Mercy's All That You Need

“Wait…” Mercedes mumbled, while a slightly chubby guy with several lip piercings took her by the hand and led her outside. She guessed he was the one Matt called ‘Vengeance’, and only when the sunshine hit her face did she somewhat come out of her stupor, halting in her tracks.

Vengeance didn’t let up on his grip on her hand, but he did look back at her in worry, wondering if she was only choosing then to completely freak out. “My mom—she has to tell me something,” She stuttered, looking into his squinting eyes. When all he did was tug on her hand a little harder, she turned unexpectedly, her hand twisting painfully in his grip.

They were lucky Mercy’s mother had chosen a home out of the way, situated in the woods slightly just outside of town. At the time she had thought she was protecting Mercedes, but it was backfiring horribly then because there weren’t any neighbors around to take notice of the five men hauling her daughter out of the house.

Only taking two steps forward however, Mercy found herself walking straight into the chest of the shortest man. Gasping, she stumbled back and Vengeance only just barely caught her after she tripped over her own feet.

More than ever, she felt trapped as her gaze flitted skittishly between the two men, and only then did she take notice of the other two standing off to the side, observing the situation. The freakishly tall one’s crystal blue eyes bore into her, trying to figure her out, while the other man with a fedora shadowing most of his features glared at her, a seemingly permanent sneer set upon his lips.

“Get her to the car Vengeance, or I’ll do it myself,” He snapped, startling Mercedes once again. All she wanted to do was get back into the safety of her house, with her mother with her. God only knew what Matt could have been doing to her mom in there, and she needed to get back in there soon before something bad happened.

Obviously her mother had never been one to give up, and she could still be heard shouting and crying and struggling endlessly with Matt, which only worried Mercy even further. What if he got fed up with her, lost his temper… and did something unthinkable?

Usually she wouldn’t be so judgmental. Mercy had never been one to think the worst in anyone, but these men had intruded on her life and turned it upside down. What else could she possibly think they were, but evil?

At hearing this, Vengeance pulled on her hand more forcefully until her back bumped into his chest, and she could feel him glaring at the man in the fedora over her head. “Shadows ordered me to do it, Syn. You’re the last person he’d let take care of Mercedes.”

With her name being thrown around so much, Mercedes grew even more frightened. They talked about her as if they had known her their entire lives. As quickly as it had started, the glaring contest between the two comrades ended and Vengeance began ushering her back toward the car.

Finally, Mercedes tore her eyes away from the men and looked toward where Vengeance was practically pushing her toward, his hands on either side of her shoulders. “No—no!” She babbled, feeling tears quickly prick at the corners of her eyes. “Please let me go back inside! Who are you people?”

The men didn’t relent, and the shortest one joined Vengeance shortly after she started pleading with them. While she knew that these guys were more than likely very dangerous, and that it’d probably be better to keep her mouth shut, she couldn’t help it. She knew that her life was in jeopardy just from the look Syn was giving her, and her mother being alone with Matt did not sound good, especially after witnessing just how bad his temper could be last night.

Really, she didn’t know what to do. This situation was so confusing. Were they kidnapping her? Ariel had known them well from the way she was arguing with them, but Mercedes felt like and knew she was being taken against her will. She wanted to be as far as she possibly could be from them. “I don’t want to go with you!” She tried, still struggling in Vengeance’s and the short man’s (she was still unaware of his actual name) grip.

Mercy really began struggling when they opened the door to the large, black SUV. She was only then realizing how serious this situation could actually be. These five utterly scary dudes were hauling her off in their car against her will… with an unknown destination. They could have been planning to kill her for all she knew!

Somehow she managed to free herself from Vengeance just before he was able to push her all the way into the car, and she took several steps back and looked around them, attempting to find an escape route. “Fuck,” He cursed, knowing exactly what Mercy wanted to do. “Johnny, grab her!”

Until then she hadn’t even been aware that the little guy had been trailing behind her after she had broken free from Vengeance, watching her every move. That was at least until she was grabbed around the waist and hoisted up into his arms. In seemingly a split second, she was on his lap in the back seat of the SUV. She told herself she wouldn’t worry about how insanely fast he had gotten her into the car; she had to focus on getting out of it then.

Before she could move away from him, though, his arms locked around her own and she was then successfully encased in his arms, not being given so much as an inch to move around.
All screaming suddenly halted from within the house, and Mercy froze at the same second, automatically fearing the worst when Matt came jogging out of the house, his expression relieved and tense at the same time. Her eyes followed him like a hawk, watching intently while he opened the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. Matt was the cause of all of this, from what she could gather.

Wait… so she was the person they were talking about last night? So what did that mean for her? No wonder her mother had been so volatile. As the beginning pieces of this puzzle came together, her chest tightened painfully and she took several gasping breaths, having no choice but to hold onto Johnny. The tears she’d been holding in spilled over, and she let out a painful sob as four of the men, excluding Syn, looked back at her in bewilderment.

“Please—let me go!” She gasped, but did not struggle any further. Her vision was much too blurry—simply because she was panicking too much—and she couldn’t even think straight. “I don’t want to be here!”

Persisting with this only got the man who scared her most out of all of them to whip his head back toward her. “Shadows if she doesn’t shut the fuck up I’m going to make her be quiet!”

His harsh tone had Mercedes cowering backwards, finding little refuge in the smaller man who still had a tight hold on her. Out of all of them, though, he was the most approachable and therefore most suitable to find comfort in. As soon as she came into any contact with him other than the tenseness of when she had been trying to get away from him, she recoiled and attempted to get as far away from him as she could.

From the front seat Matt, or ‘Shadows’ as everyone else had been calling him, groaned when Syn persisted in his bitching about Mercedes. Suddenly, the tall man sitting next to her pointed an accusing finger at Syn and began blaming him quite loudly. “Gates is making it worse!”

Silently, Johnny glared at him and pulled Mercedes back against his chest. Her struggling and him not letting her go would only freak her out more, so he tried to comfort her the best he could. On the other side of Mercedes, Vengeance began bitching about Syn, and soon all that could be heard from the entire car was the jumble of venomous, bitchy men.

“Alright, everyone just shut the fuck up!” Matt shouted over everyone else, succeeding in the car going quiet and Mercy about jumping out of her skin. He glared at each of the men, his eyes only softening when he laid them on the poor girl still on his friend’s lap.

After seeing that everyone had sufficiently, quieted, with the exception of Mercedes as she was still nowhere near calming down, he sighed and righted himself in the driver’s seat, deciding then that it was finally a good time to actually start the monster he was about to drive.

Her mother was still in the house, silent, and that worried Mercedes more anything because she could need medical attention, as there was no way Ariel would be quiet in such a situation unless she was unconscious. And as much as she hated to, Mercy was also worrying about herself. She had no idea what was going to happen to her then and she found herself questioning everything, which only made her cry even harder.

What about everything she had been working for with her mother over her entire life? She was supposed to be doing great thing in just a year or two, but getting kidnapped was not something that had been planned… and it was going to mess everything up. Then came the next question… what was wrong with her? After all that was the sole reason why these men were taking her, right?

Something has already started, as Vengeance has put it, and apparently there were only a few months left. She felt fine, nothing was out of the ordinary with her at all, so she was absolutely clueless what exactly could have been wrong with her. What else had Matt been saying, something about how she would die if she didn’t receive his help? Exactly what did he plan on helping her with, anyway?

Mercy’s eyes watered over with even more, fresh tears as the car peeled away from the sidewalk, leaving her mother behind in the house she had grown up in. Even in such a state, she faintly recognized she didn’t have a seat belt on, but then realized that from the looks of everything, these men wouldn’t care at all.

“I still don’t see why we’re doing this,” Syn huffed not even five minutes later. Mercy sat stock still on Johnny’s lap, and it was obvious the pissy guy in the passenger seat had been stewing his own thoughts for a little too long. “She’s nothing to us, and just barely anything to you!”

Hearing this, the car halted, its tires skidding on the small stretch of road. They were still in a rural part of Mercedes’ community, and they were lucky there weren’t any other cars around and that Johnny had been able to keep his hold on Mercy, or else she would have been out the windshield and splattered across the road. “If you’re gonna be like this,” He started, his grip on the steering wheel making his knuckles turn white with tension. “You can just run all the way home.”

It seemed like that did the job in quieting Syn, and after a few more moments of complete silence in the car, Matt finally nudged the car forward and they were once again on the way. She may not have known how long this drive was going to be, but Mercedes promised herself that as soon as she was out of their reach, she would somehow find a way back to her mother.

No matter how far they ended up being away from each other.

Syn sat with his arms crossed around his broad chest, his eyes narrowed practically into slits as he stared straight ahead. Mercy didn’t know exactly why he seemed to hate her right away, but what bewildered her even more is that the other men seemed somewhat… nice.

The only reason she was calming down, even just slightly, was because Johnny had let up on his hold around her waist, his arms then only loosely holding onto her, and she no longer felt as trapped as she used to.

Crying would only make things worse, she finally figured out, and almost immediately her tears stopped. Nearly twenty minutes passed, and they were about to get on the freeway. Although that scared Mercedes, she refused to cry again, think she was going to survive this… no matter what. “You don’t talk much, do you?” Johnny’s voice was slightly raspy, maybe from smoking cigarettes, but his voice suited his appearance well.

She didn’t know how to reply to this. What was she supposed to say to her captors? ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Normal conversation was definitely out of the question. Soon, Mercy found that she was able to lift her arms out of Johnny’s grip enough to wipe at her wet, droopy eyes. All of that crying coupled with next to no sleep the night before, she was feeling quite exhausted.

A groan was heard from Syn, and Mercedes steeled herself for whatever he was about to say, knowing it was more than likely going to be about her. “For fuck’s sake, Christ, don’t get her started again.”

Everyone in the car, including Matt, practically ignored Syn’s little outburst, and Mercedes’ teeth began chattering. She only then realized that the air conditioning was on full blast, and her long hair was still wet from her shower she had just an hour earlier. The chemical-filled, cold air was a huge contrast to Johnny’s slightly musky cologne. He did a double take on her when she began doing this, and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Oh, shit!” He suddenly said, looking at her with sympathy. “Yo Shads, turn the AC off will you?”

Through the rearview mirror, Matt sent Mercedes a look of concern and mumbled out an apology while he turned the AC off completely. When he was sure she was okay, he finally bit into Syn for what he had said earlier. “Would you shut the fuck up and find us a hotel for tonight?” He snapped, carelessly tossing his cell phone to Syn. He grumbled in protest, but did as he was told and began searching the internet on Matt’s phone.

Figuring she may as well see what the two other men sitting next to her were doing, she turned slightly to the right, but then quickly went back to staring straight ahead. The tall one had been staring straight at her, grinning from ear to ear. She felt his large hands on her shoulders then, gently turning her back so she was facing him in Johnny’s lap.

“I’m Jimmy, but some people call me Rev… and other things” He introduced himself, grinning even wider. “You can call me Jimmy, though. And you’re Mercy!”

Only then did she finally pick up on her nickname that they all seemed to be using for her, and she swallowed hard. Exactly how much did they know about her? Quietly, she cleared her throat, readying herself to actually speak coherently for the first time since she had gotten into the car. “Why am I here?”

Truthfully, she had no idea why she was able to work up the nerve to ask Jimmy this and not Johnny. So far he had been the nicest, most sane person there. Before he could answer however, Vengeance quickly began speaking. She had a feeling that out of all of them, Jimmy would be most willing to share any kind of information and that was probably why Vengeance wouldn’t let him speak. “We can’t tell you that… yet.”

“Well… can you tell me what my mother has to do with this?” She asked, once again beginning to grow insanely nervous.

Frowning then, Jimmy eyed Matt in the rearview mirror, and they both locked eyes through it. “I can’t tell you that, either.” He sighed, slumping in his seat with a look of defeat written across his face.

“What can you tell me, then?” Mercedes fitfully asked after a few moments, her mind reeling. She was on the verge of hysteria, and had an odd feeling that if she had asked Matt, he would have told her a little more… but he was just too damn intimidating.

Once again Jimmy was up and sitting up straight, now looking excited. “Oh, I know! That’s Matt, that’s Brian, he’s Zacky, and short-shit who’s squeezing the life out of you is Johnny! That’s what I can tell you!” He clapped, seemingly quite pleased with himself.

That piece of information, no matter how useful it may have been since she found out Syn’s and Zacky’s first names, did not comfort at all, and she felt like she wanted to cry again. This time however, it was out of frustration. She wanted answers and explanations and no one was willing to give them to her.

This is going to be a long car ride, she thought glumly, and wondered if she was going to get any sleep around these men when a wave of exhaustion overcame her. And how was that hotel thing going to work? Even though she knew it was a fat chance, she hoped she wouldn’t be sharing a room with any of them… especially Syn.