The Merciless II (19 page)

I
fall back on my heels, my hand propped against the ground behind me. This can't be real. It's a dream. I dig my fingers into the icy dirt.

“You aren't here,” I say.

“I've been here the whole time,” Brooklyn says.

“You're not here.” I close my eyes.
Wake up,
I tell myself.
Wake the fuck up!

Brooklyn stands, brushing the snow off her jeans.

“I told you I was coming for you, Sofia.” She takes a step toward me, and I shift back onto my hand and knees in an awkward, one-armed, crablike crawl. Brooklyn's smile sharpens, amused. “You shouldn't be so surprised.”

I think of my computer freezing, horrible pictures flashing across the screen. And then Brooklyn's voice whispering through the speakers:
I'm coming for you
. I crawl backward clumsily. Dull pain thumps through the soles of my feet, but all I can think of is getting away. Brooklyn takes a slow step toward me.

“It took a lot of work to get you in here. You should be grateful that I was willing to go through the trouble. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to get your mom to crash her car?”

I close my eyes, a tear sliding over my cheeks. “You killed my mother?”

“Not just her. I had to take care of Abby Owens, too. And she
scratches
.”

I think of the gauges on the windowsill back in my dorm, and understanding washes over me. Leena and Sutton's old roommate didn't get pregnant and run away like they thought. Brooklyn murdered her. A sob claws at my throat.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I choke out.

“Have you forgotten about our little talk in Leena's hospital room?
When someone does something unforgiveable, a demon attaches itself to them.
You did something unforgiveable, Sofia. You pulled a girl in front of a train and watched her die. And more than that, you want, you lust, you covet. You're weak. And I'm the price you have to pay for your sins.”

I crawl farther backward, my broken arm swaying in the sling at my chest. “But
why
? Why bring me here?”

“You kept fighting your true nature, and I needed you alone and isolated. I needed to show you how good it feels to let the evil in. Admit it, Sofia. You've done some pretty twisted things but didn't you like it? Didn't it feel good?”

“No, it didn't.” My voice cracks. Rocks and ice dig into my palm. “It felt terrible.”

“Don't lie, Sofia. That's another sin.” Brooklyn crouches in front of me. “You can't get away from me. You're mine. Pure
evil
. Like me.”

“I'm not evil,” I whisper. I keep crawling backward, the muscles in my arm and legs burning from the weight of my body. I should stand,
run
.

Brooklyn touches my chin with one finger. “And then you went and hooked up with the only guy on campus even more depraved than you are.”

Brooklyn glances over her shoulder. Jude's body is still slumped in the snow a few yards away from us. “He had bad boy written all over him,” she says. “I get why you liked him, though. You really are just like me.”

A tree trunk slams into my back and I groan. I move my hand behind me, dragging my fingers over the cold bark. I'm blocked in. The only way out is through Brooklyn.

Brooklyn cocks her head. “Do you recognize where we are?”

I take in my surroundings, but I don't see anything familiar. Everything is white. The snow has become an icy sleet. It comes down at an angle, biting into my face and hands. Ice clings to my cheeks and eyelashes and hair.

“Let me help you remember,” Brooklyn says. She stares at a spot in the snow, and the ground begins to tremble, as if there's something drilling up from below the earth. I push back up against the tree, hugging my knees to my chest.

“What is that?” I ask, staring hard at the snow. It shudders and tumbles away to reveal frozen dirt. A memory surfaces in my brain:

I'm crouching in the mud, digging a shallow hole while rain falls all around me. I clutch a bloody pillowcase in one hand
.

“No,” I breathe as it dawns on me that I'm sitting at the exact same spot where I buried Leena's bunny.

My pillowcase lurches out of the ground, crusty brown blood blossoming across the fabric like an ugly flower. It hovers in the air two feet above the snow, turning in a slow circle. Something inside it wriggles.

I swallow, tasting vomit on my tongue. “Don't,” I say. “Please.”

The pillowcase falls away, revealing Heathcliff's
frozen, bloody body. Skinny pink maggots burrow into his fur and writhe from his nose. They crowd around his eye sockets, eating the last of his rotten, bloodshot eyes.

“Do you know how good it feels to snap a bunny's neck?” Brooklyn asks, staring at the dead animal. She flicks her hand, and his body jerks violently, sending a few maggots flying to the snow. I scream, then curl my hand into a fist in front of my mouth. The bunny drops to the ground just inches from my foot. His back leg twitches, then goes still.

“It's like breaking a stick in half,” Brooklyn says. “And then all the light drains out of the little fucker's eyes just like”—she snaps her fingers—“
that
. I think you'd enjoy it, Sofia. It makes you feel powerful. Like God.”

“You're
sick
,” I whisper, tearing my eyes away from the maggots eating Heathcliff's face.

“The trapdoor was trickier,” Brooklyn says, her face twisting. “I thought I was going to have to make up some excuse to get Leena to walk across it at just the right moment, but I lucked out. She's clumsier than I expected.”

Leena's scream echoes through my head. I shudder and squeeze my eyes shut. “Stop it,” I say. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“And then there was the night of the fire. Do you know Leena passed out in the trees just a few feet away
from the chapel? You ran right past her, Sofia. You almost tripped on her crutch. If you had thought of someone other than yourself for a single second, you would have found her. If you'd have looked down even once, you would have seen her lying on the ground and she never would have had to die.”

“You killed her, too,” I say. A tear oozes out of the corner of my eye.

“I might have set the pieces, but it was the evil inside of you that sealed her fate. You coveted her life. You let your jealousy consume you. Leena was drunk, and she had a broken leg, and you left her alone in the woods. A good person wouldn't do that. A
good
person would have tried to help her. I dragged her back to the chapel, dumped her body, and knocked over a candle. But you watched the place burn.” Brooklyn's smile quirks. “It was a beautiful fire, don't you think?”

Brooklyn's words wash over me. I don't want her to be right. I don't want to have evil inside of me. I feel my body shutting down, ready to give up.

“I tried to be good,” I choke out. “I prayed. I asked God to help me.”

“But he didn't come for you, did he? I did.” Brooklyn says. “I did all of this for you, because you wanted it. You say you wanted to be a good girl, but that's not how you felt in your soul. You liked how it felt to hurt other
people.
You are evil
. Admit it. I may have broken that bunny's neck and locked the chapel door, but you were the one who
liked
it.”

Something inside of me releases. I didn't murder Heathcliff or Leena. Brooklyn set me up. She preyed on my jealousy and weakness.

I push myself away from the tree. All along I thought I was making these things happen myself. But it was just Brooklyn trying to break me. I feel stronger all of a sudden. As though the exhaustion and pain from this night has drained out of my body, leaving me whole again.

I'm not evil. Not yet, at least.

I push myself into a crouch, the muscles in my leg tingling. Brooklyn turns back around, frowning.

“What are you—”

I slap her across the face, relishing the sharp tingle of pain that shoots through my palm. “You're wrong,” I spit. “I'm
nothing
like you.”

And then I leap to my feet and run.

I
cy grass crunches beneath my feet. My pant legs bunch around my ankles, the soggy fabric dragging in the snow. I tear across the quad, heading for the boys' dorms. Or where I think the dorms should be. Sister Lauren said a couple of other students stayed behind over the holidays—the girls' dorms were empty, but maybe one of the boys can help me.

Snow swirls around me. Frozen curls hang over my forehead, making it impossible for me to see even two feet in front of me. I brush them back but they just fall forward, blocking my vision again. Bandages peel away
from the bottoms of my feet, and I feel a sharp sting of pain as my cuts burst open.

The dorms can't be far now. I take another step and my foot hits a patch of ice. It slides out from under me and I fall—
hard
—on my back. My head whacks against the frozen ground. A deep ache spreads across my shoulders and down my spine.

I lie there, watching the ice and snow swirl through the velvety black sky. Cold seeps through my sweatshirt and the seat of my pants. Misty gray puffs of breath hover above my mouth, and my heart beats against my ribs like an animal. The world around me seems to spin. I close my eyes, waiting for it to stop.

I could stay here,
I think. I could just let her catch me.

But I open my eyes and drag myself up to my hands and feet, pausing to catch my breath before I stand. I take a tentative step to my left. I can't remember which direction I was running away from, or where I was headed. The snow is too thick. Everything looks the same.

I barely make it two steps into the blizzard before slamming into something solid. A
wall
. I slide my hand over icy brick, so relieved I could cry. I did it. I found the dorm. I follow the wall until the bricks give way to a door, and then I run my fingers along the wood, silently cheering when they brush against the cold brass doorknob. I twist, but the knob won't turn.

“Help me!” I curl my uninjured hand into a fist and beat against the door. The wood trembles and shakes in its frame. “Help me! Somebody! Help me, please!”

Nobody answers. I beat at the door until the skin peels away from my knuckles, and my voice goes hoarse from screaming. My broken arm lies limp and unresponsive in its sling. Tears leak from my eyes. I glance behind me, expecting to see Brooklyn barreling through the snow, her lips spread in a manic smile, fingers curled toward me like claws.

But there's no one. Only ice and trees and swirling darkness.

Two hands clamp down on my shoulders and spin me back around. I try to scream, but my voice gets lodged in my chest and I only manage a whimper. It takes me a long moment to recognize Father Marcus's icy blue eyes and the white tufts of hair sticking out from his balding head. He stands at the door I was just pounding against, squinting into the snowy darkness, a threadbare robe hanging from his shoulders.

“
You
,” I breathe. I don't know whether to be relieved or terrified. Father Marcus beat Jude. He made him into the monster that tied me up in the chapel and tortured me.

But there's no one else.

“Miss Flores?” Father Marcus's voice sounds thin and scratchy, like he just woke up. He swallows, his Adam's
apple bobbing up and down in his throat. “You shouldn't be out of your dormitory. There's a storm—”

“
Please
,” I cut in, gasping. “You have to help me. I'm being chased by the Devil.”

The word
Devil
falls from my mouth unplanned. I cringe, certain I've lost my chance at getting help. He'll think I'm crazy.

But Father Marcus steps outside, his bare feet crunching in the snow. He crosses himself and something desperate flashes across his face. Something frightened.

“Where?” he asks.

“I don't know.” I wipe the sopping, wet hair from my eyes and look back over my shoulder. “Close, I think. She was right behind—”

Brooklyn emerges from the darkness, smiling. Her skin looks almost blue, but she doesn't shiver. I shrink away from her, and Father Marcus moves in front of me, pushing me behind him with a sweep of his arm.

“I see you've gone for help,” Brooklyn says, her smile twisting into something cruel and ugly. She hoists Jude's axe onto her shoulder. She must've stopped to collect it before coming after me. “Does this make you nervous?” she asks. She strokes the wooden handle, almost lovingly.

I swallow, tasting something sour and thick at the back of my throat. I stare at the axe's sharp blade, my
stomach turning. I can practically feel it cutting open my skin, cracking my head like an egg.

I glance at Father Marcus's face. In the darkness, it's hard to see the lines on his skin, or the thin red cuts along his lips. He looks younger. He fumbles for something below his robe and brings out a heavy golden cross inlaid with red and green jewels. Brooklyn stares at the cross, her eyes narrowing into catlike slits.

“This one is beyond salvation, Father,” she says, taking another slow step forward. “Her soul is weak. One more sin and she's ours forever.”

“Back, demon!” Father Marcus holds the cross before him like a weapon.

Brooklyn stops walking. “You can't save her,” she says.

“
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem
.” It's the same prayer Jude recited while I lay crying on the floor, my wrists tied behind my back. But coming from Father Marcus, it sounds different. Stronger. He moves closer to Brooklyn.
“Creatorem caeli et terrae. Et in Iesum Christum, Filium eius unicum . . .”

The smile fades from Brooklyn's lips. She stumbles backward.

“Dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine . . .”

The axe slips from Brooklyn's hand. She swears.

“Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus
,
”
Father Marcus shouts. A zealous light fills his eyes. He grins wildly. It's pure, unfiltered joy—the kind of smile you see only on little kids and the mentally unstable. “Tremble before me, demon! You are nothing compared to the glory of God.”

I turn back to Brooklyn. I want to see the look of fear in her eyes when she realizes she's lost. I want to see her desperate and trembling and afraid.

But Brooklyn isn't there anymore. All I see is swirling snow and the dark shadows of trees.

Cold fear seeps into my chest. “Where'd she go?”

“We've defeated her, child.” Father Marcus's smile widens. He lifts his arms toward the sky in triumph. “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he booms.

I look around, but Brooklyn really is gone. I smile, tentatively, then wince as Father Marcus grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me into an awkward half hug, jostling my broken arm.

“You really think she's—” I stare at Farther Marcus, instantly forgetting the end of my sentence. His smile seems wrong, somehow. His mouth looks strained. Like the skin could rip apart.

Two tiny cuts slash past the corners of his lips. They're thin, almost like paper cuts.

“Father . . .” I whisper. The cuts lengthen, traveling up the sides of Father Marcus's cheeks. He makes a kind
of gurgling, coughing sound deep in his throat. He drops his cross, and both of his hands reach for his face. His fingers tremble.

I should run, but I can't drag my eyes away from Father Marcus's grotesque face. The cuts grow deeper, wider. It looks as if someone is carving through the skin and muscle on his cheeks with a sharp, invisible knife. They reach past his cheekbones and up to the corners of his eyes. Blood trickles from his warped smile. It runs down his cheeks in a smooth red sheet, coating first his lips, and then his chin and neck. It stains his undershirt, and trickles from his shoulders and arms, sprinkling the snowy ground. It doesn't look red anymore. Now it's black and lumpy. Like tar.

Father Marcus tries to scream, but his mouth stays frozen in that horrible, morbid smile. The sound gets mangled in his throat, becoming something guttural and animalistic. He drops to his knees in the snow, still clawing at his face like he might, somehow, be able to push his skin back together. The manic gleam fades from his eyes. His pupils grow dull.

He falls over backward.

I stare at his limp body, frozen in horror. Memories play on a loop in my mind. I hear the echo of Riley's voice, screaming for me to help her, and then Brooklyn's hammer driving into her chest, the wet slap of her heart
hitting the ground. I did nothing then. I stood by and let it all happen. Now it's happening again.

Town isn't far from here. If I run, and I don't look back, I could still get away. I stumble around the priest's body, trying to remember how to get to the main road.

Brooklyn's axe whips up from the ground and flies past me, sweeping straight through Father Marcus's neck. His head jerks away from his body. It rolls through the snow, leaving a trail of blood behind it. I stagger backward, gripping my chest with one hand. I don't realize I'm falling until I feel my knees slam into the hard, frozen ground.

Father Marcus's head rolls to a stop just a foot away from me. His dull eyes stare out at me, wide-open and shocked. His cracked blue lips are slightly parted. Lumpy black blood oozes from the stump where his head separated from his body. It doesn't look real.

I spot a twitch of movement in the blood. It's thin and black. Like an eyelash. My stomach turns. Another twitch, and then something scurries away from Father Marcus's head. A spider. It darts through the pool of his blood and disappears into the snow, leaving a trail of black behind it.

I pull myself backward as another spider crawls out of the severed head, and then another, and another. They swarm over one another, crawling through the blood and
out into the snow. A spider crawls out of Father Marcus's nose and hurries across his face, its legs leaving tiny dots of blood on his skin. Another sticks a thin, spindly leg straight through his eyeball. I hear a kind of gushing, popping sound when it appears, and yellowish puss slithers down his face. I look away before the rest of the spider can crawl out.

I push myself back up to my feet. I can't stay here. I have to get away. My legs feel distant and weak, and I'm almost surprised when I'm able to lurch forward unsteadily. I take a wobbly step away from Father Marcus's body.

The smell of smoke drifts through the air. I freeze.

A tiny orange flame unfurls from the ground directly in front of my big toe. It twists and dances into the night. Smoke stings my eyes, and the heat presses against me, coaxing sweat from my skin. I stumble backward, coughing, and waving a hand in front of my face. The fire roars and curls and spreads through the snow as if it's gasoline.

A circle of flames grows around me, trapping me.

Something moves in the darkness beyond the circle of fire. I stare into the shadows, orange and red light searing my eyes. Sweat gathers in the small of my back, and heat presses into my neck and legs and hands. The circle closes in around me, flames reaching for my body like hands.

I catch a flicker of movement to my left. I whirl around, heart pounding. But it's just the fire.

“Where are you?” I shout. I tighten my hands into fists and turn around slowly. I can feel Brooklyn watching me beyond the flames, circling me like a predator. Wind howls through the trees, making the branches shiver and quake.

The sound sharpens into a low, cackling laugh. Brooklyn's laugh. A space opens in the flames, and she steps into the circle with me.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “What do you want?”

Her grin widens. I can see all her teeth.

“I want you to kill me,” she says. She tilts her head and folds her hands together, like she's about to pray. Everything about it looks perverse. The Devil playing at being innocent. “Isn't that what you want? To be rid of me at last?”

Brooklyn flicks her wrist and the flames slither closed behind her. They grow taller and brighter, clawing at the night sky like fingers. Fire licks at my back and ankles. I smell something burning and dance forward, yelping. Brooklyn laughs.

“Or you could try to run. But I'll find you. I'll always find you, Sofia.”

Fury flares through me. I can see the rest of my life
play out like a movie. Every few months, I'll head to a new city and try to start over. Brooklyn will leave me alone long enough to make a few friends. To feel safe. And then she'll destroy everything. She'll snap her fingers and burn it to the ground.

I won't live like this. I take a step forward. Brooklyn cocks an eyebrow.

“Come on, Sofia. You know you want to. Get your revenge. Make me suffer.”

I press my lips together, tasting blood at the corners of my mouth. Father Marcus's body lies in the snow a few feet away, his ruined smile still leaking thick, tar-like blood. Jude's axe sits on the ground next to his lifeless hand.

Brooklyn's grin quirks even wider.

I know this is a trick. I feel the wrongness rushing through my veins like blood.
One more sin,
Brooklyn said.

But deeper than that, I feel something else.
Want
. It hums through me, making my bones tremble. I'm tired of being everyone else's punching bag. I want to destroy something.

I kneel in the snow and wrap my fingers around the axe's thick wooden handle. It's heavy and hard to lift with just one hand. The want buzzes louder. It fills my ears with static. It makes my skin purr.

“Give it to me,” Brooklyn says, and this time she
isn't smiling. Her mouth is a snarl. A dare. “You know I deserve it. Prove to me that you're not weak.”

Something inside me snaps. I lift the axe, barely noticing the weight pulling at my muscles, or my broken arm burning with pain in its sling. I swing, and the blade sinks into Brooklyn's chest. It rips through cloth and skin; it cracks ribs and tears muscle. Blood sprays my face and neck and hands. It smells coppery, like pennies, but below that is something else. The smell of something going rotten.