Final Call for Mercy

33

Nicolas

I knew it from the moment we reached the gate that something was completely wrong. The guards kept quiet and ushered us through. There were nearly double the guards at door of the house and it was firmly locked the moment we came through.

Yet nothing felt more wrong than coming home and not seeing her the moment I walked in.

"What's going on?" I ask Gabriel, who came to greet us at the door. His eyes kept going to Jonathan warily.

Jonathan noticed his stare and cleared his throat in discomfort at it. "Where's my sister?"

"She's not here," Gabriel said. 

Wait. What? "Here as in the house? Is she at the warehouse?"

Gabriel shook his head. "There's—something happened while you were gone."

"Something like what?" Mateo stepped up next to me.

Gabriel seemed to remember something as he looked at Mateo. "As of right now, you're in charge. Anastasia isn't present and she gave command to you while she is gone."

Nothing sounded right. I couldn't stop the dread from forming at my stomach as I listened. "Where is she?" I ask harshly.

Gabriel looked as if he was trying to put on a strong face as he said, "we don't know."

I blink. My brain couldn't come up with a single thought or answer to the words. Anastasia isn't here. And they don't know where she is.

"You said something happened," Jonathan asked as I tried to make my mind work again. "What was it?"

Again, Gabriel looked wary. "I think you should sit down."

Jonathan frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

"Um," he dragged out, walking over to the couch with a guarded look on his face. I couldn't bring myself to join them, even as Mateo and the others circled around Gabriel and Jonathan.

Vee came in a few moments later, holding in her hands a black matte box. I watch without moving a single muscle. It's as if my body doesn't have the courage to move.

Veronica reaches inside the box, taking out a smaller version of the same box, and hands it to Jonathan. He takes it, his eyes full of questions.

I can't see what it is from where I'm standing, but the look on Jonathan's face is enough to make me move and find out. Jonathan grips the box in his hands, nearly crushing it under his hold as his eyes begin to fill with angered tears.

I stop again when I see two fingers in the smaller box. Fingers? What is that supposed to mean?

Mateo reaches into the bigger box and takes out a paper. "A finger for every head," Mateo stops, gulping hard. "Dear Anastasia, who's next?"

Her sister's fingers. They have to be. 

"This," Jonathan says, his voice cold and unable to mask the heartbreak in it. He holds up the pinky finger with a snake ring on it. I feel sick. "It's Jessica's ring. She bought us matching ones. I never wore mine, but she wears hers every day."

I can't bring myself to have an ounce of consideration as I walk over to Gabriel and turn him around, my arm using more force than it should. "Where's Lorenzo?"

"In his room," he hesitates. Gabriel's eyes go from me to the guards behind us for a fleeting moment. "Anastasia ordered the guards to not let him leave the house. As a matter of fact, none of us can leave the house unless it's to go to Red Point."