His feet hit the door before he remembered he had to open it, then the seatbelt yanked him back—when had he put that on?—but somehow he managed to tumble out of the driver’s seat. He could hear commotion from around the back, and he didn’t think, just ran, one foot in front of the other, his heart pounding in his ears.
Mercer shoved through the final line of unruly bushes and stumbled into the yard: barren, dead grass surrounded by dense trees on three sides with an awkward trail of stray rocks and a half-dug flower bed pit. Rahil stood beneath the overhang, his gaze on the roof as two figures rolled chaotically down it.Lydia.
“Puck,” Mercer whispered, because he couldn’t shout, couldn’t move, couldn’t save her as she toppled off the edge of the second story.
Rahil threw something at her.
It took Mercer a moment to process the gleaming device as it sailed through the air, another to understand what it was, and by then he could tell its trajectory was off: a little too high and to the left. Leah’s brilliance didn’t seem to think so, though. As the device sailed past Lydia, the cords shot out, most of them cradling Lydia’s body as the rest caught hold of the roof, gently halting her descent.
Four feet closer, William fell from the same height, grabbing for anything he could reach—the tiles, the gutter, the girl he’d threatened. He caught the edge of the roof with one hand. He dangled there, the toes of his shoes still eight feet above the ground. Lydia kicked him in the side.
William cursed her as he fell again. His legs gave out as he hit the dirt, sending him sprawling onto his side into the shallow flower-bed trench.
Mercer was moving before he’d even set his mind to it, stumbling past William’s body and shoving aside a shocked Rahil to reach for his daughter with both arms. The only piece of the world that felt real was the solidity of her arms and the little bubbled sob-laugh she gave as Leah’s device slowly lowered her down the rest of the way, letting her fall gently into Mercer’s embrace. He held her close, crying her name into her shoulder with what must have been very un-parental desperation, but he didn’t care. He had her. She was safe, and alive, and he had her.
Lydia’s fists balled into his clothing, and for a moment it was just the two of them—the only family Mercer had known in so long. Then Lydia’s body stiffened suddenly, her head coming up. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “William, he’s still—”
Mercer spun in time to watch William stumble out of the shallow pit with one of Mercer’s own holy silver knives raised, throwing his body weight toward Mercer.
Rahil slammed into him. Mercer caught the flash of fangs, the tear of flesh, blood splattering against the side of the house as the two struggled. Rahil dislodged the knife from William’s hand just as the man threw him backward, tossing Rahil’s gangly body across the ground. William stood there after, gripping the gash in his neck while he held himself up with the side of the house, one foot twisted at a hideous angle. Despite all the pain he had to be in, his mouth still warped into a sneer.
Maybe it was that look which launched Mercer into motion or maybe it was a hundred other little things—the vision of William’s hands on Lydia, William’s blades tearing into Rahil’s bloody palms, his will turning Mercer’s holy silver into a weapon—but all Mercer knew was the cascade of fear and pain that slammed through his body, his vision blackening at the edges and his lungs catching tight in his throat, and suddenly he was moving, steady steps that felt so slow to him. But no one else reacted, no one told him to stop as he shoved William against the side of the house and slammed his knee into the man’s gut.
The blubbering groan that came out of William was as horrific as it was terrifying, and his struggles turned desperate and delirious as he fought to push Mercer off without letting go of the deep, ragged gash in his neck. Mercer could see himself in it, could feel that same fear entrenched in his own chest, his own life. And it scared him—scared him, not enough to let go, but to hold on.
“Fight me, I dare you,” he whispered, slamming William against the wall once more. “The first time you laid a hand on my family, you were already dead.”
William did abandon his neck wound then, his fists aimed at Mercer’s face, but Mercer grabbed him by the wrist, pinning William’s hand to the wall. William snarled again, struggling to hit Mercer with everything he could as blood poured freely down his chest. He went limp so fast, so suddenly, that Mercer was left staring at him, slowly taking in the weight of his flesh and the stream still pouring from the veins in his neck. Mercer’s arms shook, deep from the bones. He let go.
His lungs heaved open, then closed again.
Oh God.
OhGod.
He’d just—
Oh.
He took a step back, then another, watching William’s corpse slump to the ground, dead as the bat in the box. Mercer should have felt better—relief, something—but there was no change, his fear simply morphing its target. There were other threats still, other horrors. And he was one of them—he was—
A hand closed around his, smaller fingers tucking around his palm. He looked down to find Lydia, her expression solemn. She squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back, and the world settled just a little.
Fuck though, he was going to be paying for her therapy bills for this for the rest of her life, wasn’t he?
Well, they’d cross that bridge tomorrow.
As some semblance of logic finally crept back into Mercer’s mind, he recalled the way that William had tossed Rahil to the side, and his whole world recracked for the moment it took to find Rahil, struggling to his feet so near that Mercer could reach out and touch him, grab him, if he wanted. Kiss him.
Rahil seemed to have wrapped strips torn from his own shirt around the wounds in his palms, and blood dripped from his mouth, but his lips quirked up, an awkward laugh coming under his breath. “Is it weird that I found that hot?” He dropped his gaze after, looking like hewasscared of Mercer after all—scared of something entirely different: of rejection.
The uncertainty in his stance hurt, all the more because Mercer knew he’d put it there; not from violently ensuring the death of a man, ironically, but from refusing to listen. Hehadlet his fear hurt the people around him. Wrapping one arm around Lydia, he held out his other toward Rahil. “Come here, babe.”
A smile lit up Rahil’s face. Then his whole body went as limp as William’s.
Mercer dove to catch him, a wave of sickening terror rushing back through his already wrung out nerves. No—no. Not this, not now. Not him—
Mercer’s legs carried them both into the house, under the deep shade of the unlit kitchen, hoping, praying as he set Rahil down—
