Page 1 of Property of Mercury

PROLOGUE

Mercury

It’s been a few days since Skippy was located and rushed to the hospital. I’ve come back out to the scene, looking for things that could’ve been missed. I crouch down and scan the gravel road that she managed to drag herself up and onto. My eyes clamp closed when I see her finger impressions in the dirt along with the blood that follows. My mind replays seeing her in the hospital, her hands nearly shredded with her nails broken and bloody, most of her fingers splinted because of the damage she sustained.

I continue duck walking along her escape route, noticing that the tire marks are still fresh, and so are the footprints of the man who rescued her. Now that I have her path in mind, I backtrack and head into the wooded area. It’s still closed off with yellow tape, but that doesn’t stop me considering the cops currently overseeing the crime scene are nowhere to be seen or even found. When I first arrived, they were all standing in a circle, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and contaminating the crime scene—they’re either amateurs or don’t give a fuck about preserving the evidence. I know it’s been a few days since their ploy has been unearthed, but vital things could still be found so the fact that they’re nonchalant about the whole thing lets me know they think they won’t ever be caught. I can see their reasoning since as far as we know, Skippy’s the first person who didn’t die at their hands.

Fuck knows how many actual victims they’ve had, but we’ll eventually figure that out as well, especially with Orbit on our side.

Stealthily, I follow the drag marks Skippy left until they turn into footprints that have the grass folded down from her running, and she was running, not walking. There’s no doubt about that because of the way her tread changed. The heavier the impact, the faster she was going. Tiny scrapes of fabric caught on branches, along with the footprints, give me an excellent path to follow as I try to puzzle out what happened. I begin looking upward and notice that there are blinds set up in the limbs of several trees. They’re camouflaged to blend in as they sit and wait for their prey. A cold shiver wracks through my body as I imagine being in her shoes, fleeing for my life.

“Fuck, I hate climbing,” I grumble as I scale the first tree to see if any evidence was left behind by the perpetrators.

As my feet hit the plank boards that support the structure, those specialized cigarettes that Allen is known to smoke have been snubbed out and the filters are all that’s left of them, but the bite impressions I’m looking for are there clear as day. Aside from the fact that he’s a fucking litterbug, it’s almost like he’s waving a flag that says, “You can’t catch me!” or something to that effect.

“I’m coming for you, motherfucker,” I avow as a whimper from the other side of the clearing catches my attention. “The hell is that?” I ask myself as I disembark from the tree, dropping to the earth’s floor, jarring my knees. I hear the whimper again, and follow the mewling sound. When I pull the shrubbery aside, my jaw drops. A woman is laying there, curled in on herself with an arrow sticking out of her side. “Ma’am,” I softly call out, not wanting to startle her and cause her to move.

“No more, please, no more,” she begs. Her clothes are torn and ragged, as though she’s been running. Cuts and gashes on her face and arms make it hard to see what she actually looks like, but right now, my first priority is to get her some help.

“Ma’am,” I try again, speaking softly. “I need to assess your wounds and get you out of here and to the hospital.”

“Don’t touch me,” she cries, tucking tighter into the ball she’s turned herself into, whimpers of pain at the move causing the hairs on the nape of my neck to raise.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I promise, trying to reason with her. “But we have to get you someplace safer than here.”

“No place is safe, not even the hospital,” she claims through clenched teeth.

I decipher her meaning, wondering if that’s where she was initially taken from. I won’t get any answers to my questions unless I ask. “Was that where they got you?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice quivering. “I was leaving from a trip to the emergency room after a work related incident, as soon as I hit the unlock button on my key fob, someone placed a rag over my mouth and I blacked out.”

“Chloroform,” I mumble, not surprised that it’s how they are taking their victims. It’s the easiest way to knock them out and kill the fight within them.

“It smelled awful,” she whimpers. “Who are you?” she asks, looking at me through her matted curtain of blood crusted hair.

“Name’s Mercury, ma’am,” I say, introducing myself. “And you are?”

“F-f-finley,” she stutters around chattering teeth, the adrenaline beginning to wear off. “Finley Johnson. How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t on purpose, I heard your whimpers and decided to explore,” I confide.

“Thank God,” she sobs. “I thought I was going to die out here.”

“You would’ve had I not heard you,” I answer. I don’t believe in pulling the wool over someone’s eyes, especially when it’s a situation as serious as this. “Can you tell me what happened to you while I look over your wounds?”

“Is it going to hurt?” she asks, looking at me with puppy dog eyes. She’s almost begging and pleading with me to once again lie to her, which I won’t.

“Probably,” I tell her. “You have an arrow sticking out of your midsection and it looks like you’ve been shot several times. But I won’t know for sure unless I can get closer to you and poke around.”

“Just don’t poke too hard,” she hesitantly replies, a small smile on her face despite her present circumstances, her body trembling with the prospect of me aggravating her injuries.

Gotta give her props for trying to display even a hint of humor because from just a cursory look, she’s in some serious agony. “I’ll do the best I can, Finley. But with saying that, I don’t know how severe things are and even a simple touch could send your nerves into overdrive.” I don’t know how else to explain it to her, she’s going to experience pain unlike she’s ever felt before and there’s no way for me to prepare her for that.

I quickly shoot off a text to Gemini letting him know what I’ve found and that I need a cage, then crouch so I’m sitting on my haunches then start at her head, examining every scratch, cut, and bruise until I come to a hole in her shirt that’s unmistakably one from a gunshot. As gently as I can, I turn her to see if there’s another wound on her back and find one. While it’s a through-and-through, the area itself is a bit tricky since there are a lot of smaller arteries and veins. Her low whimpers are killing me, if I’m being completely honest with myself, but despite those which I suspect she can’t help, she’s staying as still as possible.

I find a second gunshot wound and don’t see an exit wound which is not good because it means it’s lodged somewhere inside of her. Couple that with the arrow sticking out of her and even though I found her out here, it’s going to be a fucking miracle if she survives. I don’t mention that, however, because I need her to stay as calm as possible. All three wounds are still bleeding, although the flow is sluggish so she’s starting to clot, but time is definitely of the essence as far as getting her medical attention. Hell, I don’t even know how long she’s been out here, so to hopefully distract her, I keep talking.

Realizing that she hasn’t told me anything beyond her name and the fact that she was snatched from a parking lot after an appointment, I ask, “What happened after you were taken?”