Prey and Mercy

XVII. The Descent into Madness Lies on the Other Side of Gallantry

Maude takes my leave with surprising placidity.

She brings a bucket of earthworms up to her nose and wrinkles it with distaste, "Feel like taking me with you?"

I told her it was a vacation. Off to Greece, Ireland, maybe Egypt with my mother and sister for however long it takes. We're praying homage to the old gods...or something like that. And I made sure to do right after my long, toiling hours of digging up soil, plucking weeds, and picking up mountain lion dung. She can probably smell it on me. I can smell it on me.

"It's a personal...family thing." I stammer.

She raises an eyebrow, snorts. "Okay."

I watch her twist the Velcro to her gardening gloves as she begins to walk outside. She's got leaves in her long black hair and dirt smeared against her chin. Though somehow she pulls it off in a rugged kind of way. Quite clearly I know it's just because she doesn't care.

Maude wears indifference like a Gucci coat.

"So I can leave?" I ask. It's the question I've been dying for her to answer since I arrived. It's not that she's slow but just excessively laid-back. I can't tell if she's being languid or pensive; if she's thinking about all the ways in which to replace me or what kind of take-out she's going to order after her shift.

"Sure, Reyner." She licks her lips, sets the bucket into the grass, "but if you don't bring me back a souvenir I'm telling my family to dock your paycheck. And if the gods don't fear me by the time you return I will personally call lightning out of the sky and shove it up your ass."

I blink.

"Now get off my property, love," she says, eyes squinted at the sun, and I obey.

***

Not even in times like this does Idris let me ride shotgun. 

He munches on a braid of twizzlers, sunglasses balanced on the bridge of his nose as Milena tries and fails to swat his legs off the headboard. We're headed to the pantheon's sacred grove to find a place to park just behind the temples; it's where we're supposed to meet the other two. 

"I'm serious, Idris, I will roast them!"  

"It's Prey, isn't it?" He ignores Miles, body twisted around to look me in the eyes. "He's in your life again." 

I shouldn't get defensive, but I do. "It's not always about Prey." 

"Your existence is about Prey, your life. But why? Why this time? I thought you wanted him dead." 

He smirks at my stutter and I flush. "I do. That hasn't changed."

"She lying!" Milena swerves so that the two of us go slamming into the car doors, "I can tell." 

My blade digs into my calf far deeper than I would like. I don't know why I agreed to let her drive in the first place; this is a mission of stealth and Milena is anything but stealthy. 

"What makes you think so?" I ask even as we pull up to the black acura nestled between two maple trees.

Prey sits with his driver side door propped open, a novelty turning in his hands. He leans back ever so slightly to say something to, whom I assume is Ernest, in the passenger seat, a grin on his face.

Even around Samuel and Marjorie he hardly ever smiles.

Idris flicks my kneecap, drawing my attention back to him. He offers me a twizler amusedly, "Because you get this look on your face that any villain would rightfully fear. Like anything is possible and you're afraid of no one and nothing."