Page 150 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
Chapter Fifty-Two
Anthony
Everything that happens after feels surreal, like a scene unfolding through thick layers of fog, like my ears are full of water. I stare at the chalky face, death settling over it like a cloud of flies landing.
The intense metallic smell of all that blood saturates my senses. The dark blankness of still eyes haunts my mind.
Tony. It hurts.
I put the back of my hand under my nose, but it only makes the smell of blood worse, sending a nauseating roil through my belly.
A voice—a woman—is calling my name. But it’s muffled. I can’t turn around. I can’t face the recrimination. The judgment.
“You monster! You murderer!” she says, her beauty ravaged by horrified fury and loss. Her golden hair is undone, flying about her face as she rages.
Maybe it’s better if she slaps me. Maybe if she can vent it all on me without anybody holding her away from me…
I start to turn.
Chaos erupts.
Harry arrives. The police show up. They want to look at the body, the position of the weapons. Talk to me. Paramedics check me out, worried about the blood, wondering if it’s mine. They always do that. They did it before, but too late to save Katherine. Asked me if I was okay.
Then the uniformed officers want to know what happened. Thoughts tangle like cobwebs and the gears in my head won’t turn, as though they’re rusty with age. The only thing that repeats in my mind is “it was an accident.” But my tongue’s too…something. It doesn’t seem to work.
I can only stare blankly.
But I catch some words. Caleb. Sue Ellen. Bayou. Murder.
I shudder at the last one. Look at the blood on my hands. It’s tacky, still slightly damp.
Then others penetrate the thick syrupy muffle. Lawyers. Trauma. Dirty, out-of-control bastard.
Of course. The lawyers will come. They’ll fix everything. Nobody’s going to know I fired the fatal shot. It’s going to be a hunting accident. Some poor sap in Alabama will get the blame. I don’t even know if he’s real.
Edgar shows up before the lawyers. He talks briefly with the officers, then comes to me and puts his hands on my arms.
I flinch.
“We should go, Tony. Come on. Ivy’s waiting.”
Ivy. Is she all right?Then I process the rest. She’s waiting. She wouldn’t be waiting if she wasn’t okay. And… I look down at the blood on me. “Lawyers,” I say tonelessly, my sluggish tongue finally working.
“They’ll deal with this.” He’s pale. “You don’t have to stay here. I promise.”
He starts to pull me up, but I step away and get up on my own. I can’t let him touch me, not like this.
Nobody should touch me.
Ivy comes toward me, Harry helping her. The spot where Caleb jammed his gun is reddish. It’s probably going to bruise. She has bandages on her knees, shoulders, legs and arms.
I want to move closer, see if she’s all right…but I can’t. There’s so much blood on me. It’s still warm on my shirt.
Harry gives me a tight smile. “Just scrapes,” he explains, his voice artificially light.
Edgar puts me in the back seat of his SUV. Ivy sits next to me, rather than going with Harry.
I sit as far away from Ivy as possible, my body rigid. My elbows rest on my knees as I hunch over, not wanting my hands to brush against anything.
