Mercy
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I never had chosen my moments well. And now that we were headed into a room out of sight of the entire crowd, I realised how foolish I'd been.
“Leave us,” my father snapped at the guards and they hurried to comply, exiting without a word.
I turned to him, shaking like a leaf. The room was an office of sorts, with CCTV monitors on the walls.
I backed up, placing a desk between me and him.
“What the hell do you think you're playing at!?” he roared, the walls practically trembling.
“I- I-” Oh no. Words were failing me. I was a little girl again before my Daddy. The man I'd never crossed, not once in all my life. But I knew what he was capable of. I knew what he could do. Would he hurt me? I didn't know. And it scared me that I wasn't certain. That I'd always had this underlying fear that he might lay a hand on me one day. That if I overstepped the mark he'd treat me as he treated anyone else who crossed him. And now I had. Big time.
“Spit it out,” he hissed, slamming his meaty palms down on the desk between us. A crack slit up the centre of it.
I had to say it. I couldn't back out now. I'd gone this far.
“I don't want to do this anymore,” I managed, fighting to keep my voice from shaking.
“You are on thin ice, Mercy. Tell me what you mean or so help me-”
“The games,” I blurted. “I hate them. It's wrong. I love you Daddy, but what we do is so...so wrong.”
His face turned purple, his upper lip curling back in a snarl, but when he spoke, he was deathly calm. “Wrong?”
“Yes,” I whispered, holding his gaze. He was still my dad. Perhaps he really wouldn't hurt me. He loved me. And the knowledge of that gave me courage. “I can't do it anymore, Daddy. I don't want to keep hurting people.”
My father moved around the desk and I stood rooted to the spot, trying to hold onto the trust I'd had for him my whole life. Had it always been so brittle, that one small act of rebellion could shake the entire foundations of our relationship?
He'd never hurt me. Never.
“I knew we should have trained you sooner,” Father sighed, gazing down his nose at me. “Your mother wanted you to have a normal childhood. You and Ignus. But it's softened you, as I feared.”
His eyes slid over me, assessing. “That time has passed. I will train you as my father trained me.” He snatched my arm, dragging me forward.
“Daddy!” I begged, pulling back.
He raised his fist and I flinched back, fear juddering through my body. He paused before he struck the blow, his eyes flashing with some small vulnerability. He loved me. Truly. He didn't want to hurt me. But I could see that he would if I pushed him to do it.
His eyes slid to a monitor on the wall. Before I could glimpse what was on it, he guided me out of the room, marching me down the white-walled corridor at speed.
“If you'd just listen to me-” I started, fighting back the fear spilling through my gut.
“Enough Mercy! You will obey me. I will not hear another word of this insolence.”
Where were we going? What was he going to do to me?
I struggled against his grip, but he didn't relent, dragging me onward until I could barely keep up.
He tugged me to a halt outside a security door, pressing his thumb to a scanner beside it. The door clunked as it opened and Daddy dragged me through it.
We emerged on a narrow metal walkway, our footsteps clanging loudly across it as we moved. The hiss of steam and bubble of liquid met my ears. Heat washed over me and a sharp tang crawled into my nose.
The walkway intersected with others, forming a large square around an enormous metal tank. The tank reached all the way to the floor below, but I couldn't see beyond the flash of guards' uniforms moving down there. At my father's command, the men surrounding the top of the tank were dismissed, leaving me all alone with him.
He pulled me to a halt next to a control panel, gripping a lever on it and pushing it upwards. With a cranking, screeching sound, the top of the giant tank opened, revealing the oozing gallons upon gallons of blood inside.
I'd seen enough blood in my lifetime not to be horrified, but I worried all the same what this meant.
“V blood?” I asked, trying to build some sort of bridge with my father. The malice in his eyes was shredding my nerves to pieces.
“Human,” he corrected, his fingers still curled around my arm.
He turned to me, his fair features suddenly seeming dark. Why was he so cold? He'd always been a source of comfort to me. My mother had been the harsh one. The one who told me what to do, how to act. Daddy had left her to it. He'd always given me what I'd asked. Given in to my childish whims. Now I saw the distance between us, the lie that had been our relationship. He'd never been there for the real stuff. The emotions, the teenage years. He'd always kept his distance. And buying me anything I'd ever wanted didn't mean he had been kind to me. He'd simply been placating me.
“Dad...” I breathed, taking a wary step back.
“You will call me Abraham from now on,” he commanded, his mouth curving into a sneer.
“What?” I shook my head in disbelief.
“We are Hunters, Mercy. You are my sole heir now. And it's time you grew up. Time you became the powerful woman you truly are.”
I shuddered, keeping my lips sealed, trying to think of a way out of this. I didn't want to be standing in this room any longer. The heat in the air was making me sick, the smell of blood curdling my stomach.
“I'm not a Hunter,” I said. “Not like you. Not like Mum. I don't feel the need to kill Vampires. I don't want to wield weapons and hurt them.” I stepped back and he stepped forward.
“You don't know what you're saying.” He reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek, so gently that it made me more afraid than if he'd struck me. “When you are trained in our ways, you will relish spilling their blood. You'll want to bathe in it.” At his words, he pushed me.
My scream echoed into eternity, my hands reaching, flailing. I splashed into the blood, the warm stickiness enveloping me, silencing me.
I sank like a stone, kicking and flailing against the thick substance. It was everywhere, my mouth, my nose, my ears. My senses were consumed by blood. And I was going to drown in it. I was surely going to die. I kicked my legs, but it wasn't like water. The weight of it dragged me down, clinging to every inch of me.
I gasped in my desperation for air, sucking in a mouthful and immediately gagging. Panic lanced through me as I fought for life, for air.
I reached upwards, my fingers breaching the surface and air rushing over them. A second later, my head followed and I swallowed down a lungful of oxygen. I tried to blink away the blood, but all I could see was red.
I swam forward, reaching desperately for the edge of the tank.
I found purchase and the blood finally left my eyes. I tilted my head up, spying the boots of my father on the walkway above me. Too far. I couldn't reach it.
“There are only two ways out of this tank,” he spoke, his voice cold and disconnected.
My fingertips barely grazed the walkway as I waved my arm above my head. I couldn't do it. It was too far above me.
“Please,” I begged. “Daddy - help me out!” Cold steel met my fingertips again and again, but I couldn't find purchase. It was too high.
“Either you climb out,” my father continued. “Or you swim to the valve at the bottom and open it.”
“Please!” I screamed, raising my hands to him like a child in a swimming pool. Daddy stepped back and I felt his absence like a knife carving a hole in my heart. “Don't leave me here!” I cried as he walked away, his footsteps clanging loudly across the walkway.
“Daddy!” I yelled like a child. I sobbed, screamed, begged, wailed, but it did me no good.
Eventually, I clung quietly to the edge of the tank, panting, my lungs rattling as panicked breaths slid in and out of me.
The silence was pressing. No one was coming to help me. My father would make sure of it.
So I had to find my own way out. I reached up for the hundredth time, my muscles straining, my fingers reaching to their absolute limits. But eventually I had to accept that the walkway was too far above my head. I'd never make it out that way. Which left me with the more horrible of my options. Swim to the bottom and pray I could find the valve before I drowned.
Tears flowed from me for a few minutes. I gripped the warm metal side of the tank, trying to slow my breathing, focus my mind.
This was my punishment for what I'd done. But incredibly it wasn't forcing me into line. It was driving me further away. How could my father do this to me? All I wanted was for the death to stop, the games. But I should have known he'd never understand that. He believed in the games like a divine calling. Like our family was placed here on earth to run them. But if being a Helsing meant forcing Vampires to murder people, to watch and cheer whilst they did so, then I wasn't going to be a bloody Helsing any longer.
I gazed up at the drab metal ceiling, sucking a slow breath down into my body.
If I die, at least I'll do so as me.
The little inch of humanity inside me expanded and bloomed. I felt peace sweep through me and with a lingering feeling of calm, I dunked under the surface.
I kicked with all my might, swimming down, using my arms and legs to propel me into the bloody depths of the tank. I kept my eyes clamped shut, my lips pressed together in an effort to keep the blood from passing them, but it did little good.
Soon, my palms met with the smooth metal base of the tank. I kicked harder, my lungs already straining for air. The only thing I could do was keep moving, reaching, feeling for the valve my father had promised was there.
What if he lied?
I forced the thought away, continuing my search, growing more desperate by the second.
At last, my hands met with a metal wheel and I forced all my strength into turning it. My arms strained as it shifted an inch to the left. One more pull and I had it spinning. But my vision was fading fast. My lungs bloated like they were about to pop.
I kept my hands moving, turning, turning, turning, until some other force took over from me.
A yanking, sucking feeling pulled my body down, down, down.
I lost all sense of which way was up. I was tossed and turned, confined in some tiny space. A tube, I was in a tube!
Panic grew inside me as I thumped my fists against the plastic surrounding me.
I was going to die. My lungs were caving in. My nose burnt, my eyes stung, my throat screamed for air.
With a whooshing sound, I was spat out into something hard and metal. I was shaking as I forced myself upright, coughing and spluttering.
I wheezed as I gained my feet, wiping the blood from my eyes as best I could. My heart shot into top gear.
I was stood in a metal trough, surrounded by ravenous Vampires.
At once, they were upon me. I screamed, throwing up my hands, but incredibly they paid me no attention, dropping into the blood around me, swallowing it like animals.
I was in a cage. Above me, the tubing I'd been forced through dripped blood, plenty still washing along the inside of it. I followed it around the huge warehouse, the sound of frenzied Vampires filling the air.
Blood was pouring into their cages, feeding them, the entire tank of blood I'd been in was unleashed at once.
A laugh escaped me as I realised my father's mistake. He'd just unwittingly had me feed every V in the resort.
Guards were shouting out in alarm, running around the place like scurrying mice. But the damage was done. And I wasn't going to stop here.
I crept past the Vampires surrounding me, hurrying to the edge of the cage where a gate separated me from the warehouse. I called out to a guard as he passed. “Please! Let me free! I'm Mercy Helsing!”
He stopped, looking at me in wide-eyed horror. “What on earth?” He backed up, surveying me as if I were a ghost. From the look of me, I wasn't surprised.
“I fell into the blood tank,” I lied quickly. “Hurry!” I demanded, using the voice I'd used my whole life to get what I want. “Or will you have a Helsing's death on your hands to deal with too?”
He hurried forward, fumbling with his lanyard to swipe his card down the keypad, muttering his apologies. After a beat, the door slid open and I ran out into the hall. Sometime during my ordeal, I'd lost my heels, so my feet were bare against the concrete floor.
As the guard went to shut the door, I caught hold of it, halting him. I might not have been trained, but I'd always been stronger than humans. And my mother had taught me how to defend myself against men.
I thrust the heel of my palm into his nose and he reared backwards in shock. In a flash, I yanked the lanyard from his neck, snapping the cord.
Before he could cry out, I rammed my knee between his legs and he buckled to the floor, wheezing. Hurrying along the corridor, I swiped his card on keypad after keypad, opening door after door to the cells.
Before anyone could stop me, half the cages were open and Vampires spilled into the corridor.
Covered in blood and with the scent of a Hunter on me, I knew I needed to hurry if I was going to get out of here alive. My instincts were wild as I moved, acting rashly, crazily. But hell if I was going to fall under my father's rule now. With a surge of defiance, I thought of Varick, of Jameson, of Selena even. I wanted to help them. I wanted to be a part of this war, fighting on their side.
I slashed the card against another keypad, coming face to face with the remaining girls from the previous games. Twyla-Rae and Sakura looked at me, their mouths smeared with blood and their eyes bright with strength.
“God-damn, is that Mercy Helsing?” Twyla breathed.
“I know you don't trust me,” I whispered, pulling their door aside. “But this is the biggest apology I can offer you right now.”
“I can think of a bigger one.” Sakura bared her fangs at me, but Twyla gave her a firm look.
I stepped back, fear inching through me as the two girls emerged in the corridor, moving like predators. My pulse thrummed in my ears. What I'd done here could be the end of me. I just hoped it was enough to redeem some of my mistakes.
A hissing sound filled the air, causing us all to snap our heads up toward the ceiling. A silvery mist was filtering through the vents.
“We have to get out- fast!” Sakura shouted and I nodded once, running flat-out toward the exit. Twyla-Rae snatched the lanyard from my hand, speeding away from us as she made swift work of unleashing the rest of the Vs.
The screams and gurgling cries of dying guards filled the air. I was on borrowed time. Surely I was next to be cut down? Why Sakura hadn't yet done so was a mystery to me. She kept at my side, hissing at any Vampire who came close to us.
“A life for a life,” she answered my questioning look. “You get me out of here and I'll forget about you for tonight.”
Luck was on my side for now.
I yanked open the security door as I met it. Sakura wedged it ajar with a large crate. But before I could step through, a guard barreled into me, nearly knocking me over. It was clear he didn't recognise me, my blood-soaked attire evidently disguising me.
Before he could so much as raise his gun, Sakura snapped his neck. The crack filled my ears like splintering wood.
I leapt over him, fleeing upstairs, my heartbeat thumping a wild, unfamiliar rhythm. And bloody hell, did it feel good.