AS THEY WALKED UP the spiral staircase and toward the grinders, it became more obvious one of the giant machines was off. After months of listening to them churn and belch steam into the sky, Mercy knew the sound well, and the pitch was definitely off. She hadn’t heard it down in Thomas’s laboratory, but as they climbed the tower, it was obvious.
She pulled her fur coat closer around herself when they stepped outside. The snowstorm overnight left the sky a cloudy steel gray, and she could see her breath in the air. She glanced back over her shoulder at Andrei. “Are you going to be okay coming out here?”
He nodded, buttoning up his coat. “Lead the way.”
They passed over the catwalks for the third and second grinders before reaching the oldest one, the first grinder she had seen when she first came to the mill. As they entered the giant cylindrical chamber, the lack of noise compared to the other grinders was disconcerting.
“I didn’t realize how loud they normally are,” Andrei said. They made their way to the ladder that would take them down to the base of the grinder.
Snowfall had blanketed the normally muddy base, leaving behind a layer of snow that hadn’t melted. The first thing Mercy noticed was the werewolves were gone. The neck restraints used to keep them pinned to the grinder were missing too. Even when she helped to clean the sides of the pit, the neck restraints normally remained.
The grinder itself was new. A plethora of new, shiny gears and metal tubing glinted in the afternoon light. It looked completely different from the old grinder that used to be suspended over the pit. The machine was currently off, but based on seeing Thomas’s work before, Mercy could guess how quickly it would move once it was turned on. Down below she spotted Thomas’s familiar red hair at the base. He was walking through the snow surveying his work. He was alone.
She turned to Andrei. “Can you climb down?”
He was shivering again and blinked at her. She gestured to the service ladder. It was a long way down and the unspoken question was whether or not he could climb back up again after.
“I might be a little slower than you, but I’ll manage.”
“If it’s too difficult, don’t be afraid to say so. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be the first to complain.”
Mercy headed down first. She wasn’t as fast a climber as Thomas or Leyda but she was quicker than when she first started working at the mill. Her feet crunched down on snow as she hit the ground and she turned to see Thomas approaching her with a wide grin and open arms.
“Isn’t it beautiful? It runs completely werewolf free as you can clearly see. Steam powered, of course. It’ll take a while to get the fuel hot enough to where we can flip a switch, but isn’t it gorgeous?”
“It’s impressive,” she admitted. Looking up from the base of the grinders always made her anxious simply because so much metal hung over her head. It didn’t help that the new grinder was bigger than the old one.
Thomas put an arm around her shoulders and called up to Andrei. “Take your time. There’s no rush! We’re certainly not going anywhere.”
Mercy felt the vial and darts in her pockets knock against her leg. She had been so distracted by the grinder itself that she almost forgot why she came down. The question was on her lips before she realized it. “But what did you do with the werewolves?”
Thomas’s smile faltered just a little and his lazy eye drifted to the side. “Oh, Mercy, this was the first grinder. These werewolves have been here for weeks, maybe over a month now. They were some of the most docile, sure, but they were also the closest to death’s door, I’m afraid.”
Andrei’s boots crunched down on the snow behind them. She turned to see him rub his hands together as he came over to join them. “You didn’t have them destroyed, did you, Mr. Farrell?” His voice was accusatory.
Slowly Thomas retracted his arm from Mercy’s shoulders and he gave a nervous laugh. “Goodness, Andrei, no. There’s no need to make me sound like a monster. Surely Mercy told you how I plan to make each grinder be completely werewolf free eventually.”
Mercy caught Andrei’s eye and saw him give a brief nod. It wasn’t Thomas’s plan to begin with. Mercy had to convince him to take this path. Yet how quickly the tune changed to Thomas being the kind and benevolent mill owner who saw the error of his ways. If she told him about the experimental compound she carried with her, she knew it would be treated the exact same way.
“I don’t mean to offend, Mr. Farrell.” Andrei put his hands into his pockets, looking casual and comfortable out here when Mercy knew he was anything but that. “I’m just curious about what happened to them considering it was your idea to shackle them down here in this pit to begin with.”
Mercy could kiss him.
“Please, just Thomas. My father was Mr. Farrell.” Thomas gave a nervous laugh, clearly hoping to change the subject. But Andrei wasn’t some random werewolf hunter off the street easy to impress. He was precisely the person who, with a little less luck, could have met the same fate as any of the werewolves on the grinders.
It was difficult for Mercy not to clearly choose a side, not to second Andrei’s words. Instead she forced herself to remain quiet and not tip her hand. Thomas needed to see her as an ally in some form, so she could continue working and living under his roof. She still needed access to his supplies and his office so she couldn’t risk his trust.
With a hefty sigh, Thomas turned to the inactive grinder. The previous machine must have witnessed dozens if not hundreds of werewolves over the years. Mercy tried not to think of that. Hands on his hips, Thomas spoke with more clarity than she had heard from him in a long time.
“Believe it or not, I’m not in the business of murder here. I’ve never been keen on it. One of the reasons I made Liquid Lead to begin with was because I was tired of being surrounded by death every night.”
He walked around the grinder and Andrei and Mercy followed in silence, their feet crunching in the snow.
“I know how ridiculous that sounds.” He laughed. “Those were strange times. We had our lives threatened every night. It was either kill or be killed back in those days.” He gestured to them. “Yes, I made it to save us, I don’t deny that. But I also made it to keep the ground from being a bloody swamp day in and day out. Even the rain couldn’t get rid of it. And the stench!” He wrapped his arms around his stomach. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it. Werewolf blood is quite pungent.”
Mercy nodded. “Do you think that’s why you’ve been struggling to make advances on a cure?” she asked carefully.
Thomas glanced at her with wide, fearful eyes as though she just called him a fraud. “You are…what exactly are you implying, Mercy?”
“Andrei has been helping me on the research. I was going to work with you more closely, but—”
“But I’m never down there in the lab anymore, am I?” Thomas took a deep breath, as though saying the words would expel them from his system.
“You always seemed so excited about each transformation, each step of research, I thought you always relished it.”
Thomas shook a finger at her. “I relished the thought of a cure and of being praised for it as I was for Liquid Lead, my dear. I don’t believe anyone can enjoy a werewolf transformation.”
“I agree with that,” Andrei said with a heavy sigh.
It was in that moment that Mercy realized she had surpassed Thomas’s research months ago. Even with her subpar reading skills at the start and her minimal experience with chemicals, she had still surpassed him in sheer determination through observation, notes, and a willingness to experiment. Although Thomas had made an incredible breakthrough with Liquid Lead, he was having a hard time moving beyond it. He was struggling to discover more.
Mercy wasn’t sure if Thomas set too high of a goal for himself or if the environment and terror of the constant werewolf attacks propelled him to make Liquid Lead to begin with. Regardless, he had tried for years to find a cure and always hit walls. She had read his growing frustration and self-doubt in his notes, but it was still alarming to hear it in person. Thomas seemed like such a confident person when she first met him, but now she better understood his business persona, the face he wore to Kanta, and his eagerness to hand the research off to someone else. It was rare that he spoke of his true feelings.
“So if you aren’t destroying them,” Andrei asked, “then what are you doing with them?”
Thomas dragged a hand through his hair and eyed them with wariness. “I can’t kill them, not knowing what I do now. I had them moved to cages in the back there.” He pointed to a shadowy corner of the pit beneath the catwalk. The sunlight reflected off the snow drifts and made it hard to see them. Mercy had to shield her eyes to see the yellow eyes peering out.
The mushy ground squished beneath her shoes as Mercy approached them. The snow had been worn down as the werewolves were gathered, but the cages reminded her of shipping containers, all shoved against the wall. Andrei followed her over as Thomas continued.
“Since I can’t destroy them, I’m keeping them out of view from any visitors. I can’t have others know what I’m doing. Not yet at least. I can keep them comfortable until they’re fully healed, but after that, I don’t know what to do.”
Andrei seemed clearly shaken to see so many of his kind armless and shoved into a corner like so much storage. Still he tried to keep the conversation going and Mercy wasn’t sure if he was curious or if his nerves made his mouth run.
“It seems wrong to release them into the woods. Especially since they can’t change back from this.”
“Oh no, I can’t do that! They could kill people here in town or attack travelers. They could even go after your werewolf pack during the day. It would be far too dangerous.”
Mercy stepped closer to the cages. She counted twelve of them. Even if visitors did notice the crates down here, it would be hard to tell what was inside of them. Twelve pairs of dim, golden eyes stared at her, all of them without arms. Some leaned against the cage walls, others were flopped on the ground. None of them growled at her but she knew that didn’t mean they were safe to approach.
The vial of compound felt heavy in her pocket and her hands itched to pull it out, along with the darts. As passive as they were right now fresh off the grinder, they probably wouldn’t resist very much. Thomas might even let her move one of them to the laboratory for observation. She reached down into her pocket and took hold of the vial.
“Mr. Farrell! What do you want us to do with the old parts?” A voice called down from the catwalk.
Mercy’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t considered there would be workers around here still. For some reason she assumed Thomas had been working alone on upgrading the grinders, which was ridiculous. He would certainly have needed a whole team to get the equipment changed out, and to get the werewolves in their cages. Thomas couldn’t do everything on his own.
Grabbing Andrei’s arm, she dragged him to the wall a few feet down from the werewolf cages. Twelve pairs of golden eyes watched them with intense interest. She wondered when they were last fed.
“Mr. Farrell, are you down there, sir?”
Thomas didn’t respond until they were both pressed up against the wall, then he stepped out into the daylight with confidence. “Sorry, Murphy, I didn’t hear you! I’ll be up in a minute.”
“With all respect, sir, we don’t have all day. Some of us need to get home before nightfall.”
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” Thomas climbed up the ladder.
As he climbed, Mercy tried not to notice how nice it felt to have Andrei’s arm wrapped around hers. She couldn’t deny how much she enjoyed slinking around in the shadows with him either. Squeezing his arm, she wondered if he enjoyed this as much as she did, but he didn’t turn to her. Perhaps he didn’t.
Only when they heard Thomas talking with the worker up on the catwalk did Andrei turn to her.
“Why do we have to hide from him?” he whispered as he kept glancing up to the catwalk above.
“A young woman working at the mill? Everyone would start asking questions. I don’t want to attract the attention of any more hunters or traffickers. That was bad enough last time.”
“I remember you mentioned that Carter and Mitchell tried to kill you, but I don’t really get why.”
“Because I’m a young woman who prevented them from selling me off.”
His eyes went wide. “Like as a servant?”
She shook her head. “Something like that. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
He gave a slow nod and thankfully dropped the topic. Even though it had been months since the whole ordeal, Mercy still got tense just talking about it all. Even though she knew it was a cruel thought, she hoped Carter had already died on one of the grinders. She would have to ask Leyda later. She would understand. Andrei wouldn’t. He might even think her terrible for asking.
Thomas led Murphy down the catwalk toward the front reception room for the mill. Mercy stepped forward and watched to make sure they left through the door, then breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay, we should be good now.”
“Good.” Andrei laughed. “If it took too much longer you were going to have to find a spare werewolf cage for me down here.”
She gave him a bittersweet smile. Honestly she wasn’t sure how he could joke about his condition when Mercy couldn’t even think about Mitchell and Carter without grinding her teeth.
He stepped toward the ladder. “I guess we need to get out of here before they come back.”
Mercy shook her head. “No, not yet…” She pulled out the vial and a dart from her pockets. “I’ve got to figure out which one of these guys I’ll test this on first.”
Andrei clamped a hand on her wrist, tight enough to hurt.
“Ow, Andrei, let go!” He loosened his grip immediately and she wrenched her arm free. She rubbed at her wrist, grateful that she hadn’t dropped the vial. “What’s wrong with you?” Already hot tempered from talking about Mitchell and Carter, she really didn’t need Andrei adding to it.
“Sorry, I just…” He trailed off and stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “I can’t let you use that on them.”
Mercy sighed. “Really? We’re back on this again? I know they can’t give their consent to being experimented on, but they’re not going to live much longer as it is. It’s harsh, but doesn’t that make the most sense?”
Andrei shook his head slowly and bit his lip.
“Okay, then what’s the problem? Why stop me from testing a possible cure?”
He looked to the werewolves, then up to the catwalk, and his eyes misted over. “No, you’re not thinking this through.” He paused, still gnawing on his lip, and it took all the restraint Mercy had to not go over and jab a dart into one of the werewolves.
“What if it works?” he asked at last.
Mercy stared at him in disbelief. “If it works, we celebrate!”
“No, listen.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if to force the words out. “What if this works on one of these werewolves and it changes them back? They aren’t like me, Mercy, they’ve been strapped to a grinder for weeks, or months, or however long it takes a werewolf to die when they’re being worked to the bone day in and day out. They may not have their minds anymore, Mercy. They may not be able to speak or control their bodily functions. Just look at them, they can barely stand!”
She looked over them, past their dim amber eyes and unnerving stares. The few who were flopped on the ground hadn’t even tried to stand when she and Andrei stood merely feet away from their cages. In werewolf form they had the advantage of physical prowess far above what humans could achieve. What would happen to them if she took away that physical advantage and dropped them into their weaker human forms?
“I mean, they don’t even have arms. Can you imagine coming back to your senses and realizing you had lost a pair of limbs along the way? That’s horrible.” He dragged a hand across his face. “I panicked when I lost an eye and it took weeks to grow back. It was painful. I know you’re trying to help and your heart is in the right place, but I don’t think you’re thinking this through all the way, Mercy. Don’t be so eager to try your newest potential cure so much that you ruin their lives. If it does work, we can help all of these guys to heal up and get well before we give it to them. At least then we can prevent putting them through mental anguish and even more physical pain.”
Mercy put the vial and dart back into her pocket. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I’m just desperate to find another test subject so you don’t feel like you have to do it.”
As she said it, shame filled her as she realized what she was about to do. She looked at the werewolves with Andrei’s perspective and instead of seeing ideal test subjects caged and docile, easy to stick with a dart, she saw them as who they really were: unfortunate humans who had been poisoned, brutalized, and tortured. They had been used as free manual labor, had their arms ripped off, and had their minds taken from them.
They didn’t deserve to be experimented on further. They deserved to be allowed to heal, to recover from the brutality they had endured. If her concoction worked without any additional side effects, only then should she use it on them.
Andrei put an arm around her and squeezed.
“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. I can’t believe I was about to do something so…monstrous.”
“Don’t be like that. You just wanted to help.” He gently turned her away from the caged werewolves and back toward the ladder. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen and see if there’s anything good to eat.”
Mercy couldn’t help but chuckle. “We just had lunch a little while ago.”
“Hey, I had a big appetite before I got bitten. Now I’m an endless pit.”
Mercy went to the ladder and started climbing up. Her gaze still drifted toward the door that led to the reception room for the mill. Once she had climbed halfway up and the familiar burn settled into her arms, she looked down to Andrei and frowned. He was only ten or fifteen rungs up, way behind her, but he was moving at a slow pace. If they weren’t so close to that door, she would have called down to make sure he was okay.
She remembered how weak he looked in the laboratory earlier, barely able to get to his feet. Now he was having to climb up a ladder he really was in no shape to climb. She should have gone behind him to check on him, but she had been lost in her own thoughts and problems.
Reaching the top, she waited for him even though it was a huge risk to be standing right by the doors. She fancied she could hear Thomas and Murphy talking on the other side, and she hoped they wouldn’t open the door on her. Andrei climbed a good ten rungs, then had to loop his arm through and hang for a while to get his breath before he could climb another few rungs. The cold wind and icy metal rungs probably didn’t help. He was really doing well considering the state he was in, and she felt bad dragging him out here when he was clearly not well enough for it.
Finally when he reached the top, she helped him roll over onto his back on the catwalk. Gasping for breath, he was covered in sweat. She felt so bad for him. After a few moments she put a hand out to help him to his feet. Abruptly the doorknob to the reception room turned.
Mercy froze, still gripping Andrei’s hand. Andrei turned and stared at the doorknob. The door creaked open a crack and she heard Thomas’s voice.
“Wait, don’t worry about it now. We can look over it tomorrow. It’s getting late and you don’t want to be caught in Kanta after dark.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The door slid closed again and the doorknob turned back to normal. Mercy could breathe again.
Despite how much of a jerk Thomas could be, he was still protecting them. He risked much to keep them safe.
Though clearly worn out, Andrei let Mercy drag him to his feet. Neither of them wanted to be there anymore and, as quietly as they could, they ran along the catwalk toward the main tower.
Only when they were several grinders away did they slow down and finally talk.
“That was way too close for comfort.” Andrei tried to catch his breath.
“Right?” She smiled, stopping for a moment so he could have a break.
Leaning against the railing, Andrei said, “And by the way, I love you, but I’m never crawling down into one of those grinders again. My arms feel like jelly.”
She leaned in close and kissed his cheek. His skin was clammy and it wasn’t a very good kiss, but she couldn’t help it. Even if snow was beginning to fall again, she felt full of warmth. He actually loved her despite everything she had done.
Taking hold of his hand, she led the way to the kitchen, never wanting to let go again.