The Merciless (13 page)

I
ease the bottle open and pour the pills into my hand. Ten white pills tumble onto my palm. I don't know anything about drugs, but ten seems like a lot—definitely enough to take out a teenage girl. I pry open one of the capsules and dump the fine white powder into the wine bottle.

Riley's jeans scratch against the floor as she paces around the room. Grace is angled in front of me to keep Riley from seeing what I'm doing, but I still freeze, certain I'm about to be discovered. The powder from the pills sticks to my fingers and the mouth of the bottle. I swear under my breath and try to brush it all into the wine.

“I thought you two were so close,” Brooklyn says, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. If either Alexis or Riley notices she's making fun of them, they don't show it. They only seem to see each other.

“You were always a shitty friend,” Alexis yells, her voice cracking. She wraps a long blond strand of hair around one finger and gives it a sudden, violent tug. “The only reason we even hang out is because you can't stand to be alone.”

“I think you have that backward, Lexie.” Riley's voice is quiet and even, barely above a whisper. Alexis stands in the middle of the attic while Riley moves around her, an animal circling her prey. “The only reason we're friends is because you need someone to obsess over. You've been pretending to be me since you were eight years old. I just can't get rid of you.”

The quieter Riley speaks, the more outraged Alexis grows. “Why not? Because
God
wouldn't want you to?” Alexis shouts. “You hide behind God so no one will see how screwed up you really are.”

“I'm not ashamed of anything I've done,” Riley continues, rounding back on Alexis. “But you have everything to be ashamed of. You tried to kill your sister! How can any of us ever trust you again?”

Alexis's breathing gets heavier, and she starts to cry. Grace stiffens in front of me. Alexis must've pulled another clump of hair out of her head, but I refuse to look up and watch her. My fingers feel thick and clumsy as I work them around the pills.

“You're wrong,” Alexis says.

“Am I?” Riley's voice takes on a cruel, almost gleeful edge. I recognize that tone by now—it means she knows something the rest of us don't.

“If I'm so wrong, why are you still hiding?” Riley continues. “You're keeping secrets from all of us.”

The floorboards creak as Alexis takes a step back.

“Stop it,” she says. I have the final pill pinned between two fingers, but I peer around the corner to see what's happening.

Riley has Alexis backed against the wall. I can't see Riley's face, but Alexis looks broken. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she releases a choked, gasping sob. She shakes her head and covers her hair with her hands.

“No,” she whispers. “Riley,
please
.”

Riley slaps Alexis's hands away and pulls her forward by the head, brushing her long, beautiful hair back with one hand. Beneath the top layer of perfect blond locks, Alexis's entire scalp is red and raw, spotted with still-bleeding scabs.

Alexis pulls away from Riley and tries, desperately, to smooth her hair back in place. Her face crumples, and she drops to her knees, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She lifts her hand to the hair just behind her left ear and starts compulsively winding a lock around her finger—tighter and tighter—until it comes off in her hands. Blood spots the skin at her scalp.

“You're disgusting. Soon you won't have any hair left.”

Brooklyn releases a slightly hysterical-sounding laugh at the exact second the pill hits the floor. Frowning, Riley pivots to face her.

“What's so funny?” she hisses.

“Hurry,” Grace mutters under her breath. I refocus my attention on the pills. I wedge my thumbnail into the last capsule and pull it apart. The white powder dissolves into the wine.

“Your little catfight is just adorable,” Brooklyn says. “Which of your friends are you going to turn on next?”

“Shut up,” Riley spits out. She crosses the attic and kicks Brooklyn in the shin. Brooklyn makes a big show of squeezing her eyes shut and yelling out in pain, but I know she said those things for me, to distract Riley from what I'm doing.

Grabbing the wine bottle, I stand and slip out of the alcove, placing a hand on Riley's shoulder.

“She's messing with you,” I say, squeezing Riley's arm. I lift the wine bottle to my mouth and tip it back, but I keep my lips tight to keep from drinking the drugged wine. I pretend to swallow as I lower the bottle. “She wants you and Alexis to tear each other apart.”

“Give me that.” Riley's face is blank as she rips the bottle from my hands. She stares down at it for a long moment. Across from us, Alexis sinks to the floor. She sobs quietly, her hands curled into fists around her hair.

“You're right.” Riley smiles as she turns the wine bottle in her hand, watching the liquid slosh up against the sides. “We have to trust each other.”

“Exactly,” I say. “We can't let Brooklyn come between us.”

Riley's smile immediately disappears. “We can't let
Brooklyn
come between us,” she repeats. She lingers on Brooklyn's name and tightens her grip around the bottle.

Grace weaves her fingers together. She glances at me nervously, but I won't look at her. I can't tear my eyes away from Riley.

Riley shifts her eyes back up to me. They're the eyes of a predator: dead and calculating.

“Didn't realize you were a big drinker,” she says, lifting the bottle.

“What?” I swallow, waiting, but Riley holds the wine just below her mouth. The glass brushes against her lower lip.

“The wine,” she says. “You seem more interested in it all of the sudden.”

“I guess I'm just thirsty,” I say.

Riley inhales the scent of the wine, closing her eyes. “Me, too,” she murmurs. She tips the bottle back and the wine slides forward. I hold my breath, but the second seems to stretch for an eternity. Sweat breaks out along my palms.

Just before she drinks, Riley's eyes flicker back open.

“Do you think I'm stupid?” she whispers. My throat goes dry.

“Of course not.”

Riley lowers the bottle. “What did you put in here?”

Dread creeps into my gut. “I . . .”

Riley heaves the wine bottle across the room. It shatters against the wall just a few feet from where Alexis is crouched, spraying the floor with glass. Alexis flinches, throwing her hands over her face. The thick liquid oozes down the boards behind her head, but the wood drinks the wine before it slides to the floor, leaving behind a deep red stain.

“You tell me you want me to trust you, but you're lying to me!” Riley screams.

“Riley, I didn't . . . ,” I say.

“Shut up!” Riley says. Alexis releases another loud sob, and Riley's face twists. She whirls around to face her.

“None of us feel sorry for you!” she yells. “You deserve to suffer. You're a
monster
.”

Something in Alexis snaps when Riley screams that last word at her. The light drains from her eyes, leaving her skin hollow and pale. The final sob dies on her lips, and her mouth hangs open—shocked.

“Lexie.” Grace takes a step toward her, but Alexis pushes herself to her feet and races from the room. The rickety ladder shakes and moans as she climbs to the second floor.

“You bitch, I told you not to leave.” Riley pushes past Grace and tears down the ladder after Alexis. Alexis's sobs echo below us. Her bare feet slap against the floor as she drops from the ladder and starts to run.

“Should we go after them?” Grace asks.

As an answer, I head for the ladder. I shouldn't be so worried. Alexis has been almost as bad as Riley this whole time. She put her sister in a coma. I should leave the two of them together—they deserve each other.

Still, I can't get Alexis's broken expression out of my mind.

Riley drops to the floor, causing the ladder to shake. I grip the banister to keep from falling.

“You're as bad as Brooklyn!” Riley shouts, tearing down the hallway. “Maybe we should exorcise you next.”

My heart thuds in my chest as my shoe slips on a blood-coated rung. I smack my chin on the ladder before managing to catch myself. Black stars blossom before my eyes.

“Get back here, psycho!” Riley trips over a beer bottle and falls, hitting the ground on her knees. Alexis races into the master bedroom. Riley pushes herself back to her feet.

“Riley, wait!” Stomach turning, I jump to the second floor. The shock jolts through my legs, but I don't pause long enough to notice. I reach for Riley's shoulder, but she whips around on me.

“This has nothing to do with you,” she spits out, pushing me. I slam against the wall.

“Riley,” I groan, but she follows Alexis into the master bedroom and shuts the door in my face. I grab the doorknob, but it won't turn. Grace runs up behind me, breathless.

“Locked,” I say. “From the inside.”

Grace wiggles the doorknob, but it holds tight. She swears under her breath, then pounds against the door with her open hand.

“Riley! Let us in.”

No one answers. I picture Riley pushing Brooklyn below the water in the bathtub, Riley peeling away Brooklyn's fingernail and letting it fall to the floor in the basement.

“Riley wouldn't hurt Alexis, right?” I ask.

Grace swallows and presses her lips together. “I don't know what Riley would do.”

I press my face against the door to the bedroom. Muffled voices sound inside—more arguing, but I can't hear what they're saying. Cursing, I pull away.

“We have to get inside,” I say to Grace. “Can you think of anything?”

Grace's face lights up. “Riley kept a key in a drawer in the kitchen. I don't know if it's the master, but . . .”

“It's worth a try,” I finish. “Come on.” I grab Grace's arm and we start down the stairs.

I take them two at a time, nervous for every second I'm not in the bedroom with Riley and Alexis. I see that desperate, broken expression every time I close my eyes and urge my feet to move faster.

Alexis releases a shrill scream. “Riley, no!”

I jump to the landing as a shadow falls past the arched window overlooking the staircase. Something crashes into the bushes next to the house, sending a shudder through the floor. A thousand pins prick the back of my neck. I freeze on the landing.

“Oh, god.” Grace's body stiffens behind me.

“What was that?” I whisper, terrified I already know. I don't want to look, but I turn toward the window anyway and lean into the glass.

Alexis's body lies crumpled in the dirt. Her white-blond hair glows in the dim moonlight, and a halo of blood pools around her head. I lift a trembling finger to the window, my breath misting the glass.

“Move,” I whisper to her broken body. But she doesn't. She stares at the sky with milky, lifeless eyes. Her arm twists above her head, and her fingers curl toward her palm, almost like she tried to grab onto something as she fell. Her cracked lips hang open in a silent scream. Her final words echo through my head.
Riley, no!

The door above us creaks open, and footsteps pad across the floor. I lift my head as Riley stops at the top of the stairs, her face white as death.

“Alexis jumped,” she says.

R
iley wraps her fingers around the banister at the top of the staircase, her eyes unfocused.

“Our Father who art in heaven,” she whispers, barely loud enough to hear. A tear slips over her cheek. “Hallowed be thy name . . .”

“Don't.” I step away from the window, hands trembling at my sides. “He's not listening.”

“Sofia,” Grace murmurs. She tries to touch my arm, but I shake her hand away. I can't stop thinking about Alexis's cloudy eyes, her broken body, the way her fingers curled toward her palm. I don't want to be comforted.

Riley considers me for a long moment, until the anger burning through my chest cools, just a little. “You're grieving,” she says finally. “I get that. But we have to pray for the Lord to forgive Alexis's sin.”

“No!” I shout. The word is a death sentence, but I don't care. Maybe I want Riley to kill me next. “You're wrong about everything. God's not helping us. He's not fixing Brooklyn, and he can't forgive Alexis, not anymore.”

Riley's feet pad down the stairs soundlessly. She crouches in front of me.

“You don't know that, Sof,” she says, wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Come back up to the attic. We have to finish what we started.”

“The attic?” My voice sounds so shrill I hardly recognize it as my own. I swallow, trying to steady it. “We have to call the police. Alexis is
dead
.”

The word sounds so final as it echoes through the house.

Grace sobs into her hands. “Don't say that,” she hisses through her fingers. “Maybe she's just . . . just . . .”

“Stop it! Alexis is
dead
, Grace! She committed suicide.” Riley's voice caresses that word.
Suicide
. It's like she's trying it out on us, seeing how the story sounds when she says it out loud.

“Think about it,” she continues. “What would happen if we brought the cops here now? What do you think they'll do when they see Brooklyn? They'll think we're
monsters
. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail. Do you?”

Grace shakes her head. “Shit,” she whispers. She hangs her head and starts to cry, her movements already slow and clumsy from the wine.

Every emotion I've forced down since entering this house explodes out of me. I try to speak, but the most I can do is release a gasping, ugly sob. My chest tightens, and I cry like I'm five years old again, like it's something I just discovered I could do.

“Sofia.” Riley grabs me by the shoulder and squeezes. “Sofia, you need to calm down.”

I can't stop. I realize, for the first time, that none of us is ever going home. Even if I somehow get out of this house alive, I never get to return to my old life. Tears race down my cheeks as I heave and choke for breath. My head starts to feel fuzzy.

“Sofia, look at me.” Suddenly Riley's voice is soft and even. My eyes flutter open, and I focus on her face, my lips trembling as I struggle to breathe.

Riley presses her lips together, considering me. The deep shadows under her eyes make her look older, wise even. She's given up on the ponytail, and now her hair falls limply around her thin, angular face. It hides the bite mark on her cheek, so she looks almost normal. She squeezes my shoulders again.

“I know you don't realize it now, but everything that's happened is Brooklyn's fault,” she explains. “The devil compelled Alexis to jump out that window. There's nothing we can do for her now, but you need to be strong—you need to keep the devil from taking control of you, too.”

Keep the devil from taking control of me, too.
The words echo in my head, meaningless, but I still feel my breathing begin to steady.

“There's my girl,” she whispers. “Now, don't worry. As soon as we beat this, we can all go home.”

“How?” I whisper. Riley wipes a tear from my cheek with her thumb. My skin burns where she touches it, but I try not to let my disgust show on my face. The only way out of here is through Riley. I have to be strong.

“We'll figure it out. Some exorcisms are just trickier than others.” Riley stands, smoothing her bloodstained tank top. “Take a moment to catch your breath, then come back to the attic. All three of us need to be united if this is going to work. We might have to resort to extreme measures to defeat the demon.”

I nod numbly as Riley turns and walks back up the stairs and down the hallway. Grace crouches near the wall, so still she looks like a shadow.

“Are you ready?” Grace asks. I don't think I'll ever be ready to go back up there, but I push myself to my feet and take a step toward her. She wraps a hand around my arm, and we walk down the hall together.

“What do you think Riley meant when she said extreme measures?” I ask before we reach the stairs to the attic. Grace blinks at me blearily. Her eyes are clouded over, and she can barely walk straight. When she speaks, her voice is raspy, almost a whisper.

“She meant that sometimes the host has to die.”