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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MERCY

T he sun is just starting to rise when I leave my cabin to help prepare breakfast for the congregation. This is one benefit of summer, even with the heat—I won’t have to walk across the still, quiet campus alone in the dark. If I were unmarried, and living in the single women’s dormitory, I would never have to be alone. But as Gunner’s helpmeet, I’m always isolated.

But even with the dawn’s pale, sherberty light, even with the Texas morning heat, I still feel a chill as I pad down the dirty walkway. Something feels—off.

The devil , I think, drawing my arms around my chest. The devil is close .

The others have noticed it, too, I think. I see more houses marked by charms than usual. Some of them are painted on, the lines neat and even, and others are made out of twine and ribbon. Women’s nonsense, Reverend Gunner always calls them, although he says it with an indulgent smile. Madelyn is more forthright—she calls them witchcraft. When I still lived with them, she would always complain about them. “I don’t see how you can allow them,” she would say to Reverend Gunner, and he would respond with, “If it makes the women feel better, leave them. They aren’t an affront to God.”

I’ve never cared about the charms myself. Maybe it was because Madelyn was the closest thing I had to a mother after my own mother died, and so I tend to see them as needless superstition. “Your prayers are what really matter,” Madelyn told me when I was young, although, in the last three years, it feels like that’s not true, either.

All these thoughts swirl around in my head as I make my way toward the kitchen. Which is good, because they keep me from thinking about Ambrose and his slow, soft kisses and the fantasy I nurtured as I tried to fall asleep last night, the two of us standing side by side in front of the well in the chapel, me in a bridal veil.

The idea makes me feel warm and sick with guilt at the same time. Easier to put it out of my head.

I keep walking, my footsteps echoing softly. I’m nearly to Reverend Gunner’s house, rising taller than all the others. I miss living there. Miss being Reverend Gunner’s ward instead of his helpmeet.

But then I turn down the side street, and the wind gusts, bringing a thick, coppery sweetness that lodges in the back of my throat. My empty stomach turns. It smells like someone threw out old meat and let it rot in the sun

And then I see Reverend Gunner’s fence.

I see that there’s something on it.

I stop on the walkway, not comprehending what I’m looking at. At first, I think Madelyn draped some of Reverend Gunner’s clothes over the fence to air dry. But she never does that.

And then I realize it’s not just clothes. There’s a face. There are hands.

There’s blood.

I stumble backward, and the world draws away from me. I hear the ocean in my head. I recognize the face, hanging slack and twisted in fear. It’s Burl Marsh, one of the gruff old soldiers.

He’s stretched out like a Catholic crucifix on Reverend Gunner’s fence, his throat split open, his chest covered in blood. His eyes stare blankly ahead, right at me.

Just like Raul’s did.

That’s when I scream, all my terror exploding out of me in one terrible sound that shatters the silence of the campus into a million pieces.

Then I turn and run. I’m not even thinking clearly; all I know is I can’t do this again. I can’t stare at another dead body. I can’t answer the torrent of questions from Reverend Gunner and Pastor Sullivan and Deacon Price, the head of the Soldier of God. I can’t sit shaking in a room, sobbing and confused.

I run harder than I have in my life, my skirt streaming out behind me, and I don’t even realize where I’m going until I wind up in front of the guest cabins.

Ambrose’s cabin is shut up as tight as all the others, and I wonder, idly, if God sent him to us because He knew the nightmare that was about to unfold.

I wonder if God sent him to me.

Shouts ring out behind me, coming from Reverend Gunner’s house. A woman screams. I know I should go back. Instead, I jog up to Ambrose’s door, still panting and trying to catch my breath. Before I can even press the doorbell, his dogs start barking, my presence announced whether I want it or not.

I shouldn’t be here. The devil has come for us again, for another of my brothers, and here I am standing on the porch of the place where I sinned, and all I want, with a sudden and painful clarity, is to sin again.

I stumble backward, telling myself I have to go back. But then the door pulls open, and when I see Ambrose filling up the frame, dressed in dark slacks and a dark long-sleeved shirt like a priest, I burst into tears. I know I shouldn’t be here. But this is the only place I want to be.

“Mercy?” His brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”

I wipe at my eyes like I can press the tears back into their ducts. “I’m s-sorry,” I stammer out. “I know it’s early. But there was—there was?—”

Grief and terror overtake me again. I cover my face with my hands and weep. I’m not even crying over Burl Marsh. I’m crying over Raul, and the fact that not even our gated campus is safe from evil, and that the only thing that comes close to bringing me comfort is a sin.

“Come inside,” Ambrose says softly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

A scream rings out suddenly, and Ambrose jerks his gaze past me. “What happened?” he says, mare sharply now.

I sob. “I’m not supposed to be alone?—”

“Mercy,” Ambrose says. “Are you in danger?”

More shouts. Someone wails, long and dark like a siren. I wonder if it’s Burl Marsh’s wife.

“No,” I whisper. “But?—”

“Get inside,” Ambrose says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I look over my shoulder, although all I can see are cabins. And then I step over the threshold. When Ambrose closes the door, the shouts go quiet, and I feel a rush of relief, like he’s locking all the evil out in the sun.

“Tell me what happened,” he says, his hands on my shoulders, his eyes boring into mine.

“There was another murder,” I whisper.

Before I can say anything more, he pulls me into him, his arms wrapped around my shoulders. My cheek presses into the bare skin above the collar of his shirt. This is wrong. This is the only thing keeping me from flying apart.

“At the river?” he says.

“No.” I burrow my face into his shoulder, my whole body shaking uncontrollably. “Here. At Reverend Gunner’s house. Inside . The devil?—”

Ambrose squeezes me tighter and presses his mouth against the top of my head. “You’re safe,” he says softly. “No one can hurt you here. Not even Satan.”

“Why is this happening?” I pull away from him. “Who’s doing this? They—they crucified him, like our Savior?—”

I dissolve into tears again, ugly and choking. I wait for Ambrose to tell me to calm myself, the way Reverend Gunner did after I found Raul, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes my hand and leads me to the sofa, where Max is sitting, watching us. I sink down next to him and then run my fingers over his head, hardly feeling his stiff fur. His tail thumps against the cushions.

Ambrose sits beside me. Not close enough to be inappropriate, but close enough that I could, if I wanted to, sink into him until I forgot all my terror.

“Who was it?” Ambrose asks gently. “Was it someone you know, like—like before?”

I stare down at my hands. “I know everyone who lives here. But he wasn’t my friend, like Raul.”

Ambrose considers this. “You still feel grief, though.”

Grief isn’t the right word, not for Burl. I’m not sure what the right word is, though. “I feel afraid,” I finally say. “The campus is supposed to be safe. It’s supposed to protect us from the secular world. And then this?—”

I see Burl’s body, his arms stretched wide, the blood garish in the dawn light, and sob again

Ambrose puts his hand over mine, his touch warm. “They’ll find who did it.”

“Who will?” I blink back tears. “Reverend Gunner refuses to call the police! And we still don’t know what happened to Raul. Now this? It hasn’t even been a week! ’

Ambrose tightens his fingers around mine. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“You don’t know that.” I jerk my gaze over to him. “Why would someone kill Raul? He was kind. Burl—Burl wasn’t the world’s nicest man, but he didn’t deserve to—” I can’t get the rest of the words out. “They left his body like a warning. Like they’re going to pick us off one by one until there’s no one left?—”

“Mercy. Stop.” Ambrose’s voice is firm and commanding, and he’s still squeezing my hand. I don’t want him to let go. “You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to make sense of it.”

I look up at him. His living room window faces the east, and sunlight pours in, hot and lemony. My tears turn the light to glass.

Ambrose reaches over and smooths away a few strands of hair that worked themselves loose from my braid. Then he leaves his hand against my cheek, not even caring that my skin is sticky with tears.

I realize what I want, even though I shouldn’t. But the devil’s cruelty has weakened my will.

“Kiss me again,” I whisper.

Ambrose’s face is unreadable. He brushes his knuckles against my cheekbone. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” And it’s true. I want the oblivion of sin. I want the oblivion of desire. I don’t dare ask him to touch me again, but a kiss—a kiss is innocent. “Please. I know we shouldn’t, but I just want to forget?—”

His mouth catches mine. His tongue parts my lips. And I kiss him back, unsure where to put my hands—on his arms, on his face. But he decides for me. He presses me back against the couch, our mouths never disconnecting, and he pins my hands over my head. His body covers mine, and I feel the evidence of his arousal as much as I feel my own—an unfamiliar rigidity digging into my thigh .

“Are you needed somewhere?” he asks the questions against my lips.

“They probably want to ask me questions about the—about the?—”

“No,” Ambrose’s voice is firm. “You don’t need to do that.”

Relief surges through me. “What if Reverend Gunner goes to my cabin?” I whisper. “What if he’s looking for me?” The last thing I want right now is to talk about Reverend Gunner. I want Ambrose’s mouth on my lips. I want to never stop kissing him.

Ambrose kisses along my neck, all the way to the edge of my neckline. “I’ll call him and tell him the truth,” he mutters. “That you saw the body and need grief counseling. I’ll let him know he can speak to you once you’ve calmed down.”

Then he nips at my skin with his teeth, making me cry out. “This isn’t right,” I gasp out, but Ambrose interrupts me.

“Yes, it is.” He kisses my mouth again, deeper than before. “I’m going to make you forget all your fear, Mercy Gunner. Just trust me.”

And I do.