Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

But her cousin was shaking her head as she opened the door. “Neither Eli nor I have had much contact with the academy since he left.”

“Bye-bye!” Chloe said, as if to push Jules out of the house.

“Bye, Chloe. Analise, thanks.”

“Not at all. See ya later.” Analise stood on the porch for a few seconds as Jules hurried down the steps to her car, parked on the street. Her Volvo was wedged between a Chevy Suburban and a minivan, but she was able to pull away. In her rearview mirror, she watched as Analise carried her daughter inside.

Analise was a fan of Blue Rock. And truthfully, the academy had really helped turn Analise around. Jules should have felt better about the school after her visit with her cousin.

Instead she felt worse.

CHAPTER 5

Shaylee glanced around the living area where she was being h

eld. Scattered comfy chairs, a few tables and lamps, even an aquarium. And all securely locked.

Only a moron would stay here, she thought, and one thing was certain: According to every IQ test she’d ever taken, Shaylee Stillman was no moron.

She didn’t know how that was possible, considering her gene pool, but, hey, she was fine having more brain power than her mother and father put together. Edie and Max—could anyone have a worse combination for parents? Shay didn’t think so. Well, maybe Jules. Rip Delaney had been the lowest of the low. Shay had spent way too much time thinking of her loser parents as she bided her time in the initiation area of this screwed-up school. One day and night at Blue Rock Academy was all she needed to know that the place was a friggin’ nightmare. No cell phones, no e-mail, no television except as a group for four hours on Sunday. No iPods, no Facebook, no MySpace. No friggin’ destressors. She wasn’t supposed to contact anyone, couldn’t, in fact, even make a phone call unless it was an emergency and supervised by one of the brainwashed staff of this neo-concentration camp.

She’d been given a schedule of her classes and the names of her instructors—something to look forward to. Getting physical in phys ed with hottie Cooper Trent. This G.I. Joe Hispanic guy named DeMarco taught chemistry and trig. Perky Dean Hammersley for the cheerful side of English and world history. Psycho Wade Taggert taught psychology, and, of course, she’d be studying all the reasons she’d be going to hell with the oh-so-reverend Lynch. Too bad she didn’t get to have sessions with the youth minister she’d met on the dock. He was interesting, his blue eyes warm, his smile sincere. But of course not. Her counseling sessions were scheduled with Reverend Lynch and Dr. Tyeesha Williams, who was hardly a soul sister. And something called outdoor activities with a drill sergeant named Flannagan. Oh, yeah, Mister Flannagan. All in all, her days were filled with classes, then chores with her “pod.”

It was all such a disaster. What had Edie been thinking?

Shay ran fingers through her hair and knew she had to get out. Find a way to go home. It wouldn’t be easy, though. This place really was the edge of the earth.

If you didn’t get out by seaplane, the only other route was a narrow, winding one-lane access road that sliced through the mountains. She’d seen it from the air on the day she arrived. A steep road that hugged the cliffs. Scary but passable. Of course, there was a massive gate and guardhouse about a mile or so from the heart of the campus. Good luck getting past that. But still, if there was a way for supplies and the staff to enter, surely someone with any brains at all could escape.

Pacing across the wood floor, Shay scratched absently at her arm where a bandage covered the needle marks from the tests. Nurse Ayres had punctured her and filled a syringe big enough for an elephant.

But Ayres was just doing her job. Carrying out the judge’s orders and buying Edie her freedom. Anger burned hot at the thought of Edie’s decision to send Shay here. Shay was supposed to have had a choice in the matter—the judge had allowed them to pick an institution—but Edie had taken Shay’s rights away.

Leave it to Edie to jump at the first school she found, just to get rid of the problem. Pain knifed through Shaylee’s heart, the same old pain of rejection that she’d always felt with her parents. Max and Edie Stillman, a short-lived union that had ended in divorce and her father walking away. The hard part was, he’d never really looked back. As if he never thought about Shay. She always said she hated him, but deep down, she wished he’d show he cared. Just once. That was all.

Maybe his rejection of his only daughter was because of Edie. Shay hoped so. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to realize that Edie was a mess. The fact that she had married Rip Delaney twice was proof enough that she always had to have a man in her life—no matter what.

Again, Shay thought of her father. Rich, affable, quick with a joke, and “as handsome as the devil,” Edie had often said, though Shay now suspected her mother’s fascination with Max was probably due to the Stillman Timber fortune that Shay had heard about all of her life.

Shay pushed Max’s image from her head and blinked against the heat behind her eyelids.

She couldn’t let herself give in to tears.

No matter how miserable she was.

Her throat was thick, though, and she had to clear it.

Her family. If you could call it that. She only hoped she never, ever turned out like her mother.

She’s been married only three times, two times to the same guy. Is that so bad?

Maybe not, but if Edie had her way, dear old Mom would be adding Grant Sykes, her young golf-enthusiast fiancé to the list. Again, she felt that pain deep inside, and again, she tamped it down and hoped some stupid hidden camera didn’t see her wipe her eye carefully so that she didn’t ruin her mascara.

Shaylee had just about had it with the small living room behind the locked doors of the nurse’s station, and she knew her only hope to get out of the place was Jules. Her half sister would see this school for the sham it was—little more than a prison. First, though, she had to find a way to communicate with the outside world, to contact Jules, and that would prove tricky.

And then there was Dawg. His real name was Jensen Wolfe, and they’d been dating a while. At twenty-three, he was just so much more mature than boys her age. And now, because of that stunt they’d pulled of robbing a convenience store, he was on his way to prison. She wished she could talk to him. Dawg might be the only person on earth who really “got” her.

She sighed and sat on the arm of a small love seat. Less than twenty-four hours here and she was still stuck in quasiisolation pending her drug tests, which would come back—gasp!—clean. She’d only smoked a little weed this year and had had one hit of cocaine, but that was months ago. Despite what Mommie Dearest thought, Shaylee wasn’t a druggie. But then, Edie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. You had only to look at her choice in men to figure that one out.