Chapter One

In the moments before, she laid a hand on his arm. "No matter what," she said, giving him a look, "you cannot stop."

He turned away. "I'm not sure I can even start."

She brought his hand to her lips, kissed each finger. "If you don't do it," she said simply, "who will?"

For a long while they sat side by side, staring out a streaked window at a town neither of them knew very well. He watched her breathing pattern in the reflection of the glass, and tried to slow his own heart until they were equally matched. The quiet dulled his senses, so that he became fixated on the clock beside the bed. He would not blink, he told himself, until the next minute bled into the last.

With a fury that surprised him, he turned his face into the bow of her neck, trying to commit to memory this softness and this smell. "I love you."

She smiled, that crooked little curving of her mouth. "Now," she said, "don't you think I know that?"

In the end, she had struggled. He wore the scratches like a brand. But he had held the pillow to her face; calmed her by whispering in her ear. My love, he had said, I'll be with you as soon as I can. At the ... read full excerpt from Mercy ebook