So there’s more than one.
There’s a whole dorm of them.
Merc. Liege’s voice entered Merc’s mind. It’s time for you to leave Juan. Flynn has Ash up by the pits.
Instantly, Merc was back in his own body. He left the Jeep in a rush, running across town to get to Ash. It was faster to navigate the crowded streets on foot.
You saw what I saw, Liege? Merc asked as he ran.
I did. I’m as stunned as you are. We need to bring that place down, but we must make a plan. Get Ash and come home.
I still have to see Santo, then we’ll come back.
Agreed. Stay aware.
Ash watched Merc leave their room, feeling their separation like a sharp pain. It had been like this since they first connected. When he was with her, either physically or just in her mind, she had a sense of completeness that was wholly missing when they were apart. She kept her devastation under wraps as she made sure the door was locked.
He said he’d be gone hours. She leaned against the door, letting her mind replay the day’s events. Something was very off with that Jack guy. There was so much she didn’t understand. She had no way of packaging it up neatly so she could get advice from her friends. Everything she thought she knew, things she’d actually experienced, would sound insane when she told Kiera and Summer what was happening here. And being so far away from each other meant they couldn’t offer substantive help—and that would just torture them.
She sighed. She would be home soon, back to her normal, average, boring, wonderful life, where reality was a hardened thing, not fluid, as it seemed here.
An end to all this craziness was in sight. And then she could put this all behind her. Next year, she would abandon the sultry heat of the jungle for a cool summer in Iceland. Or Greenland.
That must be what was messing with her mind—the heat. She probably wasn’t drinking enough water.
She opened her backpack and filled it with her clothes. Then she went into the bathroom and gathered her toiletries, packing them in a clear bag so she could go through security.
That took all of five minutes. She still had hours and hours to wait for Merc to come back. What would she do if he didn’t?
Since when did she ever pin her options on the behavior of a man? Never. Especially a man as hard to understand as Merc.
If he didn’t come back, she’d get herself the hell out of here. She could hire a ride back to Medellín and wait there for her flight. Or she could call Lautaro. No biggie. She had this.
She spent a little time straightening the small room, washing the dishes in the sink. She considered stripping the bed, but made it instead, just in case they stayed one more night.
The dresser snagged her attention; had Merc packed his things? She stood in front of the stumpy piece of furniture, afraid of what it would tell her. If his things were gone, maybe he wasn’t coming back. But if his stuff was still there, then he probably would.
She fought with herself for a couple of long minutes, then yanked his drawer open. It was empty. That was a kick in the chest. She shoved the door closed, then yanked the bottom one open. There was only one thing in it—a balled-up white sheet, filthy, stained with dirt and something that looked like it might be old blood.
God, it stunk.
She pulled it out of the drawer and held it up. The cloth fell from her hands into the shape of a robe. A priest’s alb.
Ash cried out and dropped the thing on the ground. She scurried back to the nearest wall to turn and stare at it.
Merc had stolen the robe that was in the church. Why? Why would he have done that? She had to return it. Father Eduardo would be heartbroken when he found it missing. How awful that Merc had done this.
It occurred to her that it might have been one of the last challenges in the game Merc was playing.
She rummaged around in the kitchen for a bag, finding one in a drawer from one of their meals, then went back to the robe, hating the thought of touching it again. She didn’t want to feel the mood of the thing, the energy left over on it…but then, she hadn’t gotten a hit off of it when she’d first touched it. That was odd.
Ash knelt beside the robe. Gingerly, she reached out to press a finger to one of the stained areas, prepared for a bolt of energy. Nothing. The stain was dried and stiff. She touched her whole hand to part of it. Again nothing.
That was not what she’d expected. No matter. It still had to go back to the church—and now, before Merc returned…if he returned.
She folded the robe neatly, not wanting to disrespect it more than it had already been. She put it into the bag, then grabbed her keys, left the room, and locked the door behind her.
She hurried down her narrow road to the main plaza. It was night now, but the plaza’s lights had come on. There weren’t very many people there—not as many as she’d become accustomed to. Maybe they were still wrapped up in the horrible discovery of the body.
She walked right up to the church’s main door and tried to open it, but it was locked. She frowned and looked around, then knocked a few times on the huge, old wooden door. She could hear the reverberations echo inside the church. No one came to admit her.
She went around to the side of the building, where visitors to the holy robe were let out. That too was locked. Frustrated, she turned around, thinking to ask the villagers where Father Eduardo was, but instead of villagers, she came face to face with Jack.
Not the person she wanted to see.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked. She could almost believe the concern she saw in his eyes.
“I was looking for Father Eduardo.”
“I thought I saw him heading up to the pits, but he might be over with everyone else, dealing with the body that came out of the woods.” He looked in the bag she held, then grabbed it before she could stop him. She was mortified when he pulled the robe out of the bag and held it up.
“You got it.” He laughed. “You did it! Thank you!” He shoved it back into the bag.
She tried to pull it from him, but he kept it from her. What had he meant by thanking her? “That robe belongs to the church,” she said. “You can’t take it.”
“You already took it. And now I have it, so I won! And now I can make the trade.”
“What trade?”
Jack shook his head. “Knowledge is healing, don’t you think?”
She didn’t know what to make of that. “I want to give it back to Father Eduardo.” She held her hand out. “Give it to me.”
“No.”
He grabbed her arm and turned her toward the path out of town that led to the mass graves.
She pulled free, freaked out by the way his energy felt. “I’m not going with you.”
“Too late. You think you love Merc, but you don’t even know him. Everything has a cost. I told you that before.” He rubbed his scarred cheek. “It’s a lesson I learned long ago.”
“Just give me the robe back, and we’ll call it good.”
“There’s no going back.”
Ash stopped walking. She tried to pivot, intending to run back to the church or the plaza, back where there were people. She was alarmed at how far they’d already come from town. But the weird thing was that there was only one direction she could go, and that was forward.
Jack smiled at her—not an encouraging smile but a victorious one. She quit resisting, figuring if she pretended to go with the flow, she’d be able to break free when he wasn’t paying attention.