The Merciless (14 page)

“J
esus, Sofia,
go
.” Grace pinches my leg, and the jolt of pain gets me moving. I climb up the last three ladder rungs, then pull myself into the attic. The room itself feels evil, like something twisted crawled into the spaces Alexis left behind.

Riley stares out the window at the far end of the room, one arm angled in front of her. Rope coils around her feet. I peer around the beam. Brooklyn lies, twisted, on the floor, her arms and legs untied. Her spiky blond hair is slicked with blood.

The attic door slams shut behind me. I whirl around in time to see Grace stand and wipe her dusty hands on her jeans.

“What's going on?” I ask. Grace shifts her eyes to the floor.

Moonlight streams through the window, leaving the attic thick with shadows. I don't see what Riley's holding until she steps forward and candlelight illuminates her hands.

The nail gun.

Sometimes the host has to die
. Just a few hours ago I'd have done anything to stop this. But now I hesitate, curling my fingers into fists. It's Brooklyn's life or mine. By helping her, I make myself Riley's next target.

Brooklyn whimpers and tries to sit up.

“Almost done,” Riley says. She shifts the nail gun to one hand, then drops to her knees and rolls Brooklyn onto her back.

“Don't, please!” Brooklyn writhes and kicks beneath Riley's legs. Riley lowers the nail gun.

I can't do this. I can't stand by and watch someone die, even if it means saving myself.

“Get off of her!” I throw my whole body into Riley, using every ounce of strength I have left. “You psycho bitch!”

We tumble to the floor next to Brooklyn. Riley regains her balance first and whips an elbow into my face. I slam back down, pain exploding across my cheek.

“Grace, take care of her,” Riley snarls. Brooklyn tries to move, but Riley straddles her chest and pins her arm to the floor with one hand. I push myself up and try to crawl toward them, but Grace grabs me from behind.

“Let go!” I claw at Grace's arms, but she just tightens her grip around my chest and drags me away. Splinters jutting out from the unfinished wooden floor scrape the backs of my legs.

An eerie silence fills the attic. Riley lowers the gun. The nail shoots into Brooklyn's hand with a dull blast, breaking the quiet.

Brooklyn roars with pain, so loud I swear I feel the floorboards tremble beneath my feet. Riley moves to the next arm, pinning it beneath her knee as she positions the nail gun over Brooklyn's hand. It sticks straight out from her body, like a cross.

“You're crucifying her,” I whisper, horrified. A thick line of blood oozes over the side of Brooklyn's hand and pools on the floor.

She aims the gun at Brooklyn's other palm and pulls the trigger. Metal crunches through skin and bone.

“I wanted to hang her from the beams,” Riley explains, motioning to the ceiling with the nail gun. “But I didn't think we could lift her that high.” She curls her toes into the floor and pivots around to face me.

“Now, what should we do with you?” she says, almost to herself. She raises an eyebrow, and suddenly it's as if all the air in the room has been sucked away.

“No, please,” I beg. Grace tightens her grip around my arms, and I can't move.

“It's for your own good,” Riley says, gathering the ropes she'd used to tie up Brooklyn. “First you texted Josh, and then you played that little trick with the wine. Now this. I just don't trust you anymore.”

“Please,” I whisper again, trying to pull out of Grace's grip. “I can cooperate. I can help.”

Riley untangles a length of rope as she moves toward me. She lifts a finger to her lips.

“This'll be easier if you don't struggle,” she says. As Grace holds me in place, Riley binds my arms and legs in thick knots. The ropes pinch the skin around my wrists, and they're so tight they cut off circulation in my hands. When she's done, Riley pushes the hair out of my face and leans in to kiss me on the cheek.

“When we're done with Brooklyn, we'll help you. Okay?” She taps my nose with her finger. “It's almost dawn. Grace and I need to do something with Alexis's body before the sun comes up.”

I turn to the window and see that Riley's right. The black sky has faded to a deep blue. I think of my mother crawling out of bed at seven in the morning as always and finding my room empty. A spark of hope flickers through my chest—if she calls the police, then maybe . . . but no. Even if she called 911 as soon as she found me missing, they'd never find me here. Not in time to stop Riley.

Grace pushes my shoulders down, and I awkwardly sit. “Riley,” I try one last time. “Please don't leave me here like this.”

Riley ignores my pleas as she opens the attic door and starts down the ladder.

Grace hesitates at the door. “It's easier this way,” she says. Without another word she follows Riley down to the second floor.

I release my breath in a rush of air.
It's easier
. Karen said that to me once, after watching Lila and Erin torture me in biology class.
It's just easier to let them do what they want.
What bullshit.

I struggle to keep myself calm, but as reality sets in, each breath feels more ragged. I squeeze my eyes closed, and the situation comes into clearer focus. Riley knows I'm not on her side, that I can't be trusted. Alexis is dead. Soon, Brooklyn will be, too. Maybe Riley will decide I'm possessed, too. Maybe I'll be the next person nailed to the floor.

Tears stream down my cheeks. I'm crying for Alexis and for Brooklyn, but also for myself—for fear of what's going to happen next. I release another sob, no longer trying to keep my pain under control. My shoulders shake, and my chest aches as my breathing gets heavier and heavier. Tears cloud my eyes until I can barely see.

“Stop!” Brooklyn screams. Her voice startles me so much that I dig my teeth into my lower lip, sniffling. Brooklyn groans in pain, and there's a shuffling sound as she tries to readjust her position on the floor. “This isn't the time to cry. We need to figure out how to escape.”

“Escape? I've been trying to escape since we first got here!” I press my lips together to keep from sobbing again. “There
is
no escape.”

“Bullshit. We've just been thinking about this wrong.” Brooklyn pauses, and for a moment the only sound in the attic is her low, steady breathing. “What's Riley been saying this whole time?”

“That . . . that you're evil.” I stutter. “That you're possessed by the devil.”

“Right. And what would the devil do in this situation?”

The words flash into my head, and I say them without thinking. “Fight fire with fire.”

There's a beat of silence. Then Brooklyn says, “Exactly.”

T
he words repeat in my head:
Fight fire with fire
. It's not exactly a solution. My arms and legs are bound so tightly I can hardly move, and Brooklyn is nailed to the floor. There's no way for us to fight. It's over.

Still, I keep replaying those words, like something about that sentence can unlock the secret to escape. Brooklyn is oddly quiet, and I wonder if she's doing the same thing. Or maybe she's already figured out a plan of her own.

Wind presses against the far window, and the glass groans. There's only one candle still lit—the thick white one Alexis brought up here. Its flame flickers, like it's mocking me.

Giggles echo through the floor below us, then the ladder creaks. I shoot a fearful look at the door. Riley and Grace are back.

“Brooklyn,” I whisper.

“I hear them.” Brooklyn groans, and the rough soles of her boots scratch the floor as she moves her legs. “It's okay. We have a plan, remember?”

“Fight fire with fire,” I whisper. The words echo through my head, meaning nothing to me.
Fight fire with fire. Fight fire with fire
.

The attic door shudders and falls open with a slap that makes the floor tremble. Still burning, the last candle topples over and rolls to the wall, coming to a stop against a bit of exposed pink insulation. I watch it happen as if it's a dream.

The flame leaps to the wall and licks the raw wood hungrily.

“Brooklyn, did you see that?” I can't see Brooklyn's face, just the blood-coated soles of her boots. She taps them together, like Dorothy. Time to go home.

“All part of our plan,” she says.

What plan?
I want to scream at her. All we had were words—words that definitely don't have the power to knock over a candle.

But as the fire spreads, it burns the question from my mind. The very small, very
wooden
attic I'm trapped in is going up in flames. I yank against the ropes binding me in place. Smoke seeps into my mouth and presses against the back of my throat.

Riley appears at the attic door as smoke clouds the far corner and rises to the ceiling, thick and dark. She grimaces and waves a hand in front of her face.

“What the hell?” she mutters.

Brooklyn snickers, her laughter bouncing off the burning walls. I stare at her boots, shocked. She's lost her mind.

Riley hovers on the ladder, the flames reflected in her eyes. Grace's hysterical voice echoes below, but I can't make out what she's saying. Footsteps slam against the floor as Grace runs away.

“Riley!” I shout. “You have to untie me!” The ropes rub away the top layer of skin around my wrists as I twist and pull against them. I hardly even notice the pain. A flicker of orange appears in my peripheral vision, eating its way closer to me. I take shaky breath after shaky breath, ignoring the smoke coating my mouth and tongue. “Riley, you have to let us out. Riley!”

Riley presses herself against the attic door, searching the floor for something to suffocate the fire. But there's nothing up here except for the discarded toolbox. Even the bottle of holy water is empty.

“Help! Help us, please!”

Riley's shoulders tense. She shifts her eyes to me.

“Don't,” I beg her. All around me, the fire presses in. It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to imagine it crawling over my skin, eating away my hair and my fingernails until there's nothing left. “Don't leave me.
Please
.”

But Riley's eyes glaze over, until it no longer seems like she sees me. “The exorcism . . .” she says.

“It doesn't matter anymore,” I say. Blue tendrils stretch over the wood, reaching for us like fingers. I tug my legs apart, trying to loosen the ropes at my ankles. But they hold tight.

“You can't leave us here!” I shout. Of all the ways I thought I might die in this house, burning alive is the most cruel. “You can't!”

Riley hesitates. There's a loud crack, and a ceiling beam splits in half and swings to the floor, spraying sparks as it falls. The tiny embers land on my arms and legs and eat through my jeans, stinging my skin.

“Oh, god,” I beg, squeezing my eyes shut. “You can't leave us here.”

Riley's face turns white, and her lower lip trembles. “Lord, forgive me,” she whispers. Her head disappears as she ducks out of the attic, the ladder creaking beneath her weight.

“No!
No!
” I scream for so long that my voice goes hoarse. Smoke fills my lungs, and my sobs dissolve in a fit of coughing. The air around us thickens. It clouds my head when I breathe it in, making me feel dizzy and sick to my stomach. We're never getting out of here. We're going to burn to death. We're going to die screaming as flames eat away our faces.

Fire crackles, and another wooden beam drops to the floor. It crashes in the corner, lighting more of Riley's tower of
Vogue
magazines on fire as it sparks. I cough and cough, unable to catch my breath as I watch the flames grow and move.

“Sofia,” Brooklyn says, her voice eerily steady, “we can get out of here, but you need to help me.”

I choke back my sobs, but I can't slow my rapidly beating heart. “How?” I ask, my voice shaking.

“Can you walk?”

I clumsily try to stand, but my legs are angled in front of me, and without using my arms I can't keep my balance. “No.”

“Then crawl if you have to,” Brooklyn insists. “Crawl to me. Hurry!”

Crawl.
I breathe in and then out, focusing on that one word. The fire is so close that I can feel its heat flickering at my ankle, but Brooklyn's not far away. I can make it to her before the fire reaches me. I push past the fears growing in the back of my head. I can crawl. I
will
crawl.

I rock my weight to the left and bite back a groan when my shoulder crashes into the floor. Now I'm lying on my side, my legs curled next to me. Brooklyn's boots are two or three feet away. With my arms still tied behind my back, I can't use them to pull myself, so I dig my heels into the floorboards and scoot across the attic. The fire reaches Riley's nail polish and the bottles explode in a burst of colorful glass, showering me with sparks.

My shoulder aches as I push it over the floor, past Brooklyn's combat boots and blood-and-soot-covered legs. I push myself farther, and then I'm beside her arm.

“What do I do?” I gasp when I'm close enough to see her face. She turns her head so she can look at me. In the crackling orange light, her eyes glow red.

“You need to get the nails out.” Brooklyn cringes, and the skin around her eyes crinkles. “You'll have to use your teeth.”

Teeth. If I stop and think about what I'm about to do, there's no way I'll go through with it. So I don't think. I rock my body to the side until I roll onto my chest. I pull my knees up, using my forehead to balance my weight against the floor. Brooklyn steadies me with one leg, and I pull myself up to a crouch. I edge myself closer to Brooklyn's hand.

The nail is wedged deep into her palm, and everything—her skin, her fingernails, the nail itself—is coated in a thick layer of blood. I lower my face to her hand and work my mouth around the nail head. Brooklyn gasps as my teeth scrape over her skin. I bite down on the nail and pull.

The nail digs into my teeth and gums, but it doesn't move. Blood fills my mouth, and it tastes sharp, metallic. I don't know whether it's mine or Brooklyn's. Probably both. I try not to breathe it in as I pull again. The nail bites into the enamel of my teeth, and blood trickles down my throat. I start to gag.

“Sofia, come on,” Brooklyn says. “You've got this.”

I bite down again, this time wiggling the nail head with my teeth before I pull. It comes loose in my mouth, and I rock backward, nearly losing my balance. Brooklyn releases a strangled cry and hugs her now free hand to her chest. Before I can even spit the nail from my mouth, she reaches to her other hand and digs the nail out herself. It clatters to the floor when she pulls it loose.

“Jesus. Fuck!” she screams, sitting. Fire crackles around us, and the smoke is so thick I can barely make out Brooklyn's face. “Come here,” she says to me. “Hurry!”

I move toward her so she can untie the ropes at my wrists. The fire grows around us. Between Brooklyn's bloody hands and the heat of the fire making us sweat, the rope is slick and hard for her to handle. Twice, it slips through Brooklyn's fingers.

Fear beats at my skull.
We're not going to make it
, I think. But then Brooklyn tugs the knots around my wrists loose, and I'm free.

I help her untie the ropes around my ankles, then stumble to my feet, not entirely sure how long the floor will hold. Fire moves over the walls and eats the wood. My eyes sting. I blink, but I can't clear the smoke away. Tears stream down my cheeks. My terror hardens into determination. I'm not dying here. I refuse to die here.

We make it to the next floor seconds before the fire leaps to the top rung of the ladder. Brooklyn doubles over, coughing so hard I worry she'll vomit.

“You can't stop.” I grab her arm and pull her toward the stairs. My heart beats in my ears, counting every second that passes. The fire is traveling too fast. It's chasing at our heels, blocking every exit. I'm not sure how much time we have left.

Smoke billows around us, filling my lungs. I pull my shirt over my face, but it doesn't help. My chest aches for air, but every breath I take is toxic. I start to choke, and then I can't stop. My entire body shakes with coughing. Brooklyn straightens and pushes herself down the steps. I slide her arm over my shoulder to help her.

We make our way to the first floor and down the hall. When we turn the corner, relief floods my body. The door hangs open. I start to run.

The stairs cave in with a crash like thunder, and the smoke is so thick I can barely see. I tighten my arm around Brooklyn and push myself forward. We cross the front porch and make our way down the stairs.

I drop to my knees on the ground, and Brooklyn collapses next to me. For a moment I just rest my forehead against the cool grass, gulping down fresh air. Behind us, the fire licks and crackles and spits. Listening to it, I sit back up and look around.

The sidewalk and road are empty. Riley and Grace are long gone. I swallow the bile that rises in my throat as I picture them stumbling out of the house, ignoring my screams. But I can't think of that now. We don't have a lot of time. This part of the neighborhood might be abandoned, but eventually the smoke will stretch high enough that someone will see and call the police. And then . . .

I turn to Brooklyn, surprised to see she's already watching me. Her black eyes reflect the light of the fire. She pushes herself to her feet and offers me her hand. Once I'm standing, she pulls me close to her and leans in to whisper in my ear.

“Tell no one.” Her breath smells like blood and smoke. She steps away from me, then nods once. Without another word, she starts to limp away.

For a long moment I stand there, watching the house burn. I laugh out loud, and the sound is so shocking and wonderful that my eyes well with tears. I didn't die. It's over. I'm free.

The fire moves through the house like a living thing—wild and desperate and hungry. By the time it's done, all the evidence of last night will be destroyed. I think about what Brooklyn said—
tell no one
. If we go to the cops, it'll be her word against Riley's.

I swallow and turn away from the fire. Then I head down the sidewalk, toward home.