Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Mercer must be the father. Anyone else, and they will just kill the baby. They will give you a pill, put you to bed, and you will wake up bleeding.
But Mercer is different. I don’t know why they love this asshole—he’s sick, in my opinion. But they do. He’s everything to these people. It’s got something to do with Patricia, I’m sure, I’m just not sure what. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, she’s not his mother.
You. Pregnant. By Mercer.
This is step one and it happened at the pre-trial meeting before your seventeenth venture into the world of drug-induced brainwashing. We tracked your cycle for over a year. Everything was clockwork. We had one night and one chance and it worked.
Step two is Locke.
We set him up. I like Locke. I’m sorry he’s stuck in this vicious cycle of Mercer’s abuse, and I wish we could take him with us, but Mercer is attached to him the same way Patricia is attached to Mercer.
He’s on the drug too.
I gasp, once again looking up at Olsen. He puts a finger to his lips. Shhhh. Keep reading.
He’s on the drug too. He takes it recreationally. Has been for years. So all we had to do was come up with a fantasy for him. And that fantasy was taking you into the woods and making you jerk him off the way Mercer does to him. A little role reversal. A little taste of Mercer’s power.
It was your idea. Leftover high school memories? Maybe.
But I think you’re trying to save him. You’re trying to show him the real Mercer. It’s not going to work, but I admire your goal. Do not. Fuck this up. To save Locke.
If Locke is to be saved, he needs to save himself.
He’s a piece on the game board, that’s it. Do not lose sight of that.
Step three is tonight. The reveal.
These are your demands and concessions for Patricia.
Memorize them.
Deliver them.
I will meet you at Mercer’s marina when it’s over and we’ll leave together.
I read through the list of demands and concessions. And holy shit. It’s going to work. If what Olsen says is true, then she will give in.
She has no choice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – LOCKE
RIGHT NOW
“She didn’t love me,” Olsen said.
And then it all made sense.
One-sided love.
I know the feeling well.
“What?” Mercer and I are face to face. Eye to eye. Nearly lip to lip. But the kiss is over now and he pulls back a little. “What did you say?”
“She didn’t love him.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Olsen and Nova. I was pressing him for why he wanted her dead that day I recruited him into the study and he said she never loved him the way he loved her. It was one-sided.”
Mercer’s eyes narrow. “OK.”
“You told Nova back there that I can’t walk away.”
“Locke—”
“Just… hear me out, Mercer. For once.”
“For once? I’ve been hearing you out for decades.”
“Decades?”
“Decades,” he reiterates.
I let out a long breath. “You told Nova that I can’t walk away. And Olsen’s problem wasn’t that he hated Nova. It was that the love between them was unequal. He loved Nova. And Nova didn’t love him back. At least, not equally. It wasn’t even about love, either. It was about loyalty. When the shit hit the fan, she left him. She killed three people and she let him take her fall.”
“Well, they got her in the end, didn’t they?”
“They did. But that’s not the point. The point is, this betrayal was enough to change everything.”
“Did I betray you? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Did you betray me, Mercer?”
“You’re the one with all the answers today. You tell me. But if I remember correctly, it was you who betrayed me.”
He’s referring to Olsen. Because I am the leak. That’s what Mercer thinks. He thinks that the reason Olsen got all these wild ideas about setting Nova free was because I leaked things to him.
It had to be me.
And maybe it was. I don’t recall. I don’t know what I could’ve said that would’ve tipped Olsen off about what was really going on at the island.
But he knew.
And he told Nova.
And Nova—somehow—got out of it.
She got away.
I remember being stunned when Mercer told me she was gone.
Then… depressed. .
And then, eventually, I found her again. Mercer actually gave me some hints. He was tracking her in the beginning, I guess. So I found her in Oregon. She didn’t change her name. She wasn’t hiding. She was just right there.
That was a pretty good day.
I would not say she was happy to see me. She was definitely surprised. But not unhappy, either. She let me visit. She cooked me dinner. Gave me a few drinks. Introduced me to Veda. Who was two, or something, at the time.
It felt like… I sigh. It’s so cliché at this point. But it really did feel like a fresh start and a new beginning.