The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(20)

“Sof, it’s okay,” Riley says. “I prayed, and I think it’s obvious what we need to do. Brooklyn is lost. We have to help her.”

“You want to help Brooklyn?” I gape at Riley, confused. “But what about Josh? Aren’t you pissed?”

“Josh strayed from God,” Riley says. “Yeah, it hurts, but I believe he’ll find his way back to the Lord. But Brooklyn . . . don’t you get it, Sofia? This just proves she needs our help. Brooklyn has to be fixed.”

A smile flutters across Riley’s face. It reminds me of when I first met her, when her smile never seemed to spread past her lips, leaving her eyes cold and empty. Now, though, her eyes are bright with a kind of manic energy. When she talks again, her words tumble into one another, like they’re racing to get out of her mouth.

“We thought Brooklyn was rebelling, but this is worse. Some people have evil inside them, Sofia. Brooklyn needs us.”

The word evil still seems too strong to me, but I can’t argue with Riley after what I saw. If this is what she needs to get over Josh, I can be there for her. I squeeze her arm. “How do we do that?”

“Don’t worry.” Riley places her hand over mine and squeezes back. “You don’t have to do anything. I have a plan.”





CHAPTER SEVEN


A floorboard creaks somewhere in the house, jerking me from sleep. I force my eyes open, not sure if what I heard was real or an echo from a dream.

A heavy footstep thuds against the floor downstairs. Then silence.

I sit up, my comforter falling to my lap. My heart pounds in my ears. It could be Mom going downstairs for a glass of water. But that’s unlikely. Most nights she takes insanely strong sleeping pills and is out like the dead till morning.

I push back the rest of my blankets and slip from the bed. The floor freezes my bare feet, and I shiver as I stumble for the door. There’s no moon tonight, leaving my room so dark I can’t see my arms stretched in front of me.

The house falls silent. I’m being silly. Even if it wasn’t Mom, that sound could have been a million things: the house settling or wind pounding at the windows. Still, I hold my breath until I find the door with my fingers. I press my ear to the wood, listening for a sound in the hallway.

The top stair groans: another footstep. Someone’s out there.

I stumble backward and crash into my desk. There’s another creak, this one outside my door.

“Who’s there?” I whisper. I step away from my desk, forcing myself toward the door. Louder, I ask, “Mom? Is that you?”

It’s too dark to see, but I hear my door latch click and feel the air move as the door swings open. A fingernails-on-sandpaper scratch cuts through the silence, and I smell sulfur. Blue-orange light flickers to life.

I blink against the sudden brightness, and, as my eyes focus, I make out a lit match and a face. Light dances in Riley’s eyes. She puts a finger to her lips. Quiet.

“You scared me to death!” I take a deep breath to get rid of the last of my fear and lean against my desk, my heart still thudding like crazy. “How did you get in?”

She doesn’t answer, but her eyebrow twitches higher. Her eyes are manic, wide and dark, her pupils dilated in twin black pools. An emotion I can’t place flickers across her face, and my question changes from how she got in to why.

“Hurry,” she whispers. The match burns down to her fingertips, and she shakes it out. A silver curl of smoke stretches to the ceiling. “I want to show you something.”

This has to be about Josh. I bet the others are waiting at the house for us, and we’ll spend the night eating ice cream and complaining to one another about what jerks guys are. My fear flips into relief.

I grab my sneakers, then push my bedroom door open. Riley follows silently. Once in the hallway I hesitate, glancing at my mom’s door. I motion for Riley to keep quiet as we start down the stairs.

We hurry out of my house, stopping for Riley to grab a pair of gray sneakers she’d hidden behind the potted plant on our front porch. She slides them onto her bare feet without untying them first, and we head down the street.

The wind slices through the sleeves of my sweater and coaxes goose bumps from my skin. I press my lips together to keep my teeth from chattering and pull my sweater over my hands. Despite Riley’s bare legs, she doesn’t shiver.

I notice a shadow crouched on the porch steps as we near the abandoned house: Grace. She looks plainer than I’ve ever seen her, in a black T-shirt, jeans, and faded sneakers. The hood of her giraffe-print sweatshirt hides her hair.

“Hey, Grace,” I say as I pass her on the steps.

“Hey,” she echoes hollowly. Her eyes don’t quite focus, and she doesn’t acknowledge Riley at all. You’d think she was the one whose boyfriend just cheated on her.

“Is she okay?” I ask. Riley pushes the front door open, and the two of us slip inside.

“Grace? Probably just tired. Come on—it’s this way.”

I ease the door shut behind me and realize a doorknob has been added where there wasn’t one before. Riley notices my confusion and pulls a key out of the pocket of her jeans. “Can never be too careful,” she says, as if that answers everything.

We walk past the living room, where the sleeping bags are rolled and stacked next to the pillows in a corner. None of the tea lights are lit, and it makes this place feel emptier than before. I realize how alone we are out here, with nothing but dirt and the skeletons of half-built houses surrounding us. Wind rattles the plastic at the windows. I imagine it rolling over miles of empty land to press against this house, and suddenly it seems strong enough to rip off walls.