Prey and Mercy

XIX. Even Dieties Get Mail

M E R C Y

I tell him the couch probably isn't as comfortable as the bed, he says he'll live.

We spend the night without asking any of the right questions. Where will go when the sun rises? Will Ernest head back home? Can he live with the tattoo on the back of his neck? Will he be okay? Will we be okay? And at the end of the day are Prey and I going to go our separate ways?

The mortal can't sleep with the T.V on so it's pitch black and silent as I lay in bed, covers tangled around my legs. There are endless thoughts spinning around and around in my head. It hurts to think, to exist in this stress-induced mortal realm.

The minute we stepped through a migraine attacked my skull, heat flooding my body. I felt like I had been dropped off the top of a cliff only to land in a hot spring and I couldn't stop shaking, which only contributed to my nausea. The cold porcelain of a cheep hotel bathtub was a remedy I didn't even know I needed.

And now I'm stuffed, left thinking things that leave me terrified to close my eyes.

What's worse is that Prey is sleeping on the couch, feet dangling near the floor because it's a love seat that doesn't accommodate his frame. I mean, he's not big, only slightly bulkier than Idris but seat cushions have a habit of sliding forward, the fabric like that of a seat belt. I know it's uncomfortable.

I know he's caused me tremendous pain in the past. But...I'm a good person when I need to be. When I know I can get away with it.

That sacrifice--the girl named Regan--she couldn't be saved. There's no denying that.

"Prey, just get off the couch already," I try to keep my voice down, "Only one of us can be a martyr within a day."

There's a good five minute pause before my words have any effect. I hear him sigh, the couch squeaks, and then suddenly there's a dip on the right side of the bed, covers being shoved aside.

His heat frames me, warms my blood. It's enough to make me scoot toward the edge of the bed, ignoring the harsh cold of new sheets.

Prey's voice is deep from fatigue and so very low, "Feeling less like you want to run me through with your blade tonight?"

That was a different me. A version of me confined to a world where the rules were different, where my life was on the line. I hate him, yes. But things are different now. We've escaped, tasted freedom. I never wanted to be a murderer and now I don't have to be. Even if I did slit his throat here I don't know if the same rules would apply.

I might never get powers and then I'd have the police to deal with. And if I went back perchance to flee once again, I'd have the Emissary to face. That's not a fight I can win.

"You're not worth it," I say. My dagger sits on the desk, placed right next to a bundle of arrows her smuggled in from home. In the dark they're just shapes.

"I'm not worth it or it's not worth it?" He waits.

I know what he's referring to: a better life. One with power. One without him. But thats the same world where his blood runs through my fingers. Thinking it makes me sick, no longer angry as I had once been.

"I don't owe you anything," I start. My back his to him, fists curled into a red pillow, "No answer to ease your sick heart. Not comfort. Not friendship. Whatever we had ten years ago...is gone. Okay, it's burned and buried. In this world let's just be two humans with bad history. Ill blood and nothing else."

In the darkness I can't even hear his breathing. I wouldn't know he was beside me if not for his warmth, my sixth sense for him. All of things to carry over, that stayed.