Have Mercy

16 mercy's interlude

16   mercy's interlude

Below the rose-tinted hands of the sunrise wrapping their delicate hands over the skyline, there lies Mercy King's small, home town Henrietta. And within the twisting streets of Henrietta, stands the last house of Siken Lane. It's a small house that crawls with bleeding strands of ivy intertwining with the porch frame, and cracking, thick white brick that keeps the crumbling psyche of the house within tact. Light blue and fractured, the paint of the old pickup truck out front comes off in small flecks. CHEVROLET is spelt out in white lettering, almost hidden by the shadows of the rising sun. It sits jaggedly against the white of the cottage-like house; out of place, not right for the prestige of the perfectly constructed home.

          "We stand alone now." Illusion crows sweetly in the ear of Mercy as she stands in the darkness of her room. "The world is only ours."

The auburn-haired teen's hands grip the white windowsill, nails digging into the paint and her knuckles blanching. Her attention is snapped from the sunset, pulled towards the voice. It is iron, echoing in her ears like a sharp pain. She digs her fingers into the grooves of paint curls that she created in the past. Head bowing, her tumble of shoulder-length curls fall over her face like a cascading waterfall of blood. Rubbing a finger over her nose, she lets out a heavy breath, choking on the animalistic snarl that violently crawls from her throat.

          "This isn't finished, Mercy." The voice cuts through the buzz of her heartbeat pounding. She feels the ghost of a hand trailing against her jawline. "You know this is only the beginning. "

Black ichor drops onto the windowsill, staining the cream a dark grey. Drip, drip, drip. Mercy wipes her nose, gazing upon the fluid as it runs down the back of her hand. Her lip quirks. She remembers the infinite— the goldrush, a fire lit within her bloodstream and soaring past every vessel, settling into the tiny crevices of her being. It was everything and more. Like a kid again, limitless with potential and knowing no bounds. The way the trees sang to her and she sang in return. Illusion leans close, breath cold against her neck. Mercy presses a finger into her locket, the original that Ronan ripped from Kavinsky's body before they left the drag strip.

          "What if I ask for peace?" She asks.

Illusion sighs, brushing her curls from her neck. "You know better."

Mercy laughs, short and stumped without amusement. "You overestimate me now that I've had a taste of freedom."

They press their fingers into the back of her neck. "Freedom is a fickle thing. It won't last."

          "Then what if I ask for quiet?" Mercy persists.

          "You can demand quiet whenever you wish," Illusion says. "You just have to say the right things."

Mercy waves a hand. "Then leave me be for now. Go bother somebody else."

Illusion disappears. Mercy studies her hands, turning them over and back. Tywyll never truly leaves. They're still stained grey. The forest's touch certainly didn't fix even a quarter of her issues. It was merely a cosmetic action it seems. Something still needs to be set right. She eyes the disease, trying to see if she can see the infection clinging to her tissues and seeping into her blood. She sneers at herself. In frustration, the redhead presses her thumbs into the flecks, pushing for them to disappear, but they refuse to relent. Like tiny constellations, they dot the skin between her freckles. Looking up, she eyes the black switchblade on her bedside table. It would be easier to just get rid of them. On these kinds of days Mercy purposefully thinks about taking a pen to her arm and connecting the dots. She reaches over to her desk, takes a pen and begins her game.

Huffing, Mercy propels herself away from the windowsill, her feet hitting the wooden floor of her bedroom. Her headphones lie abandoned on her bed. She's in the middle of swiping them up when the screaming begins, raw and cold-blooded. Mercy's head snaps up, hands frozen in the middle of her motion. She lets them drop, silently landing against her bed as she bangs through her bedroom door and thunders down the stairs.

Circe King dies on the night of July 5th as her own shadows morph and overtake her in a vicious cycle of the King curse. Blood covers the kitchen of Siken Lane, drowning the once pale green cupboards in shades of dark scarlet. Mercy doesn't scream, she's too shocked. For a moment, she swears that she sees the ghost of a Cheshire cat smile and a smart, pressed black suit standing over Circe's body as she takes her final breath. Mercy collapses beside her mother, pressing her hands into the talon marks stretching across her chest. It's too late, she's lost too much blood.

The scarlet blood coats Mercy's hands as she numbly stumbles to her trunk. It stains the steering wheel, the seat belt and the seat itself without her realising. The streets are quiet, uncaring of a blood-covered teenage girl driving through the night air with a starkly glazed expression. It isn't until she arrives at Monmouth Manufacturing that Mercy realises where she's gone. Her scarred knees are as red as they were when the burns first occurred, she notices as she stumbles from her truck. They're wobbly, the ground uneven and moving beneath her feet.

Mercy's locket burns on her chest and a ghost hand presses against the small of her back, nudging her tired body forward. She doesn't remember putting it on. Mercy wasn't wearing it before she left. She knocks on the door, grimacing at the red caked underneath her nails.

           "Mercy?" Gansey is surprised, and pales at the sight of her as he registers the red. "What happened?"

Mercy laughs, whether it's from the shock or the grief, she'll never remember. "My mother is dead." 

think of this chapter as an echo :)