Mercy's All That You Need

Mercedes sat cross-legged on the sofa, eyes focused on the textbook in her lap. Her red hair cast a shadow upon her face, shielding her from the view of anyone passing by in the living room. The entire sofa was littered with notes and textbooks as she studied for an upcoming AP Calculus test.

She would have to go to a high school in the area to take the test, and she didn’t know how Matt managed to pull off the whole homeschooling thing—or the fact that he’d somehow become her legal guardian without any involvement with social workers or the like. Hell, she almost didn’t even want to know.

It was a great distraction, either way. Mercy could focus on her schoolwork even more now that she knew she had a reason for it, and it would keep her mind from lingering on a certain someone she may or may not have been developing a crush on. A crush. She’d figured it out in the wee hours of the morning after the incident with Syn at dinner the night before.

Pencil shaking in the grip she was forcing on it, Mercy thought for a moment that she might tear the pages of her notebook apart. She eased up, but didn’t stop writing and gritted her teeth. It wasn’t a crush. Synyster Gates was just a weird, confusing guy. She might have been intrigued by him, yes, and the dreams she’d been having about him were uncomfortable at best. A crush, though? It made her sound more like an immature schoolgirl than she already thought she was.

You couldn’t crush over Synyster Gates, that’s just it. He doesn’t do crushes, and Mercy knew that.

She felt like swearing… for the first time ever, she felt like cussing everything out. And that stopped her dead in her tracks; pencil paused upon paper as she realized what was happening, what Brian was doing to her.

Mercedes nearly jumped a mile when she heard her brother clear his throat, her calculator slip off the edge of the sofa with a crash. Her head snapped in his direction, heart racing. Even after living with vampires for so long they still managed to sneak up on her and scare the crap out of her without even trying. Matt grinned, muttering a ‘sorry’.

“You have to stop doing that,” She said breathlessly before turning so she could face him behind the sofa. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking smug as hell. His posture told her that he didn’t take her suggestion into consideration.

“I have something to show you,” He grinned.

The statement alone worried her, and she hoped it wasn’t another half-breed like herself that he wanted her to meet. Over the past couple of weeks she learned that he wasn’t the best matchmaker.

“Do you,” He nodded once in confirmation, and Mercedes had to resist the urge to ask whether or not whatever it was he had to show her would hurt. Knowing him and his friends, it probably would. Instead, she went with a simpler, hopefully more acceptable question. “What is it?”

He pushed himself from the wall, giving her an expectant look as he made a swooping gesture with his hand. “It’s a surprise,” He said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Finally, Mercedes broke out into a smile. This might just be the sweetest thing her brother’s ever done for her… that is, as long as it didn’t cause her any bodily harm as she earlier suspected. Matt would never knowingly hurt her, however, so she quelled the thought from then on. What happened to the optimistic Mercedes, when did this jaded girl replace her?

Her brother wanted to surprise her, and she automatically thought for the worst in it. Damn it, she really had to get back to her old self.

Trying not to hesitate, Mercy stood and followed him down the hallway. It was still fairly early in the evening, so she wasn’t surprised that no one else was awake. It was just her and her brother. They went all the way past her bedroom and down yet another hallway, close to where she’d stopped Syn the other day.

God, she’d been so stupid to do that.

At the very end of the hallway, Matt stopped at one of the last doors. Before then Mercedes figured all that was down this hallway were bedrooms. She hadn’t even bothered to explore them. Apparently, she’d been wrong.

“I’ve been working on this for a while,” Matt said, almost sounding apprehensive while his hand hovered above the door handle. The white door somehow looked heavier, more impenetrable than the rest in the hallway.

Feeling more confident than she had in a while, Mercy reached forward and gave Matt’s shoulder a light shove as she laughed quietly. “Just show me. You know I’m going to love it.”

If her brother put this much thought into something, worked on it as long as he said he had, then of course she would love it. How could she otherwise?

Ever so slowly, Matt opened the door inch by inch. It only led to Mercedes trying to get a peek in and Matt laughing when she nearly stumbled in the threshold. When she managed to right herself, the grin she’d previously been wearing was wiped clean from her face, being replaced with a dumbfounded expression.

She felt like crying just at the sight of the room. It was simple, with a desk pushed against one wall with a bay window in front of it. Though it was dark, Mercy knew the view of her brother’s property and the ocean beyond it in the distance would be breathtaking. The salty, refreshing smell in the air from the open window was proof of that. A bookcase took up the adjacent wall, and across from it sat a quaint looking loveseat with an end table in the corner, a dimly lit lamp resting upon it.

Mercy recognized everything in the bookshelf the instant she laid eyes on it. All of her novels, textbooks, every single book she had while she lived with Ariel was there.

It felt like home to her.

As she ran a hand across the edge of the great mahogany desk, she smiled. No, she grinned. So big her face hurt. She was so excited about the room, she’d all but forgotten her brother still waiting anxiously in the doorway.

His heavy footsteps echoed through the room until he stopped, a few feet away from Mercedes. “I figured I would finally do something with the guest room since we don’t really have a whole lot of guests anymore,” He rambled until he cut himself short, and finally she turned to look at him and he saw how bewildered yet grateful she actually was. “Now you have a place of your own to study and just… you know, relax.”

To save him from what he would consider further embarrassing himself, Mercy crossed the space between them and pulled Matt into a hug. Having not expected such a response, it took him a while to react. When he did, the anxious lines in his forehead disappeared and he grinned, both for Mercy and at a job well done. He was willing to do anything for his sister to consider his house her home.

He wrapped his arms around her in a bone crushing hug. “Thank you—so much, Matt. I mean it.” She managed to breathe, feeling her cheeks flush. She wasn’t used to getting such amazing gifts… or surprises for that matter.

Just when she thought she was the biggest nuisance to her brother and his family on the planet, he does something like this for her.

It gave her hope—that she would survive all of this, and that she would be able to forget all that she’d been through in her change and actually live a semi-normal, hopefully happy vampiric life. But it also made her remember other things, things she did not exactly care to recall.

“You’re welcome, kiddo,” He replied easily after pulling away. When he saw her pained expression, his calm, chill demeanour immediately turned to one of alarm. “Did I hurt you?” He asked almost guiltily, referring to his bear hug.

She laughed off his concern, but he wasn’t buying it at all. “No, but I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” She said truthfully.

He still wore that stony mask of his, but he managed a small smile in Mercedes’ direction. “I have, too. About yesterday.”

“Yesterday,” Mercy repeated with a sigh, sinking into the loveseat before she knew what she was doing. Since dinner the night before, she hadn’t really allowed herself to think about it. It still hurt too much. “I just wanted to let you know… about Ariel, that I’m dealing okay.”

Matt gave her a soft smile as he sat down on the floor in front of the loveseat. “Okay. And I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday. I can’t really control myself when I’m that angry, Mercy. I shouldn’t have tried to keep the truth from you.”

“I almost wish you had,” She let out a small, sardonic laugh. One that did not at all sound like Mercy’s usual, carefree giggle.

Upon hearing that, Matt’s eyes softened significantly. He reached for her hand, grasping it in his large one. The small gesture did wonders in comforting her. She would always have her brother, contrary to what Ariel might want her to believe. “This is all going to get better soon. I promise.”

Mercy wondered how her brother could sound so sure in his word, especially when things looked so bad. They weren’t any closer to finding her mate and her Change was still progressing at a steady rate. Still, she was happy that someone still held some hope for her, too.

Briefly, she contemplated telling him about the dream—nightmare?—that was still haunting her, but quickly decided against it. She pictured how it would go down; telling her brother about the dream… the intimate, uncomfortable dream, about his best friend?

She just couldn’t do it.