Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“Nah. Not always.” Her voice was low, hard to hear over the rush of the wind. “There are some places that aren’t covered.”

“And you know where they are?” Shay guessed.

“Oh, yeah!” Nona nodded her head, obviously proud of herself. “But you still have to be careful,” she whispered; then her lips twitched. “It makes it really hard to have a boyfriend.”

“You have one? Here?” Shay was dumbfounded. She hadn’t seen Nona with a guy at all, and there were no pictures on her desk, no mention of him. In fact, up until now, Nona had only mentioned an abusive ex-boyfriend back at home. Though it wasn’t allowed, Shaylee had seen some of the kids flirting with each other. But Nona? “Who?” she asked.

Nona just grinned like a cat who’d eaten a canary, and Shay ran through a list of potential candidates. Ethan Slade? He was cute as hell. Or Eric Rolfe, the kid with the military cut and sharp blue eyes. Maybe Tim Takasumi or Roberto Ortega, the two boys who had access to the nurses’ station. Shay had learned their names, along with everyone else’s, during the lame introduction ceremony.

“So who is it?” she urged as they walked together.

“Guess.”

“I’m not guessing! I don’t even know anybody yet.”

Nona giggled, then looked up and her smile faded. “Shh! Not now!”

One of the boys in the group, the tall blond kid named Zach, looked over his shoulder, and Nona ran like a frightened deer to catch up with her friends Maeve and Nell, two girls who hadn’t yet given Shay anything but icy stares.

Shay was left to bring up the rear. It figured. Not that she gave a damn. Shay watched Nona hurrying away, as if glad to be rid of her. Was Nona lying, bragging about some fantasy boyfriend? Like those little kids who have an imaginary friend, maybe Nona had an imaginary boyfriend. Or maybe it was Zach.

Shay decided it was a waste of time speculating.

Who cared?

But suddenly Shay was more interested. As Nona ran, something started to fall out of her pocket—something dark and slim, like a cell phone or an iPod or a camera, all of which were strictly forbidden. Nona nearly stumbled, then shoved the object deep in her pocket, glancing at Shay.

Their eyes locked, Nona silently pleading with Shay to keep quiet.

Shay held her stare. No way would she rat her roommate out, but she wanted to know what was in the pocket and how Nona had pulled it off.

Nona caught up with her friends, and she was suddenly giggling again with Maeve Mancuso and Nell Cousineau. Maeve, the reddish blonde from Rhode Island, was a bit of a basket case, as far as Shay could tell, a deep-seated romantic. She’d heard the girl was a cutter, that she had the scars on her wrists to prove it. And Nell, a sixteen-year-old from a small town in Marin County, north of San Francisco somewhere, seemed to have been blessed with a sharp wit and an extremely wicked tongue that Shay found intriguing.

Now, Nona glanced over her shoulder and, casting a quick, almost naughty look over her shoulder at Shay, smiled slyly. So maybe the story about the boyfriend had all been a joke. Tell a big lie to the new girl, suck her in. Shay had been on the losing end of that prank more than once.

But this, today with Nona, wasn’t quite the same. And then there was the phone—that’s what she thought it was, some kind of cell phone, here in the middle of nowhere. Would it even work?

There was something going on with her roommate, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

What she did know was that she was an outsider.

In a school of outsiders.

Big surprise.

It was friggin’ cold, and Shay would have liked a smoke. She hadn’t had a cigarette since leaving Seattle, and though she really didn’t think she was hooked, it would have helped ease her nerves. When she’d been admitted to this hell, the big nurse had informed her that all tobacco products, along with alcohol and all recreational drugs, were banned.

Seriously?

Hadn’t Shay smelled a whiff of tobacco smoke on a couple of the teachers? Dr. Burdette and Mr. DeMarco came to mind, as did some of the TAs. Shay was pretty damned sure that Roberto Ortega and Missy Albright, the tall, platinum blonde, had both reeked of tobacco just yesterday after returning to the chemistry lab after doing something with the rest of a group of the teacher’s aides.

She couldn’t believe that no one on campus had a pack of cigs on them. Come on! There had to be eighty teenagers as students and over twenty members of the staff. Surely some of them smoked.

Well, maybe this was her time to quit. At seventeen. When she’d barely picked up the habit.

Gusting, the wind rattled through the surrounding trees and churned up the surface of Lake Superstition. She really had landed at the end of the world.

At the head of their group was her team leader, the rugged-looking guy with the familiar name. There was just something about Mr. Trent that got under her skin. He was twenty feet ahead, near the front of the line. His leather jacket, lined in sheepskin, was stretched over his broad shoulders, and his jeans were faded, even frayed a bit. Leather gloves and well-worn cowboy boots …