“Then why are your eyes red and your cheeks wet?”
Mercy dropped the letter on the bed, stood, and looked away. “I don’t need this shit, Lee, okay? I came here to deal with Desiree. I said my piece to the witch. I’m off the hook for a murder I didn’t do. Now I just want to go back to my simple little life.”
“And what about me?”
Mercy turned to look at her.
Pine’s eyes glistened, and in a low, tight voice she said, “I didn’t choose to lose you. I didn’t walk away from you. I’ve been without my sister for thirty years, Mercy. And now that we’ve found each other you just want to walk away? Just like Mom did to me?”
Mercy didn’t wilt under this; she seemed to grow taller and broader. “I didn’t have a walk in the park, okay? The last thirty years have not been a piece of cake for me, sis. I would’ve traded with you in a heartbeat.” She lifted her sleeve. “Check these beauties out.”
Pine looked at the collection of torture marks. “I know what she did to you.”
“No, you have no fucking clue what that bitch did to me. Here, here’s what she did to me.”
Mercy stripped off her hoodie and undershirt. Her arms and torso were covered with blackened marks, scars, and lumps.
“Desiree loved cigarettes. Not to smoke them. But to burn me with them.” She pointed to three charred marks close together on her right forearm. “Do you know what she said about these?”
Pine couldn’t speak; she just stared. “She said they were like the three little pigs and I was Goldilocks. This burn was too hot and this one was too cold and the third one was just right, so she held it on me till I thought my fucking brain was going to pop out of my damn head. I was nine.”
She pulled down her pants, exposing her legs. “And these?” She pointed down both thighs where there were rows of burn marks. “That bitch wanted to make a column of ants up and down my legs. You know, like ‘ants in the pants,’ she said. I had ants in my pants. And she laughed her ass off while she’s burning ants into my skin. I was eleven.”
She tugged her bra down, revealing her breasts. “And she didn’t like the way my boobs looked. So she took a knife and carved shit on them. I was twelve. I didn’t really even have breasts yet, so all she was really doing was pushing my skin into my bones with a sharp blade.”
She touched her underpants. “And . . . and down . . . there.” Mercy bent over and started to quietly weep. She angrily swiped at the tears. “Down there she—” She waggled her head, looked like she might be sick to her stomach. “I was only . . . I don’t . . . I don’t remember how old I was. I just remember it hurt. It hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
In the face of all this, Pine finally had to close her eyes.
Mercy stared directly at her. “Yeah, Lee, that’s right, don’t look. I wouldn’t. I used to be pretty like you. I guess I did, anyway, because I don’t remember anymore. I’ve looked like this longer than I haven’t looked like this. I’m a freak and I know it. With this body I only get the guy losers of the world, and there are plenty of them. The normal dudes, they take one look at this shit and it’s goodbye.”
She rubbed her scalp. “I cut this off because Desiree used to pull out handfuls of it, roots and all, or set it on fire while she held me down. And with all the stuff you see on my body, that wasn’t the worst that she did to me.” Mercy smacked her head. “It was up here that she screwed with me the most. The mind games, the pure shit she poured into my head from when I was little to when I was big. That, that was the worst of it. Every nightmare you can imagine, the most evil, disgusting shit you can think of, that woman threatened to do to me and then she did do it to me. And then she went to another level to where I think even she was freaked out at what she was capable of.
“Then I got away and spent years getting crapped on by lowlifes who thought they could do anything they wanted to me, and I mostly let them because I didn’t know better. And I did stuff I’m not proud of, made the worst choices in the world, and snorted and injected and sucked down every drug you’ve heard of, and some you probably haven’t.”
As she kept talking, Mercy’s voice was rising and her temper was flaring while Pine kept her eyes shut.
“And I finally get the courage, the nerve, the, I don’t know what the fuck to call it, to say enough is enough. And for a long time I’ve actually had a damn life. It’s not much. I live paycheck to paycheck, I’m homeless sometimes when everything goes to hell, but then I get back on my feet. And I keep going. Alone. Because that’s the way it has to be. I’m not good around humans, Lee. Because I’m not human, and haven’t been for a long time. So, yeah, you ask me if I want to walk away, you’re damn right I do. I want to get back to the little piece of a shitty life that I’ve carved out for myself by myself because it’s my shitty life. Because people like me, we don’t know how much longer the road goes. But we know it doesn’t go as long as it does for normal folks. That’s just the way it is. I didn’t make the rules. I don’t agree with the rules. But they are the rules. And I’m not getting screwed over anymore by anybody. And I’m sorry if this little reunion isn’t going the way you thought it would, but that’s life. You want some fantasy where everyone has a great smile and every house has a white picket fence and the scene ends with tears and hugs and perfection all around, try somewhere else. Because that’s not me!”
She put the exclamation point on this diatribe by drilling her fist into the drywall and creating a large dent. Then she quickly pulled up her pants and bra, slipped on her shirt and hoodie, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Pine sat there for a bit, her eyes still firmly clamped shut even as the tears seeped out of them. Finally, she opened them and stared at the dent in the wall, courtesy of her sister’s iron fist and brutal temper.
And for the first time in a very long time, Atlee Pine had no idea what to do.
CHAPTER
60
PETER BUCKLEY SLOWLY WALKED around the grounds as powerful recollections flooded over him. This was the land of his birth, literally. His mother, with the aid of a midwife, had delivered him on the second floor of their home here, a building that had been gutted by fire from an incendiary round fired by federal agents during their attack against the compound, but mostly against his father.