The Merciless (8 page)

R
iley pushes the knife closer to Brooklyn's throat. I try not to think about how easily she could rip it open. She'll draw blood if either of them moves. I can practically feel the hate radiating off Riley's skin. Maybe she does want to help Brooklyn, but that's not all she wants. She wants her to pay.

“Wait!” The word flies from my mouth before I can think about what I'm doing. Silence follows, and now they're all looking at me, expecting an explanation. I clear my throat and take a hesitant step toward Riley. “Let me try.”

I know Brooklyn's sin. Maybe I can get her to admit it without hurting her. Riley considers me with an icy expression, almost as if she can see past my skin and bones, to all the parts I want to keep hidden from her. Then, as though she flipped a switch, her face lights up.

“Of course,” she says. “You should be the one to get her to confess.”

She pushes the knife to my palm, and I wrap my fingers around it. My skin tingles where it touches the wooden handle. Riley takes me by the shoulders and pulls me close, kissing me on the cheek.

“Make us proud,” she says. Her lips leave behind a damp spot that burns into my skin like acid, but I don't wipe it away. Maybe it's sick, but I
do
want to make Riley proud, even after everything.

“Brooklyn,” I say, forcing myself to meet Brooklyn's gaze, “I know what you did at the party. I saw you. If you just admit it, we can all go home.”

“What did I do, Sofia?” Brooklyn asks. She blinks at me, her dark eyes filled with hate. “Enlighten me.”

“You were in the hot tub with Josh,” I say. “You were . . .” I don't want to describe the possessive way she mashed her mouth against Josh's and wrapped her arms around his neck, so I let the rest of my sentence trail off, hoping the others can fill in the blanks.

“Ri, why didn't you tell us?” Grace says.

“I don't think I wanted to admit it,” Riley whispers. “I . . .”

“Wait,” Brooklyn interrupts. “You think I screwed your boyfriend?” She pulls her battered leg closer to her body, and her boots scrape against the floor. “I never touched that preppy asshole.”

“Brooklyn, I'm trying to . . .”
Help you
, I'd wanted to say. But I press my lips together, cutting myself off.

Riley touches my arm. “She just wants to piss us off,” she says. “But I have ways of finding the truth.”

She pulls a cell phone out of her back pocket. It's covered in duct tape, and someone drew a tiny picture of a kitten with vampire teeth on the back in thick black Sharpie.

“What are you doing with my phone?” Brooklyn asks. “Did you think me and Josh were sending each other dirty text messages?”

“If you were, you deleted them,” Riley answers. Her eyes have that glow to them again, the same glow they had when she first brought me here to see Brooklyn tied up. “I guess I'll just have to write some new ones. If you're not going to admit you've been screwing my boyfriend, I'll get him to do it for you.”

I stare at the phone, wanting to grab it from Riley's hands and call the police.

“
What are you doing?
”
Riley reads as she types the message.
“I'm lonely.”

She hesitates for a beat, then taps the screen with her thumb. “Send,” she says. She slides the phone back into her pocket and crouches in front of Brooklyn again.

“Now, what should we do while we wait for a response?” she asks, unbending a finger from Brooklyn's fist. She takes the knife from my hands before I can stop her and slides the tip of it beneath Brooklyn's fingernail. A phantom pain shoots through all my fingers at once. “How about we play a game? Either you admit your sins, or I do your nails.”

Brooklyn glances down at the knife, then back up at Riley.

“Go to hell,” she says through clenched teeth.

“That didn't sound like a sin to me,” Riley says, and she drives the knife beneath Brooklyn's fingernail.

Brooklyn throws her head against the pillar and releases a desperate, animalistic scream. I close my eyes, and, again, I see Riley wedge the knife beneath Brooklyn's fingernail and shove it forward; I hear the sick pop of the nail separating from Brooklyn's finger. I start to heave, but I force it down. I can't fall apart now. I have to get Brooklyn out of here.

I open my eyes in time to see Brooklyn's tiny black fingernail fall from Riley's knife and drop to the floor. Brooklyn's screams dissolve into shaky sobs, her chest rising and falling rapidly. I stare at the bloody clump on the concrete as Riley unpeels another finger from Brooklyn's fist and slides the tip of her knife just beneath the nail.

“Riley, let's air this place out,” I interrupt before Riley pushes the knife any farther under Brooklyn's fingernail. The smoke is thick enough to agitate the back of my throat. Riley's shoulders stiffen and I freeze, certain she heard the fear in my voice. Any second she'll turn the knife on me.

Then her shoulders sag, and she wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah,” she says. “Let's go upstairs.”

Grace and Alexis crowd around Riley as they make their way to the door. I let them walk ahead of me, hesitating at the bottom of the stairs.

Now that she's alone, Brooklyn collapses against the wooden pillar and her chest rises and falls in quick succession, like she's going to start hyperventilating. She moves her leg and a spasm of pain shoots across her face.

Riley digs the dead bolt key out of her pocket, her hair covering her face like a veil. Grace and Alexis huddle behind her, whispering in hushed, sympathetic voices. It sounds like they're talking about Josh, but I'm not really listening.

I could untie Brooklyn, and then it would be three against two. Brooklyn's hurt, but we might still be able to get past them.

I step back from the stairs, rolling my foot from the ball to the heel so the soles of my sneakers don't squeak against the floor.

Alexis pats Riley on the shoulder. “It's better this way,” she says. I try to breathe normally, but every time I inhale, my mouth fills with smoke and I have to struggle not to cough. “At least now you know what kind of guy he is.”

I duck around the concrete wall and race across the basement to kneel next to Brooklyn. She stares straight ahead, like she can't see me.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, her voice barely a whisper. I grab the rope binding her to the pillar and try to pull the knot apart with my fingers.

“I'm getting you out of here.” I say the words directly into her ear so they don't echo across the basement.

“Riley's ruthless. If she catches you, she'll tie you up, too,” Brooklyn whispers. The ropes slip in my fingers. Shaking now, I search the basement for something I can use to help pull them apart.

“I was lucky Sofia saw them,” Riley says, her voice drifting down the staircase. I ignore her, grabbing a ballpoint pen sticking from the pages of Alexis's Bible. I try to jerk Brooklyn's knots loose.

“Sofia?” Riley calls. There's a moment of silence, and my body goes cold, my fingers frozen on the ropes. The stairs creak as Riley starts down.

“Damn it,” I whisper, digging the pen deeper into the knots. Brooklyn twists around to face me.

“Go,” she says. “Our only chance is if she thinks she can trust you. Otherwise we're both screwed.”

“Sof, what are you doing?” Riley calls down the stairs. There's another groan of wood, and I hear Alexis and Grace whispering as they head back down to the basement with her. I'm so close. The knots will give at any moment. I twist the pen against the ropes, and it slips from my sweaty fingers, clattering to the floor.

“Shit,” I hiss.

The footsteps hesitate, and someone mutters, “What was that?”

Brooklyn glances at the staircase, and a muscle in her jaw tightens.

“Stab me.” Her eyes shift down to the pen on the floor.

“What?”

“Sofia, she
has
to trust you,” Brooklyn insists. “It's our only way out.” I wipe my hands on my pants and pick up the pen. My fingers tremble as I lift the pen to Brooklyn's leg. There's no way I can do this. Riley's feet slap against the basement floor—any second she'll turn the corner and see me.

“Do it!” Brooklyn says. A candle sparks behind me, turning Brooklyn's eyes red. They look like they're glowing again. I nervously drop the pen, and it clatters to the floor again, rolling next to Brooklyn's fingers. I reach for it, but Brooklyn grabs it first.

Without hesitating, she wraps her fingers around the pen and drives it into her leg.

“Shit!” Brooklyn screams. A dark circle of blood appears on her jean shorts. Tears spring to her eyes, and she throws her head back against the pillar, sobbing. She pushes the pen into my hand, and I immediately wrap my fingers around it, trying not to feel ill. I can't bring myself to look down at the blood staining the pen's tip.

“Oh my god!” Riley shouts. She's at my side now and watches the blood spread across Brooklyn's leg, her eyes bright—proud.

“She tried to escape,” I lie. “As soon as you went for the staircase, she started pulling at her ropes.”

Riley presses her lips into a thin line and squeezes my shoulder. It simultaneously comforts and disgusts me. “I knew we could count on you.”

M
y grandmother told me about an exorcism she went to once. She was very young, at a small country church in Mexico. A five-year-old boy was brought before the congregation. He'd cut the skin on his arms to ribbons using a straight pin he found in his mother's sewing kit, and he spoke in a language no one knew. The priest spent the entire day dousing the boy with holy water and saying prayer after prayer for his salvation. The day grew late, and most of the congregation left. But my grandmother and her mother stayed and prayed over their rosaries to give the priest and the boy strength.

My grandmother's voice—strong and deep before she got sick—always got quiet when she told the next part of the story:

“The boy, he
tembla—
trembles—and he cries in pain,” she'd say in her shaky English, grabbing and motioning with her hands as she spoke, like she was trying to pull the story from the air. “His eyes glow red, and he falls to the ground, and he screams. When he opened his eyes,
mija
, they don't glow anymore. We knew he was saved. Free.”

I turn my grandmother's words over in my head while Brooklyn howls in pain. I think of how her leg gave way beneath the pen's sharp tip and my hands quiver. Footsteps echo across the floor.

“Oh my god. What happened?” Alexis asks. Grace hovers behind her, keeping to the farthest corner of the basement.

“Brooklyn almost got away, but Sofia stopped her,” Riley explains. “We can't stop now, not when she's weakening. Let's pray.”

Alexis reaches for Riley's hand, but Riley takes mine instead. “Alexis, can you pray over Brooklyn? I want Sof next to me.”

Jealousy flashes across Alexis's face, but it's gone in an instant. “Of course,” she says. “Whatever you think is best.”

Riley tightens her hand around mine. She sees me as one of them now. Brooklyn whimpers, and I glance up, meeting her eyes. Even now her pupils seem to glow red.

Grandmother's low, gravelly voice echoes through my head.

“The boy, his eyes glow red, and he falls to the ground, and he screams. . . .”

Cringing, I look away. It's just the candles, nothing more.

Alexis closes her eyes and starts speaking in another language. “
Pater noster, qui es in caelis
,” she whispers, swaying. The Latin sounds strange when spoken in her Southern accent.

Brooklyn writhes on the floor below her. Her eyelids flicker open, but she rolls her pupils so far back that all I see are the whites. I'm reminded, again, of the boy who shook and trembled while my grandmother and her mother recited the Lord's Prayer in that empty church. Then Brooklyn snickers, breaking the spell.

“She's screwing with us,” Riley says. She grabs the backpack and pulls out a pack of matches. A cold finger of fear traces down my spine.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“Trust me,” she says. She strikes a match, and for a moment we're all quiet. The sulfur lights, shooting blue sparks from the tip before the fire deepens to a flickering red-orange. Riley turns the match in her fingers, and its flame reflects in her dark eyes.

She throws it at Brooklyn.

The match lands on Brooklyn's bare leg, just below her frayed cutoff shorts. All at once her face seems to fold in on itself. She sucks in a sharp breath, shaking her leg wildly to get the match off her skin. It falls to the concrete and dies, leaving only the smell of burning pennies.

“Your turn.” Riley takes my hand and places the pack of matches on my palm. I hesitate. The cardboard box seems heavy, even though I know it's practically weightless. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” I say too quickly. I slowly remove a single match from the pack and light it against the sulfur strip on the bottom of the lid. I run through every option I can think of, trying to figure a way around this, an excuse, a distraction—anything. I search every dusty corner, but there's nothing. No plan, no other options.

The match's flame flickers, first blue then orange.

I have to get out of here
, I tell myself, but the words don't have much power. Riley's testing me, and I have to pass if I stand a chance.

The flame creeps slowly down the match. My fingers tremble so badly it almost goes out. I lift my hand and toss the match into the air. Luckily, my shaking fingers cause the match to land on the concrete next to Brooklyn instead of on her bare skin.

“So close, Sof,” Riley says, but she isn't watching anymore. She picks the knife up off the ground.

Alexis starts chanting again. “
Sanctificetur nomen tuum
 . . .”

Next to me, Grace closes her eyes and lifts her hands to the ceiling in prayer.

“Again, Sofia,” Riley says as she kneels before Brooklyn. This time, when I light the match, I let the flame burn down until it's almost to my fingers. It dies in midair before hitting Brooklyn's skin, and I feel an instant rush of relief.

Brooklyn barely notices when the blackened match drops on her leg. Her eyes are on Riley's knife.

“More threats?” she asks in a choked voice. “That's getting old.”

Riley turns the knife so its blade catches the candlelight. “I read about this method of exorcism called bleeding,” she explains. “If you harm the host body enough, it scares the demon away.”

Riley presses the knife into Brooklyn's exposed thigh and pulls the blade toward her knee. She moves the knife so slowly that I hear the skin rip seconds before a thin red line of blood appears on Brooklyn's leg.

Brooklyn presses her eyes closed and her jaw clenches, but she doesn't scream. Blood bubbles up just above her knee and winds around her leg.

“Riley,” I say. Another match burns to life, but I'm so distracted that it dies in my hand, stinging my fingers. I drop it with a start.

“Don't worry, the cuts aren't deep,” Riley says. “We don't want to kill her—we just want the demon scared.”

Riley pulls the knife across Brooklyn's opposite thigh, just as slowly. I imagine the knife biting the flesh on my thighs, tearing my skin. It stings.

Brooklyn's mouth falls open in a wordless sob. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and tears cut down her face, leaving behind murky gray trails of eyeliner. Next, Riley drags the blade over Brooklyn's shins—first the left, then the right. Blood drips to the floor.

Alexis falls to her knees, chanting louder. “
Adveniat regnum tuum!
”

Riley stands, the bloody knife still clenched in one hand. She brushes the hair from her forehead, leaving a smudge of red above her eyebrow.

“Sof, could you hand me the salt?” Riley asks, wiping her bloody fingers on her jeans. “I don't want to get blood everywhere.”

My body moves before I tell it to, like someone else has control of my arms and legs. Grace is still swaying, her arms in the air above her, her eyes clenched shut. I walk past her and crouch next to the faded backpack lying against the wall, finding a bag of salt in the front pocket.

When I turn back around, the pool of blood beneath Brooklyn has oozed beneath Riley's bare feet. She doesn't notice, and when she walks toward me, her toes leave bloody prints on the concrete.

“Thanks,” she says, taking the salt from my hands. Riley pushes a lock of my hair back behind one ear. I feel something wet and warm against my cheek. Brooklyn's blood.

Riley opens the bag of salt and pours a handful into her palm. I want to close my eyes, like Grace, so I don't have to see what she's about to do. But fear keeps me from turning my head or pressing my eyes shut. It's the same fear that keeps me from telling Riley to stop or trying to wrestle her knife away. I don't want to be next.

Riley crouches in front of Brooklyn again. Blood soaks through her jeans where she kneels. She takes Brooklyn by the chin and forces the salt past her clenched lips.

Brooklyn's eyes fly open. She tries to pull her head away, but Alexis comes up behind her and grabs her by the hair to hold her steady. Riley covers Brooklyn's mouth with both her hands.

Brooklyn whips her head to one side, then the other. Alexis tightens her grip on her hair, and Riley pushes her hands up against her face, until Brooklyn can't move at all.

“I'll let go when you admit your sins,” Riley says. Brooklyn goes still. Her eyelids flutter, but they don't close.

“Are you ready to submit before the Lord?”

Brooklyn nods, and, slowly, Riley leans back. Alexis pulls her hands out of Brooklyn's hair, a few spiky bleached-blond strands still clenched between her fingers.

Brooklyn heaves forward, vomiting the salt onto the floor. Still bent over, she lets out a low sob, then spits to get all the salt out of her mouth.

“Well?” Riley says. Brooklyn shakes her head and mutters something too quietly for the rest of us to hear. Riley grabs her by the hair and pulls her head up.

“I didn't hear you.”

Brooklyn inhales shakily. Riley leans in closer.

A tense, hushed silence stretches between us. Wind presses in against the window. The fabric on Grace's sweatshirt rustles as she moves her arms. A brief, faint hope sparks in my chest.

Please. Please just let this be over.

Brooklyn lifts her dark, hate-filled eyes to Riley and parts her lips. Blood spatters her nose and drips down over her teeth.

She lunges forward, grabbing a chunk of Riley's face between her teeth.

Riley's horrified scream cuts the silence. Brooklyn's lips are coated with red when she pulls away. She spits, and a blood-covered chunk of skin slides across the concrete floor.