MERCYALICE
“I’ll stay with you tonight. We’re going home tomorrow.”
That’s about right. Ryker doesn’t dabble in small talk or niceties. He starts most conversations in the middle, expecting everyone to catch up. Everything is zero to one thousand in two-point-three seconds.
He takes the right turn toward my neighborhood without being told, and I roll my eyes.
An unavoidable huff leaps from my lips, but otherwise, I maintain a gentle yet stern response. “I’m not going back there.”
He scoffs, the hand that isn’t throttling the steering wheel diving into his dark brown hair. “To the place you love, with beignets and jazz music and parades in the streets?”
“Yep.” I shrug as if those things mean nothing. I’d shoot New Orleans into my veins if I could, but I’ll take that to my grave.
He pulls into my driveway, puts the car in Park, and stares at me, thewhyquestion hanging between us without him vocalizing it. Which is good. I can’t put the answers out there either.
But I hear it all the same.Why won’t you come home, Mercy?
The air thickens in the car as we simply take each other in, my mind scrolling through my reasons.
One: Because you’re there, Ryker. Because you warned me, but I pushed you away and ignored you and didn’t ask what I should have asked, and it nearly cost me my life and possibly the life of my precious boy.
I feel stupid. All. The. Time.
Two: Because when I finally managed to open my swollen eyes, I saw the way you looked at me—a blend of pity for me and venomous rage for Dalton. And I couldn’t bear for you to see that monster in my sweet boy’s face.
He has to come first, to know he’s beautiful, to be seen separate from the evil man he was created by.
Three: Because that night and all the terrifying weeks and months that followed still haunt me. Bits and pieces float through my mind uninvited, robbing me of any peace.
Dalton might be dead, but I’m still scared. My gut stirs like someone’s after me. Like there’s someone who wants me to stay quiet. It’s petrifying.
Four: Because I know you had Dalton killed, despite what I was told about some prison fight. And I wanted to hate you for it, to be pissed that you did the very thing I’d begged you not to do, but instead, I was elated, grateful, proud.
That makes me question everything I am. I’m no less of a monster than Dalton was.What would my parents think of me?My parents, who instilled good morals and ethics in me, who I still believe died on the right side of justice?What would my son think if he knew I’d celebrated the murder of his father?I can’t be this person.
And lastly—this is a big one.
Five: Because if I succeed here, I won’t have to admit staying away was wrong.
I really, really hate being wrong. Obviously.
There’s no sense in tiptoeing around it. “I needed a fresh start. And I took one. We’re making it work.”
“Making it work? It’s over. Dalton is dead. It’s time to come home.” He thrusts his hand toward my apartment. “What the hell are you doing, Merc—”
“Alice,” I correct.
“Mercy.” His face turns to stone, and I wonder—not for the first time—if I’ve lost him for good. “This isn’t you. All those years in law school, top of your class, so you could waitress or bartend?”
“Don’t shame me. I work my ass off. I’m doing okay. There is nothing wrong with bartending.” I glance up at my tiny apartment, knowing there’s some merit to what he’s saying, that it kills me not to be able to do what I love, that I’m barely hanging on, that I’m lost as to who I am beyond being a mother.
My house of shards.
But again, you’ll pry that truth out of my cold, dead hands.
And that’s when it hits me. “You’re the one who gave me that loan. Fuck.”
I am going to have words with Ty and Ivy. Ty erased me, and Ivy has been involved more recently—the last year and a half or so. I’m not sure how she fits with Ty’s crew, but she’s amazing. They both are. Except they fed me a story about a donor allotting funds to all their pro bono clients. I was suspicious because I had inquired about a loan a while back, but I needed it, so I didn’t push. The house’s furnace had broken, and my landlady needed to raise my rent. She is a sweet old woman. It wasn’t her fault, but it left me working double shifts, barely scraping by.
