More blood sluiced out of his mouth and his ruined front teeth vibrated with his scream. He was a wild beast proclaiming its intent to wreak vengeance and lay waste to those who had injured it.
FIFTY-TWO
After her second fall that tore open the knee of her jeans and the far more delicate skin beneath, Mercy wondered in some kind of abstract, not quite defined way, how much abuse the human body could tolerate before it finally collapsed.
There were too many focal points of pain in her body for her to concentrate on any particular pain for longer than a second or two. Her nose was a mangled, throbbing hell, but her legs burned as if they might combust, and her crotch hurt, like really fucking hurt, as if someone had jammed a barbed branch, no, a whole goddamn barbed fence pole inside her, and her head radiated pain from what seemed like fifty different areas like earthquakes taking turns destroying various locations on the globe.
None of these agonies took precedence and so none had the opportunity to cripple her. Combined, torturing her simultaneously, those pains might kill her within minutes, or at least paralyze her, but as it went, with the pain rotating, she could find the will to keep moving.
The ability to stand once more and run down the mountain.
Without the flashlight, she kept her view on the ground where the dirt in the trail was much lighter than the rest of the ground and almost illuminated. This tactic worked for a while until a branch protruding over the path at chest height knocked her down. That was the first time. Then she tried to keep a decent view of what lay ahead of her and she missed the tree root jutting from the ground like a petrified snake.
She kept going. For that, she deserved a goddamn award. Best Performance by an Endangered Female. Most Impressive Struggle Against a Homicidal Maniac. Award for Unique Distinction During a Harrowing Calamity.
The laughter came out before she could suppress it and the convulsions threatened to topple her again. Her foot twisted over a pile of sharp stones and the rotation of pain settled in that foot for several seconds until she screamed it away.
“Tough bitch,” she said. “I’m a tough bitch.”
That was the award, of course. Toughest Bitch Award. The winner by a landslide: Mercy Higgins.
If she didn’t pick up her pace, however, she wouldn’t get a chance at the most precious award: Best Survival in the Face of Death.
She fell into the large clearing and was running across it before she registered the two tents. And her father.
He was halfway between the tent he had assembled, the one in which Victor had raped her, and the spot where she and Victor had spoken for hours this afternoon. Only the faint glow of hot embers remained in the fire. Her father was reaching toward it as if for salvation. Mercy thought of the guy in the desert and the oasis in the distance that he can never reach.
“Daddy!”
She tried to run to him faster. Her right hamstring tightened and gave out. She fell as if she had been shot. She clawed at the ground and crawled several feet before managing to get back on her feet and hobbled the rest of the way to her father.
She dropped next to him. He was sprawled on his stomach the way Victor had been only he wasn’t making any noise.
“Dad?”
She shook him and tried to turn him over. His body dropped from her grip and hit the ground with a sickening thump.
He was dead. Miss Cynical was right. Her father was dead and she could weep over him all she wanted but that wouldn’t bring him back to life. Worse, it would allow Victor to track her back here and kill her just as he promised he would: right next to her father.
His eyes opened to reveal shining, silver orbs and he coughed himself into a strained, heavy pattern of breathing. She helped raise him off the ground, but he couldn’t help and she had to set him back down.
“Daddy?” Tears blurred her vision. This was no time to cry but she couldn’t help it. Besides, if this wasn’t the time to cry when would she finally get the chance?
He groped at her shoulders as if he had lost the ability to use his hands correctly and he tried to speak but managed only a croaking whisper. Blood stained his lips. She almost said that at least they were both choking up blood but it didn’t seem as funny after a moment as it first had.
“I’ll get help,” she said. “I have to get out of here before he comes back.” She sounded much more confident than she felt: how could she simply abandon her father and run herself to safety?
His face squeezed into creases of strained flesh and he managed one hoarse word: “Two.”
She shook her head. “I killed Caleb. Knocked him off the mountain.”
He smiled. More blood dribbled out of the corners of his mouth. “Run,” he said.
She glanced back over her shoulder--nothing yet--and told her father that she was going to get off this fucking mountain and find help and come back for him. He had to be strong, be tough, and not die. She would be back. She promised.
Even as she made that promise and assured herself that no matter what she would come back to rescue her father, she knew it was not a promise she had any control over. If her fate was to die at the hands of Victor the Psycho, her only hope was that her father would die soon and not suffer up here for hours or even days.
“I love you, Daddy.”
His eyes opened again. Little moons in his face. “Keys,” he said.
She didn’t have to waste any time questioning. Like a good father, he had already sketched out her plan of escape. Down the mountain to his car and then off to the police. Or even someplace closer. If any place was actually open.
“I will come back for you.” She kissed his forehead and didn’t like how cold his skin had gotten. How long could he possibly last?
She couldn’t dwell on that right now.
The keys to the car were in his front right pocket where he always placed them. A small metal heart hung from the key ring on a chain. She didn’t need to look at it to know what it was. After Mom died, he bought the heart and had it engraved with her birthdate and day of passing. Between the two dates was her name and the following,
“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she said.
He opened his mouth, breathed in as much as he could, and said, “Go.”
Tears streaming down her face to dilute the blood still coming from her nose and out of her mouth, Mercy Higgins got to her feet and continued down the trail.
FIFTY-THREE
Victor knew how to separate himself from almost anything. He could have conversations in which his body was a robot and his mouth said whatever was appropriate while his mind cavorted in more interesting places. He could suffer physical injury and, for short periods, keep his mind as something separate from the nerves registering pain in his body.
This had been especially useful those nights when his mother came to him and he was too drugged or disgusted to fight her off. She could have her way with his body, but she would not get into his head. She had, of course. She had burrowed deeply into his grey matter. There were moments when she was getting what she wanted from his body and his mind was completely separate. Those times he was able to protect himself. Yet the pleasure of his sex inside hers always threatened to crack this shield. He forbade himself from enjoying what was happening, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. Sometimes it just felt too good and he would thrust back, roll his hips against hers and let her moans carry him to the brink.
