My Heart be Damned (15 page)

I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m not so rusty anymore. It’s all come flooding back.”

“If you say so.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait,
Amerie
,” he called again.

“Yes, Marshall?”

“Sweet dreams.”

I watched him turn and walk away with a fluttering in my stomach. Not wanting him to look back and then see me, staring at him like a creep, I headed inside, letting the door slam behind me. It was strange how so much could change in one day.

Chapter Fourteen

Have Mercy On Me

When my alarm woke me up the next morning, my sheets were damp, and I was covered in sweat. All night, I’d had nightmares about drowning and not being able to make it to the surface. Clutching my throat, I swallowed a few times and sat upright.

Drowning was not an experience I wished to repeat.

I jumped in the shower, washing my hair repeatedly to get out the crappy lake water, wishing I hadn’t been too tired to do it last night. Then I brushed my teeth and dressed in my school uniform. I didn’t have time to style my hair, so I rough dried it and tied it back in a ponytail.

As I grabbed up some homework I’d made a half attempt at, I remembered Mercy and Chuck – they’d want to know all about what happened. A huge part of me wanted to tell them, just to come clean. I mean, why shouldn’t I?

My mother’s face flashed in my mind, and I remembered one of our training sessions. I’d been ten.

“Will I be able to tell Mercy about Hunting?” I asked.

Mum shook her head and knelt down in front of me. “No. You can’t tell anybody. Remember? That’s why Daddy and Daniel don’t know.”

“But...but I want to share it! It’s so cool.” I lifted a knee to my chest and hugged it.

“It’s not all cool, and it can be dangerous,
Amerie
.” Guilt flashed behind her green eyes. “People could get hurt. It’s better if your friends stay away from all of this. Keep them as far from your Hunting duties as you can. You can’t protect them as much as you can Daddy and Daniel.”

“I’d protect them. I’d protect everyone.”

“I thought I could, too. Then I failed a very good friend. I learned not to keep my friends so close anymore. Bad things can happen,
Amerie
.”

Screw it. If my dad and Daniel could survive being related to two Hunters, then Mercy and Chuck could survive too. I flung some training clothes into my school bag, slung it over my shoulder, and skipped out of my bedroom to the kitchen downstairs. It was weird seeing my dad up and dressed at a normal time - and especially weird seeing him in a suit.

Daniel sat at the kitchen table, wolfing down a bowl of cereal and looking as charmingly sullen as usual. He’d recently had a haircut; his brown hair shaved short. We had the same skin tone, but Daniel was tall and skinny like my dad. I was neither tall nor skinny. I dropped my bag to the floor by the chair next to him.

“What you listening to?” I asked, gesturing to the one earphone in his ear.

“Notorious B.I.G.”

“Which song?” I sat beside him and grabbed the other earphone. The intro of ‘Juicy’ played, and I grinned widely. “You know this is, like, one of my
favorite
ever songs.”

He looked up from his cereal and raised an eyebrow. “You like Biggie? Thought you were into Beyoncé and The Spice Girls?”

I playfully rolled my eyes. “For one, The Spice Girls? Seriously? I’m not ten anymore. And secondly, I like all kinds of music, Daniel.”

He grunted. “Sure you do.”

“Okay, check it out...” I waited for the first verse to start and then began to rap along. “It was all a dream. I used to read word up magazine.
Salt’n’Peppa
and Heavy D up in the limousine. Hanging pictures on my wall. Every Saturday Rap attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl. I let my tape rock ‘til my tape popped. Smoking weed and bamboo. Sipping on private stock. Way back when I had the red and black lumberjack – with the hat to match... See? I know every lyric.”

Daniel’s mouth was open slightly, his gaze filled with awe. “How did I not know you liked rap?”

I laughed and dropped the earphone to get up in search of breakfast.

“How could I not like rap when it’s all you blast from your speakers every morning. Pretty much have no choice in the matter.” I turned back to grin at him, and for the first time in a long time, he was smiling back at me.

“While you’re here, kids,” Dad spoke up, taking a sip of his coffee. “I have something I want to tell you.”

Whenever Dad started a sentence like this, it always ended with something totally anticlimactic. Like, that he was buying a new pair of trousers, or that he’d run out of beer. I kept my back to him, rummaging around in the cupboard for my
favorite
cereal.

“We’re moving in with Cindy.”

The cereal box dropped from my hand and exploded across the floor. He was joking. He had to be. How had he and Cindy become so serious when he wasn’t even over my mum?

“She lives not far from here,” he carried on, as though my heart wasn’t breaking into pieces. “Her house is big enough for us all to live with her. We’ll start moving in our stuff at the end of the week if all goes to plan.”

“But you only just found a job,” I muttered, as though that was the most important thing to focus on at the moment.

“Well, Cindy will be funding us for now. Until I get paid. But, with my new job, I’ll definitely be able to pay our share. It’s not a problem. We won’t be thrown out like
what happened before...” He meant when Mum died, and he gambled all our money and possessions away, and then drank away the rest.

Daniel stood to his feet so abruptly that the chair he was sitting on fell back noisily against the linoleum floor. “You expect me to move in with some woman I’ve never met? You’re crazy.”

“Daniel,” Dad warned. “You’ll get on well with her. She’s lovely. And this place is horrible. You know we need a new house.”

I backed up against the counter and slid down to a squatting position on the floor. I didn’t want to hear this. Not now. Not ever.

“I don’t care if she’s Mother fucking Theresa! I’m not moving in with her.” He left his half-eaten bowl of cereal on the table and stormed out of the kitchen. I stared down at the mess on the floor, trying to sort through the information in my head.

“
Amerie
,” Dad said. His voice was almost pleading. “I’m sorry I sprung it on you guys like this. I wanted to give you time, but we don’t have any. But it’s important that we move in as soon as possible...”

I held my hand up, stopping him, but he continued.

“She makes me smile,
Amerie
. I don’t remember the last time I’d smiled in the space between her and mother. I didn’t expect or plan this, and she’ll never take the place of your mother. Never. I don’t want to be alone,
Amerie
. I can’t.”

“You don’t have to be alone, but don’t drag us into it. We’ve never even met her, and now we’re supposed to be one big, happy family?”

“I don’t expect you to love, not her like I do, but I expect you to try. Come for dinner tonight. I’m inviting her over.”

He loved her? There were no words for how twisted this situation was.

“I’m working.”

“She’ll be staying the night, so you’ll still see her.”

I almost threw up a bit in my mouth. “This is bullshit! Dad, you can’t do this.”

“Look, I know this isn’t perfect, but it is what it is.”

I sprang up, startling him. “How dare you drop this on me and demand I be okay with it? I’m not okay, Dad, I’m not okay by a long shot. I need time and space. How do you expect me to move in with her by the end of the week?”

“Because you have no choice,” Dad snapped. “I haven’t been paying the rent here. We’re being evicted. Unless you want to live on the street, we have to move in with Cindy. She has money – she’ll keep us afloat while I’m getting my career sorted.”

I stormed across the kitchen and grabbed my bag. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Without even looking at him, I turned and walked out of the room. I’d get breakfast on the way, though all I honestly wanted to do was be sick. Without thinking, I picked up the house phone and
dialed
Mercy’s number. She answered on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” Her voice was hushed and strained.

“Mercy, it’s me,” I said, staring at the wall, my eyes brimming with tears. “Can we meet before school? I need to talk to you.”

She paused for a moment. “
Amerie
? Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

Then I remembered that I owed my friends some kind of explanation. The anger in Mercy’s voice suddenly sounded justified.

“Mercy, I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry. My dad sprung something on me this morning, and it made me totally forget about what happened last night. And I got in late and just crashed.” The sound of a muffled intercom voice echoed in the background. “Where are you?”

“At the hospital,” she hissed. “They don’t allow phones in here, so I’m hiding in the
fricking
hallway. You might wanna come down here and explain to us what the hell happened.”

My blood ran cold. “Why are you at the hospital?”

“Sam’s still unconscious. Look, I gotta go. If you feel like gracing us with your presence, Sam’s in Hope Ward. Bye.”

The phone went dead, and I stared at the handset for a few minutes trying to digest what she’d said. Sam was still unconscious. Because of me, and she knew that somehow. She’d figured out our attackers had only hurt them because they were with me.

How was I only thinking about my friends now? Hours after I’d woken? What was wrong with me? I shoved on my coat and raced out the front door. I had no idea what I’d say once I got there, but I’d deal with that then. Right now, I could barely breathe let alone plan an explanation.

I got to the hospital a little after eight and took the elevator to the second floor, eyes forward, body tense. Hospitals were the creepiest places on earth, miles ahead of cemeteries. Filled with nothing but suffering and death. The last time I’d made myself come to one was when my mother died.

It didn’t take me long to find Hope Ward. Sam was in a room with five other patients, all adult men, who watched me with different expressions as I walked in the room. Mercy, wedged in the back, spotted me first, and before I reached Sam’s bed, intercepted me.

“We should go and talk in the hallway,” she said.

“I want to see him.”

With a sigh, she stepped aside. I walked forward and forced myself to look at him. Sam still looked like himself, but he had a large bandage wrapped around his head, and a few wires hooked up to his body. For the most part, he looked as though he could have been asleep in his own bed. I picked up his hand and held it gently. His hand was so warm compared to mine.

“Where are his parents?” I asked.

Chuck avoided looking at me, so Mercy had to answer from by the door. “They were away visiting other family, but they’re on their way back now. Doctors won’t
really tell us much because we’re not related. But they don’t seem worried or whatever.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

“Yeah. No thanks to you,” Chuck snapped.

I turned to stare at him, knowing I deserved that comment. “Chuck...”

“Save it,
Amerie
,” he said, standing up. “You’ve been hiding something from us all year. No matter how many times we ask, you brush us off. Then you start turning up with bruises and lame excuses about falling down stairs? You’ve obviously got yourself into some messed up shit, which is fine if you don’t want to tell us, but what crosses a line is when it screws with innocent people.”