Page 8 of Penance

My heart is pounding.

I have gone to this pharmacy since I was a little kid, here on sundays to pick up a newspaper, some snacks, and my dad’s medication.

I know everyone here.

I step through the door, the familiar chime announcing my arrival. The scent of an old building and hand sanitizer fills my nostrils, and my stomach twists again. I clutch the prescription in my trembling hand, feeling each step I take echo in the small space. My eyes flit around, trying to avoid any curious glances from the pharmacy staff.

Maybe no one here will recognize me today?

I can only hope.

The pharmacist behind the counter, Mrs. Jenkins, looks up from where she sits behind the computer, and her smile falters when she sees my face. I must look like a ghost, a shadow of the person she once knew.

She looks almost scared.

“Mercy. Dear, are you okay?” Mrs. Jenkins asks. I can see genuine concern in her eyes. She’s an older woman, my mom’s age, but shorter and rounder, with copper colored eyes behind coke-bottle glasses.

I swallow hard, trying to keep my composure.

I want to throw myself on the ground and start crying and screaming, but I can’t do that.

I have to be ladylike.

“I-I’m fine, Mrs. Jenkins. Not… feeling well.” I clear my throat, my middle finger shaking as I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “Just here to pick up a prescription.”

She nods and retrieves the paper as I hold it out to her. As she reads it over, her brow furrows, and she looks down the end of her crooked nose at me.

She’s judging me.

“Prenatal vitamins and anti-nausea medication?”

I nod silently, dropping my eyes to the ground.

She knows now.

She knows, and she goes to church with my parents.

She plays bridge with my mom every Saturday night.

She’s going to tell them.

If she knows, they will too.

She hand’s the paper back to me with a raised eyebrow.

“Hmm,” Mrs Jenkins hums as she twists away from the counter and disappears into the rows of medications.

I suck in a shaking breath, feeling it unwind the tightening in my gullet, but it only lasts for a second.

“Mercy Clarke. Look at you.”

His voice slithers through the air, familiar yet somehow so foreign that it sends a shiver down my spine.

I stop, not daring to move or even breathe, my heart pounding against my rib cage. Swallowing hard, I turn to the left, in the direction the voice had come from and there he is.

Draco Killian stands there, leaning casually against the brick wall, hood drawn over his head, casting his face in shifting shadows. His wide shoulders bulge with muscles beneath a simple black jacket. I allow my eyes to follow the natural line of his body, stopping at his hands, dangling at his sides. A tattoo of a red serpentine eye winks at me from the back of one hand.

It feels like a bad omen.

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