Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“Oh, God,” she whispered, mortified as she scooped a pack of breath mints and a pink knit cap into the purse. More tears. Black streaks of mascara. A quivering lower lip.

Jules couldn’t let this go on. “I’ll walk you where you need to go.” She tried to help, scraping up a couple of pens and a piece of paper that read OMEN. She handed them to Maeve, but the girl was suddenly furious. “Maybe you should talk to your counselor or Dean Burdette.”

“Just leave me alone! I’m fine! It’s not so weird to be upset, is it, not with everything that’s happening here.” Grabbing her wallet and eyeglass case, she sniffed loudly again, then shoved the items into her bag. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, then retrieved her notebook—the cover completely covered by ink doodles of faces, stars, hearts, and swirls of Ethan Slade’s initials—which had landed near a watercooler.

Maeve tucked the notebook under her arm, then swept the pens and note from Jules’s outstretched palm. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help.” But there was something in her eyes, a glimmer of self-doubt, a deep-seated sadness.

“I’m serious. I think you should talk to Dr. Williams,” Jules suggested, knowing that Maeve, like everyone else here, was caught in an emotional tidal wave, but she wondered if there was another reason other than her grief for her classmate that caused her complete emotional meltdown. “You know, Maeve, we’re all here to help.”

“You think anyone can help me?” she mocked, her face distorted by her ruined makeup. “Are you out of your mind? There’s nothing a counselor or you or anyone else can do, okay? So just leave me the hell—” She starte

d, then caught herself, blinking and swallowing back her anger. “Please,” Maeve pleaded, holding out one hand, fingers splayed in Jules’s direction. “Just go away.”

“Hey! You okay?” another voice chimed in, and Jules looked over her shoulder to see Roberto Ortega hurrying down the stairs from the second floor.

“I’m fine!” Maeve sniffed loudly and shook her head.

“You sure?” Roberto’s face was pinched with concern.

“Didn’t I just say so?” Quickly she stuffed the rest of her belongings into her purse, snatched up the remaining scattered books, and bolted outside into the storm. Cold air swept into the education hall, the slap of winter catching Jules off guard as she watched Maeve through the closing glass door. Hair streaming behind her, her gait encumbered by her bags, she ran through the falling snow. Clumsily reaching into her bag, she forced her pink knit cap over her head.

“Girls!” Roberto snorted, shaking his head as the door clicked shut. Then, as if realizing Jules had heard him, he flashed a self-deprecating smile as he checked his watch, frowned, then headed for the far end of the building. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, but Roberto, who had picked up his pace, was already past the doors to the science labs and pushing open the exit located closest to the dorms.

Bang! The latches of the far door clicked into place, and once again Jules felt as if she were alone in the tall glass building.

Zipping her coat, she walked outside. From a distance, through a shifting curtain of snow, she watched Maeve catch up to someone standing under the overhang of the breezeway. A boy? Or a man? She couldn’t see his face, catching a glimpse of only jeans and the back of one of the blue jackets issued by the academy.

It was already dark outside, though not yet five in the evening, the dead of winter draping the mountains with early nightfall.

Maeve’s companion wrapped a comforting arm over her shoulders, then shepherded her toward the path leading past the chapel.

For a second, Jules thought he might be Ethan Slade, the boy she assumed Maeve was crying over.

Or was it someone else who was comforting her?

For half a heartbeat, she thought Maeve’s companion might be Father Jake, but he seemed much too familiar to be the youth minister.

They disappeared into the night, and Jules was left wondering about Maeve Mancuso.

Truth to tell, Jules didn’t know why the girl had been reduced to tears. Her emotional state might have had nothing to do with unrequited love. Perhaps, as she’d claimed, grief over Nona was setting in. In any case, teenaged girls were known to have extreme highs and lows, elated one minute, depressed the next.

Still, Jules was bothered, though she didn’t know how to help Maeve.

She remembered the glimpse of Maeve’s note and thought of the one that had been left for her. Both on lined paper, but in different hands.

HELP ME, the first had pleaded. OMEN was the warning in Maeve’s possession. Had the girl written it, or had she received it?

Jules would probably never know, but those three simple words, written on two scraps of paper, bothered her, and all of Shay’s fears, real or imagined, slid through her brain.

Get over it. So you saw some notes. So Shay thinks there’s some deep, dark conspiracy on campus. Big deal.

As the wind shrieked over the lake, Jules walked toward Stanton House. With each step, she told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her, that Shay was wrong, but as she walked by the chapel, a shudder ripped through her soul.

CHAPTER 31

“Damn!” Jules couldn’t find her cell phone. Her gloved fingers scrabbled through her purse but came up empty as she turned on the snowy path leading to Stanton House.