He had fallen over the side. She accepted it with gratitude and disgust. She wasn’t disgusted at having killed him; she was disgusted at having survived.
“I’m sure glad that wasn’t me,” a man said behind her.
Victor stood in the middle of the clearing on silver grass as the last few crows flapped past him like he was a messenger of evil. A demon summoned straight from Hell.
FORTY-NINE
Victor hadn’t even thought to stop Caleb from charging right past him. With any luck, he would run right off the edge. Instead, he had fought the girl, severely injured her and he had died. A true win-win.
The final crow hovered before him for a moment but when Victor reached toward it, the bird flew off into the sky. They had given him all the signs he needed. The rest was up to him.
“I want to thank you for taking care of him,” he said. “I would have done it myself, but it was rather enjoyable to see you battle him off. Unfair advantage, however. You knew where the cliff edge was and he had no idea. His death was more luck than skill.”
Slowly, Mercy got into a crouching position. Her gaze was focused on him with potent severity, but her hands were caressing a softball-sized rock in front of her. She drew it closer to her, cupped it.
“I hate to say it,” he said, “but I don’t think you’re ever going to get your good looks back. He almost ripped your nose clean off. Though I did give him some help there. Didn’t I?”
“Fuck you,” she said in a garbled, phlegmy voice. A glob of blood slipped over her lips and down her chin. He thought of a wild beast raising its head from the latest kill. The thought only made him want her more.
“No reason to be cruel,” he said. “You did your fair share of damage, too.” He held up his hand with the injured fingers. “They might have to be amputated, but that’s okay. I’ll make myself content with it after I amputate all of your fingers. That sound reasonable?”
She had the rock gripped firmly in both hands just beneath her crotch. She could have been a trained monkey.
“You’re not one to surrender, I see. I like that. But think first: will that rock be much of a weapon against this?”
He slipped the work knife from his belt and held it up like a magic wand. The blade curved at the top and the inside was serrated.
Through heavy panting breaths, Mercy said, “I guess we’ll have to find out.”
She jumped toward him like a runner after the pistol shot.
FIFTY
For once, there were no thoughts in her mind. No extraneous voices. There was only the pain in her face and the hard rock in her hands. She was only vaguely aware of the large knife he held when she charged at him with the rock before her like the ultimate weapon.
The rock was rough against her fingertips and heavy but as she hefted it toward Victor’s head, she feared the rock would fracture in half when it connected with his face. It would split like an eggshell and fall to the ground where Victor would crush it beneath his boots.
He ducked as she approached and swung upward with the knife. Mercy twisted her body from the blade and let the rock pull her back toward Victor’s descending head and if she hadn’t released the rock at the last second should would have contorted into some grotesque back flip, sprained all kinds of muscles, and ended up heaped on the ground at Victor’s feet.
But she did release the rock and heard it crunch against the back of Victor’s skull. The momentum of her turn and release almost toppled her but she managed to keep her balance and propel herself toward the evergreen trees.
It was only a few feet to the trees and the path back down the mountain, but the seconds it took to clear that distance dragged interminably. Victor was up and coming after her with that knife. She would feel it slice into her back just as the prickly needles of the evergreen teased her fingertips and she would have a moment to think this was it, she was going to die, before the blade pierced her lung and she drowned in her own blood.
The knife slice didn’t come. She ran through the trees and was on the dirt path, huffing at the air as if she had been underwater for several minutes, before she dared to stop, just for a second, and glance behind her.
The tree was still. Crickets made their somnolent noise nearby and farther away, the crows were calling back and forth. Maybe they had found Caleb. Maybe he was still alive. Let the feast begin.
She wanted to go back to the tree, peer through it. That was stupid, of course. She had evaded him with strength and luck and now he was on the ground wondering what the hell had happened but he wouldn’t stay down forever. If she didn’t get moving down this goddamn mountain, she’d never get off of it. How far could she press her luck before it finally ran out?
Still.
She stepped toward the tree. Victor’s groans were weak but getting stronger as if he had been knocked out and was now fighting back to consciousness. He was probably disoriented. At least unsteady on his feet. Maybe he had even fallen on his knife. She could wish for such luck, but she doubted it. Bad guys were never felled so easily. She had to take care of him herself.
She parted a few branches of the tree and peered through. Victor was on his stomach, arms before him, and he might have been dead if not for the noises coming from his throat and the way his feet swayed side to side on the toes like windshield wipers.
When her mother’s voice spoke up, it did not say what she expected. Now you can kill him. He’s practically helpless. Pick up that rock again and smash in his fucking head.
She almost entered the clearing again. She saw herself slowly approach Victor, bend down to pick up the stone, cold on one side and warm on the other where it split his skin, and stand over his body, legs spread, and raise that stone high over her head.
But she’d never be able to hurl it down at his skull. He deserved it, no doubt about that, but she couldn’t murder him. If it was in self-defense, she would find a way to deal with the emotional wreckage it brought, but to kill him when he was defenseless was to reduce herself to his level.
You’re already a murderer, her mother said. Have you forgotten, dear? Only moments ago, you threw Caleb off the mountain.
“He was trying to kill me,” she said.
And what’s Victor trying to do? Show you a good time?
His arms pulled back, his body arched into a yoga pose, and he screamed. The sound was rage tinged with genuine pain. She had hurt him, perhaps quite badly. Maybe he would let her go.
Of all the pathetic hopes, that one was the worst and she knew it even as she thought it. What the hell was she doing? Waiting for him to get up and steady his feet like a boxer who has been knocked down before resuming her escape?
She turned from the tree and ran down the path into the darkness.
His next scream was much louder and echoed through the trees as if his voice had taken on a life of its own.
FIFTY-ONE
Victor was asleep when his mother came into his bedroom for the last time. He was lucid and resting only lightly, so the faint squeak of the door hinges brought him fully awake.
She had drugged him a few times, ground-up Tylenol PM in soda, he guessed, and he’d wake up in the middle of night with her on top of him and his thing buried inside her warmth. Or she would have it in her mouth or simply be caressing it. He’d try to fight his way free from the drugged stupor, but he never could. He could only let her finish, let her get what she wanted, and fall back into a dark world where his nightmares were preferable to his reality.