“Are you going to help me do that?”
“Maybe. But it’s a solitary path. You will find it on your own.”
“I’m glad you’re so confident.”
He reached toward her, placed a hand on her bony shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. The bone would snap so easily. She glanced at his hand and then stared up into his face with that helpless puppy face again.
“I’m sorry. I get carried away with the whole ‘universe purpose’ thing. I was only trying to help. You have such a pretty smile, you ought to show it more.”
And she did.
“There it is.” He shook his head as if it were the most stunning smile he had ever seen. Her two front teeth overlapped slightly and a thin stain accentuated where they joined. His other hand was clenching the grass at his side, fighting the urge to punch her in the mouth and knock out those teeth.
They stared at each other for several seconds, his hand on her shoulder, and he knew she wanted him to kiss her, just a soft, first kiss that teased the lips more than enveloped them, but he took his hand off her shoulder and sat back, delighted at how her smile wavered. Part of seduction was always keeping the target wanting.
It’s all about power, Mother had said. She’d start to spread her legs and he would lean forward and then she’d close them again and laugh. Once you have self-control, she said, you can get whatever you want.
If he wanted, Victor could ravage Mercy right now, here on the grass with the late-afternoon sun shining on them. But there was still a chance her brain would clear and she’d tell him to back off, to take things slow.
He couldn’t go after her yet. The seduction was not complete.
She licked her top lip slowly and he wondered what sound she would make when he tore her tongue out with his fingers.
THIRTY
She was fourteen again. She saw herself sitting on a little footbridge over a small creek behind her house with Dylan Olan. He was almost sixteen, about to get his driver’s license, and had an incredible head of black hair and a smile that she often thought about before falling asleep.
She was wearing shorts that she felt were too short, would have rather been in jeans to cover her pale legs, but she stretched them out before her just the same. Two shadow legs rippled over the creek below. She caught him staring at them and smiled. She had painted her toes yesterday. They were little aqua dots she wiggled back and forth.
Dylan spoke about high school and getting a car and going to parties but she didn’t really hear him. She was only thinking about his lips and how they would feel against her own. He mentioned Megan Booth and how he thought she might be interested in him but even that didn’t diminish her hopes for a kiss. His hands were on the bridge at his sides. She touched the one closest to her, ran her finger across the top in the shape of a heart. He stared at her finger and then looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Hi,” she said.
He thought about something. “You’re cute,” he said.
“So are you.” Her heart was racing instantly and her stomach was knotted into a not unpleasant ball.
He nodded to himself and leaned toward her and she closed her eyes and pursed her lips just slightly like she’d practiced in the mirror and waited for what felt like forever for him to get closer and closer until she could smell the light sweat on him and then his lips touched her cheek and withdrew.
“I’ll see you around,” he said and left. Like he’d said goodbye to his sister.
Mercy had cried all night.
Now here she was again, fawning over some boy and desperately hoping for a kiss only to end up with an exchange befitting siblings. She felt like crying, almost did but mentally slapped herself. Be an adult, for Christ’s sake.
“I don’t even really know you,” she said as if she had been the one to deny him.
“What would you like to know?”
“How old are you?”
“Older than you. I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Depends. Are you, like, fifty?”
He laughed. “Closer to thirty.”
She thought of that for a moment with trepidation and awe. Girls back in high school loved advertising if they had college-age boyfriends. In college, girls thought they were so special if their men were graduates, men with jobs and money. Mercy had always been envious and disgusted. Older guys could be creeps who lived in their mother’s basement and couldn’t find woman their own age. But older guys were more mature. They understood women. What they wanted. How to please them.
“That’s not old,” she said.
“Are you even old enough to drink?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she said like she was a drinking, partying queen.
And on their conversation went into the minutia of what defines who people are: age, interests, aspirations, history. At one point when he was discussing his mother, showing enough concern for her to know he loved her but not so much that he was a momma’s boy, Mercy stared at his lips and willed them to come toward her.
The afternoon light morphed into the vibrant reds and oranges of a setting sun and the breeze that whisked past grew colder. By then, they were sitting only a foot apart.
“We should make a fire,” he said.
“Sure,” she said and in her head saw her jump on top of him and thrust her tongue into his mouth. Why the hell was he not making a move? They were alone. In the woods. It was almost too ideal to be believed.
Alone. Dad had been gone for hours. She stared off at the distant peak as if she might see him up there waving down at her. It was now a flaming match tip of yellow and red.
“How long does it take to reach the top?” she asked.
“A while,” Victor said. “There’s no reason to worry. I’m sure he’s fine. It’s not dangerous.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve done it several times.”
“Okay.” But in her head, Dad had fallen somewhere along the way or fainted or suffered a seizure and was slowly dying while she was desperately hoping some random guy might make out with her.
THIRTY-ONE
Victor gathered dead twigs and dried brush. He set the fire in one of the designated areas where gray ash long ago stained the ground. He had matches in his bag and after several false starts, he finally got the fire going. Mercy watched him with an expression on her face no one ever really showed him before. Even while his urges to attack her strengthened, he began to feel something indefinable in the pit of his stomach. It was like longing only laced with fear.
They sat next to the fire and talked but the flickering fingers kept Victor’s attention. Fire was so pure, so clean. It ate everything. It solved every problem. One day soon it would solve all the problems. The world would be eaten and he would be left to salvage life on an orb of ash. But he did not want to be alone.
That thought troubled him because he had always imagined himself as a lone man in these woods, preserving the sanctity of humanity’s purest purpose. But the universe was offering him this girl. She would be his companion. She would make the coming Dark Time almost pleasant.
Her father would be back soon.
Victor sat closer to Mercy and casually placed a hand on her thigh. The muscle tensed. It was strong, fit for a girl who spent her days reading books. He rubbed slowly back and forth, as if hypnotized by the feel of her jeans.
“Hey,” she said so softly it sounded like a voice from the crackling twigs.
When their eyes met this time, he did not deny her the kiss for which she had been longing, but he denied himself the pleasure of forcing himself upon her. Instead, he teased her lips gently with his own and lingered there only briefly. When he withdrew he smiled at her shut eyes and engorged lips. Self-control made her his.