"Whacha doin'?" I ask. Trying to be casual.
Mercy narrows her eyes. "Talkin'. Why?"
The boys hover at the edge of the playground, uncertain now that I'm here.
"This is not a place for girls."
"You already told me that. And then you disappeared for three days."
Her wordsland. Three days. Seventy-two hours of her waiting, wondering if I was coming back. Just like before. Just like always.
"I didn't disappear—I..." But I don't wanna tell her what happened. I don't wanna tell her that Destiny was here, either. That the baby was born. That her name is Marigold. That I love that name and I love my sisters too.
But I failed them both. One's gone. One's standing in front of me with eyes too old for her face.
"You what?" she pushes, and there's an edge to her voice that I’m not used to. "You got caught with Savannah." She crosses her arms over her chest. "I already know."
I crouch down to her level, my knees cracking. My ribs scream where Cash's boot connected. "It's complicated, Mercy."
"Everything with you is complicated,Legion." She kicks at the dirt as she sneers my name, sending a cloud of dust over my boots. "Those boys said their dads are mad at you. They said you brought trouble here."
I glance at the boys, who are pretending not to listen while obviously straining to hear every word. One belongs to Roach, I think. The other might be Ledger's nephew.
"Those boys need to mind their own business," I say, loud enough for them to hear.
"Is she your girlfriend now?" Mercy asks, her voice small. "She got a tattoo of your name on her wrist. Demon. Not Legion,Demon."
I don't know how to answer that. Savannah is... everything.
And nothing I can explain to a nine-year-old.
"She's important to me," I say finally. "And she's staying with us for a while."
"In our house?"
"No. Here. At the clubhouse."
Mercy's face clouds. "So we're staying here too?"
I wanna say no. I wanna say, well… just no. But there's nothing I can do right now. Half a night of refuge isn't enough time to burn off the heat of what happened.
"Yeah," I breathe. "We're staying. But Mercy, you cannot hang around those boys. They're too…"Much like me, I don’t say…"They're too…"
Mercy scoffs. "I'm not Destiny."
"No," I agree. Unsure of exactly what she means by that. I don't even wanna think about what she might mean by that. Nine-year-old girls should not compare themselves to their knocked-up teenage sisters and decide to be the opposite.
I blow out a breath. "Can you just trust me? I mean, I get it. There's really no kids here. They're probably all you've got. But you can't have them, Mercy. Ya just can't."
Her mouth is a flat line of anger. "Then who the hell am I supposed to talk to."
I point at her for the swearing. "Me. You talk to me. "
"You're busy. And don't say Savannah. She's busy too. I'm not even allowed to go inside the clubhouse no more. If I do, then Mama Jo is gonna take away 'my privileges'." She makes little air quotes for those last two words. "Whatever the hell that means, because from the way I see it, the hot-dog dinners and tortilla-and-beans breakfast aren't what I'd call a privilege."
My laugh is so unexpected, it comes out loud. "No. I guess they aren't. But… what Mama Jo is really saying?—"
"Don't over-explain things to me, Legion. I know what she's saying. This isn't a place for girls. But I'm a girl. So what am I supposed to do?"
