The Merciless (15 page)

M
y front door creaks open, and I step into the hallway, listening. Silence. Mom isn't out of bed yet. I hold the knob to keep it from clicking and ease the door closed without a sound. I slip my sneakers off and carry them up the stairs so she won't hear my footsteps on the carpet.

I spent the entire walk home debating what I would tell my mom. I want to blurt out the whole story, but Brooklyn's words echo through my head, warning me.
Tell no one.
Besides, if I tell her, she'll just call the cops, and they'll ask questions I'm not sure how to answer. Best to just pretend nothing happened.

I make my way to the bathroom and turn the shower on as hot as it will go. I strip down, and my clothes fall to the floor in a heap of blood and smoke and sweat. I shiver as I stare down at the faded pockets of my jeans, then kick them away from me. I should burn them.

Turning this thought over in my head, I step into the shower—gasping when the hot water hits me. It's painful at first, but as the water runs over my skin, I start to relax. It stings the raw patches of my arms where the ropes rubbed my wrists, and the mangled cuts around my knuckles burn as water soaks the dead skin, washing away clotted blood and dirt. I tilt my head back and fill my mouth with water, then spit it out to get the blood off my teeth and tongue. The water circling the drain is stained a deep, muddy red. I watch it slip away, feeling the horrors of the night disappearing down the drain with it.

Nothing happened
, I remind myself. It was a nightmare, that's all.

Somewhere in the house a door opens, then shuts. I freeze. I wrap my fingers around the shower curtain, trying to remember whether I locked the front door.

“Sofia?” my mom calls. “Are you up already?”

I shut off the shower and hurriedly dry myself off. I don't remember ever feeling so relieved to hear my mother's voice.

“Just taking a shower.” I duck out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, where I quickly change into fresh clothes. I grab a plain white T-shirt, jeans, and my faded gray hooded sweatshirt. Since burning them isn't really an option, I roll my dirty clothes into a ball and shove them all the way to the bottom of the trash can beneath my desk.

I step into the hallway, tugging my sleeves down over my hands so Mom won't see the raw skin at my knuckles. Mom is easing Grandmother's door shut. She glances over her shoulder at me, lifting a finger to her mouth to tell me to keep quiet.

“She's still sleeping,” she says. I cross my arms over my chest, cringing when my torn fingers brush against the fabric of my sweatshirt. My mom cocks her head, considering me.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “It's so early. I'm surprised you're awake.”

I nod. “I'm fine,” I say, but the word cracks in my mouth. Tears pool in my eyes. I try to blink them away, but they spill onto my cheeks. So much for pretending nothing happened.

“Sofia?” My mom crosses the hall and folds me into a hug. For a moment I just let her hold me. The tears come faster, until I'm crying so hard my shoulders shake. Mom smoothes the still damp hair off my forehead.

“Shh,” she says. “Shh, it's okay. Tell me what happened.”

“I . . .” I choke back my sobs and pull away from her, drying my tears with the sleeves of my sweatshirt. “I just heard that a friend of mine committed suicide.” I stare at my bare feet, certain Mom will know I'm lying if I meet her eyes.

“Oh, Sofia.” Mom pulls me to her chest again, resting her chin on top of my head. She rubs a hand over my back in slow, comforting circles. “Honey, I'm so sorry.”

I close my eyes, allowing myself to relax into her. For the first time in days, I feel safe.

• • •

Fifteen minutes later I'm perched on a stool in the kitchen, the heavy smell of French toast filling the air. I actually smile as I breathe it in. Mom's never been the best cook, but she's perfected her French toast over the years. She uses only the thickest, crustiest bread and always mixes brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon into the batter. She takes the frying pan off the stove and slides the toast onto a plate.

“I know it's been hard to make friends,” she says, pulling the maple syrup and butter from the fridge. “And after what happened at your last school . . .” She shakes her head, and under her breath, she mutters, “Such a needless tragedy.”

I shift uncomfortably on my stool and push the French toast around on my plate. I don't want to think about what happened at my last school, not when my wrists are still raw from Riley's ropes. But now that Mom's brought it up, I can't help seeing the similarities. Both times I thought I knew someone, I thought she was my friend, and in the end I was wrong.

Maybe there's a reason these things keep happening to me. Maybe I'm defective.

Mom sets the pan in the sink and crosses over to me, brushing one of my damp curls aside. “But you can't give up,
mija
. I believe in you,” she says. “I know you'll find your way.”

It's the exact right thing to say at the exact right moment, and I blink furiously to keep from crying. Mom places the plate on the counter in front of me, and I cover the toast in a thick stream of syrup. I can't give up.

• • •

I stay awake for as long as I can, but by noon my eyes are so heavy I can barely keep them open. I tell Mom I'm not feeling well and crawl into bed, falling asleep as soon as I pull the comforter up over my shoulders. While I sleep, I dream.

• • •

Riley and I are sitting on the train tracks, passing a bottle of red wine back and forth.
Red-and-orange light bleeds into the sky. Clouds race above us, their shadows flickering over Riley's face. Her skin turns dark, then light again. The ground below us trembles—a train's coming.

“Truth or dare,” Riley says. She looks perfect, like she did the first day I met her. Her hair pools around her shoulders in flawless spirals, her eyebrows arch high above her eyes. Her cheeks burn pink, so glossy she doesn't look real. The strange light makes everything about her glow. She takes a drink, and a thick drop of wine oozes out of the bottle and over her chin.

“Dare,” I say. Riley lowers the bottle, but it's not Riley anymore—it's Brooklyn. Black liner surrounds her eyes, making them look too large for her head. The wine running over her chin thickens. Not wine—blood.

“Why not truth?” she ask. The train's headlight flickers through the trees behind her.

“We have to go.” I stand, reaching for Brooklyn's arm. The train flashes its lights. “Brooklyn!”

I grab her hand, but it's not Brooklyn—it's Karen. Blood drips from her mouth and coats her teeth.

“Why can't you tell the truth?” she asks. The train's horn blares. It sounds like a scream.

• • •

The screaming horn echoes in my head, and I jerk awake. Outside, the only sounds are the wind pushing against the glass in my windows and the low buzz of the cicadas in the grass.

It was just the dream, I tell myself. A nightmare. My eyelids grow heavy, and I'm just about to drift back to sleep when I hear it again—a shrill, terrified scream.

I sit straight up in bed. Hands shaking, I reach over to my bedside table and flip on the lamp. It's getting dark outside. I must have slept all day.

I force one leg out of bed, then the other. I jerk at every shadow, certain it's Riley. But the halls are empty. Downstairs, the front door is closed tight. Everything is still, quiet. Unnerving.

“Hello?” I whisper, but there's no answer. I step forward and open the front door.

Fluorescent red and orange light streaks across the sky. It's that eerie in-between light, neither night nor day. Just like in my dream. I hesitate near the door, wondering if I'm still asleep. Heat presses on my arms and gathers beneath my thick hair. A bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck. This is too real to be a dream.

“Mom?” I say, stepping onto the porch. She should still be awake. It's probably only seven thirty or eight o'clock. But the street in front of our house is eerily quiet—deserted. After what happened last night, I'm more aware of the emptiness. There's no one here to see where I'm going, no one to hear my screams.

I step, barefoot, onto the dry grass. It crunches beneath my weight, poking the soles of my feet.

“Mom?” I call again, making my way around the side of our house. Our driveway curves off the main street and back behind our house, to an old shed. The sun-warmed pavement burns the bottoms of my feet. Insects buzz in the yard, but the sound is so familiar to me that I almost don't notice it.

The red-lit sky casts shadows over the driveway. I move slowly, easing around Mom's giant black SUV.

A shadow streaks across the driveway and I freeze, biting back a scream. Then my eyes focus, and I make out a squirrel crouched beneath a bush. I breathe a sigh of relief.

The smell reaches me first, the same heavy, sick scent I noticed beneath the bleachers on my first day of school. Chicken after a night in the garbage. Fish left in the heat. I picture the skinned cat, and my skin prickles. Trembling, I walk around the car.

There's another sound now, a dripping. My skin pricks, warning me. I should run. Instead, I move closer.

Thick white candles line the sides of the driveway, their wicks flickering in the twilight. A hastily painted black pentagram stretches across the driveway beneath them, and in the middle of the star lies a dark black pool.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I look up.

A human body hangs from the shed, its arms stretched out to either side and tied to the roof gutters with thick rope. The body doesn't look remotely human anymore. Its skin has been peeled back in strips, revealing the pink muscle and blood and tissue beneath.

The only parts of the body that are still intact are its hands and its feet. My eyes hover at its feet. From the feet hang Grace's gold platform sandals.

I gasp and throw my hands over my mouth. Grace's head lolls forward unnaturally, and her lifeless, cloudy eyes stare at the ground. Someone shaved off her hair, leaving behind a bloody scalp. Her arms stretch to either side, like she's been crucified. Blood drips from her body.

“Grace!” I shriek. There's not a person on earth who could survive what her body's been through, but I stumble toward her anyway. “Oh my god, Grace! Grace, no!”

I trip over one of the candles and fall, hard. The driveway peels back the top layer of skin on my knee. I cringe and try to push myself to my feet. The candle sputters out as it topples onto the asphalt.

In the candle's last glimmer of light, I see movement below Grace's body. I freeze. Brooklyn crouches in the shadows, her head ducked so that, at first, all I see is her spiky blond hair. She stands slowly, her eyes leveled on me. She steps into the circle of candlelight.

“Fun fact,” she says. “We're not really afraid of fire.”

She smiles, a pocketknife clenched in her hand. The candlelight surrounding her flickers, making the knife's blade glint.

“Brooklyn,” I start, but the words I want to say get caught in my throat. I picture Grace jumping out from behind my bench to scare me on my second day of school. Grace, who wore leopard-print headbands and sequin skirts and got so excited about her crush on Tom. She must've felt the same relief I did when she ran out of the house this morning. She must've thought that whole terrible night was finally behind her. And now she's dead.

Not just dead—mutilated. Tortured. Bile rises in my throat. I clench my eyes shut, but Grace's body stays painted on the insides of my lids. Her skin curling away from her limbs. Her scalp, bald and bloody.

I open my eyes again. Brooklyn crouches and lowers her finger to the pool of Grace's blood, then lifts it to her mouth. Her grin widens as she runs her tongue up the side of her finger, licking the blood away. She stands, tightening her grip on the knife. My fear sharpens, and I stumble backward, banging into the back door to the house.

Behind me, the door creaks open. I whirl around as my mom steps outside.

“Sofia?” she says, groggily. “What's going on? I heard noises.”

I glance over my shoulder, but Brooklyn's gone. My voice freezes in my throat.

“Mom,” I start. “I . . .”

Before I can think of what to say, my mom's eyes shift to the body hanging from the shed. The blood drains from her face, and she screams.

“M
om?” A tremor begins in my hand, then spreads up my arm until my whole body shakes. I did this. I trusted Brooklyn, I let her out. The sharp, metallic taste of her blood still lingers on my tongue. Riley told me she was evil, but I didn't listen. What happened to Grace happened because of me.

I put a hand on my mom's arm and she stiffens, finally dropping her hands from her mouth.

“Get inside. Lock all the doors and call the police.” Her voice is quiet, but there's steel behind her words. She's Sergeant Nina Flores now, medical technician for the armed forces, and this is just another fallen soldier. She rolls up her sleeves and starts down the porch steps. “I'll get her . . . I'll get it down.”

I hesitate. I don't want to leave my mother outside alone. Brooklyn could be lurking behind a bush or parked car.

“Sofia, now!” Mom's tone leaves no room for argument. I cast one last look at Grace's broken body, then race back inside and stumble upstairs for my cell phone. My hands are sweating when I reach my bedroom, and I mess up the three-digit number twice and have to start over.

Finally, “Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?” a robotic voice asks on the other end of the line.

“I . . .” I swallow. “My friend's been . . .” I don't know what to say. Mutilated? Tortured? Skinned? I swallow. “My friend's been killed. Please come.”

I give them my address, then hang up the phone. For a long moment I stare down at it, stunned. Riley was right. The reality of that hits me, and I almost can't breathe. She was right all along—Brooklyn's possessed. She killed Mr. Willis. And now she's killed Grace. If my mother hadn't come along, she would have killed me.

Maybe she should have killed me. Maybe I deserve that.

“
Diablo
.”

I freeze, shocked to hear my grandmother's voice for the first time in years.

Diablo
—devil.

I walk to my bedroom door, my cell phone clenched in my hand. The thick carpet in the hallway muffles my footsteps, and the red-tinted lamp from Grandmother's bedroom casts the only light. A violent, hacking cough rattles behind her door. It sounds like death.

I ease one foot into the hallway, searching the shadows around me for the outline of a body. I can't blink without picturing Brooklyn holding that pocketknife, Brooklyn dipping her finger into the pool of Grace's blood—then licking it off.
Your fault
, my brain whispers to me.
Your fault
.

I push the images and accusations away. The shadows seem to move around me, but I know it's just my imagination. Brooklyn isn't here.

Grandmother's face looks like a melting candle. Her skin droops so badly that it's difficult to pick out her features. Her rosary beads click against her table. She releases a rough, raw-sounding cough.

“Grandmother?” I hover near her door, almost afraid to go inside. Grandmother inhales. The sound is like a crumpling paper bag. She moves her thumb along the row of beads.

“Are you okay?”

Grandmother turns her head very slowly. The rosary beads shake in her fragile, trembling hands.

“
Diablo
,” she whispers. A shiver creeps down my spine. She hasn't spoken since her stroke. The doctors weren't even sure she
could
speak anymore.

She focuses her cloudy eyes on me. It's like she's looking through me.

“
Diablo
,” she says.

“It was an accident,” I hiss.

“
Diablo
,” Grandmother says, like a prayer.

“It wasn't my fault. It was an accident, just like last time.” The words rush out of my mouth before I can think about them.

“
Diablo!
”

I look past Grandmother, to the Virgin statuette on her windowsill. It glows white in the red-tinted room. Grandmother used to tell me confession absolved you of guilt. By admitting our sins before God, we are no longer held responsible for them. God takes the blame from us. He makes us pure again.

More than anything in the world right now, I want to be pure. My dream echoes through my head. I hear the roaring train race down the tracks, and Karen's distant voice.
Why can't you tell the truth?

I drop to my knees next to Grandmother's bed and fold my hands in prayer.

“Blessed Mary, mother of God,” I whisper. “Forgive me for I have sinned.”

I close my eyes, and I'm at the party with Karen, humiliated and crying.

• • •

I stagger when I push my way out of the party and reach the porch. I almost expect the other kids to chase after me, throwing more Q-tips. But they don't. They're probably too drunk.

I'm not entirely sure where to go next. I don't want to go home—it'd be too humiliating seeing my mom and grandmother after this. Tears prick my eyes and spill onto my cheeks.

Then the high-pitched sound of the train horn blares through the night, followed by the distant roar of an engine. I stumble down the porch steps and into the backyard. It's dark, but the train's headlight flickers through the trees. I start to run.

The sound calms me. It's so loud, so all encompassing that I can't think of anything else. I step out of the trees and into the clearing just before the train tracks. Adrenaline fills my blood, making me reckless. The laugher and the Q-tips are far away now, almost like they happened to someone else. Like they were a dream.

The train's headlight shines through the trees as it curves around. Without thinking, I step onto the tracks. They shudder and quake beneath my sneakers. I close my eyes, and the world fades away. It's just me, the shaking earth, and the thunderous noise.

“Sofia!” My eyes snap open, and I turn to see Karen stumble through the trees. She's still holding her beer. As she runs toward me, the foamy liquid sloshes over the side and spills to the ground. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” My eyes linger on Karen's face long enough to see the blood drain from her skin, and her eyes widen with shock. Good. After what she did, she deserves to be afraid. I turn back around. I want to face the train head on. The light moves closer.

Karen stops a few feet away from the tracks. “Jesus! It was just a joke.”

“A joke?” I say. “How funny do you think it'll be when they find my body tomorrow and everyone blames you?”

The tracks tremble violently beneath my feet. It's almost hard to keep my balance, like I'm standing on the high dive and peering over the side, preparing to jump. The train honks again, and a wave of doubt crashes over me. What am I doing? I don't want to die.

Karen's face crumples. She drops her beer and grabs my arm. “Sofia, get off the tracks!”

Her cold fingers tighten around my wrist, disgusting me. Maybe I don't want to die, but the alternative—letting Karen save me, going back to the party where I was humiliated—is even worse.

I blink into the headlight, frozen. It's close enough now that I can't look at it directly. . . .

• • •

“Karen jumped in front of the train,” I whisper in Grandmother's red-tinted bedroom. “She pushed me off the tracks. She . . . she saved my life.” I sniff and reach for Grandmother's hand. “And it killed her.”

Lights flash from the window, painting the Virgin red and blue. I cross Grandmother's room and push the curtains aside. An ambulance pulls up to the curb. Paramedics leap out and race for Grace's lifeless body.

I step back, and the curtain slides back into place. Grandmother stares at me with those glassy eyes and slowly raises a finger.

“
Diablo
 . . .” she croaks. My skin prickles with horror, not at what she's saying, but at the rasping emptiness of her voice. It's not my grandmother speaking anymore. The voice doesn't even sound human.

“
Diablo
 . . .” she says, pointing at me. I back away from her bed.

“Grandmother, no,” I say. But she's right. I let Brooklyn go, so Grace's death is my fault, just as much as Karen's is. If Brooklyn gets to Riley, I'll be responsible for that, too.

I feel like I'm standing on the tracks again, blinking into the headlight of the oncoming train. But this time I know exactly what to do. I can't be responsible for another girl's death, even if it's Riley's. I have to find her before Brooklyn does, and I have to save her life. It's the only way I'll ever be able to forgive myself for the blood already on my hands. It's the only way God will ever forgive me.

I turn, stumbling as I race from the room. Grandmother's whispery voice follows me down the stairs.

“Diablo . . . Diablo!”