The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(7)

I try to lift my head, but Riley’s hand is like a weight. I press my fingers into the edges of the sink. The bubbles in front of me turn spotty as my vision goes black. My fingers slacken as I start to lose consciousness when, finally, Riley removes her hand. I whip my head out of the water and gasp and cough. My hair hangs in front of my eyes in sopping-wet clumps.

Someone mops the hair out of my face. I blink and Riley’s in front of me, her clear, pale eyes bright with excitement.

“Oh, Sof, are you okay? You did so well!”

“I think I survived,” I gasp. Bursts of light still dot my periphery, but Riley’s smile is sweet, genuine. She leans forward, kissing me on the cheek.

“Now you’re one of us,” she says. Her words spark something warm inside me. It flickers like a match. I’m one of them.

“Now you’re saved,” Riley says.





CHAPTER FOUR


“Boo!”

I jump at the sudden voice, sending the pen I’d been sketching with sailing to the ground. Grace leaps up from behind the wooden bench I’m sitting on and doubles over in a fit of giggles.

“You’re so easy to scare,” she teases.

“Maybe you’re just scary.” I pick up my pen from the ground and throw it at her. When it bounces off her shoulder, Grace raises her hands in surrender.

“Hey! I come in peace. Riley asked me to find you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mom took Grandmother to a doctor’s appointment today, so I don’t have to race home right after school. All that’s waiting for me are last night’s leftovers. And Grace has a wicked glint in her eye. “What for?”

Grace straightens her leopard-print headband and perches on the bench next to me, staring at the basketball hoops in front of us. The outdoor basketball court is far less impressive than the football field. The concrete is all cracked and grungy, and there aren’t even nets hanging from the hoops. The only other kids around the court are clichéd loiterers, sneaking cigarettes and passing around a gallon jug of generic-brand iced tea.

“We’re headed to the house,” Grace says. “Want to come?” Her fingernails are painted an electric blue that looks neon against her dark skin.

“Whose house?” I ask.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. You’ll see.” Grace winks. “And you’ll love it.”

I gather my pen and sketchbook and follow Grace away from school and through row after row of perfect suburban houses with Mississippi flags hanging from their porches. The extra-high platform sandals strapped to her already long, skinny legs make Grace move like a gazelle.

“This is what I love about small towns,” she says as we walk. “Look at how safe and boring this whole neighborhood is. Back in Chicago, my dad would’ve called the police if I didn’t come home right after school. But here?” Grace spreads her arms and spins in the street. “No one thinks we could get into trouble here. Can you taste the freedom, Sof?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “It tastes like—”

“Red wine,” Grace interrupts. “And chocolate.”

I laugh, jogging to keep up with her long strides. “I lived in DC for a couple of months freshman year. My friends and I skipped class once—just one time—and my teacher thought we’d been abducted.” I decide not to mention that this was during my very brief Goth phase, and we skipped class to get fake IDs so we could see a band at a place called Club Trash. “The principal called the cops and everything.”

“Nice!” Grace says, laughing. “You move around a lot, then? Are your parents military?”

“Army.”

“Me, too,” Grace says. “My dad’s a combat engineer. We moved every two years of my life until he decided I needed an ‘authentic high school experience.’ Whatever that means.”

I kick a rock with my sneaker and watch it skitter over the dusty sidewalk.

“And you like it here? The whole safe-and-boring thing never gets old?”

“Not if you’re creative about it,” Grace says with another wicked smile. “Honestly, I didn’t expect to like it here. When we first moved, some racist *s at school used to make fun of my hair. But then I started hanging with Riley, and she made it clear that anyone who messed with me would pay.” Grace shakes her head, like she still can’t believe it. “When someone talked shit at my old school, you just kept quiet and hoped it stopped, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say. I’m instantly hit with a memory from my last school of Lila Frank’s high-pitched jackal laugh. “My old school was like that, too.”

“Well, Riley doesn’t stand for it. I’d walk through fire for that girl.”

“What about Alexis?” I ask.

“She’s a sweetheart. Practically Riley’s double, though.” Grace rolls her eyes. “It’s kind of adorable, actually—you’ll see.”

Grace crosses a packed-dirt lot and ducks through a pocket of trees. A patchwork quilt of land unfolds around us. It’s disturbingly empty, nothing but flattened dirt and twisting paved roads, all leading nowhere. The land is flat enough that I can see across the entire development, all the way to a far stretch of bare trees that were never cleared by the bulldozers.