Page 75 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“Whenever you are.”

Together, they turned and went into the shed.

~*~

Whether or not it was genetic – and Alex was convinced now more than ever that it was – the thrill of violence that had gripped him in the theater parking lot amidst blazing gunfire and dying enemies utterly abandoned him when it came to Regina Carroll. When he thought of harming a woman – even one who’d held a gun on his mother, even one who’d been involved in the kidnapping of a child – his stomach shriveled up and sweat bloomed beneath his clothes.

Several miles from the clubhouse, his belly began to unclench. But as he relaxed, he began to note the way Colin was studying him from the passenger seat.

“Stop,” he finally said.

Colin, of course, did not stop. In fact, he twisted further in his seat so his shoulder was braced against the window, head turned entirely in Alex’s direction. “I’m trying to decide if you still might puss out on us.”

Alex was too tired at this point to be mad about it. He sighed. “You understand I killed – Imurderedpeople the other night.”

“The fact that you just saidmurderedisn’t disproving my theory.”

“What theory?”

Colin shrugged. “That you’re happy enough to go along with things – but at some point, you’re going to be asked to do something you can’t, and then you’re gonna go running back to the FBI as fast as you can go.”

Alex bit back his initial response, because it was clear, at this point, that both his brothers weretryingto get a rise out of him. “Again, I think all themurderingmore than proves my willingness,” he said, flatly.”

“But you don’t like what’s gonna happen to Regina?”

“Why? What’s gonna happen to Regina.”

Colin didn’t grace that with a proper response, merely scoffed.

“I know what Mercydoesfor the club. I’m not a moron.”

“No, just a gentleman.” He said it like an insult.

“Sorry I’m not as comfortable with torture as you,” Alex muttered.

It was quiet a beat. Two. Enough beats that Alex skated a glance to the passenger seat, and found Colin facing forward, arms crossed, frowning. “Why do you think I came with you?” he finally asked.

“Oh, gee, I dunno, ‘cause I’m a traitor?” Alex said, but without any heat.

Colin shook his head. “I don’t like that shit either. I’m not…” He scratched at his jaw, day-old bristles rasping. “You ask anyone in the club, and they’ll tell you I’m the asshole, and Mercy’s the nice guy. He’s a big teddy bear, and I’m just a jerkoff who they put up with ‘cause I come in handy sometimes.

“But Mercy…I’ve never met anyone who does what he does and who isn’t, like, you know, a psychopathic serial killer.”

Alex didn’t point out that,technically, Mercywasa serial killer. Partly because he knew what Colin meant: Mercy wasn’t out stalking innocent women; didn’t get hard tailing someone home from work, and slipping into their house while theyslept, and waking them with a knife at their throat. But mostly because, after knowing him for this long, after sitting across from him while he cooked, and prattled on about the heat of the pan and the fat content of the butter, it was impossible to classify Mercy amongst the kinds of monsters he’d spent his career profiling. As an agent, he’d been trained to think of life as life, of murder as murder; if you took another man’s life outside the line of duty, you were a criminal and an inhuman killer, plain and simple.

But itwasn’tthat simple. A life wasn’t a life, and killing wasn’t the same as the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of innocents.

“In the parking lot,” he said, and his tongue felt dry and wooden in his mouth. “With those guys Boyle sent…I was…”Oh, just say it. Say it felt good, say youlikedit. He swallowed with difficulty. “I think it’d be really easy for me to getusedto that sort of thing.”

He heard the rustle of cloth as Colin shrugged. “Sure. You spend time with this crew long enough, and you stop thinking about dialing 911 and start making sure you’ve got enough ammo. But most of the guys don’t –can’t– do what Mercy does. He’s a breed all his own.” Colin said it with a marveling tone.

“We’re his brothers, though.”

“Yeah, and lucky for us, Remy passed on a nice damn head of hair.” He raked his hand through his own, so the short, thick black locks fluffed and gleamed in the glare of sunlight coming through the windshield. Remy’s half-Cherokee heritage showed the most notably in their hair, deepest black that turned blue in certain light, heavy, and slick, and glass-shiny.

“But we’re not all the same, you know,” Colin added, almost gently. “The three of us. I’m me, and you’re you, and Mercy’s…something else entirely.” The wondering tone, Alex noted with a glance, had manifested into a wide-eyed look.“Don’t worry.” He grinned, a little nastily. “You’re not gonna, like, turn into him.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” he said, sourly, but on the inside, a long-held tightness eased.

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