Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“Good!” Hammersley sounded genuinely pleased. Within minutes, the deal was done, at least preliminarily.

Jules was to drive down to the school by the end of the week, meet with Lynch, and sign all the appropriate documents. She’d have a few days to settle into quarters and meet the staff and students before starting work the following Monday.

Jules did an about-face, walking back into the restaurant where she found Tony, the manager, in his small office. She let him know that she needed some time off for a “family emergency” but didn’t elaborate. Tony gave her the what-are-we-gonna-do-without-you? routine, but she worked it out with Dora, another waitress, who wanted more hours. Dora would be willing to cover her shifts for the next few weeks.

Anticipation fluttered in her chest as she drove home. By the end of the week, she would see Shay. She only hoped that her sister wouldn’t give her up and ruin the entire ruse.

Nona checked her watch. Twelve fifty-three in the morning. She’d pretended to fall asleep earlier, waiting for her stupid new roommate to finally turn out the light. Shaylee Stillman didn’t play by the rules and refused to obey the lights-out order at eleven. She’d gotten away with it. Probably because there were some kids who had to stay up later to get all their homework done. Lights-out was the one rule that could be bent a bit, especially if you stayed awake in the name of education.

Now the dorm was quiet aside from the soft hum of the furnace blowing warm air through the building. No one was talking in the hallway, no footsteps passed by their door on the way to the bathroom.

She sneaked a peek at the sprinkler head. She wasn’t even certain that all of her actions were being followed, though that was the rumor. But who knew for sure? Tim Takasumi, the TA who worked with a lot of the electronic equipment for the school, had made it sound like there were cameras in the sprinkler heads in each room, but she’d never seen one, and she wasn’t sure she could trust Tim. He was beyond geeky and really bought into the whole Blue Rock Academy rah-rah routine.

It would be just like Tim to start a rumor about hidden cameras to keep the myths about this place going. Rather than leave the program, Tim had stayed on after “graduation” and was working on some sort of accelerated college program via the Internet with the professors here. That’s what the TAs did; they stuck around. Nona figured that they were part of some kind of secret group; she’d overheard Missy Albright whispering to Eric Rolfe about a meeting late at night in some freakin’ shelter of some kind. Whatever that was.

Not that Nona could be bothered with whatever cult was happening. She didn’t care if the kids involved were dropping acid or drinking blood. She had more important things to think about.

Specifically, her boyfriend. No, make that her first real boyfriend. She didn’t count the creep back home who had hit her so hard he’d knocked out one of her teeth; that hadn’t been love. She knew that now. And, boy, were things heating up. She was still a few months shy of sixteen and in love!

Her boyfriend had vowed that he loved her, that he needed her, and he knew just where to sweep his fingertips to leave her quivering. When she thought of what his lips and tongue and fingers could do, touching her in places that she’d never even dreamed about, she started melting inside. She had to close her mind to all that now. She couldn’t start breathing fast or thinking about him and what they would do, not until she’d gotten out of the dorm.

For now, she had to concentrate.

She’d been certain she’d be a virgin until sometime in college, if she went on to school, but all that had changed a few months ago, right after Lauren Conway disappeared. Nona had been getting noticed, and she liked it. The feelings had scared her at first, as she remembered the first time he’d kissed the crook of her neck, letting his teeth nibble and even bite her. That had scared her a little at first. But soon, quicksilver heat melted away any fears, and she’d found she’d liked it; the rougher he was, the more exciting.

That didn’t make her a slut, did it? Or some kind of sex freak?

Of course, it didn’t mean that she had low self-esteem or any of that psychological garbage that Dr. Williams and Reverend Lynch were always spouting. It just meant she liked life exciting. On the edge. When he stood behind her, rubbing his cock up and down her spine and buttocks while his hands massaged her breasts and he held the back of her neck in his teeth …

Oh, God, she was going to do it! Everything!

Until now, she’d not allowed him to penetrate her with his dick, probably because of some holdover from her “good girl” days when she’d wanted to only please her father. She didn’t want to become a “slut” or a “dirty whore” like her mother. At least, that was what her father had said. All Nona knew was that her mother had taken off when she was young, leaving her father to raise her alone, and her father had nothing but horrible things to say about her mother.

But then, Peggy Vickers had never called or written or sent a birthday card or Christmas wishes to her only daughter. Nona knew she’d been foolish enough to think that each year would be different, that she would hear from her mom.

Which made her think that her father was probably right.

But she didn’t believe that there was “bad blood” running through her veins or that she’d better be careful or she’d end up a “filthy tramp just like your mother.”

Tonight she intended to ignore all her father’s warnings. He’d sent her here, hadn’t he? When Catholic school hadn’t stopped her from sneaking out and smoking and drinking and experimenting with meth and Ecstasy and a few pills. The shoplifting had been the straw that broke her father’s back, and he’d found the means, probably borrowed from Grandma, to send his wayward daughter here.

It was Blue Rock or foster care or juvenile detention, he’d sworn, and she’d agreed to this quasi-reform school in the sticks. Wouldn’t Daddy Dear be surprised to know how his plan had backfired? Despite all his attempts to keep his daughter a lily-white virgin, he’d sent her to Blue Rock, where she fit in with delinquents just like her.

And she’d found the perfect boyfriend.

Tonight, she thought, considering her all-too-burdensome virginity, she might just give in. What was she clinging to? That old Catholic rhetoric about being chaste?

What a crock!

In the dark, she reached under her bed, grabbing her jeans and a long-sleeved sweater. She didn’t want to bother with her bra, as it was about as far from sexy as you could get, but she s

napped it on because she didn’t want her breasts to be flopping around as she ran to the stable, where she was supposed to meet him. She could ditch the bra before they actually started making out….

She smiled in the dark as she located her down jacket with the Blue Rock Academy logo emblazoned upon it, then silently slipped her arms through the sleeves. Wouldn’t “tough” Shaylee be surprised if she knew. Nona had read the disbelief in Shaylee’s eyes when Nona had intimated that she had a boyfriend. Shaylee thought she’d been lying.

As if she thought it would be impossible for any boy, make that any man, to show interest in Nona.

Just showed what an idiot her new roommate was. At the door, she checked Shaylee’s bed. She was shifting around again, always restless, but the girl didn’t wake up.