Page 7 of The Price of Mercy
He never wanted me to leave the house.
Tried to get me to stay.
Practically begged me not to go to the party.
Fuck.
I lower the tailgate and drag the body to the edge by its ankles. If I find out that Zane had something to do with this— A growl catches in my throat. Sam won’t be the only one with a price to fucking pay.
“Start from the beginning and tell me what happened tonight.”
Chapter 3
Mercy
I’ve watchedmy parents attend to the dead hundreds of times. I’m familiar with the ritual of it—lighting candles, choosing which record to play, honoring the life that’s no longer with us. Under normal circumstances, I’m eager to help. Running around the morgue as a child was a favorite pastime of mine, and these weathered brick walls feel like home.
Preparing the body of a man who assaulted me feels wrong.
Still, I light the ancient candles decorating the corners of the room, choose a modern record with angry electric guitar and pounding bass beats, and for extra measure, I grab a chilled sangria from the wine cooler in the next room. Popping the top, I drink straight from the bottle as I stare at the cold, metal table awaiting his arrival. We usually wash the body and, depending on their religious affiliation, say a few words of prayer or at the very least, send well-wishes for his travels into whatever lies beyond a mortal death.
My heart wars with itself. Does someone like him deserve well-wishes after what he attempted to do? After what he’s likely already done to others? Closing my eyes, I take a deep, calming breath and try to approach this situation logically.
I don’t know the man. He could have been a kind brother, loyal son or a considerate friend. Maybe he was on the fast track to success in his field, or the top of his class, or?—
His body appears in the blink of an eye, dropped onto the table without ceremony.
There’s so much blood.
The scent hits me first, strong enough that I swallow a gag rising to my throat. What little body paint remains on his skin is marred by dried blood and scratch marks, and when I press my thumbnails beneath the tips of my fingernails, I feel it—the paint. Theskin.Even though he didn’t touch medown there, he got close enough that parts of his body are stuck to mine. I inhale quickly, a shallow little breath that hardly does anything, and feel stomach acid rising to the back of my throat.
“Mercy—”
I don’t know who says my name, Kane or Sam, but it doesn’t matter. I spin around so fast that I move by memory rather than sight, rushing to the sink to wash my hands and scrape as much ofhimout from my nails as I can. The water is scalding hot, but I don’t care about that, either. I douse my hands in soap and scrub with a sponge, determined to remove every trace of him from my body.
This part—the furious scrubbing—isn’t supposed to happen. It’s not part of the Morningstar rituals. We prepare every body with the utmost respect. We’re careful. Gentle, even, as we wash the body and remove any jewelry or metal. I scoff, a guilty burst of laughter catching inside my chest.
My first time prepping a body for burial or cremation on my own, and I’m fucking everything up.
Someone steps up behind me and wraps their arms around my waist, their breath warm on my neck as they nuzzle close. My mind blanks, unsure who to picture at my back, when bloodied hands join mine at the sink.
Kane.
He pumps a few dollops of soap into his palm before taking my hands in his and rubbing them down, much gentler than I had been as he caresses each knuckle and massages the mounts of my fingers. If my grandmother were here, she’d take this moment to remind me to study Kane’s hands, to watch how they move, and compare our life lines and love lines to see if they match up. But I’m not a romantic like her—all I see are the pink suds in the sink.
“You lit candles,” Kane muses, breaking the silence. He turns off the faucet and grabs a hand towel from the stack beside the sink. Patting my hands dry, he holds onto them as he waits for my response.
I don’t know what he wants me to say. It’s not like I’m wishing that guy a happy trip to the afterlife. “It’s tradition.” My words ring hollow despite their truth.
“Fuck tradition,” Kane rumbles in my ear, his voice sending a warm tingle down my spine. “Let’s burn the bastard.” He leads me back to the table when my legs refuse to work on their own. This is normally the part where we would wash the body and prepare it for cremation, but my stomach churns at the thought of touching him. In my hesitancy, Kane takes the lead, ordering Sam around as he checks the corpse for piercings or other identifiable markings. He takes pictures with his phone, like he’s cataloguing another one of his kills, and scowls like he’s unhappy with the results.
“I thought you liked killing,” I murmur, unable to take my eyes off the body as he and Sam cart it towards the crematorium. It’s been preheating for ages, it feels like, but it’s finally up to temp to work its magic.
Kane side-eyes me as he pushes the body into the oven and locks the door. Pausing, he admires the mechanism before returning my gaze. “Depends on the person. Thecircumstances.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighs. “Killing bastards is satisfying, sure, but…” He trails off, frowning again. “I should have made this one bleed more.”
For the first time since they brought the body in, Sam speaks. “You can make the asshole responsible bleed.” Arms crossed, gaze narrowed, Sam’s body radiates tension, filling the air with it. His movements are controlled, as solid and sure as the tight muscles wrapping around his body, and the same thought from when he was on the phone with his father runs through my mind.
I hardly recognize the man standing in front of me.
