The Merciless II (16 page)

“I
'm doing this to help you,” Jude says, but his voice is hollow. His eyes dart to the bindings around my wrists before moving back to my face. “Please, stop fighting. You'll be grateful when it's over. You'll
thank
me.”

I nod, even though I can barely make sense of his words. Pain bites into every inch of my skin. It takes all of my energy not to scream or cry or throw up. It's all I can think about.

Jude digs something out of his jeans pocket. A blue plastic lighter.

The muscles in my shoulders tense. I shake my head, and the metal pear rattles against my teeth. Jude studies
the lighter. He rolls his thumb over the switch and a red-orange flame dances to life between his fingers.

I imagine that flame licking my toes. My
fingers
. I can practically feel my skin growing red and itchy, my nerves flaring as the pain sears hotter. My breath comes hard and fast, and my skin suddenly feels too tight. I shrink back against the cross, trembling. Jude moves his finger from the lighter. The flame vanishes.

“Anything you've done, I've done worse,” he whispers. “That's what I need you to understand, Sofia. We're the
same
. We belong together. God forgave me. He'll forgive you, too.”

I want to tell him to stop. Don't do this. I'll be good, I swear. But the pear presses down against my tongue, making it impossible to speak. I plead with my eyes.

Stop, please, I can't take any more, I can't
. Jude doesn't look at me. He flicks the lighter on. And then off again.

“Did I tell you my parents sent me here when I was thirteen? Technically, I was a year too young to start as a freshman, but Father Marcus made an exception. He's a great man, Father Marcus.”

Flick
. The flame jumps to life.
Flick
. It disappears.

“I'd been having a hard time at home since my sister, Chloe, died. She was only seven years old. We were out skating and I was supposed to be watching her, but my friends were hanging around in the woods, drinking and
getting high.” Jude swallows hard and closes his hand around the lighter. He finally meets my eyes. “I was stoned when Chloe fell through some thin ice.

“I was too high to save her, too high to run for help.
I'm
the reason she died. So, yeah, I understand what it's like to do something evil. I was just like you, Sofia. I didn't believe in God when I came here. Didn't think I could be saved. But Father Marcus wouldn't give up on me. Look.”

Jude stretches out his arm, showing me the thick red burn in the crook of his elbow. It's the mark I noticed that morning in the chapel. I thought it was weird that he refused to tell me about it, but I was too distracted by his hair and his smile.
Stupid
.

Staring at it now, I see the faint outline of a shield emblazoned with a cross seared into his skin. Like a brand.

“It comes from this,” Jude explains, curling his hand into a fist. He's wearing a thick silver ring. It's familiar, but I can't place why until he turns the ring so that I can see the design on the front—a silver cross, a shield. All at once, I remember where I've seen it before. It glittered from Father Marcus's hand the day I caught him whipping Jude.

Jude twists the ring around his finger absently. “Father Marcus knows true evil. He was a missionary for years and years. A
real
one. He didn't just go to the places
everyone goes, like China and Haiti. He traveled to tiny little villages no one's ever even heard of. We're talking places with no electricity or running water. He's stayed in the jungle, living with the locals to better understand their customs.”

Jude swallows. He twists the ring faster.

“Father Marcus has witnessed some of the most depraved demonic possessions imaginable. Things the Vatican would've scoffed at,” Jude says, shaking his head. He sounds as if he's reading a script, as if he's memorized everything Father Marcus ever told him. “But that's only because they haven't seen what he's seen. There are children out there who cry tears of blood. Some of them even
levitate
, and their eyes roll back in their heads. He's seen grown men and women who speak in tongues and crave human flesh.

“In the face of evil like that, Father Marcus was forced to resort to more archaic forms of exorcism,” Jude continues. He touches the burn on his skin with one finger, tracing the gruesome scar almost lovingly. “The day he branded this image into my flesh, he told me he claimed my body in the name of the Lord. After that, things were different for me. I started to grow closer to God. I started to
heal
.”

Jude uncurls his fist and stares down at the plastic lighter on his palm. “You want to heal, don't you?”

I look from the lighter to Jude's twisted scar and, all at once, I smell burning skin, burning hair. He's going to brand me. He's going to light that ring on fire and press it into my skin. I shrink away from him, pressing my shredded back against the wood of the cross. I pull myself up by the bindings at my wrists, ignoring how my spine aches and my joints howl with pain. A scream wells inside of my chest. I choke it back, forcing myself to focus on the metal blades cutting into the insides of my cheeks. A scream will only hurt.

“Let me get that,” Jude murmurs. He twists the lever attached the metal pear, and the blades peel away from the sides of my mouth. I inhale, and fresh, stinging air brushes up against the open wounds. The sharp, metallic taste of blood clings to my gums. Jude pulls the pear from my lips, and tosses it back into the duffel bag.

I blink, my eyelashes wet and heavy. Am I crying? Or is it sweat? Blood? I can't tell, can't feel anything but pain and fear. “Please,” I beg. “Please don't do that.”

“I don't want to hurt you,” Jude whispers. His voice sounds so sincere. Like he really believes what he's saying. He flicks the lighter and fire appears, like magic.

“Then don't do this,” I choke out. “Please stop.
Please
.”

Jude stares down at the flickering fire. The flame reflects in his dark eyes. “I begged Father Marcus to stop, too,” he says. “But now I'm grateful for what he
did. I was just like you, Sofia. I'd done an unforgiveable thing and I thought there was no hope for me, no chance of salvation.”

Jude reaches out and strokes my arm. The feel of his skin against mine is somehow both comforting and disturbing.

“You said you felt possessed, like you had a demon clinging to your back. I've felt that way, too, Sofia. But Father Marcus saved me from the sins of the flesh. He made me clean.”

Jude moves his finger in small circles over my skin, raising the hair on my arms. For a second, I want to trust him. Maybe this
is
the way to salvation, and all I have to do is survive the pain to be rid of the evil inside of me. It would be so easy to just . . . give up.

Then I hear my mother's voice in my ear.
Be strong, Sofia
. A single tear leaks out from the corner of my eye. Sergeant Nina Flores didn't teach her only daughter to trust lying boys with pretty smiles. She didn't teach me to give up.

My voice cracks in my throat. “Father Marcus was wrong, Jude. He didn't save you—he
tortured
you.”

“He made me
whole
,” Jude spits. He looks up at me and, for the first time, I see real anger in his eyes. “He exorcised the demons from my soul, and he presented my flesh to God for salvation. I'm free because of the things he did.”

I swallow, disgust twisting my stomach.

“Father Marcus is a hero,” Jude says, almost to himself. He lowers his ring to the flame. Fire curls around the silver shield. “People don't understand, but that's just because they haven't seen real evil. They don't know. Everything he's done, he's done for the Lord.”

“Jude—”

Jude's arm shoots out so quickly that I don't have time to jerk away. He catches my chin in his hand and yanks my face forward roughly.

“I'm doing this for
us
, Sofia,” he says. “I love you.”

He presses the ring into my neck.

Blistering pain explodes through my head. Red and orange lights dance before my eyes and nausea floods my stomach. I feel the skin on my neck bubble and melt, and I thrash wildly against the cross. I don't care about the cuts on my back and my feet, or the welts inside my mouth, and the dull bruises on my cheeks. All I can think about is my neck, the burning ache searing through my body.

The entire room seems tinged with red, like my eyes themselves are bleeding. I don't realize I'm screaming until Jude covers my mouth with his hand. His fingers are chapped, and his skin smells like blood. I try to catch my breath, but sobs clog my throat. The pain is too much. I can't hold myself up anymore—the muscles in my arms
go slack, and my body drops like a stone, yanking at the ropes twisted around my arms. My shoulders scream with pain and I wonder, dimly, if I pulled my arm from its socket.

Something tickles my neck and I flinch before realizing that it must be blood. The blood trickles down my skin and gathers in the space just above my collarbone, quickly soaking the fabric of my dress. I choke down another, shaking breath. I must look crazy, shaking and sobbing like this. I must look possessed.

Jude leans his forehead against mine.

“Shhh,” he whispers into my hair. I choke my voice back, whimpering. All I can think about is pain and fear and heat.

“I claim this body in the name of the Lord,” Jude says. He lowers his face to my forehead and presses his lips into my skin.

“Get off me.” I moan, pulling my face away from him. The burn on my neck flares. “Don't touch me!”

“Sofia—”

The sound of church bells drifts in from outside, cutting Jude off. They're the same tinny, recorded church bells they played during Leena's funeral. Jude turns and stares at the chapel door.

“Christmas Mass,” he murmurs. He runs a hand back through his hair. “Dammit.”

I swallow and pain blisters through my neck. Jude rises up to his tiptoes and kisses my cheek.

“I've got to go, but I swear I'll be back soon,” he says. His lips feel cold and clammy against my skin. Like something dead. I cringe.

He hurries to the front door. I let my head fall back against the cross. The door opens, and then thuds shut again, and I exhale, relieved.

The burnt wreckage of the roof stretches above me. I can see the night sky through the blackened ceiling beams, stars winking down from the dark, endless sky.

“God,” I whisper. “
Help
.”

The word gets stuck in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears stream down my cheeks. I can't think of anything to say to him, anything to ask. He won't answer anyway. He never does.

He's forsaken me.

A
gust of wind blows in through the tattered walls of the chapel, bringing my mother's voice with it.

Go, Sofia. Go now
.

I stare at the tightly knotted robes binding my wrists to the cross. It's impossible. There's not enough time.

In my head, I see Jude racing across the grounds, his boots kicking up fresh snow. He didn't say where he was going, but I bet he's headed to the auditorium to tell Father Marcus he won't be staying for Mass. It isn't far through the woods, but the snow's falling heavily now. It could slow him down. Still, it'll only take a couple of minutes to get to the auditorium. Five, if I'm lucky. Then,
maybe, another five minutes to talk to Father Marcus. And five minutes to get back.

That's just fifteen minutes. Maybe ten. And then Jude will come back and finish what he started.

For the first time, it occurs to me that I might die tonight. I could see my mother again in just a few hours. How will I face her, knowing I didn't fight for my life? That I didn't even try?

I grit my teeth and tug at my wrist. The rope feels coarse against my skin, and slick with sweat and blood. The cross groans, and the rope creaks, but the knot stays tight.

I cry out in frustration, my ragged voice echoing off the blackened chapel walls. I yank my fist down, and then up again to loosen the binding. I twist my arm. It feels like rubbing gravel into an open wound, like scrubbing my bare skin with sandpaper. Fresh blood oozes from my reddened skin. I press my teeth into my lower lip and pull. But the knot doesn't budge.

“
Come on!
” I shout. I collapse against the cross, cringing as my back presses into the wood. The ropes have cut off circulation to my hand. There's no loosening them. It takes all my energy just to wiggle my fingers. I stretch my feet, but my toes barely brush against the cross's heavy wooden base.

“
Fuck!
” I scream. I jerk both hands at once, thrashing,
my head swinging wildly back and forth. I curl my knees toward my chest and hurl them backward, slamming my bare feet into the wood. Pain licks at the ragged skin peeling away from the soles of my feet, but I don't care. I kick the cross again and again and—

I freeze, gasping. The cross
moved
. It shifted backward. Like it was tilting.

I suck down a breath, my chest rising and falling rapidly beneath my ruined dress. My head feels dizzy, a low thud at the back of my skull telling me I must've slammed it against the wood. I thought the cross was affixed directly to the floor. It's huge, much larger than a person. It never occurred to me that you could shift it.

If you can shift it, you can get it to fall.

I rock against the cross, testing. The cuts along my back flare. But the cross doesn't move.

I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe. How much time has passed now? Three minutes? Four? I imagine Jude racing up the stairs to St. Mary's, taking the steps two at a time, maybe double-checking his appearance in the glass door to make sure my blood isn't smeared across his face. There isn't a clock in the chapel, but I swear I can hear the
tick tick tick
of a second hand.

I lean forward, my wrists pulling against the ropes binding me to the cross. The knots scrape against my skin. Fresh blood rolls down my arms and drips from my
elbows. My feet fumble along the bottom of the cross. The ruined skin along my soles flares and spits, but I just press them harder into the wood, gritting my teeth against the pain. Spots of light flicker across my eyes. The world around me tilts.

“This is going to hurt,” I whisper. My voice doesn't tremble this time. It sounds steady—strong, even. I focus on each individual word so I don't have to think about what I'm going to do. “Are you ready for that? This is going to really, really—”

I hurl my weight against the cross. My back crashes into the wood and every single cut the whip slashed into my skin turns bright-white and screams. It feels like electricity ripping through my body, like nails driving deep into my muscles. My teeth slam together and my head snaps to the side.

The cross scoots across the floor, and then rocks back on its base. I open my mouth in a silent scream. My head lolls forward and a choked whimper crawls from my lips. The room flickers, like a candle sputtering. I don't have time to pass out. If I pass out, I'm dead.

“Five minutes,” I say. “You only have five minutes left. Come on.”

I wrench my body up by the wrists—and then I slam myself against the cross again. This time, it tilts on the edge of its base before crashing back in place. I sway
from my ropes like a rag doll. Pain howls through me. It wraps around my spine and makes my toes curl.

I want to give up. I'm not strong like my mother. She would never give up.

Vomit rises in my throat and I swallow it down. It takes all the strength I have left to drag my body up by the wrists, to press my feet into the cross, and fling my body backward.

And then—

The cross rocks, then tilts. The air around me shifts as I plummet toward the floor. I have only a second to feel the sudden whoosh of triumph before the cross crashes into the tile, snapping clear of its base. I barely notice the ache spreading through my body. I gasp, staring up through the blackened ceiling beams. The moon hangs in the darkened night sky, shining down on me like a quarter. A laugh bubbles up from my throat.

I did it. I'm free.

I try to roll over but the cross is too heavy, and the ropes still knotted around my wrists pull me down. I drag my feet across the floor and push. I rock to the side, catching myself with one hand before the cross's weight shifts to my shoulders. I inch my knee up to help deal with the bulk and ease my body forward in a half crawl. If I move too far to the left or the right, I'll slam back to the ground and have to start again. There's
no time for that. I swallow, and then slowly rise to my knees. The cross shifts. I sway backward, but maintain my balance. I grit my teeth together and slide one knee forward—then totter onto my foot. I drag the other knee forward and attempt to stand, the bottoms of my feet flaring with pain. But it's nothing compared to the pain in my back. The cross digs into my body, chaffing against my tattered skin. Blood sticks to my shredded dress, plastering it to the blackened wood.

I lurch forward. The cross is larger than I am, and it drags on the floor behind me. Each step is punishment. The wood is too heavy for me to lift and I'm doubled over, my knees practically buckling from the weight. I want to stop and try to catch my breath, but I worry that I'll collapse if I don't keep moving. I focus, instead, on my legs. I lift one, inch forward, and lower it back to the ground. My footsteps are short, my feet barely shuffling off the ground with each step. But still. I'm moving.

I have no idea how much time has passed. I picture Jude standing with Father Marcus in the auditorium, smiling that charismatic smile of his as he explains why he can't stay. Maybe the priest won't believe him. Maybe he'll hand him a Bible and tell him to find a seat. But I doubt it. I'm not that lucky.

Jude's probably already on his way back.

I stumble and stagger, my eyes glued to the velvet
curtains blocking off the back room. They're only three feet away . . .

Now two . . .

One . . .

I pitch forward, slamming into the wall. My foot slips out from beneath me and I crash down to one knee, groaning in pain. I press my lips together and pull myself back to both feet, gasping. I made it. I stand as best I can, and push through the curtains. I start to move through the opening, when something thumps against the wall. Pain shudders through me, and my body jerks backward.

I shift my head to the side to see what's keeping me from moving forward. It's the cross—it's too wide to fit through the door. The heavy wood clanks against the frame, my hand dangling.

“Shit,” I whisper. I try to force the cross through the door, but I'm bent too far over, and I can't get it to tilt at the right angle. Either the top of the cross or one of the sides keeps thudding against the blackened frame. I'm stuck.

Blood drips from my body and pools on the floor beneath my toes, mixing with the ash to form a dull gray paste. The only way through the door is to break the cross. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that my
arms
are tied to the cross.

“Broken bones heal,” I whisper meekly.

The front door creaks. I freeze, waiting for the sound of footsteps or a groan as Jude pushes the door open. I can't look over my shoulder, not with the cross tied to my back. I listen for a long moment, but I hear nothing over my own ragged breath. He isn't here.

Yet
. He isn't here
yet
. I swallow, and the acid taste of vomit hits the back of my throat. The chapel door could fly open any second now. And if Jude sees me here, like this . . .

I slam one arm against the doorframe, hoping the wood's been burnt enough that it'll just give way. The door holds, but the cross splinters, and thin shards of wood jam into my skin. Pain spreads through my wrist and up into my shoulder. It feels dull compared to the sharp jabs along my back, but deeper. The kind of pain that won't fade after a few hours. Sweat coats my forehead, and nausea swirls through my stomach. The room around me spins.

I throw myself into the doorframe again and this time the wood cracks beneath it. One side of the cross stays attached to my back while the other—the one bound to my wrist—breaks free. I sigh, relieved, and then get to work on the knot. My blood has slicked the ropes enough that they slide easily off the broken edge of the cross, finally releasing my hand. I pull myself loose and my arm flops to my side.

It looks wrong, like there are too many bones rattling around below the skin. I try to move it, and pain shoots through my muscles. It's broken.

I release a scream that's half sob and collapse onto the ground, the cross settling heavily against my shoulders. I reach for my opposite wrist with my broken arm. Pain knifes through me as my fingers slip over the bloody knot, struggling to grip it. I dig and pull but the knot holds tight.

“Come
on
!” I scream as finally my fingers sink into the knot. I grit my teeth and pull, and the bindings unravel. The rope falls to the floor.

I hear something just outside. A crunch, like boots on snow.

Time's up.