"Didn't I already tell you no?" Mercy drawls. She shoves the pill bottle into the sand and wraps her arms around her knees after pulling them to her chest. "That should be enough for you to stop."
Berlin seizes her chin in their fingers, wrenching Mercy's eyes to face their own. They snarl, animalistic and wretched. " Do you want to die?"
"What reason do I have for living?" Mercy raises her brow.
Berlin brushes a hand through the air, rippling like heat waves against the horizon. There's an image: Ronan crossing his arms as they lean together, Mercy's chin hooking onto his shoulder, Adam on the grass with a backpack tucked underneath his head beside a furiously writing Gansey and Blue's patchwork jumper acting as Mercy's blanket. Monmouth Manufacturing's large windows and Noah's flickering form tucked underneath the sheets as they stare into the starlight together. Mercy shoves away Berlin, nails scratching their perfect suit and leaving faint white lines in the fabric.
"Think, Little Spider," they say. "You know their fate if they continue to search for Glendower. If you help them, you can save yourself."
"I am nothing to save." Mercy replies. "Leave."
Berlin sneers but still disappears.
Before waking up, Mercy pulls every individual pill from the sand and slips them into the white pill bottle, waking up with a running nose and black-stains in her floral printed covers.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Henrietta passes by in shades of green, gold and blue against the freshly paved road beneath the car's tires. The town, a spritely maze of unforgiving dreams, is bright. The sun is shining golden light against Mercy's open window, careful strands of red hair reflecting it's warmth. She lets her hands ride the air, moving her fingers in a wave pattern with a small smile. It's childish, but it's her moment to keep. There's no Belin tailing her like a phantom presence—only the ley line and Mercy. She looks over, unpropping her chin from the window. In the passenger seat, grey-haired Malory has yet to stop talking; in the seat beside Mercy, Adam Parrish has yet to speak. It doesn't take long for them to find themselves off the side of the road, milling in front of a tripod in the crisp air. Mercy's spine shivers every time somebody utters Malory's name but stands tall, ironclad in her expressions.
The doctor is still speaking, lecturing loudly. "The procedure of ley hunting is quite different in the States! In England, a true ley must have at least one aligned element — church, barrow, standing stone — every two miles, or is it considered coincidental. But of course here in the colonies," Mercy's nose furrows, "everything is much further apart. Moreover, you never had the Romans to build you things in wonderfully straight lines. Pity. One misses them."
