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MERCER

Mercer loved his daughter; more than his work, more than himself, more than life. It was why he’d spent so many years building this home for her, in a safe neighborhood with a job where he could drop things and run to her at a moment’s notice and a private scientist who kept her meds updated and coming. It was why hearing her risk all that for a silly part-time summer job made him so angry. So scared.

He didn’t even want to contemplate Rahil’s involvement in this yet.

It was also why all that frustration and hurt vanished at the sound of her scream.

A thousand terrible scenarios tried to flash through his mind, but they were too many, too fast, and all he felt was the pain and fear of them choking him as he ran. He tore through the back door, barely feeling the pound of his feet as he tripped and skidded, coming to a stop in the kitchen. Lydia sat on the floor, trembling.

In her arms, Kat seized.

The beagle’s eyes had rolled back, a pale line of foam around her lips. Her mouth hung open, and the residue of something white seemed to cling to the back of her tongue.

“Daddy?” Lydia pleaded.

“Oh, God.” Mercer didn’t know if it was a curse or a prayer. Both, he figured. It was all he seemed capable of.

Rahil almost knocked into him from behind, one arm wrapping around his back and the other grabbing him by the arm. He seemed to take in the scene much faster, immediately snapping, “She might be poisoned; could you use your spark to stop it?”

“I…” Mercer swallowed. This was a living creature—a hyper-complex organism, with far more elaborate arrangements of atoms than anything he worked with in his shed. But maybe… if he could just stall things long enough to get better help…

Mercer dropped to his knees beside Lydia, carefully taking Kat into his arms as he whispered encouragement—“I’ve got you, you’re going to be okay, you’re safe now, you’re safe,”—afraid it was all a lie; it had all always been a lie. And as gently as he could, he pushed his spark into Kat.

He could feel so much and so little at the same time, a chaos of molecular systems he had no way to influence or even understand, but deep in there, he picked up the tug of singular atoms he knew well—iron, magnesium; a little lead, copper, and tin—and one compound that was more familiar than the rest. An active ingredient in Lydia’s medication? He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do with it either—what if his action increased its toxicity? But what if it didn’t.

Mercer could feel the strength of Rahil’s hand on his shoulder and Lydia’s warmth pressed against his side and he did the only thing he could: he broke the deadly molecules in two, right down the middle. They shifted as it came apart, rearranging themselves slightly, and that… was it.

Kat’s shaking slowed, then stopped.

Mercer tried not to let the relief come yet. They were far from out of the woods.

“Where’s the nearest emergency vet?” he asked, cradling Kat against his chest as he stood. She made no sound, and he had to remind himself that she was still breathing.

Lydia gave a tiny sob, her eyes huge as she shook her head in confusion, but Rahil immediately pulled out his phone.

“North on Pine Street and left on Citrus,” Rahil said. “It’s on the right after the micro-cemetery, like a quarter mile down.”

“Right.” Mercer was already moving. He could hear Lydia scrambling along behind him, one hand looped through his arm to hold Kat, but he was in the car, pulling out of the drive by the time he realized Rahil wasn’t with them.

The vampire stood in the shadow of the front door, waving weakly. He looked like a mess, worried and pale. Mercer didn’t have time to wave back before they’d passed him, tearing down the street at a rate that Mercer would never have dreamed of nearing were it not for the beagle unconscious in his lap.

“Hold on there,” he muttered, not sure whether it was for himself or the dog. “We’re going to be just fine.”

Mercer tapped his foot against the sterile tile, squeezing Lydia’s hand as they sat, their plastic chairs as close together as they could get. The waiting room lights were a little too bright and the buzz of the air conditioning a little too loud and all he wanted was for the vet to come back out and tell them everything was going to be okay. This wasn’t Leah.

Kat was the first and only new family member Mercer had let into their little two-some since his wife had died, and that seemed meaningful. Losing her now would feel like a sign. It shouldn’t have, but it would.

Mercer could only take so much more heartbreak.

And Lydia—

Goddamn—what was he going to do about Lydia?

“Is it my fault?” She said it so softly that Mercer thought perhaps he’d misheard her, but she looked more than panicked—she looked guilty, too.

Mercer squeezed her hand. “No, Puck. Sometimes these things just happen.”

As he said it though, his mind raced. He should have double-checked the kitchen before he left the house. Had he knocked something onto the floor while cooking? It had felt so much like Lydia’s medication, though. Maybe that was what he’d knocked over.

Mercer felt his lungs tighten, his vision turning to spots, and he forced himself to focus on one breath at a time, keeping his face blank and his gaze fixed on a single point.

Lydia seemed too lost in her own anxiety to notice. “It was my pills, though, wasn’t it? I saw the container on the counter. It was open.”

“On the counter?” Mercer felt his brow tighten as a spark of confusion wormed into his panic, but Lydia had already continued.

“I swear I closed it this morning,” she rambled, weak and wet. “I put them back in the med bin, against the cupboard. I know . I know I saw them there when I left.”

“I know you did, Puck.” Mercer felt the words come out of his mouth, sounding so much more reassuring than he felt, but his mind was still churning.

He found himself rubbing the back of Lydia’s hand when the veterinarian walked out. Her gaze locked on them immediately. Lydia jumped up, Mercer not far behind.

“Kat is stable,” the vet assured them. “She has a long recovery ahead of her, but whatever she ingested is out of her system.”

Relief hit Mercer, but somehow it couldn’t wash away the fear that had been growing inside him like a mold for so long. Still, he managed a soft, “Thank you.”

Lydia bounced on the balls of her feet, looking back to the glass window in the door the vet had arrived through. “Can we take her home?”

“Not yet. She’ll probably need to stay overnight in case anything changes. But if you wait for a few more minutes, you can come see her before you go.”

“Yes,” Lydia agreed instantly.

Mercer nodded. “Please.”

“I’ll be back to get you when she’s ready, then.”

As the vet left again, Lydia flopped back into her chair, tapping her toes, but this time she seemed less anxious, more impatient.

Mercer rubbed the back of her hand again as he returned to his seat. “See, it’s okay—Kat’s okay, and that’s what matters. We’ll double check our pill tops in the future. Everything will be fine.”

He’d put up sticky notes to remind himself. Set an alarm maybe. Whatever they’d done wrong wouldn’t happen again.

Mercer would make sure of that.

Lydia sniffled, but she nodded. A weak smile tugged at the side of her mouth. “Kat’s okay,” she repeated.

And Mercer almost believed her.

He squeezed her hand again. This time, she squeezed back.

They were okay—they were okay. He repeated it to himself a few more times, until his body finally started to understand, at least a little. Each inhale came easier. The aftermath of weakness and trembling filled his insides, but his muscles loosened. His mind let go of its stranglehold on Kat’s wellbeing.

Immediately, a new thought replaced it.

Lydia knew—was working for— Rahil .

Mercer still wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His impulse was to be furious at them both, her for traveling so far and getting a job behind his back, and Rahil for putting a strange kid to work for him. There were so many ways that could have gone wrong, so many ways Rahil could have taken advantage of Mercer’s daughter. But Mercer knew Rahil; he thought he did, anyway. And what had he said: that his own kids had done similar things?

Rahil had kids .

They were probably grown now, at Rahil’s age, but he’d been a dad, and by the way Lydia had run to him when he’d fallen—this vampire she’d spent a mere couple of weeks employed by—he’d been a good one. That made Mercer’s heart leap a little, soft and warm.

He glanced at Lydia, only to find her already staring at him. Her eyes narrowed. Then she asked the last thing he’d expected. “Are you dating Ray?”

“What?” Mercer balked, feeling his stoic expression slip into bewilderment. “Why would you ask that?”

She stared at him like she was the one concerned for his state of mind, then rolled her eyes. “Dude, you’re so oblivious.”

“I am your father, not your dude.”

Lydia shrugged. “Well, are you gonna date him, then?”

Why would she even ask that? Did she not know Rahil was a vampire? No—no, she’d been doing chores for him because his vampiric qualities made certain things harder for him to achieve, and besides, she could not possibly have missed his perpetually displayed fangs. And she just… she didn’t care. Lydia didn’t give a single crap that Rahil could use his fangs to end a life the same way her mother’s had been ended.

Huh.

Mercer didn’t know exactly what emotion that evoked in him, but it felt a lot like guilt. And pride. He was proud of her; proud of her for being the person he wasn’t, better and stronger and more compassionate.

“Well?” Lydia demanded.

“No?” was the best Mercer could do. No, he wasn’t going to date Rahil. He’d specifically set out not to date him. He didn’t need another person in his life, regardless of how peculiarly neutral Lydia seemed about the concept. Her neutrality didn’t change anything.

“Is that a question or a lie?” Lydia muttered.

“Now, hold up, Puck—” Mercer started, but before he could wrangle together a parental critique of her snark, his phone buzzed—he was vaguely aware that it had done that a few times before the vet’s announcement—and he tried not to look, but something twisted in his gut, pulling his attention toward it. A text from… Rahil? Oh, right, Mercer’s number was on the fridge for emergencies.

He swiped at the notification to find a tiny thread.

Unknown Number

Hey Merc, this is Rahil. You’ll want to see this. I found it inside a medicine bottle on the kitchen counter. Please be careful.

I know you’re probably busy with the dog, but I need to make sure you get this.

How is the dog, by the way?

Okay, last time.

(Last time for real.)

Mercer’s heart fluttered like it wanted to curl up and hide beneath the blanket of his lungs as he opened the image for a better look. It showed a scrap of paper, torn from the distinctive rainbow notepad he kept on the fridge. The blocky text looked so familiar that Mercer’s hands shook before he even managed to read its short inscription.

Love, William

Mercer’s blood seemed to run cold, the chill taking him over from the inside out.

There was a reason Lydia’s bottle had been on the counter, no lid, no pills. A reason Kat had suffered and nearly died. And that reason had signed his name to it and everything.

It turned out, William Douglas knew how to make good on a threat.