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“Merrick, let me help. It’s fine. I’m fine. What can I do,” I said already crouching down beside him, cradling Ryan’s head in my lap.

At first, he seemed almost peeved at my disobedience of his direct order.

“You shouldn’t be out here. Bobby shouldn’t see you. Go back inside.”

“Bobby’s a little busy right now. It’s fine. I can help.”

Grunting, clearly not happy but seeing I wasn’t leaving he pulled his shirt off over his head and handed it to me wadded up. I tried to focus on our patient and not the broad tan chest in front of me.

“Put this under his head, hold pressure on it.” Then he grabbed my chin gently so I’ll look at him. “And stay here. I mean it, Sherry. Stay right here...and don’t watch,” he said with a stern look.

I was a little surprised actually, at his slight harshness. I mean, I understood, he was worried, trying to keep me safe, almost lost me once already, I got it. He’d just never spoken to me with a tone anywhere in the same ballpark as that before. It was surprising to me because even in this stressful situation it was... incredibly hot.

I nodded and intended to obey and when I looked down at Ryan, I saw his head behind his ear was bleeding, already coating the gravel beneath us and my sleep pants with a warm sticky red.

He was awake and looked up at me.

“I’m fine, Sherry, just a bump. Help me up? Let’s get you back inside,” he said quickly but his voice was quiet and strained.

“Mmmm...Ryan. I don’t know. Merrick will not be pleased with me for disobeying orders,” I teased him knowing he heard Merrick order me to stay put. “If you think it’s safe...”

“Safer than it is out here. Let’s go,” he ordered and grunted already lifting himself.

I put Ryan’s arm around my shoulder as we begin to hobble inside. I saw Jeff’s leg swinging low to clip Bobby’s knee, making it buckle and him twisting and falling to the ground while Merrick grabbed his hands behind his back. They brought him to his feet.

At once Bobby’s face turns in a pained expression. Jeff and Merrick grabbed him and brought him wiggling and yelling in the door. Kay closed it after us and locked it, pulling the shade closed. We followed them to the kitchen, where they laid him down on the table and I put Ryan in a chair in the corner.

When I removed Merrick’s shirt from his head to inspect, it had mostly stopped bleeding. He grunted and winced when I grabbed his shoulder to lean for a better look. I carefully unbuttoned and removed his shirt, despite his protest and yelps and to see his shoulder looked to be dislocated. I grunted in frustration.

“Ugh, Ryan,” I moaned. “That’s not good. I’ll have to get one of the big boys to help me with that one. Just sit here, ok?”

As soon as I turned to survey the scene I saw Bobby. He was thrashing and yelled a piercing scream, his eyes looked at me and he focused on my face twisting his head to the side. My arm began to throb and then the needle pricks were over my shoulder again. I gasped in pain and Jeff, who was closest, reached for me to keep me from falling.

Merrick placed himself, with inhuman speed, in between us to block Bobby’s gaze and the pain stopped just as he yelled to me.

Sherry! Don’t look! Don’t look at him!

So that’s why Merrick didn’t want Bobby to see me outside... He knew it would hurt me.

Merrick pulled up Bobby’s shirt and I couldn’t help but see a red circle of some sort, attached to Bobby’s skin above his ribs. Looked like the outer rim of a bulls eye.

Jeff set me aside and I quickly turned away from them. He exhaled loudly and went to Bobby’s side.

“I’m sorry, Bobby,” he said sadly.

When Jeff touched the mark to remove it he jerked back in an agonizing scream. Merrick yelled my name in my mind and I turned to him from behind, placing my hands on his back.

Sherry. Don’t look in his eyes, but I need you to pull the patch off. Quickly. It won’t hurt you, I promise, baby. Just don’t look at his eyes.

I trusted Merrick completely and followed his instructions, coming around his back to the table to stand in front of him. I felt Merrick leaning over my shoulder, watching and he whispered something, an encouragement I thought, but I couldn’t hear him. The circle was squishy and solid, like skin or a vein, velvety and smooth. It seemed attached and didn’t want to come off easily.

I finally got an edge up and ripped as hard as I could. Bobby’s howling was the only sound for long seconds. Agonizing. The strange circle burned up in a bright flash of light and fire then ash as I threw it on the table, then it was gone.

I reached down to help Jeff up off the floor. His hand was raised and red where he touched the ‘patch’ as Merrick called it. Bobby was completely still.

Jeff leaned over Bobby. I heard him mutter something about wasted life, and sorry’s. Merrick turned, hugging me, turning me, pushing me from the room, and telling the others to go as well.

I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to talk to Bobby. How could he betray us like that? Was he leading them here? What was that thing on his stomach? Why did it hurt to look at him?

“No, Merrick, I want to talk to him. He needs to tell us how he found us. What he’s doing here. He owes an expl-.”

“He’s gone, Sherry.” Everyone stopped to listen in the door way. “Once a patch is removed, the body dies. He was dead before this... I’m sorry.”

I heard Celeste gasp and Danny put his arm around her.

“Oh.”

But why was Jeff still here? His Special was gone, for good. Shouldn’t he be leaving, going home?

Jeff came up behind us speaking to Merrick.

“Sorry, Merrick. That was stupid. I haven’t had to deal with one in so long, I panicked about Bobby and forgot I couldn’t touch it.”

Ryan! I remember Ryan in the other room.

“Merrick. Ryan,” I said as I quickly headed back towards the room but Merrick grabbed my arm, stopping me.
“Sherry. No, don’t go in there. I’ll get Ryan,” he said as he turned.

“Careful. His shoulder is dislocated,” I called to him.

We brought him into the game room and placed him on the table. The same table where they burned me. I hadn’t been back in this room since. I swallowed before heading over to hold Ryan’s hand. He didn’t have any idea the pain that was coming.

“Do you know what to do, Merrick? Jeff?”

“Mmmm...” Jeff mumbled.

“I’ll take that as a no. You have to pull as hard and as fast as you can so it goes quick. This is gonna hurt. You have to make it as fast as possible. Merrick can pull his arm at the wrist while Jeff holds his chest and shoulder down. I’m sorry Ryan. This is really gonna hurt,” I said as Ryan looked up at me.

“It’s ok, just do it. Fast. We have got to get out of here.” He squinted, feeling them get into position.

I grabbed Merrick’s arm.

“Quick and fast,” I reiterated and he nodded and counted to three as I took Ryan’s other hand tighter.

Ryan grunted and yelped once, his face turning red and then sheet white as we all heard the pop as his arm settled back into socket.

They got it the first try. Thank goodness.

Everyone released their hands and Jeff ran to the hall. Merrick and I helped Ryan up from the table as I murmured my sorry’s.

“It’s ok. We’ve got to leave,” Ryan’s breathed heavily, still no color in his face.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“I told you Lighters can search minds,” Merrick explained as we set Ryan down in the hall chair. “When they possess someone, they mark them like they did him, then they can see through those eyes as well. Double their efforts.”

“That’s what you were looking for on me? That first day, and then Jeff in the van,” I realized and he nodded. “So they put that patch on him to control him, knowing he would die once it was removed? They made him take it?”

Merrick and Ryan looked at each other. I looked around sensing I wasn’t going to like this answer. Calvin wasn’t here. Good. Merrick, began again.

“Lighters persuade. You don’t have to be dead to take the mark, the patch. They can’t physically hold you down and make you take it, but they can persuade you to want to. If you take it willingly, you give your life. You’re alive only until it’s removed. If it’s not removed, you show the Lighters everything you see. That’s why I told you about them. They will do anything to turn us against each other. You can’t ever let then speak to you. Cover your ears.” He was speaking to everyone now, louder. “Hum. Yell. Whatever it takes but don’t let them speak to you, once you listen, you’ll not be able to stop listening.”

“Did he see?” Jeff asked Merrick.

“I don’t think so. I blocked him but he looked at her for a few seconds before I noticed,” Merrick said, hands going to my waist to look at my face directly. “Sherry. Did you see anything when Bobby was looking at you?”

“No,” I answered quickly but I realized that wasn’t true. A glimpse. “Wait. I saw a flash of the highway in front of the motel.”

Merrick’s scowl meant that was not a good thing.

“Was it day or night?” Jeff asked from behind Merrick.

“Night.”

Their faces turned whiter than they already were.

“Ok. Listen up. We are leaving now. Go to your rooms, grab things you literally can not live without. We are pulling out in five minutes.”

A murmur began, questions and gasps. Jeff and Merrick both stiffened in frustration.

“Hey!” Merrick, yelled. “Life or death. We can all talk about it later. Get moving. Five minutes.”

That got them going. Merrick didn’t get upset. He was kinda scary looking that way, reminding me of the previous owner to that face, but it had to be done.

He grabbed my hand and dragged me to our room.

We got our things together fast, changing our clothes quickly, him hurrying me along gently. We were in the car and only waiting on Celeste and Danny as he helped her lug her suitcase into the van then scrambled to jump in the back with us.

Once underway, Merrick started explaining without me even asking as he lead the way for our convoy.

“He was looking at you because you were marked, until it heals completely, if they’re close enough, they can see you, sense you. Not just what your thinking about like normal, but the other thoughts too. Where we’re going, where we’ve been, Our plan, thank goodness we didn’t have one yet. If you go into the coma that the poison makes, it’s like a beacon. They can find you anywhere and in no time at all.”

“What was the vision I had?”

“When they take thoughts from you, some of theirs get crossed over as well. Whatever they are thinking at the time. You saw this street, which meant they were coming here. He lead the way, to make sure we were here before they came for us.”

“Why couldn’t Jeff touch the patch?”

“It’s just like the Marker. We can’t touch them, and they can’t touch us. That’s why the Marker wouldn’t attack us. We are opposites of each other. The pain is like trying to fit something in a place it doesn’t belong. Square peg, round hole,” he winced as he spoke.

No doubt reliving the memory with me when he had felt just that.

“Why is Jeff still here? If Bobby’s gone...”

“The rules are different now. This is a global thing, none of us will go home, until the big task, the Lighters have been dealt with.”

“How did the Marker find us?”

“He didn’t, they’re mindless. They are set loose like hunting dogs. It was just bad timing. Wrong place, wrong time.” He squinted at the memory still.

“What was he doing to you?” Danny asked me, leaning in between the seats.

“It felt like it did before, after the Marker scratched me. Like needle pricks. The pain from the poison...” I shuddered, and Danny rubbed my good shoulder while Merrick’s hand come over to settle on my knee.

“Where can we go?” I asked, changing the subject back to the crisis at hand.

“We’ll do like the last time. Drive until we find something. It’s gonna start getting rough from now on,” Merrick said, sounding too worried.

We drove, Danny slept. I couldn’t, even though the warmth from Merrick’s chest was begging me to close my eyes, I sat and thought. I wondered if Merrick could be hurt worse than a red spot by these things. Lighters, Markers.

If they couldn’t touch him for fear of pain, then surely they couldn’t kill him right? One less thing to worry about. It must have been so against the grain for him to run and jump on the Marker knowing the excruciating pain that was coming.

I couldn’t think about him hurt, it sent pain through my chest and I shook away the thought.

I’d thought the word ‘love’ this week too. It amazed me how I could know someone so little and yet feel so strongly. I dated Matt for months and not a hint of love, not even a smidge. Merrick had to know though right? I mean, we spend so much time together. He had to know how I felt.

We pulled off for gas, anxiety setting in as we pulled in under the bright lights out of the cover of darkness. We let Danny sleep, Merrick pumped.

We had all pooled our bank and credit cards together and designated a ‘pay person’ to handle this kind of stuff, hopefully, all of our money together would be enough to last for while. These old stations didn’t have pay at the pump.

Tonight the pay person was Margo.

Merrick flashed her a quick glance and smiled to steady her nerves as she moved between the pumps and crossed the parking lot. She was freaking out, I could tell, wringing her hands as she marched stiffly. I watched her, while trying to look like I wasn’t watching.

The attendant came over the intercom and asked if the lady inside was authorized to use the card for both vehicles. Merrick said yes and we heard the click of him turning off the intercom.

I folded my legs up in the seat under me, twirling a curl of hair when I saw Margo exit and head back swiftly towards the van. I felt Merrick staring at me. I wondered how long as I’d been watching Margo. When I caught him he smiled sheepishly. I shook my head in disbelief.

How could he still look at me like that? That look of awe and wonderment. Gashes and bruises, not a stitch of makeup or mousse for days. Ugh.

Danny’s snore startled us both, and I giggled. Merrick replaced the gas cap and climbed in, waiting for the vans huge gas tank to fill up.