Mercy (Queen's Birds of Prey 1)

“Yes, but you know as well as I that Mercy and the rest of them are magical. Just look at the things they’ve taken care of in town.” She stared up at him, hope, a fragile thing, in her eyes. “He fixed me, he said. Several days ago. And he said that you’re going to have us twin boys.”

She kissed him then, wrapping her legs around his waist. Anna believed him. And as he picked her up again, heading to the bedroom, he thought that Joel might be right. He needed to quit to be what he wanted. A man with a purpose. But right now, his purpose had nothing at all to do with work, and everything to do with loving his wife.

~*~

Saul had fallen as soon as the cop left him. If he’d come back, just turned in the doorway, he might have witnessed his fall. Christ, he hurt, and was still thirsty. Leaning up on his burning legs, he put his head under the faucet and drank from it like a dog, lapping the water into his parched throat and mouth until he thought he’d explode from it.

He didn’t have the strength to even go out to piss anymore. Just opening his fly, he let go of the stream of hot urine, which went all over the wall where he was kneeling. Sitting down on the floor, he half crawled and half crab walked to the bed.

There was no point in taking his shoes off and rubbing his feet anymore. His legs had joined the fight against him, making him hurt by burning up his legs with the need to massage them. Saul had figured out last night that he wasn’t so much burning as he was tingling, from skin to bone, and there wasn’t any way to make it stop.

If he had a gun, he’d no longer concern himself with his niece. The pain kept him up at night. He also pissed about twenty times from night to morning, then more during the day. If he had a gun, Saul would have blown his head off, the pain was that bad. Looking at the last of his food, five candy bars, he knew that he had to do something soon—even if it was only to go with the fucking cop to the doctor’s office—or he was going to be found there, nothing but a shell of his former self.

To say that his pants no longer fit would have been a gross understatement. He’d taken the only sheet he could find, one that he could tear into strips, and had fashioned himself a belt. The cinch in his pants was almost twice the size as needed to cover him. And his underwear was no longer an option.

Laying there, he wondered why he was being so stupid. Not stupid, he amended to himself, but stubborn. Why not admit that he hurt? It didn’t make him less of a man. And if he was better, he reasoned with himself, he could get the money that he needed to kill Miley.

“It all comes down to you getting your ass better. Don’t be a moron, you moron, and get yourself help.” But how? his mind screamed at him, and his body took that moment to start trembling again.

Saul had been having the shakes off and on for the last twenty-four hours. He didn’t know what else could befall him, but this was the last straw. Getting down on the floor, falling on his knees and feet, Saul sat that way, sobbing about how much he ached with it all.

Crawling out of the room, he wanted to scream for help. But it would do him little to no good—there wasn’t another person for miles. But almost as soon as he made his way out of the building, it started to snow, big fat flakes that rained down on his head, making him stop long enough to cry again.

Almost to the road where he thought he might be able to flag down a car, he laid there and rested. The snow was coming down heavier now, and he knew that it was going to cover him up even before anyone came by.

Saul was also afraid that if it snowed too much or started to pile up, he wouldn’t ever see a car. People would be at home, basking in the heat of their nice furnaces, as well as drinking a large glass of something warm and satisfying.

“I’m going to ask for a real meal when I get someone to pick me up.” He bumped his foot again and cried out. “But not before someone gives me a shot or something for this fucking pain. They’ll do it, or I’ll sue. That’s what I’ll do, sue their asses off.”

Talking to himself, making himself out to be this bad assed person while he belly crawled through the rocks, mud, and snow to the road, made him feel like he wasn’t less of a man. Saul had never begged for anything in his life, but right now, he’d do anything, and he did mean anything, to have some help.

His hands were raw from pulling himself along. Saul knew that his belly couldn’t be in very good shape either. He wasn’t anything but skin and bones. Laughing, he thought he might be lucky if he didn’t break a few ribs before this was done.

The last few feet seemed to get longer with every inch he pulled himself along. The rocks were embedded in his skin around his hands. The shirt that he’d had on was nothing but rags now, and he wondered if there would be anything left of him when he was saved. It was no longer a matter of wanting to be helped, he told himself. He needed to be saved.

The car went by and splashed icy cold water into his face. For a few moments it felt wonderful. The coldness of it had made his face cooler, and the few drops that went into his mouth tasted of heaven. Just a few more feet, he kept telling himself. Just a few—

“Saul?” He knew the voice and didn’t care if she was there to kill him off as she’d promised. Turning his head to look at her, he noticed that she was talking on her phone. “I’m calling for an ambulance. Don’t move anymore.”

He couldn’t even if he had wanted to. When he heard Mercy, it was as if every muscle in his body had just said fuck it. Saul couldn’t even turn to his back, to beg her for something to end the pain. Suddenly her face was too near his, and he cried out in pain when he jerked away from her.

“What the fuck were you thinking? That you’d just crawl out there to our home and try and take the money? You do know that you’re suffering from diabetes, don’t you?” He told her, he thought so anyway, that it was impossible. “Yes, it is. I’ve been reading up on it. You’re a fucking moron who should have accepted help when we offered it.”

“I wouldn’t be taking it now if I didn’t hurt so fucking bad.” He heard the siren and wondered if Allen the goody cop was with them. “Just let them kill me. I’ve suffered enough for one man.”

“Oh no. You’re not getting off that easily. You’re going to the hospital, getting better, and then paying for your crimes. People need closure.” He started to ask her for what, but a blur of white was in his face. “Mercy, don’t you dare leave me here on the side of the road. I swear to you, I will make you pay if you do.”

“Side of the road? Are you serious? You’re barely five feet from the hotel. You would have had to go another twenty-five to thirty feet to be there.” He cried. Saul just didn’t have it in him to argue with her. Besides, she was more than likely telling him the truth. “Just let these guys do their job, Saul, and I’ll call Joel.”

“I don’t want him to see me like this.” Mercy told him too bad and walked out of his vision. The pinch of something at his arm made him turn to the men leaning over him, and then he started to fuzz out. But he wasn’t done with Mercy. Yelling for her, he saw her just as he was being lifted up to be in the back of the ambulance. He was indeed only a few feet from the hotel, and too far from the road. He would never have made it, Saul realized now.

Letting the fuzz, whatever it was, take him under, Saul heard one of the men say something about his foot and leg. He couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded to him like they were saying that he might need to have it broken in three places. That couldn’t be right. But he was too far gone with the meds they gave him to care what they did to him. But no one had better be breaking his leg. He needed to get Miley and kill her for Joel to come to heel again.

Chapter 10

/>

Mercy was waiting in the waiting room for Joel when he showed up. Saul had bypassed the emergency room and had been taken right to surgery. The doctor didn’t hold out much hope for the man. He had let things get too bad for too long.