Page 125 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
The air smells like stagnant wetland and greens. A few cars and trucks drive past.
I look down into the brackish, murky waters of the bayou. Something is slithering in it. Probably a snake or an alligator. In my flashbacks, they didn’t get an opportunity to nibble on the girl, but they could have before the car was found. My stomach roils, making me wish I hadn’t had lunch on the plane. I shudder, then take a couple of steps back from the edge.
She flips the music well. I don’t need her to do that, but the quintet comes with her, so I let her sit next to me. Unlike during the run-through, she’s more focused.
When the concert is over, I decide to leave, while the rest of the quintet stays behind to dissect the performance. It’s stormy outside. Dark.
“Could I ask you for a ride?”
I see the strawberry blonde who flipped my music. She’s in a blue dress, just like me. “Oh. Um, okay. Are you stuck?”
“My sister… I’m sorry, it’s a long, boring story. I just need a ride home, and I don’t have my phone or anything.”
“Sure. Where do you live?”
“Augustine.”
“Sure, Charlene.”
Clammy cold slithers over me despite the heat. My knees go weak, the sound of my breathing growing louder. The blue sky and the gray concrete under my feet spin, and I blink rapidly, trying to right my vision. My numb lips move slowly. “Charlene from Augustine.”
“What? Ivy, are you all right?”
A hand on my shoulder, and I start, almost yelping, then calm down when I realize it’s Tony. I’m chilled, but my shirt is sticking to my skin, as wet as if I just took a dunk in the bayou.
I put a hand over his, cling to it, because God, I remember her. She was so young. Just a high school kid. Dealing with high school things like sibling rivalry and extracurriculars and… Tremors run through me. Can’t seem to get warm, even under the white-hot Louisiana sun. Guilt worms its way inside me—the thought that if I hadn’t given her a ride, she might still be alive swirling in my head.
“The girl in the car. Her name was Charlene, and she was from…Augustine?”
Tony nods. “It’s a small town not far from here.”
“Everyone overlooked her because she was there to flip my music. I didn’t think about that because I always memorize my music before performing publicly.”
“You remember,” Tony says, cradling my face.
“Yeah. She was stranded after the concert, and I gave her a ride.” I curl my fingers around his wrists, feel the pulse beating and take comfort in it. I need something solid and blindingly alive to keep me anchored. “We should contact her parents.”
“I’ll get it taken care of,” Tony says.
Not enough. Nowhere near enough for my role in her death. “I should be the one to do it. It’s because she was in the car with me that she…died.” It might’ve been kinder to let her walk home. I’m to blame… Oh God. She was just in high school.
“Don’t do this, Ivy. You were giving her a ride home, so she could be safe. It was the decent thing to do. Stop second-guessing yourself. The guilty party is the driver… Caleb.”
“But—”
“Ivy, you’re cold and can barely stand up.”
Only then do I realize I’m clinging to Tony, and he’s supporting most of my weight. Embarrassed, I try to stand on my own, but he holds me tighter against him.
“Look, let’s go to Edgar’s place first, get some rest. Then we’ll take care of everything. At this point, another day or two isn’t going to matter.”
I nod. Tony’s right. I need to calm down. The last thing her parents need is emotionally incoherent rambling from me.
Now, more than ever before, I wish I had my memory issues fixed. Then we could go to the police. And everything could be resolved the way it should be with the guilty arrested, tried and jailed.
But since that isn’t happening, I gird myself for the rest of the stay in Tempérane.
