Heart of Fire

Pippi · #1

((Mercedes Guenther continued from Moose Omelette))

She didn’t make it far from the road.

Every small divot and dip made her stumble, sending a shuddering jolt up her body that threatened to capsize her, every breath was a monumental effort that stole air from her lungs until she was running on empty, every blink blurred her vision more and more, spots burning holes into it, like taking a candle to an old photograph. Sweat poured down her face in rivers. The ringing in her ears refused to cease for even a moment.

She didn’t have a goal to aim for anymore, not outside of trying to get as far away as possible from the people with a murderous vendetta against her. Nor did she have a location to head towards. She just needed to move. Move as far away as she could until she could move no longer.

A moment that came as soon and as sudden as if someone had taken a pair of shears to the wires keeping her powered on.

One bad stumble that threatened to twist her ankle, one flash of heat coursing through her body, one rush of blood to the head. Her mind went blank, vision turned dark. Slowly, like some great old building finally being torn down for the new and the future, she swayed and collapsed, facedown in the dirt, still and unmoving.

She woke up to her body burning.

Everything in front of her was shrouded in dim light, and she couldn’t even begin to tell whether it was because of how long she’d been lying there or because her vision had become irreparably and totally fucked. Her breath was harried and harsh, even as she pushed herself to her hands and knees, a puddle of sweat seeping into the ground underneath her. Her head pounded in sync with her heart, a rapid fire tick tick tick, counting down to the bomb inside of her detonating.

Mercy clawed at the strap of her bag, pushing it up and over her head at the third attempt, as she shakily rocked back until she was half kneeling, half sprawled in a vaguely upright position. She ripped her tanktop off, unzipping her bag and grabbing for the water bottle she’d opened earlier. She came up with one completely full, seal around the cap unbroken, but she didn’t hesitate to unscrew it, fling the lid away, and upturn the bottle over her head, letting the water pour over her, drenching her hair and the dirt she sat on even further. The water sizzled as it hit her palms, little wisps of steam curling up around her body and into the evening sky. The last few droplets left the bottle, splashing onto her scalp, before she flung the empty plastic receptacle off into the undergrowth, out of sight and mind.

She knelt there for a second longer, soaked through, before she pitched backwards, lying flat on her back, spreadeagled, breathing heavily. Her sight was already getting spotty again, the heat coursing through her body still raging away. She didn’t even know how effective the water would actually be, as lukewarm as it was. There was every chance that as soon as her eyes closed, they’d never open again. The thought sent a fresh wave of panic coursing through her, and she tried to push herself back up, to grab more water or turn the grass surrounding her into a makeshift fan, or anything at all to cool herself down so she didn’t boil alive in her skin.

She didn’t even have enough strength left in her to push herself back upright, though, and a moment later, her vision dimmed entirely, and everything disappeared into an inky void.

Mercedes opened her eyes to an ocean of stars floating overhead.

She blinked, in part to dispel the last vestiges of sleep that clung to her eyes, in part to make sure that she wasn’t just seeing things from a nasty blow to the head. Or that she’d died and was in some sort of purgatory state. But the scene up above didn’t change, and she could feel dirt under her fingernails and clinging to her back. The night air was cool. She could breathe normally again. Her body and her mind had finally calmed down.

So, she was still alive. She hadn’t bitten it through overheating or through Crispin or Alan stumbling over her and taking the opportunity to kick her to death. It was pure dumb luck that she was still breathing, that nobody had found her lying here in the parched grass, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Fortune had smiled upon her, and because of that, she would live to see another sunrise. That was all that mattered.

Mercy sat herself up, resting her arm on her knee, and as she did so, her stomach loudly growled at her, a gentle reminder that she hadn’t eaten a single thing in over twelve hours now. She wrapped her fingers around the strap of her bag, pulling it closer, rummaging around inside for one of the energy bars she’d spotted earlier, unwrapping it and shoving half of it in her mouth. It tasted… better than she’d been anticipating. But that wasn’t exactly a high bar to jump over. ‘Better than dog crap’ wasn’t a ringing endorsement to put on the wrapper.

The stars shimmered overhead as Mercedes ate, looking up into the night sky, peering deep into the cosmos draped above her. Bend was far from a large city, but it was still built up enough that you couldn’t step outside at night without the streetlights and office buildings tinging the sky with their orange glow. Out here, though, lost in the desert, the stars and the moon were her only source of light, the hand in front of her face and the half-eaten protein bar wreathed in silver. If she fired off a blast from her palm now, it would probably be visible for miles and miles.

She paused for a moment, frozen in time and space. The stars gazed back down at her, millions of bright white eyes judging her actions. The cool night breeze toyed with her hair, tugging at strands before letting them go to wander elsewhere across the desert. It carried the scent of smoke along with it.

Her actions, catching up with her.

Now that she was thinking clearly, now that she didn’t have a band of assholes and violent bullies standing in front of her draped in bright red flags, she was able to truly grasp, for the first time, exactly what she had done. Moose was dead, and she had killed him, literally with her own two hands. There was no escaping this fact, no changing the past. What was done was done, and she would have to accept it, to live with it. To face it. She waited, as she finished off the energy bar and stuffed the wrapper back into her bag, for the regret and despair to sink in.

She waited. And waited longer still.

Remorse, that they had been put into this situation to begin with, that she and all of her classmates had been forced to kill under pain of death? Certainly. Revulsion, at Moose’s burning, charred corpse, and at their captors, and at the fact that murder was the only way they were expected to leave these scorching plains alive? Absolutely.

But regret? No. No, regret never came, no matter how long she waited under the stars.

“Hmm.”

She said nothing more. She didn’t move from her spot on the ground. She didn’t stand, or drink, or eat, or do anything other than look up into space, alone with her thoughts, until exhaustion claimed her for a third time, and she fell asleep, nestled in the long grass.

In her dreams, she saw a burning heap, lying in the middle of the road. She couldn’t tell whether it was Moose, or her sleeping bag.

A new morning. A new wake-up call.

Mercedes’ eyes cracked open, and she was greeted by the sight of dirt and grass hanging horizontally, as if the world had been rotated 90 degrees in her sleep. It took a few moments of early-morning grogginess for her to realise that she was lying on her side, a small puddle of drool underneath her mouth. She groaned, slowly pushing herself back up, rubbing her groggy eyes and yawning. Her limbs ached, her joints feeling like they’d rusted over, but it was still far from the worst night’s sleep she’d ever experienced. A night on the bare ground in the cold of the desert easily beat a night on a comfy bed in sweltering temperatures.

Mercy gave a cursory brush of her hand over her back, sending bits of dirt and dust scattering, padding around with her other hand to grab her tank top, hoping it had dried out by now. She grimaced as she pulled it over her head, the hem still damp, but like hell she was going to wander around this place in just her bra.

It was also, of course, not the biggest irritant she would have to deal with this morning.

She pushed herself back onto her feet, movements slow and measured in the growing heat of the morning, listening to the announcements with a scowl on her face. It was infuriating, honestly, just how familiar this woman’s voice was by now, the jokes she made about everyone who had fucking died, the fact that she knew that she was in control and there was nothing anybody could do about it. All the more reason to get out of this place, as if she needed another dose of motivation.

A task that she knew would be significantly harder now that her actions had been broadcast for the whole desert to know. August would know what she had done, Lincoln would now be aware of exactly what her sister had gotten up to, everybody would know that she had killed Moose Humphreys. People would be angry. People would be scared of her. She wondered exactly how many of the other killers on the list had taken action out of fear no-one else would. How many of them would feel shame for their actions? She had to admit, the fear of her collar being blasted to pieces had helped tip her hand towards what she had done.

But that shame, that regret, it still refused to manifest inside of her.

She could chalk it up to what Alan and his cronies had done, pin all the blame on the fact that they had hurt her brother just for the fun of it and made her see red and lose all rational thought, and that had certainly played a large part in why she had done it. But it hadn’t been the single, solitary driving factor behind why she had killed Moose. It hadn’t been the catalyst for why she’d decided on her course of action. It had just made her decision easier.

In the end, it turned out she hadn’t even needed to get an answer to the question that had burned a hole in her mind after she had woken up.

There was one other thing that required her full attention; her ‘reward’ for being the first person out here to pull the trigger. A way of literally doing so. A gift for her and her alone. She stood there, still, as the announcement clicked off, taking deep, even breaths, thinking Owl’s words over.

Mercedes had already taken the life she needed to escape this living hell. She had already ensured, along with the other five killers of yesterday, that this wouldn’t end prematurely with huge bloody gashes in everybody’s necks. She had gotten her revenge on the people who had attacked her brother.

Above it all, she didn’t need a prize. She didn’t need recognition for what she’d done to Moose. She certainly didn’t need more firepower.

And yet, she didn’t immediately leave the Roughlands. Slowly, she bent down to scoop up her bag, taking a water bottle out before zipping it back up. She wiped her brow. She tugged at the edge of her top, pulling down a section that had gotten caught up in itself.

She walked deeper into the desert.

Owl had been right. The flag was impossible to miss, the wind picking it up and fluttering it around every now and then.

Mercedes wondered briefly as she stepped closer to the cache, because it was impossible not to be at least a little bit curious about it, how exactly their captives had dropped her prize off. Had they done it during the night, hoping to move under the cover of darkness to avoid being seen? That was risky, very very risky. Even if they had someone working for them that could turn invisible, or teleport, or move faster than the speed of light, they would still need to carry the weapon and the flag around with them. That couldn’t turn invisible, after all. She doubted that anyone with even the tiniest shred of righteousness inside of them would have missed the opportunity to take a potshot at someone who had trapped them all here.

She didn’t know the answer to her questions, and she didn’t need to know either. It wouldn’t help her leave this place, so she didn’t have any cause to think about it anymore. They had procured a weapon for her. The weapon was in front of her, inside a secure case. That was all she needed to know.

A pistol, twelve bullets, and a manual lay inside the container; a ‘Smith & Wesson Model 10 Revolver’ if the front cover was telling the truth. Not that the name or make of the revolver really mattered a damn. A gun was a gun, especially when she was the only one who held one.

And hold it she did, flipping through the manual and poring over the section instructing her on how to load her weapon. She spent a few minutes aiming it at rocks and shrubs nearby, feeling the weight of it in her hands, pressing her finger against the trigger, not quite squeezing it down, not willing to waste one of her precious bullets on target practice.

It was simple, the reason why she was taking this with her; it was stupid to ignore any kind of boon, especially when she had so many hindrances holding her back and threatening to kill her just by walking around. She had thought it to herself earlier; people would be angry at her, scared of her, prepared to attack her on sight, most likely, for what she had done. It was true, of course, that she had the ability to retaliate and fight back, right in the palms of her hands.

But she had also almost died yesterday because of her Gift. The revolver meant that she wouldn’t need to burn herself up to defend herself or launch an attack. It was a safety net, a weapon that meant the one built into herself would only be needed as a last resort.

Maybe she wouldn’t pull the trigger at all. Maybe she would use up all twelve bullets by the end of the day. She had no idea what the future would bring her. That was exactly why she was keeping it clenched tight in her hand.

Mercy didn’t know how much grace time her captives would give her, out in the so called ‘danger zone’, now that she had claimed her reward, but she wasn’t willing to push her luck. She had gotten what she had come here for, she was refueled and restocked, she was cooled down and back to a level setting. She was ready once more.

And as Mercedes set off, back to the road, she steeled herself for her new goal, same as her old goal.

She had gotten lucky that Lincoln and August had avoided the list of the dead from yesterday. And luck was not something that she could always rely on being on her side.

((Mercedes Guenther continued in Burning Bright))