AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The third floor of the museum was dark except for the backlighting on several glass cabinets, displaying artifacts pulled from the rubble of this building and the others that had been destroyed. Whatever light Mercy had turned on up here to gather our attention was now off.
Secret, who could no longer see in the dark, showed no signs of slowing down as she stayed in line with me and we moved between the rows.
I’d expected there to be men up here waiting for us, but the entire room was dead quiet, only the sound of our footsteps on the tile floor rose to greet us. My pulse throbbed and I squinted into the inky blackness trying to get a sense of what was ahead.
Nothing.
She couldn’t have gone far unless she went to the roof, which meant she had to be here somewhere, but I couldn’t hear or sense her at all. Her scent was in the air, but it was hard for me to tell where she was now since she’d been all over this room.
Secret was moving with patient, precise steps, and her gun raised. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, but she was absolutely ready to shoot at anything that moved. There was no one up here we needed to worry about hurting.
“I want you both to know something,” Mercy’s voice came from behind us.
We spun around simultaneously, but she wasn’t there.
“I want you to know this wasn’t my idea.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Secret asked. The voice was impossible to pin down. Every time she spoke it was from somewhere else.
“I was gone. I had no wants. It wasn’t until I came back that this all was put into motion.”
“Here we go again, blaming the girl who accidentally pulled you out of the after life. Oldest excuse
in the book.” I snapped.
She laughed, and the sound bounced all over the room, echoing in my head. If I wasn’t angry before, she was doing everything in her power to make sure I was mad as hell. Whether she knew it or not, she was helping me, and hurting herself.
It was only then that I realized what Mercy’s weakness was.
She never truly believed she was at risk. It was the thing that allowed Secret to kill her for the first time, and her bravado would be the thing to take her down now.
You might think you’re invincible, but it’s the surest way possible to make someone want to prove that you’re not. Every Alpha worth their salt knew that much.
“Quit hiding and come out here, you cowardly bitch,” Secret snarled.
“Okay.” The voice, again from right behind us, but this time with the kind of chilling clarity that we knew it had to be real.
I spun around a moment before Secret, and just in time for Mercy to grab me by the throat. Even as she held me, I could feel her fingers shift, the nails elongate. Mercy had a rare gift for wolves, she was able to partially shift her body even when the full moon wasn’t around. Secret had inherited the same gift, but had obviously lost it when she’d chosen to become human.
Now, those half-human, half-wolf claws were digging into the skin on my throat, and first one, then two more pierced the flesh. Hot blood trickled down my neck and all I could do was gasp.
Secret immediately took action, tugging at Mercy’s wrists, trying to break her hold on me, but the more Secret struggled the harder Mercy held on, until I couldn’t even manage to the tiniest breath.
As pinpoints of light started to dance over my vision I tried to remember what my plan had been, what I had intended to do here. All I could hear was the wheeze of my lungs where air drew up short at the back of my throat and the faint sound of Secret screaming my name.
Pop.
My face was covered in something warm and wet and after a moment, the grip on my throat was released and I was able to suck in a deep, long inhale.
Mercy had ruptured the skin, but had managed not to pierce any arteries by some luck, still it felt like I was drinking glass through a straw each time I swallowed. Mercy had done some damage that wouldn’t heal immediately, and I was in no position to figure out what was wrong with me right then.
Our mother was crumpled on the floor by my feet, a leaky red mess taking up one half of her head, and a mix of blood and brain sprayed all over me and the floor around us.
Secret held her gun pointed at Mercy, but when she seemed sure our mother was down for the count she looked at me, her eyes wild and frantic. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, pretty sure that if I tried to speak she would realize just how not okay I was.
On the floor, Mercy groaned loudly, and Secret and I both took two instinctive steps back from the body. A body which should have been very much dead, and yet was rising to its knees and then back to standing, just like Deerling’s had at the church.
