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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MERCY

T he back door slams, loud enough I hear it in the bedroom where I’ve been curled up and weeping for the last few hours. I immediately tense up, trying to draw into myself.

Especially as heavy footsteps thud down the hallway and stop outside my door.

I freeze in the bed as if Ambrose really is the boogeyman, and I’m a little girl who thinks the monster won’t see her if she doesn’t move.

The door creaks open.

“Mercy.”

He says my name the way he did before, when I thought he was a preacher and I liked how his rough hands explored my skin.

And God help me, but my body still reacts as if I haven’t learned the truth of him.

“Go away.” I face the wall, refusing to look at him.

“I will.” Which is a lie, because he steps into the room. “But I need to tell you something first.”

I keep staring at the wall, curling my hands into my chest .

“Your clothes got here,” he says. “I didn’t tell you, but I bought you some shoes.”

I don’t know why, but that makes me roll over. Ambrose fills up the doorway, half hidden in the hallway’s shadows.

“Why?” I mutter. “So you can chase me down and kill me like you did Raul?”

He blanches at that—or at least, it looks like he does. I don’t know why he would care. He certainly recovers quickly enough, his features settling into a neutral expression.

“I’m taking you somewhere tonight.”

My fear spikes again, and even though I don’t move, I can tell Ambrose knows. He smiles as if my fear pleases him, and he shifts his weight, never taking his eyes off me.

I wait for him to explain, but he doesn’t.

“Where?” I whisper. “What are you doing to do to me?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he says calmly. “Trust me, if I was going to do that, you wouldn’t see me coming.”

I bite back another surge of fear, and Ambrose smiles again, teasing and cruel.

“You’re safe with me,” he says. “I can’t promise much, but I can promise that.”

I watch him warily. “But you’re not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“No. I’m just letting you know. We’ll leave as soon as it gets dark.”

Then he steps back into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

I roll onto my back, not sure what to think. I’m afraid of him, but, perhaps stupidly, I don’t think he’s a liar. He’s been honest about his atrocities.

But I still can’t imagine where a monster like him would want to take me after nightfall.

I don’t see Ambrose until the sun sets. He strides back into my room, a stack of clothes in one arm and a pair of shoes in the other—flimsy ballet flats. He’s not exactly making it easy for me to escape across the scrubby west Texas landscape.

“Get dressed,” he says roughly, tossing everything on the rickety old desk in the corner.

“You’re still not going to tell me where we’re going?” I don’t move from the bed.

Ambrose frowns. “You know I’m capable of taking you wherever I want. Now get dressed and make this easy on yourself.”

I hate that he’s right. I hate even more that he uses that dark, commanding tone that makes my body throb with heat.

“Get out of here,” I snap, as if he hasn’t seen me at my most vulnerable, legs spread and moaning in ecstasy.

Ambrose smirks, clearly thinking the same thing. To his credit, he does step out into the hallway—although he leaves the door open. Fine.

I dig through the clothes he got me, a knot tightening in my throat. They’re nothing like the clothes I’m used to wearing. They’re… secular. Skimpy shorts, sleeveless tops. A strappy black dress that might as well be a nightgown, although it’s made out of cool, breathable cotton, the hems edged in lace.

I hate that I think it’s pretty. Hate that I finger the fabric between my thumb and forefinger and consider how much prettier this dress is than anything I wore at the Church of the Well. And probably more comfortable.

He bought me underwear, too, and a couple of plain bras. Somehow, he knew my size, which makes me feel odd because it makes me feel— cared for , somehow, even though it’s impossible. That demon doesn’t care about anything.

I peel out of the T-shirt and boxers and slide on my new clothes, going with the black dress because it feels the most familiar. Although it’s tight around the bodice and shows off my too-big chest, the skirt is loose around my thick hips and falls just past my knees. A semblance of modesty.

I tell myself I still care about modesty.

I put on the ballet flats and slink out of the bedroom. Ambrose waits for me, leaning up against the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest. When he sees me, he seems to go still, his eyes sweeping across my body, lingering briefly on my chest. I ought to feel exposed. I don’t.

“Looks good on you,” he says roughly.

I ignore him. I also ignore the fact that he’s dressed up, too, in dark slacks and a dark button-up shirt. He looks like the preacher I thought he was.

“Come on,” he says. “We’ve got to drive into town.”

“Town?” My throat goes dry, and I’m not sure what I’m scared of. Ambrose? Is he lying and this is really an excuse to take me deeper into the desert to kill me? Or is he taking me back to the church like I claimed I wanted?

The idea makes me queasy.

“Yeah,” he says. “Cocana. Should take about half an hour.”

I want to protest, want to fight him, but I’m completely powerless. I don’t have his strength or his ruthlessness or his violence. I don’t have whatever demonic magic keeps him from dying.

So I go along with him. I climb into the passenger side of his Oldsmobile and buckle myself in, my fingers squeezing up my skirt the way I always do when I’m nervous. The car’s engine rumbles to life, the radio kicking on to the same staticky country music station that was playing when he dragged me out of the church.

The landscape is dark as pitch, with only the headlights illuminating the two-lane highway. Ambrose sings along softly to the radio, his voice low and dulcet. I hate that he can sing. I hate that he’s an evil inversion of what I used to dream about in a husband—a Godly man with a good singing voice, strong enough to protect me from harm.

We don’t talk on the trip into Cocana. Ambrose keeps singing, though, and drums his hands against the steering wheel. I stare at my foggy reflection in the glass as we wind through the empty streets, everything already closed up for the night.

Ambrose drives all the way to the other side of town and pulls up to the cemetery there, rolling out away from the highway.

“A cemetery?” My throat is dry again. Of all the things I expected, this was the last one.

“Yes.” Ambrose stares out the front windshield, his hands on the steering wheel. “This is where Raul’s family buried him.”

As soon as he says Raul’s name, despair floods through me—all that sorrow I’ve carried with me since the morning at the river. Because of the despair, it takes me a moment to register what he said.

“Wait.” I look over at Ambrose. “His family? Not the Church of the Well?”

“No.” Ambrose cuts the car’s engine. “I found his obituary online. He’s buried here.”

“So why’d you bring me here?” Tension squeezes my muscles tight and makes it hard for me to breathe. Tears form in my eyes. “To throw in my face what you did?”

Ambrose clenches the wheel, not looking at me. I suddenly wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

But then he says, “To bury him. The rest of him.”

He climbs out of the car before I can respond—not that I even know what I would say. I’m not even sure I heard him correctly. Not sure what to think if I did.

Ambrose opens the trunk and rummages around inside, but all I can do is stare at the cemetery gates. It’s locked for the night, a big metal padlock holding the chain in place. But something tells me that’s not going to stop Ambrose.

He raps lightly on my window and stares at me, waiting with a shovel tossed over one shoulder.

“I’m doing this for you,” he says, voice muffled by the glass. “I was hoping you’d be there.”

I shove the door open, hoping, at least in part, that I can slam it into him. He jumps away at the last second, though, too nimble for me, even though he’s holding the shovel and?—

Raul.

He’s holding the bag I found in the freezer, letting it drop at his side.

He really is going to bury him.

“I—You—” I swallow, my throat dry. I don’t know how to react to any of this, and so I spit out the first thing I can think of. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get caught?”

“No.” He tilts his head and his eyes catch some nearby light and gleam like a cat’s.

I jerk back in fear. “Your eyes!”

“I told you I’m the boogeyman,” he says, his eyes still flat from the light. “I can see in the dark. And I can smell humans. You’re the only living one here.”

Then he steps back, giving me space to step out of the car. I take a deep breath, trying to decide what to do.

I’m doing this for you , he said, and that makes me feel warm and strange and sad all at once.

“Come on, Mercy,” Ambrose says softly. “I can’t bring him back, but I can do this.”

I jerk my gaze up to him. His eyes aren’t shining anymore. He looks like a man.

When I blink, my tears fall. “Okay,” I whisper, and I push myself out of the car and slam the door behind me. Ambrose nods and walks up to the gate, sets the bag carefully down on the ground, and then swings the shovel hard against the lock .

The clang is immensely loud and echoes through the night, but Ambrose’s blow is powerful enough that the lock scatters across the ground. He yanks the chain away.

His power terrifies me. But that terror does something else to me, too, something I don’t let myself dwell on.

He holds the gate open for me. “To the left,” he says as I step through.

I walk along the path even though it means Ambrose follows behind me. At least I can hear his footsteps, heavy and ominous.

The night is warm and dry, a wind blowing the cemetery trees around and making it sound as if we’re surrounded by ghosts. I don’t understand why Raul is buried here and not at the Church of the Well.

Except I do understand, don’t I? He wasn’t important enough to Reverend Gunner to have a place at the church’s cemetery. He wasn’t even important enough for a memorial service.

I swallow the lump in my throat, my vision webbing with tears. When Ambrose puts his hand on my shoulder, I jump beneath his touch, my heart leaping to my throat.

“This way,” he murmurs into my ear, making my skin prickle.

“How do you even know where he’s buried?”

“I looked it up. It’s not far.”

He’s right; it’s not far. Even in the dark I can tell which grave is Raul’s because the ground is darker than the surrounding grass. Upturned soil.

“When did they bury him?”

“Three days ago,” Ambrose says quietly.

I squeeze my eyes shut against my tears. Because three days ago I was still at the Church of the Well. And I didn’t know. No one told me. I assumed Reverend Gunner was going to bury him in the church cemetery because I was a fool .

“This won’t take me long,” Ambrose says. “You can do—whatever you need. Speak to him. Speak to God.”

I flutter my eyes open. Ambrose watches me through the dark. “You don’t believe in God,” I say darkly. “Do you?”

“I do believe in God,” he says. “I just know he hates me for the same reasons you do.”

And then he starts digging.