Chapter 10 Risks Worth Taking

A billion wires, a million tubes, a thousand switches… I sigh in exasperation as I gently bang my fist against my chin. In my swivel chair, I tuck my foot beneath my weight, my leg bent beneath me as I lean into my elbow, resting it on top of the table of my lab. For the past hour, I’ve been reading over not-so classified, stolen military files on the electronic tablet that’d been placed in one of the drawers in the desk positioned behind me. While I know that I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s amazing just how much information the government has on explosives. From devices as small as the palm of my hand to metal cylinders twice the size of a refrigerator, it’s all in one large file that, again, unsurprisingly, Marcel somehow has access to. He didn’t even tell me what kind of bomb he wants. … Unprofessional. … Nothing about this is professional, and you know it. It all goes back to that day: the day that Marcel returned for my answer. It was just half an hour before midnight and I was anxiously waiting for the knock at the door to come. The truth is that I didn’t know what I would say. I didn’t know what my answer would be. All I knew is that I didn’t want to leave Levi but I also didn’t want him to throw away the possibility of a future free of the life that’d taken away his adolescence. While Levi was never cut out to be the picture perfect school boy, he’d once had an opportunity to make something of himself through sports. He was talented—gifted. Before mom and dad died, he was the quarterback during football season and a hell of a pitcher during baseball season. He was just a freshman when he made the Varsity baseball team at school, and by the time he was a sophomore, he was the star football player that had college recruiters asking his coaches if they were sure that he was just a sophomore. When junior year rolled around, he took his SATs, scored just high enough to get decent offers that were promised to turn into full-rides should he graduate with a GPA that he was only one tenth of a point shy of and had an entire year and a half to make up for. Then, on the night of January 27th, 2014, Guillermo Saldívar and his three henchmen broke into our house and killed our parents, forcing Levi to give up his future to make sure that I could have one. Guilty is hardly the word I’d use to describe how responsible I felt for the possibilities he had to give up, and knowing that there was a chance that I could make it worse by accepting Marcel’s offer made remorse sound like child’s play. Then again, I also knew that there was a chance I could make it better. After all, with me gone, he’s made enough money to get his GED and at least go to trade school to get a legit job and make legit money—if he was willing. It was a big if. Don’t kid yourself. He hated school, and you know it. The thought rang in my head over and over as I desperately tried to convince myself that hopping in Marcel’s pick-up truck would make Levi’s life easier, because a part of me wanted to leave. I never truly felt like I belonged where I was. Every room that I walked into, every person that I spoke to, I felt like I was somewhere I didn’t belong, around people who didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them. I felt so out of place, and while I didn’t think that leaving with Marcel and going some place else would fix it, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would make things a little better. Feelings. That’s all it was. Feelings. The thing about feelings? They come and go. When the knock finally did echo through the door, it was 11:45PM, on the dot, and just as before, I opened the door. Only this time, I didn’t try to shut it in his face. Instead, I willingly let him in and invited him to take a seat. He refused. He wasn’t interested in possible meaningless conversation. He wanted an answer—an answer that I didn’t have. “So, what’s it gonna be, Mercy?” He asked as he stood before me in the same leather jacket, black jeans, and this time, a charcoal gray t-shirt. It wasn’t as simple as a yes or no answer, but I knew that there was one question that would help me give him an answer. I asked, “If I go with you, is Levi off the hook? Will your family let him go?” I saw it: the hope in his eyes vanished. He knew. He knew that if his answer was no, so was mine. I couldn’t justify leaving with him and throwing away everything that my brother had worked so hard for. It wouldn’t be right. He never did answer my question, and he didn’t have to. Instead, he eyed me. He studied me as though he was picking me apart and figuring me out effortlessly. “Is he the only reason you’re living?” He asked, and in that moment, I realized that I wasn’t really living. I was existing. I was existing for the sake of breathing because anything beyond that terrified me. I had yet to do one meaningful thing in my life that wasn’t expected of me because it was all that I knew. It was all that I was used to, so when I did the one thing that wasn’t like me—sleeping with him—I was infatuated with the high of taking risks. “You should go,” I breathed out, because in that moment, I knew. I knew that the greatest risk wasn’t leaving with him. Leaving with him was easy. The greatest risk I ever took was choosing to believe that I was adequate enough to do better than the people who raised me. “Do you have a list for me yet?” Marcel’s voice startles me out of my thoughts, my body involuntarily flinching. I cock my head to the side, turning to look at him as he emerges into the room wearing an awfully stern look on his face. “Uh…” I hum lightly as I rise from my seat, straightening on my feet. I shift my weight to my hands only to be reminded that my wound has hardly healed by the intense throbbing that shoots down my left arm. Fuck. A whimper emits from the back of my throat, my weight swiftly shifting to my right arm as I wince in pain. I’d hoped that with the antibiotics and ibuprofen I had for breakfast that the pain would subside, but even so, the slightest movement only seems to trigger a wave of shocks that make my arm go almost entirely limp. In only a matter of seconds, Marcel is standing at arms distance from the head of the table, eyeing me as I exhale a shaky breath, clenching my jaw tightly as I wait for the throbbing to dissipate. “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?” My eyes snap up to meet his, and all of a sudden, I remember all of the reasons why I hate him in the first place. “I wouldn’t know,” I mutter as I swipe out of the file on the tablet. I flip the screen to face him, pushing it toward him as I retort, “I don’t know what a bitch feels like.” The cocky smirk on his lips quickly shifts, turning into something tainted with pride as he chuckles ever-so-slightly. I ignore his irritable sense of superiority, answering his previous question as I breathe out, “I don’t have a list for you because you haven’t told me what you want exactly.” From the screen, I navigate the app through the encrypted files to the list of devices that seemed the least complicated among the hundreds. “These are what I, realistically, think that I could produce within the given timeframe.” His gaze lingers on me for a moment longer before falling to the screen as I slowly scroll through the shortlist of five. In the next moment, he brings his hand to the screen, pulling up the settings page where he taps through the screen-mirroring icon and the file suddenly displays on the large screen across from the table. Oh. I shift the tablet into my arm, carefully bringing my unoccupied hand up to scroll through the file once more. “You didn’t really say how big you needed it to be, but I could make more than one if none of these can…get the job done alone. I j—” “Big enough to blow up this house,” he cuts me off, bringing my movements to a halt. This is a big fucking house. … Ka-Boom. Ka-Boom. Ka-Boom. It is. “Okay…” my voice trails off as I scroll all the way down, projecting the final device on the screen. “This is probably the best choice. I’ll have to create three of them, all linked to one switch that’ll make them all go off within one second of each other, and…” My mind does it again: wanting to know things that are of absolutely no concern to me. I’m just building it. If not me, it’d be someone else. What he chooses to do with it is not my business. Let it go. … Fuck. I turn to look at him, my gaze meeting his as I stammer in hesitation, “Y-You’re not planning to…bomb a school filled with kids…animal shelter filled with puppies…hospital filled with sick people…are you?” With an unreadable face, he eyes me for a moment longer before stating, “What I choose to do with what you manufacture is none of your business.” He pauses, arching a brow before sarcastically adding, “Although, now that I think about it, an animal shelter sounds tempting.” Jackass. I roll my eyes at him, sighing as I set the tablet down. With this, I turn to take the notepad and pen from the desk, swiftly setting it down and jotting down the list of materials as I skim through the highlighted items in the file of the listed device. My hand trembles as I finalize it—hypoglycemic jitters—a direct result from skipping the last three meals I was offered. Stress. That’s all it is. I’m stressed; therefore, unhungry. “You didn’t eat—again,” he says as I hand him the list. I arch a brow, sassing him, “And you give a damn about my well-being?” Oop. It strikes a nerve, wiping the smirk clean off his face as I toss my head with attitude. I push him further, “Sorry. I didn’t notice with, you know, you having shot me and all.” He narrows his eyes on me, folding the piece of paper small enough to fit into the pocket inside the lapel of his jacket. “I don’t think I like your attitude,” he says as he fixes his suit. I’m quick, spitting, “And I don’t really like you, but here we are.” This time, the smirk returns with a hint of amusement, but he refrains from chuckling. Instead, a mischievous glint plays in his eyes as he begins steady and slow strides toward me, musing, “You don’t like me?” As close as he gets to me, I refrain from moving, choosing to put my foot down. No. You will not back me into the wall. Not again. I clench my fists at my sides, my head tilting further back as he comes to a stop a mere inch before me. His minty breath fans my nose as he looms over me, looking down at me. My blood boils in my fury, and with the urge to spit in his face, I grit through my teeth, “I can’t stand you.” I don’t have the opportunity to brace myself, a gasp parting my lips as he suddenly takes my arm and throws me onto the chair, muttering, “Then, have a seat.” My back pushes it against the table, and my hands instinctively grasp the handles at my sides as he leans into me, digging his own into the edge of the table now behind me. I don’t mean to, but my body betrays me. A heat unlike any I’ve felt since the time he had me spreads between my legs, prompting me to bring my knees together as I struggle to swallow the dryness in my throat. No. Mercy. No. … This can’t be happening to me. Not now. Not for him. To make matters worse, when his gaze falls to my lap, he notices. I see it, and I want to hide myself beneath the table as my face flushes hot red and the glint in his eyes turns into flashy lust that only draws me in further. “Oh, I think you like me a little,” he murmurs in that husky voice that brings me back to the moment I was sprawled out beneath him, vulnerable and needy. Desperate to defend myself, I part my lips to speak, but he doesn’t give me the opportunity to. “Careful, doll.” He taunts me, teasing me, “I don’t want to have to show you what’ll happen if you don’t watch that mouth of yours.” … Screw you. … Screw you! Screw you! Screw you! I’m a lot of things. Unfortunately, stupid isn’t one of them, so I hold my tongue. I hold my tongue as he backs away from me with a second strike on his tally board and an empty one on mine. It’s not that he’s yet again beaten me, but rather that he gloats about it. He revels in the satisfaction of making me fold as he walks away with his head held high, wrapped in his superiority complex. “You’ll sit and have dinner with me this evening,” he says as he pulls the door open, stopping for a brief moment. He talks over his shoulder, telling me, “And no, it’s not an option.” With this, he takes his leave, shutting the door behind him with finality.