Page 114 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Alex studied him a long moment, then shook his head, and turned away again.

In the distance, a manmade sound broke the wall of insect noise: boats. Several of them, headed their way.

~*~

Remy’s boat was third in line. Fallon was still bent over his phone, and Boyle was staring out over the windshield, scanning the dark water, the frothy white wakes of the two boats ahead of them. Someone shouted something wordless back that sounded like a warning, and a few seconds later, Boyle cursed, and ducked, and a massive branch passed overhead; trailing moss slapped at the windshield and swept over the heads of the men; Remy felt a tickle of it through his hair.

He also felt the sharp point of Tenny’s elbow in his ribs, and when he turned his head, Tenny nodded forward, a silent urge to look at something.

Remy saw lights. Lots of lights, two rows of them. They drew closer, and then closer still, and he saw that each light was affixed to a tall post, the support pillars of a dock that jutted far out into the water. Off to the side was a little structure, a roof on stilts, and beneath it, a boat had been lifted up out of the water to hang suspended. Men stood on the dock, a good many of them, guns slung across their backs, flashlights in their hands that they used to signal to the boats.

For a moment, Remy’s heart leaped with hope – but these weren’t Lean Dogs. They were more of Boyle’s men, hands lifting in greeting.

Tenny’s arm pressed into him, not sharply this time, but bracingly. Remy read it as a reassurance, and was careful not to look at his face, a caution he was glad of as the boat slowed, and Boyle turned around to face him.

Remy took a deep breath, and held it, and didn’t recoil when Boyle got down on one knee and leaned into his face, hand braced on the bench outside of Remy’s hip. Close enough to smell the sour, sweaty tang of unwashed skin, and to see the way the man’s pupils looked small, despite the darkness of the night around them.

As the boat slowed, the roar of the engines died down to a rumble, so that Boyle no longer had to shout to be heard. “Okay, listen up, you little shit. This can be easy, or it can be hard. You do exactly as I say, you stay right with me, and it’ll be easy. Do you understand?”

Remy thought of the water; thought of the gator surging up out of it, as if by magic, the flashing ivory of its teeth; thought of Fallon white-faced with terror, afterward, and saw the waxy, pale sheen of Boyle’s forehead.

I’m a good swimmer.

“Yes, sir.”

More shouts issued from the dock, and the boat swung around beside it. Tenny stood up from the bench to leap out onto the wood and start tying up the boat to one of the metal cleats there. Remy hated his absence, but saw that he was still right there close, a hand extending to help Remy out onto the dock.

Remy reached for it–

And Boyle snatched him by the wrist, and yanked him back. “No. You stay with me.”

Fear leaped fresh and hot in Remy’s chest, and he searched Tenny’s face, looking for guidance. He’d hoped that Daddy would come smashing into the depot at any moment, knock Lloyd and his men over like bowling pins, and sweepRemy up into one of his trademark bear hugs. But what he had now was Tenny, and for a second, Tenny’s eyes got big, a panic Remy felt echoed in his stomach like a shockwave; but then Tenny shook his head, and his face went calm, and he even smiled a little, and so Remy subsided into Boyle’s grip.

A grip that stayed cruel, despite his cooperation. Boyle moved him to the bow of the boat, and shoved him down amidst the cushions and the first aid kit, and rested a booted foot on his hip to keep him down.

~*~

Be ready for anything, Mercy had said.

Tenny was.

But still, when Boyle intervened, and held Remy back from touching him, he knew a moment of flashfire despair and panic.Oh God. Oh, Remy.

A moment of weakness. Emotion overtaking him.

They’re your family, he imagined Reese saying.You love them.

That’s what Reese always said, because Reese was a good person, a sweet person, and he loved these people.

Tenny didn’t.

Or, well, he’d told himself he didn’t. But the moment Remy’s hand didn’t touch his, he realized just how much he cared. That he – damn it, that heloved. He’d thought of that emotion as a stupid weakness for so long. And then along had come Reese, and he’d learned to love, yes. But he loved beyond that, too, in a different way. He could call Devin “old man” all he liked, but he loved him, too, in some waysbecausehe’d been such a pragmatic father.

And then there were the brothers who hadn’tneededto take him in, but who had. Walsh chief among them, always stern, or sour, but whose wife had set up a comfortable placewhere Tenny and Reese could live, and who had agreed to pay for the horse that Tenny called his own.

And amongst his club brothers, Mercy had been a constant cheerleader, always encouraging, and finding uses for him.

So, yes. He loved these people. Despite all his intentions, they were his family. And when he failed – yes,failed– to take hold of Remy, his stomach sank.

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