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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

MERCY

W e hike to the coordinates, walking side by side across the scrubby landscape, the dogs trotting beside us. Ambrose brings a big duffle bag with him, long enough I know a rifle’s in there, although I don’t know what else. It’s clearly full, and it lets out a metallic clatter every time he takes a step.

By the time we arrive, the sun is just above the edge of the horizon, and the light is clear and bright across the desert. I wipe sweat away from my brow with the back of my hand, grateful that Ambrose made me drink the entire bottle of water.

“Here we are,” he says suddenly, stopping in the middle of a dried-out stretch of scrub brush. Even though it’s not even seven o’clock yet, insects trill and rattle around us.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve hunted out here before.” Ambrose tosses the duffle bag to the ground and points off to the left. “Got a blind set up over that way. That’s where me and the dogs will be. Watching you.”

Max barks once as if he’s agreeing.

I follow the direction Ambrose is pointing, but I don’t see anything, just the glare of sunlight.

“You,” he says. “Are gonna go right there.” He points to his right, and this time when I look over, I do see something: a metal post jutting out of the ground.

“Did you put that there?” I ask, vaguely dizzy. This is real. We are really doing this .

I’m really doing this.

“Nope. Used to be a fence out here. But it’ll work just fine for our purposes.”

But before I can step toward the post, Ambrose grabs my wrist and pulls me around to face him. His expression is firm. Serious. He reaches up and brushes my hair out of my eyes, his gaze deep and searching.

“This is your last chance to back out,” he says in a low voice. “If you don’t want to do this, we’ll leave right fucking now.”

My breath shudders. I understand the gift that Ambrose is offering me. The thing is, the thing that scares me?—

I don’t want it.

“I want him dead,” I say, my voice harder than I’ve ever heard it. Ambrose’s eyes widen and flash with something like delight. Something like madness. Something like lust.

He leans close and brushes my lips with a kiss. “Your wish is my command, humanita.”

Then he presses his hand against the small of my back and guides me over to the post. It’s one of those little possessive gestures that would make my skin crawl anytime Reverend Gunner did it. But with Ambrose?—

I know I’m in good hands.

He helps me sit down in the dirt beside the post. I know what he’s going to do because we talked about it earlier, when we worked out the details of our plan, but it still feels bizarre and frightening to actually go through with it, to fold my hands behind me so he can tie me to the post.

“Are you comfortable?” Ambrose squats down and weaves a smooth, silky rope around my wrists. Max sniffs around us and licks the sweat off my knee. Roxi, as usual, keeps her distance, pacing back and forth like she’s holding watch.

I nod, swallowing a lump of fear. He keeps the rope loose, though, and doesn’t tie it off.

“All right.” He stands up and takes a step back. “Practice run.”

I strain against the rope. It catches for a moment—but only a moment. Then it unravels and I hold my hands up triumphantly.

“Good girl.” Ambrose winks and kneels back down to redo the rope. “You remember what we talked about.” He looks at me, expression serious again.

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

His eyes are as black as night as I repeat the plan back to him, all the details of our little ruse. And even though I’m sitting in the dirt, my hands behind my back, gazing up at a murder, I feel an immense surge of power.

“Perfect,” he breathes when I’m done, and then he kisses me, slow and hard and deep, his hand curling around the side of my neck. It’s the kind of kiss that sends heat flooding between my legs, and when he pulls away, I whimper at the loss of his mouth against mine.

“When you get scared,” Ambrose tells me, our foreheads pressed together, “I want you to imagine me kissing you, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“I’m not going to be able to concentrate if I think about that.” I try to laugh, but it comes out strained and nervous.

Ambrose doesn’t laugh along with me. He just pushes my hair back, kisses my forehead. “Then think about how I’m going to kiss you like that when we’re all done.”

“Yes, sir. ”

I know the effect those two words have on him, and I smile, seeing it now: the hot surge of desire in his eyes, the way he darts his tongue out to lick along his lips.

“Be careful,” he says. “Or I’m going to do more than kiss you when this is over.”

I smile coyly at him. “I was hoping you would, sir .”

Ambrose grins, and for a moment, he doesn’t look human at all. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Then he stands up, the desert wind blowing hotly around us. He shoulders his duffle bag, the contents clanking ominously, and gives a short, fluttering whistle. Both of the dogs trot over beside him.

“See you soon, humanita,” he says, right before he turns and walks away, his steps quick and self-assured. I watch him and the dogs go, fear pounding in my chest. He says he can sense my fear, and I’m sure he senses it now.

But I wonder if he senses the other things I’m feeling, all this confused blend of emotions. My attraction to him. My worry for him. My?—

My love of him.

I slump back against the post, lifting my gaze to the pale sky. I can’t love him.

Can’t I?

When I look back to my left, Ambrose and the dogs are gone. My fear quickens. But he said he would be watching me from his blind, and I believe him. I trust him.

I love him .

I squeeze my hands into fists, careful not to move them too much so I don’t disturb the ropes. It needs to look convincing when Reverend Gunner gets here.

The wind blows dust into my eyes.

The sun beat down on the top of my head.

And I wait.

It’s miserable, the waiting, although I am prepared for it. The heat is as bad as Ambrose said it would be, especially since I’m out in the open, without any shade. Even this early in the morning, I can feel it scorching the bare parts of my arms and the tops of my thighs.

Still, there’s nothing I can do but wait. I shift in the dirt, trying to keep my legs from falling asleep. The insects scream and chitter. Birds caw out overhead, although I can’t see them. I have no sense of what time it is. Reverend Gunner is supposed to come to the coordinates at 7 AM—Ambrose wanted to do this during the day. So they can see what happens to them , he said in that cold, gravelly voice.

He told me that we’re so far from civilization, so far even from the church, that we don’t have to hide under cover of darkness and he can unleash his horror in the sunlight.

The wind picks up, cooling my sweat-damp skin. And eventually, I hear something: the faint rumble of a car engine. It’s time to play my part.

So I suck down a deep breath of air and scream as loud as I can.

“Help me!” I shriek, kicking at the dirt to stir it up. “Help me, please! Anyone!”

A dust cloud appears on the horizon. The sound of the engine grows louder. I scream wordlessly.

The front grill of Reverend Gunner’s Escalade materializes through the dust, and I gulp down air. I don’t have to fake my fear. I just have to fake who I’m afraid of.

“Sterling!” I scream as the SUV slams to a stop. The passenger door swings open, and Reverend Gunner spills out, clutching a battered old briefcase. My heart seizes—is Pastor Sullivan driving? Or did they bring someone else out here with them? I don’t want anyone innocent to die.

“Mercy?” Revered Gunner calls out, voice uncertain.

“Help me!” I scream, a beat too late—now that I can see him, some primeval part of me recoils at the thought of calling out to him. Ambrose has sights on me , I tell himself. Although I suspect, by now, he has sights on Reverend Gunner.

The driver-side door opens, and Pastor Sullivan steps out. My skin crawls at the sight of him, although I feel some measure of relief, too. They seem to be alone.

“Is that her?” he asks, squinting at me.

“Of course it’s her!” Reverend Gunner stalks around to the front of the SUV, swiveling his neck around. “Where is he?” he barks. “Where’s Echeverría?”

“He said he’d be right back!” I wriggle my wrists against the rope, my heart pounding furiously. Ambrose said he wanted me to escape as soon as he fired his first shot. But if Reverend Gunner or Pastor Sullivan try to untie me, they’ll immediately know that something is wrong.

“Right back?” Pastor Sullivan frowns and reaches for the pistol he always wears on his hip. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know!” I scream, tears in my eyes. Why hasn’t Ambrose done anything? “Please! Help me!”

Pastor Sullivan looks over at Reverend Gunner, who gives him a short nod of permission. I glance off to the left, but of course I see nothing but desert grass and dust glinting on the wind.

“I don’t like this.” Pastor Sullivan walks toward me, his steps slow and cautious. “Why did he tell us to come alone?”

“Dammit, Henry, just help the girl.” Reverend Gunner keeps scanning the horizon, too. “Maybe we can get out of her before?—”

Sullivan’s right leg turns to pink mist a split second before the sound of a rifle report shatters through the sunlight. He topples forward into the dirt, howling in pain.

And this time, when I scream, it’s for real.