to regret getting so carried away with her.
Rising up to my forearm, I tilted her head toward mine. “Was I too rough?”
A warm blush pinked her cheeks. “No. It was good. You just plumb wore me out.”
Bien.
That I could live with.
I kissed her gently. “Want the light on or off tonight?”
“Off.”
“You sure?”
She nodded again and snuggled back up to me.
****
A rustling noise and a softly voiced cursed woke me up. It was still dark, and I reached beside me. The bed was empty, no sign of Mercy. Going from groggy to immediately alert, I flicked on the bedside lamp.
Mercy stopped in her tracks, her hand on the doorknob. She was dressed in her old clothes, carrying the scuffed, too-big boots in one hand.
“What’s going on?” I jumped from the bed.
Eyes too big, face eerily pale, she moved a couple paces away from the door. “I’m going back to the White Lair.”
Breath whistled out of me like I’d just been sucker punched in the gut. “You what?”
“Look, Angel. This was just an escape. Something fun.” She started talking faster, filling the air around us with excuses. “But I’m not really a fairytale, knight-in-shining armor type of girl.”
“Fun? That’s what you call this? Bullshit!” From fully asleep to scared shitless in just a few seconds, I yanked on my jeans.
I marched right up in front of her.
“I’m going. You can’t stop me.” Brittle hardness crept into her eyes.
I felt like all the breath had been sucked from my body. “Why?”
“What kind of life is this?” Her hand flew about. “Being watchful all the time. You thinking you have to protect me constantly. I’m putting you and everyone else in danger!”
“What kind of life is that? With them?”
“You’re not allowed to judge me.” She turned even paler.
“Not goddamn judging you, Mercy. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.”
Hopelessness and helplessness settled deep in my heart.
“Maybe you could never understand me.”
“That’s not true.” I pulled a breath through my rattling chest, hands lifting to bring her to me.
But she flinched back.
The hot sting of tears prickled my eyes. A fucking dagger went right through my heart. The pain was so damn bone deep I wanted to keel over.
I’d lost her.
It was over.
She was really leaving.
Voice rasping, I begged, “At least take the stuff I got you. For fuck’s sake, at least take the boots and the blade.”
“They’ll just think I whored myself out for gifts,” she said with such sad fatality I rocked back as if punched.
I watched, even more shattered, as she stepped into the old boots she’d shown up in.
“Will you call me if you need something? You still have my number?”
“Sure,” Mercy lied straight through her teeth.
I could tell.
Throat bobbing with each hard swallow, I nodded. Pressing my lips together, I opened the door for her.
Passing by, she looked up at me like she wanted to say something.
I saw a glint of tears in her eyes too.
She started down the stairs.
I followed right behind her.
The bar had closed down for the night, but the front was open. I walked woodenly outside, into the night.
Sol, closing down his grill, whispered, “Where she be going?”
I couldn’t answer him.
Mercy stopped and turned to me. I wanted to close my eyes against the sight of her.
I wanted to soak in every last second with her.
“We had some good times, didn’t we?” Her voice shook.
I almost couldn’t answer.
Blinking rapidly, I managed to say, “Yeah we did, cher.”
Sol hurried over, pushing what had to be a hastily packed parcel of food into her hands.
“Thank you, Sol.” Her voice quavered some more.
He frowned deeply, laying a leathery brown hand on her arm. “Mizz Mercy, mebbe if’n you stay a little longer—”
“Leave it, Sol.” If I couldn’t convince her, no way in hell could he. “She’s going and she’s not coming back.”
“Be safe, petite mamzelle.”
She dashed tears away from beneath her eyes while I stubbornly refused to cry.
Then she hurried away. Down the street. Just like the first night I’d ever seen her.
How could that have been just a week ago?
She left me alone.
All alone with this pain inside. It was gonna kill me.
But not before I decimated her entire rotten-to-the-core, shit-bag family.
Chapter Twelve
MERCY
THE TEARS CAME MORE heavily—pouring out of me in a flood—the farther I ran away from Angel. He was too strong to be broken, but I wasn’t. He’d get over me, but I would carry him in my soul forever.
Ned had given me no choice.
Stay with Angel, and I’d be responsible for more danger, more damage.
I ran, for Angel, the other biker men, and the girls I’d deserted at the Lair.
Spending those last few hours with Angel . . . I’d wanted him inside me completely, the way we were supposed to be. I’d needed that connection, knowing it would be the last time. My final taste of him, and I’d wanted it all. Something to remember him by, to get by on.
I could still feel him on my body.
I knew that would fade, as would every other hope and dream I’d foolishly imagined.
A fairytale.
So stupid.
Part of me wished I’d never gotten mixed up with him. Thinking I could have things I couldn’t. Things like life. And love.
I’d hardly been able to hold it together during the goodbye I’d wanted to avoid, because I knew the torment I caused him.
Using my old T-shirt, I chased the tears off my face when I slipped inside the main structure of the Lair.
Ned alone sat in the deserted space lit by bare bulbs.
“Came to your senses, did ya?” His crusty voice mirrored the slovenly surrounds of the bar that fronted the dope and prostitute trade.
“I’m back, aren’t I?” I glared straight ahead.
“Don’t get uppity now.”
“I’m going to bed.” I started walking past him to the back door, but he grabbed my wrist hard.
“Make sure you do. And don’t you ever fucking pull a trick like that again.”
I yanked free and escaped.
Out back I barely had the energy to greet Pit and Bull who whined pitifully before I headed to my hovel.
Home sweet home.
Not.
Shutting the creaky door, I slid against it ’til my butt hit the floor. I wouldn’t cry now. The tears were all dried up.
I only shuffled out of the way when there was a light tap on the door. The knocks came in a recognizable rhythm—Grace’s signal.
She had a litter of bruises across her upper shoulders, visible in the thin tank top she wore. Her wild black curly hair that used to be so full and lustrous hung lackluster, her hazel eyes dimmer than before.
My heart broke for her, but she came to me with equal concern.
“Oh, sugar.” She cupped my face in her hands. “I thought you’d made it out for good.”
“Not this time. Never again.” Squirreling from her grasp, I inspected the contusions on
her torso. “What did they do to you?”
She laughed suddenly, and some of her lightness shone through. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“We could take it on the road even.” I tried for mirth I didn’t feel.
Then I remembered the package Sol had slipped me.
Even through the sack, mouthwatering smells drifted to me.
I was surprised Uncle Ned hadn’t snatched the small bundle of food.
His loss.
Grace’s gain.
I handed her the battered paper bag. “Pass this out to the girls as soon as you can. And don’t forget to eat something yourself.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t matter anymore, Grace. But I’ll do everything I can to help y’all. I promise.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she let me quietly shoo her back to her own concrete box.
As soon as she was gone, I crawled—fully clothed—onto my cot. I pulled a threadbare blanket to my hips and wished for oblivion to find me.
****
I didn’t escape to oblivion, only to a restless sleep punctured some hours later with a sharp piercing to my arm.
Bolting upright, I scratched at my attacker.
Cousin Ricky.
He sat beside the cot and caught my flailing arms. Sunlight razed in from the half open door.
“Stop strugglin’ or you’ll fucking wish you had, bitch.” He snarled in my face, the scent of chewing tobacco turning my stomach.
“Gonna give you a nice dose of the good stuff, cousin Mercy. Set you to rights again.” His tone turned soothing.
He retied the rubber tubing around my bicep.
And I let him.
What did it matter now?
The oblivion I wanted was within reach.
“That’s a good girl.” Ricky tapped the underside of my forearm, trying to draw a vein up to the surface.
Soon they’d have to start injecting me between the toes.
After fiddling with the junk and a spoon and a lighter, he prepared the fresh dose in a syringe I could only hope was clean.
The needle went in, and almost immediately I slumped back, every single muscle relaxed.
“Better, ain’t it?” Ricky patted my cheek, his voice sounding multidimensional.
I didn’t wince or flinch or move because I couldn’t.
I was already floating on a different plane where pain just didn’t exist.
Instant bliss relaxed me down to my bones.
It was wrong.
I knew it was bad.
It felt so goddamn good I smiled dreamily and gave myself into the kaleidoscope.
By the second day I was no more than a shadow. A ghost. I didn’t fight the high at all.
I welcomed it.
At least then I had my hazy memories.
Golden imaginings.
A blond man.
An angel. With wings. That could fly me free of this place.
I couldn’t wait for my next fix, which Ricky kept supplying.
I roused enough to get meals on the table and spent the rest of the time wallowing in nothingness.
One night after the last bowl had been scraped clean, Ned shoved back from the table and lumbered toward me where I stood shakily in the back by the tiny range.
Without a word, he towed me to my own private quarters. The ground pitched like swells of the sea under my feet.
“Got a customer for you tonight.” Inside my paltry room, Ned pinched my face between his fingers so I felt all funny and smushy. “Treat him nice.”
He pushed me away, and I fell to my back onto the floor.
But the floor was just clouds by then.
Ned left, a glowering baldheaded vision. And after him, I couldn’t focus on the man who darkened the doorway.
Didn’t want to.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying when he unzipped his pants and pulled out a stiff thing.
But his mouth was moving.
I vaguely wondered how much he paid to use me, and that was it.
He rucked my shirt up, my jeans down, and planted himself between my thighs.
The whole world spun, and I just coasted along on the airwaves.
I coasted away.
To the hills of Tennessee.
To a memory in a small brightly lit shack and a man who danced with me.
The drugs did the trick, taking me away.
Until the pervert slapped me across the cheek and his thrusts sped. “You best act like you’re into it!”
I moaned, not because I was enjoying it, not because I wanted it.
Because he was heavy, and I was pinned down.
That was enough for him I guessed, because I became aware he slithered off me to tuck a flaccid drooping penis into his pants.
I didn’t care.
Wrapped in the colorful cotton wool of my mind, I curled onto my side.
The slimy slide of his semen from between my thighs was the only uncomfortable thing.
I slept or passed out or something only to wake up slightly more lucid at Grace’s insistent signal on my door.
Muttering something, I rolled to my back.
She entered quickly. Closed and locked the door. She took one look at me and ran into the washroom.
I lolled on the bed, lulled by the heroin.
Returning, she undressed me all the way. She swore when she saw the leftover trickle of semen she wiped off. Carefully and gently, Grace cleaned me up just like my blond angel had several times before.
My plan had worked. Since I’d returned, my kin drugged her and the other girls less. They beat her and the other girls less.
As if she read my thoughts, she said, “I’d take a thousand beatings if you’d just stayed away, Mercy.”
“S’okay,” I slurred, a little more conscious.
Huddling close to me, she covered me in her warmth. “There’s something else though.”
I could barely lift my head when she left my side to fetch something.
“I found these right outside.” On the floor, she placed the tan boots and the beautiful knife complete with the leather sheath Angel had bought me.
“Did you see him?” I scrambled to sit, dizziness making my body disjointed.
I brought the items into my lap.
She smiled sadly. She shook her head.
She hugged me tightly. “You keep fighting, sugar. He hasn’t let you go.”
Except he should.
He should forget me.
The door closed behind Grace, and I curled into a ball around the presents. There was no love note. No note at all.
But the boots and the blade said everything.
My guardian angel.
But he couldn’t be.
I hoped to heaven he stayed away from me from now on.
Tears coursed down my cheeks.
It didn’t matter now. Angel wouldn’t want me back. Not like this.
It wasn’t so bad.
I had the knife.
Death would be easier.
I could slit my wrists.
I could find peace.
The following night—at least I thought it was—I was working the bar while the menfolk wheeled and dealed in flesh and drugs. I’d already spilled too many beers while trying to deliver them, so Ned pushed me into the lap of a large, sweaty man.
The nasty pig immediately started groping me, and a drop of his spittle landed on my breast when he discovered my brand.
“That’s nice.” His pudgy fingers ran over the mark, making my flesh crawl. “You brand all your bitches?” he called out.
I was too high to combat his hands. He seemed to have as many arms as an octopus.
“Only the specialest ones.” Ned was a watery silhouette in the distance.
Ricky had given me an extra powerful dose that evening.
The drugs invaded my veins like the creep’s fingers invaded my body.
I squirmed, but that made him even more handsy. Like he t
hought I was into it.
Then I heard the distinct rumble of motorcycles.
A lot of motorcycles.
That could only mean one thing unless my ears were playing tricks on me.
Except Ned recognized trouble too.
He began giving orders, arming up.
I was helpless to stop anything now.
“You’ll be the first to die tonight, Mercy, if’n it comes to that.” Ned threatened from across the bleak room.
Chapter Thirteen
ANGEL
AFTER MERCY LEFT, I was unbearable. I didn’t imagine my mood getting any better any time soon either.
Impossible to be around, I avoided the bar. I stayed away from the tat parlor. I snarled at anyone who dared to talk to me.
Upstairs in my room, I’d opened the dresser drawers housing Mercy’s clothes dozens of times. I thought if I emptied them out—tossed her stuff away—I’d begin to move on.
In the end, I always shoved the drawers shut, her clothes untouched.
I couldn’t get rid of Mercy that easily.
Couldn’t get rid of her at all it turned out.
The third night, I did a wide loop on my Harley around an area I was supposed to be avoiding. Cruising to the mouth of the alley that the White Lair backed up against, I throttled down and cut the engine.
I’d remembered Mercy mentioning something about the two pitbulls, and I’d come prepared.
I threw some of Sol’s ribs over the back wall then quickly scaled to the other side.
The dogs happily munched on the bones, only looking my way when I threw more meat to them.
They weren’t so bad.
Couldn’t say the same about Mercy’s fucked up family.
In the back, there was a whole compound of squat square structures. I crossed the pavement on silent feet, trying to figure out which little concrete box could be Mercy’s.
Then I saw it.
Out of all the ugly desolation of the place, there was one bright spot. A small chipped and cracked terracotta pot with some kind of flower blossoming healthily from within sat beside one of the doors.
I remembered her digging around in the flowerbeds in the courtyard.
That one had to be hers.
I wondered if she was inside.
My heart beat faster.
Under the cover of darkness, I slipped from shadow to shadow to the cement block hut.
