A Merciful Secret

Thoughts of Truman brought her back down to earth, helping her focus, and she sucked in deep breaths, exhaling for long seconds, slowing her heartbeat.

Her cabin could be rebuilt. Some supplies were still safe in the barn.

She opened her eyes and pushed away from the tree, dragging her grit and tenacity up from the very bottom of her rattled soul. She had a mission. A deadly one. She drew her handgun and led with it gripped in front of her, tuning out the sounds of the fire.

Just you and me, Gabriel.

She wasn’t sure of his location. There’d been no explosions for several minutes. Just the roar of the flames. They stretched out of her windows and licked the edges of her roof. Steam rose from the shingles, and she had a stab of regret about the expensive solar panels.

Doesn’t matter.

Concentrate.

On her right she was nearly even with the front of the house, but she didn’t see Gabriel or his vehicle.

Shit. Where are you?

She crouched, scanning her surroundings for any movement. Nothing. She moved from tree to tree, her pace slower, more intent on the hunt. Sweat covered her upper lip, and she brushed it with her sleeve. She holstered her pistol and unslung the rifle from her shoulder.

What if he went after the girls?

Fear blossomed in her lungs. She turned to retrace her steps and search for a renegade path in the snow.

Fire shot through her right thigh, and the report of a gun filled her ears. Looking down, she saw a spray of red had stained the white snow. My blood? She took a step, her leg collapsed, and she fell on her stomach, the rifle flying out of her hands and sinking into the snow.

White-hot pain surged up her nerves and exploded in her brain. “Fuuuuuck!”

She scrambled to lift herself out of the snow, but everywhere she set her hands they sank deep, nearly burying her face. The pain flourished, expanding and multiplying. She gasped, inhaling suffocating mouthfuls of white fluff.

Managing to roll on her side, she stared at the blood seeping out of a hole in her leg. It’s not pulsing. No artery hit.

Gabriel shot me.

Anger radiated through her as she thrashed to look in every direction for her attacker.

I’m as vulnerable as a bird with a fucking broken wing.

She frantically lurched to her feet. Get to the barn. Unable to dig out her rifle, she drew her handgun. Her thigh was a hot, throbbing electric wire, and with every step she nearly blacked out.

The barn was out of the question.

She flung herself at the base of a gigantic pine, its trunk wide enough to stop a truck. Placing her back flat against the tree, she gripped her handgun in front of her, using the tree to support her stance. She erratically swung her weapon from the right to the left, searching for her shooter, ignoring her crooked trail of blood.

If I didn’t know it was mine, I’d think a dying deer had struggled through the snow.

Her vision started to tunnel and she grew light-headed. She blinked rapidly, refusing to give in.

“Hello, Mercy.” His voice came from a distance, but she heard every syllable.

Instant sweat coated her spine at Gabriel’s words. She pivoted in all directions, trying to pinpoint his location. He wasn’t to be seen.

“That’s a lot of blood.”

There he is. He stood thirty feet away, between her and the barn, his body behind a pine as wide as hers.

She lifted her pistol in his direction, trying to line up the sights, but the gun weighed fifty pounds and her arms shook with the effort. Her frozen fingers could barely move. I’ll never make a head shot.

He laughed, not even bothering to protect his head.

Furious, she fired six times, sending the bark of his tree flying through the air.

She slightly lowered her arms, the shots ringing in her ears.

“You missed.” This time he kept his head behind the tree.

“What do you want, Gabriel?” She tried to get behind her own tree, but her leg refused to cooperate, pain rocketing up and down her nerves. Her right knee tried to bend backward and she flailed, grabbing at the trunk, the impact knocking her pistol from her numb hand. It sank into the snow an easy five feet away.

It might as well have been a mile.

Twice I lost my weapon? This time it was her own fault.

A cold that wasn’t from the low temperature ached in her bones as she stared at the small hole in the snow where her weapon had sunk. If I lunge for it, I’ll be stuck.

If I do nothing . . .

At least he probably still believed she had the gun.

I still have a knife.

She settled for partially getting around the tree and sliding to a sitting position, her injured leg straight out in front of her, the other bent. She was still in Gabriel’s view, but now her side was toward him and she made a narrower target. She drew the knife and clenched it to her chest, swearing to never let go. The back of her head dug into the tree, and she wished she could disappear into its trunk. The chill of the snow seeped through her pants, and shivers racked her body. At least I wore my vest.

“I want the whoring witch. Tell Christian I’ll trade you for her.”

“Why Salome?”

“I tried to burn her out. That’s the only way to kill a witch, right?”

The crackle of the flames threatened to make her cry. “She’s not a witch.” Blood continued to flow from her leg, seeping into the snow beneath it. A red shadow lazily grew under the limb, expanding outward through the white. She unwrapped one frozen hand from the knife handle and put pressure on the hole. Blinding fireworks flashed in her eyes, and she fought not to faint.

“Her mother was one. She ruined our family.”

“I don’t think she did that by herself. It takes two, you know.” Her teeth chattered around the words.

“I’d been willing to let it go until I heard the judge was changing his will to leave all his money to her and her spawn.”

He calls his father “the judge”?

Movement off to the right, far behind Gabriel’s tree, caught her eye. Christian. Focusing on her friend took great effort and he blurred, vanishing and reappearing in her vision.

“Was it necessary to kill him?”

“He had to die before he made the changes legal. I need that money.”

“You killed your father for money,” Mercy uttered. “Such a good son.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

“He had it coming! He had no right to abandon his family!”

“And you had the right to kill him for it?”

Silence.

Christian had moved closer, his rifle ready. Farther to his right, Mercy spotted a flash of color between the trees that had to be Salome.

Christian’s angle on his brother must be poor. I know he could make the shot from that distance.

Or does he not want to shoot?

“You don’t want to hurt anyone else, Gabriel.” A point from her negotiating workshop popped into her head. “Don’t make the situation worse than it is. I’ll tell them you backed off when you could have killed me. That’s worth something.”

“Shut up, you lying bitch! I need to end this!”

Distract him. “Why the pattern on the bodies, Gabriel? What were you trying to say?”

“A suitable death for the abomination and her brainwashed lover. I wanted that whoring daughter to know her mother’s powers couldn’t stop me.”

“And Rob Murray?”

Gabriel gave a coarse laugh. “That idiot walked up behind me when I was getting rid of the knife in Christian’s garage. I don’t think he thought it was important, but he might have figured it out later. He didn’t matter.”