Mercy sat up quickly and was surprised her arms were trapped inside her sweatshirt like someone had played a trick on her. She found the armholes as quickly as she could and was spinning around toward the sound thinking
He was wearing jeans and a jacket with a black hiking bag on back. In one hand he was carrying a pair of boots. He waved at her with his other hand and she waved back, a little surprised at her own hand.
When he was close enough, he said hello. Mercy was getting to her feet, fighting the pain radiating through her legs.
He stopped ten feet away as if he wanted her invitation to come any closer.
“Hello,” he said again. His face was smooth and handsome. And familiar.
“You’re the guy from the bookstore. I saw you at the diner this morning.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mean to disturb you.”
She gestured around her. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
He pointed to the dirt spot near her bag. “You mind if I take a seat?”
He sat and, after a moment, she sat as well, near him but not too close. This coincidence was a little creepy. That was okay, though. Mercy Higgins knew how to be cautious. She did caution very well.
The man’s feet were caked with dried mud. He spread his toes before him as if putting them on display for her.
“Something wrong with your boots?” she asked.
He smiled. He had a dimple on one cheek that was really cute.
“This is going to sound strange,” he said, “but I love the outdoors. Love coming up here and exploring outside of the path. Try to be one with nature. For a little while, anyway.”
“That’s not weird.” She was playing with her fingers like a little girl. She forced herself to stop.
“What’s weird,” he said, “is that sometimes I like to take off my boots and socks and walk around in nature. There’s something really calming about it. Can’t get much more in touch with nature than that.”
“Anyway, it’s something I do and usually people think it’s weird.”
“I don’t.”
“It is messy,” he said. “It’s tough to clean them off up here, so I usually wait until I get home and by then the sock is stuck to my foot.”
“Ew.”
“I’ve ruined a lot of socks that way. But I think it’s worth it to be connected with nature.”
“Sounds cool,” she said like she was some airhead teenager.
He glanced at her boots, still rigid with newness. “Why don’t you try?”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“You sure?” He reached toward her feet like he would help her take them off and Mercy felt a bit creeped out for a moment. The guy looked nice and probably thought of this as harmless flirting, but she was alone up here and she didn’t really know this guy who walked bare foot through mud.
She recoiled and he held up his hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be so forward.”
She felt bad immediately and almost started to remove her boots but thought better of it. She hadn’t done her nails in months, hadn’t really given her feet any kind of attention in weeks. What if her toenails were jagged or she had thick calluses on her soles? What if her feet smelled?
“Where’s your father?” the man asked.
“How do you know I’m here with my father?”
“I saw him at the diner. I just assumed he was your father. He’s not?”
She felt stupid again, being overly-cautious with this poor guy. “Sorry. He is. He’s trying to find the top of the mountain.”
The man glanced toward the distant peak. “That could take a few hours,” he said.
“I guess,” she said.”
“That leaves us lots of time to get to know each other,” he said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Victor Dolor had excellent self-control. When he wanted to. People always thought he was just some weird kid back in high school who sat by himself and scribbled cryptic things in a notebook. Teachers thought it, too. But if they tried to talk to him, Victor could become charming and engaging so much so that adults and teens alike were shocked enough to leave him alone. He really wanted to punch those kids in the face like he had that asshole this morning or tell the teachers they were full of shit and should back away before he sliced open their throats, but his self-control was always his greatest asset.
How many times had he wanted to kill his mother and yet restrained himself? It was an under-appreciated skill in today’s world. Sure, there had been times when he lost his cool. When he’d killed the cat, for instance. But that had been part of a greater plan, wanting to see just what he could get away with, needing to establish boundaries. Because boundaries were vital. If he didn’t know how far he could safely go then he was perpetually placing himself at risk.
When he reached toward the woman’s feet and she backed away, a boundary was identified. They had only just met. He could not yet be so intrusive. But that was okay. All boundaries would fall soon. Until then he had to keep his urges in check and sustain his charming facade longer than he’d ever had to before.
He had strategies, of course. His talent for self-control was like flipping a switch. It was like being in a disgusting sewer next to a ladder that led to freedom and walking around that ladder again and again, never jumping onto the rungs of the ladder and scrabbling to freedom. Self-control meant staying in the shit-stinking foulness of a sewer when fresh air was only a ladder climb away.
And there was his bouts of self-pleasure. These “onanistic episodes,” as his mother called them, were gusts of cool, fresh breeze in the stagnant sewer of self-control. They helped clear his mind, lower his testosterone levels. Sometimes it was necessary three or four times a day. Sometimes more. But that was okay. He wasn’t like regular men. He was built to survive the primal way and that stuff that burned within him to be let loose was the proof.
If not for his moment of release in the woods, he might have tackled the woman, tore off her sweatshirt and jeans and ravaged her. He would, eventually, but not yet. He had to know how much fight she would give him first.
“You didn’t want to go with him?” he asked about her father.
She stared at her slender fingers and how they rubbed over each other repeatedly. Some of her hair had fallen around her face. He wanted to touch that soft hair, yank it tightly, and snap her head to the side so he could suck on her neck like a vampire.
“I’m not much of a hiker,” she said. She looked at him and smiled a half-sort of smile which was either meant to complement her remark like a shrug of the shoulders or gently prod him with flirtation.
“I’m Victor,” he said.
She laughed. “I’m so stupid. I’m sorry. I’m Mercy. Since I recognized you, I felt like we knew each other but we don’t even know each other’s names.”
“We do now.”
Her smile was larger this time but she glanced toward the distant mountain peak. Maybe she would want to catch up with her father. That would be fine. In the woods, they would not be so exposed.
They shared a bout of silence in which he saw himself tearing at her body, lunging deep inside her, screaming into her ear as he released all the potentness inside him.
“How come you never introduced yourself?” Mercy asked.
“I thought I just did.”
“I mean at Rune. You’re always in there. But you never said hello.”
She was looking at him kind of strange. He had been staring at her breasts, though that was more an act of
