Page 254 of Fearless

At some point, as the ink had come off, Oliver had admitted everything. Dee had sent him after the money, he and the other two men she’d been entertaining. She’d wanted the money, or his head, Oliver had said. And she hadn’t been picky about which, according to him.

Oliver and his men had come with shotguns, intending to frighten the money out of Remy, maybe rough him up. They hadn’t counted on Remy’s size, or his willingness to launch himself at them. The fight had grown vicious. Even after Remy was shot Nanette refused to give up the money. They’d pursued her, punished her. It was Oliver himself who’d been the rapist, the other two only there to hold her down.

The story was told through tears and gasps of pain, but had been unembellished, bare facts without any slant. “If you try to make excuses, or act like you couldn’t help anything that happened, I’ll castrate you,” Mercy informed him. The words had come pouring out.

He’d castrated him anyway.

He’d worked through an entire toolbelt’s worth of implements, turning mundane household pliers and hammers and nails into the stuff of nightmares.

But it was time to stop. Oliver would be dead soon. He’d lost too much blood, and he was going into shock. Not long now.

“So, Oliver,” Mercy said, toweling the blood from his hands as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. He wasn’t sure where this conversational, upbeat rage machine had come from, but he was fast realizing that this wasn’t so much a new persona, but a warping of all the preexisting parts of himself. He was still Felix; he was the Felix who’d had his world shattered. How did it go? Don’t get mad, get even. Yes, even. As even as his own hands would allow. He was six-five, and he could haul a gator up into the boat by himself. No regular human man could stop him.

That was the day he realized his own physical power…and started using it.

“Oliver,” he said to his captive, as the man’s head sagged down onto his ruined chest. “What have you learned from all this? What’s your takeaway?”

Oliver muttered something indiscernible.

Mercy smacked him in the side of the head, earning an awful, high keening sound.

“I asked you a question.”

“I…I-I–”

“Yeah?”

“I learned…”

“Go on now. I’m listening. What did you learn?”

“…that you…you’re…Stronger than me.”

“Bingo. Good for you. You’re a smart guy, Ollie, you know that?” Mercy stood, and reached for the shotgun where it lay across the kitchen table.

Oliver was weak, but had enough strength left, it turned out, to begin crying quietly, choking sounds leaving his throat.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Mercy said as he racked the shotgun with a loud metallic sound. “It’s over now. You did real good.”

He pressed the muzzle to the mess that had once been the man’s chest, right over his heart.

“I just want you to feel, the very last thing, what my Daddy felt.”

“Okay,” Oliver whispered. “You’ll kill me now?”

“Yeah.”

“Merci beaucoup.”

He pulled the trigger.

Merci.

Merci.

Mercy.

He’d been born an infant as Felix Louis Lécuyer.

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