The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(60)

Riley lifts a hand to her mouth. The quiet unnerves me, and goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. I wrap my arms around my chest.

That’s when I realize—the car engine. I don’t hear it anymore.

“Oh, god,” I whisper. I turn around and take a few steps back over the rocky driveway. Riley’s feet crunch over the gravel behind me. When I see the spot in front of the beach where Charlie’s truck is still parked, I freeze.

Brooklyn leans against the hood, tossing the car keys from hand to hand. When she sees me, she smiles.

“Hey, Sofia,” she says. “Catch.”

And she throws the keys into the lake.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


Brooklyn steps away from the truck. Her smile is all teeth, and the longer I stare at it, the more it looks like a grimace. Brooklyn ripped the skin off Riley’s face with those teeth. My knees buckle, and I nearly fall to the ground right there.

“Oh, god.” Riley releases her breathe in a hiss. “Brooklyn.”

Brooklyn wrinkles her nose. Her feet crunch over the gravel. “Hey, lover. Miss me?”

“Brooklyn, think about this,” I beg, but she steps past me like I’m not there. A hammer sticks out of the waistband of her jeans. My stomach turns. No one blocks my path to the dirt road now. I could run to the main street and flag down a car. It was what Riley did to me in that burning house. It would be poetic, almost. The muscles in my legs tense to run.

Flames crackle beneath Brooklyn’s toes. With every step she takes, she leaves a curl of fire behind her. It burns blue at first, but then the fire crawls over the white gravel in the driveway and its edges burn orange and red.

Any hope I had of running vanishes with the growing flames. I had to know, on some level, that Brooklyn was capable of this. I saw what she did with the candle in the attic, but I let myself believe it was coincidence, luck. Now I stare at the fire, watching it curl into the air and lick the ground. It’s evil—she’s evil. There’s nowhere I can run to escape her. No matter where I go, Brooklyn will find me.

“You like?” Brooklyn asks. Riley opens her mouth, then closes it again. Brooklyn frowns. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you impressed?”

“I—” Riley’s body flies backward, and the words are ripped from her throat. She slams against the lake house wall. The gray siding shudders as she slides to the ground. She looks dead, but then she lifts a trembling hand to her face to push her hair out of her eyes.

Brooklyn stops a few yards away from the house. Flames lick at her toes and feet, but she doesn’t seem to feel them.

She lifts her arms, holding them out to her sides like a cross. In the dim light her skin looks ghostly white, and the injuries from Riley’s knife and the matches stand out in stark contrast. The red cuts and clotted blood seem almost fake, like they were drawn on using that cheap, oily paint that comes with Halloween costumes.

Before my eyes, blood moves back into the wounds and disappears, and the skin stitches itself together, leaving behind only faded pink lines. The stub of her pinkie stretches and grows, becoming whole again. It’s like watching one of those nature shows where time speeds up and a flower blooms in seconds. The evil hovers around us, thick and suffocating. I couldn’t run now, not even if I wanted to. The air weighs down my limbs like mud, holding me in place.

Brooklyn’s scars grow fainter, then disappear completely. She rubs her hands over her arms, grinning. “That was fun,” she says.

Riley releases a choked sob. She lowers her head again, and her hair swings over her tear-stained face. She clenches her hands in front of her.

“Hail Mary,” she whispers. “Mother of God . . .”

“Your God doesn’t care what you have to say,” Brooklyn snarls. “Now, do you want to see a real crucifixion?”

Brooklyn throws Riley’s body backward, slamming it against the side of the house again. Riley’s arms shoot out from her sides—forming a cross. She groans, struggling against some invisible barrier holding her in place. She releases a choked, terrified scream.

Brooklyn stands directly in front of Riley. Fire eats the earth behind her, crackling and spitting in the wind. Smoke turns the air hazy. It looks like a mirage.

Brooklyn glances at me and winks, like we’re sharing a joke. She tugs the hammer out of the back of her jeans.

“Sofia, help me!” Riley screams. She throws her head against the wall behind her, making the wood crack. “Help me, help me, please!”

I want to look away, but I don’t. It feels cowardly, like if I can’t save Riley, the least I can do is watch her die. Maybe that’s Brooklyn’s joke. Once again I’m forced to watch something terrible happen, helpless to do anything to stop it.

Brooklyn’s lips curl into a wicked smile. She pulls a long silver nail out of her pocket.

“Hold still.” She positions the nail directly in front of Riley’s palm. “This is going to hurt. A lot.”

She swings the hammer, driving the nail deep into Riley’s hand and pinning it to the house behind her. Riley screams. Brooklyn swings again and again. I imagine the nail piercing skin and bone and muscle. Bile rises in my throat. I scream, too. The sound rips from my body and echoes until my chest burns and my throat goes raw and my head aches.

I don’t scream for Riley. I scream because I’m next.