It’s okay, as long as I hang up before I kill her.
“Your mother isn’t here.”
I sighed. “I know, she’s with me.”
“Is she wearing her blue dress?”
Bingo.
The office door flew open, banging against the metal wall of the shed, and Mercy stormed out, a sawed-off shotgun aimed for my head and tears streaming down her face.
“Stop it,” she demanded.
“Mer-mer, is that you?” Sutherland asked.
For one single solitary moment, I felt an overwhelming pity for Mercy. Her gaze dropped to the phone in my hand, and the look of total loss and heartbreak on her face made my chest ache. This ploy had worked as well as I’d hoped, only now I felt guilty for doing it. How was this different from Peyton using Desmond against me?
You still won, I reminded myself. Because you were stronger.
“Sutherland?” The hitch of her voice hurt to hear.
“Hi, baby.”
And there it was, the love between them I’d heard people talk about but had never been able to imagine. To me, Mercy had been a creature built from spite and rage alone. The idea she could truly love someone, or have someone love her, felt totally foreign to me. But once upon a time my mother had loved Sutherland Halliston, and he’d loved her. The way he called her baby and the way she said his name…it was all there, plain as day.
“Dad, Mercy has to go.”
“No…” she whispered.
“Say goodbye.”
“Give your mother a kiss for me,” he instructed.
“I’ll give her something.” My gaze never left Mercy’s face. I watched her crumble under the weight of unexpected emotion. Of all the things I could have done to her, there was no way she could have expected me to use love as a weapon.
“Love you, Mer-mer,” Sutherland said.
I held the phone up, showing her the shattered screen. “Anything you want to add?”
She shifted her attention to me, and behind the tears I could see her fury building up, firing all her synapses at once. “I love you too.”
I ended the call and tucked my phone back into my pocket.
“I’m going to count to ten, and you’re going to run out of here. You’re going to run for the woods. After ten, I’m coming after you, and we’re going to finish this thing. Understand?”
The shotgun trembled in her hands, and I knew she was fighting the urge to blow a hole in my face right then and there. I couldn’t blame her. If I had the upper hand with a weapon, she’d already be dead. But I didn’t like the way she held her finger right on the trigger. If I shot her now, she’d take me down with her.
“Now run,” I told her.
And she did.
Chapter Thirty-Four
My werewolf half thrilled at the chase.
As I blitzed through the barn after—admittedly—less than ten seconds, the others were still reeling in the wake of Mercy’s similar exit.
“Go get Grandmere,” I shouted to Desmond as I passed.