Mercy Rising: The Prophecy Read online

  MERCY RISING

  T h e P r o p h e c y

  B O O K O N E

  D. C. L I T T L E

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2021 DC Little, Little Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  DEDICATION

  To my sister.

  For her strength, fire, and endurance.

  May you forever hold out hope for the future you desire.

  Fight.

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Free Book!

  Continue the saga of

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Wow! What a journey this has been! I have to say my first thank you to the wonderful lady, talented author, fierce mama, and supportive friend, Heather Yates, for encouraging me to go forth with my dream of writing Post-Apocalyptic even though it is so different from the genre I found my success in.

  Of course, I need to thank my writer’s group, Women Writers of the Well. Without all of your support and encouragement I still would be writing stories for my eyes only. It’s been fun sharing this series with you every step along the way!

  A heart-felt thank you to my fantastic editors, Dianne McCleery, Karen Krieger, and so many others. Without your guidance and keen eye, my books wouldn’t be near as clean and consistent! And I can’t forget my ARC readers whose encouragement feeds me during those dry spells.

  Thanks to my mom for her unwavering support and encouragement. And a special thanks for my Sis, whose namesake makes this entire series special. I hope you love the fierceness Mercy exhibits as it is how I see you.

  And of course, where would I be without the two main men in my life! Thank you, My Love, for helping me with all the nuances of natural disasters and survival thinking. Your support in this project keeps me going strong. Thank you, My Little Love, and inspiration, for understanding how important Mommy’s writing time is and being excited whenever I receive one of my books in the mail.

  PROLOGUE

  20 years after the world went dark…

  >>>—MERCY—<<<

  “Spring,” Mercy sighed.

  She loved this time of year, listening to the musical trilling of birds, the rush of snow-melt waters, and the hum and buzz of insects. Lying on her favorite granite rock, its warmth seeping into her body, she closed her eyes. Allowing the obligations and unknown futures to fade, she existed only in this moment—a place she felt closest to the Creator.

  As long as she had this, she could make it through anything.

  Tucker popped into her mind, his serious eyes imploring hers. Her brother had always protected her, almost too much. He took after their father in that way.

  Change is coming, he had told her.

  She heard the words as if spoken by the gentle breeze that caused her hair to dance. Squeezing her eyes tighter, she concentrated harder on the hum and buzz of nature around her, anything except the reality that awaited.

  The unknown always struck more fear than the familiar enemy, and this new foe centered on her. Why? She hadn’t a clue, but her brother’s words always proved true. Besides, she could feel it in her bones—a vibration of expectation. She didn’t know which scared her more, the fear or the small tendrils of excitement that enticed her to come out and play.

  A strange call went through the canyon, high pitched and wild. Mercy pushed herself into a crouch and readied her bow. She scanned the canyon and the rocky cliffs around her, listening. There it came, a smaller, lower call.

  “Just another drill,” Mercy muttered.

  She plopped back onto her bum, let her heartbeat ease. Irritation filled her. Her dad had been calling more drills lately, and she tired of the game. Laying her bow next to her, she twisted her red hair into a knot on top of her head. With the hood of her cape pulled tight, her bright red hair wouldn’t spotlight her.

  All the guys seemed to want to find her during these drills. Tucker said they were coming to protect her, but she refused to accept their help. Mercy believed they looked to humiliate her. Everyone knew she was fully capable of taking care of herself.

  Everything had changed almost two years ago. The day she turned eighteen, the day she became an adult, her male friends treated her differently, and it got worse after she had turned nineteen. In a few months she would be twenty. What would happen when she actually turned twenty-one and had to choose?

  Ugh. She crossed her arms. A drill was the last thing she wanted to do right now, but sitting still only worked for so long. The training that she had completed every day was too ingrained. She crawled forward to peek over the large boulder she had been relaxing behind. Hardly anyone ever came here. She could probably hide out until it was over.

  Responsibility warred inside her. If she didn’t leave at least one mark on another or rescue at least one person, her dad would know. She could still hear the anger in his voice from the last time she tried to sneak out during one of these drills.

  Even the child of one of the dual leaders had to face the repercussions of not following orders, and she could still smell the latrines from the punishment.

  She puffed out a breath and pushed away from the rock to pace the small flat ledge she stood upon.

  They hadn’t been attacked since she was two, at least that’s what the stories said. Every Saturday night, they gathered at the communal fire or in the hub, and the Storyteller would perform stories from the past. The Attack of the Camp was a favorite of the people.

  Her preferred stories focused on the World Before. The foreign way of life enthralled her. Lights like enclosed candles that could be turned on with a flick of a finger. Pictures that moved like little people trapped in a box. What did the Storyteller call that...television?

  Tucker remembers television. He told her about the movies he had watched, but the whole idea seemed like magic to her. And the cars...the things a person climbed into that would speed across black trails faster than a person could run.

  Of course, she couldn’t forget what he said about the people. Thousands of people, as many as the trees. She couldn’t believe that. How could so many people all live together?

  The World Before might as well be fiction, like the stories of fairies and unicorns that some moms tell their kids. It wasn’t her life. Her life consisted of training: memorizing plants and their uses, hunting and preparing meat and skins, awareness, archery, using a knife in more ways than she cared to count, and of course, the hand-to-hand combat training.

  Her entire life, the life of the entire community, existed to be prepared...prepared for something that hadn’t happened in over seventeen years. Something that Tucker said would be upon them soon.

  A soft scrape of a moccasin on loose granite sent her flush against the boulder. She eased her breathing, listening for further movem
ent. Another step dislodged a few pebbles that bounced over the edge, landing at her feet. A muttered word, that would land the person who spoke it managing the latrines for a week, came from the incomer’s mouth.

  It gave him away on several accounts. Her skin crawled with the thought of Darius finding her. So, as the man stepped closer to the edge near her head, she twisted, yanked his feet out from under him, and landed him on the rock she stood upon. Even before he landed, she had her knife out and at his throat with her knee on his chest.

  “Oof,” Darius bellowed as he landed hard. His quick attempt to rise cost him a few pinpricks of blood from Mercy’s knife.

  “You’re caught, Darius. Game over.” With her other hand, she took an arrow with two green stripes on it from her quiver and jabbed it onto his chest. Mercy grinned with satisfaction as a puff of green powder blasted onto his shirt.

  Each person had a slightly different colored powdered paint to mark their kills. She had proven her involvement in the drill. Now, she could disappear. Pushing off the man with a disgruntled expression, she rose and turned.

  Darius jumped into a stand and grabbed her arm. “Don’t be in such a rush, little flame.”

  Mercy fumed, her chest filling with fire. “I have told you not to call me that.”

  “You know you like it. Don’t act like you’re above me. I’m as good a choice as any other.”

  Mercy shook him off her. “I’m not even of age. Leave me alone.”

  “Just because you can’t marry doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun.” Darius caught her in his arms.

  In one swift movement, she twisted and kneed him in the groin. As he groaned in pain, she dropped and kicked her leg to sweep him off his feet again. When he landed, she yanked his arm behind him, pulling it up almost to the breaking point.

  Darius moaned in pain, arching his back to relieve the pressure she put on him.

  Bending down close to his ear, she whispered menacingly, “If I told anyone of your actions, the leaders would flog you and put you in the hole. Do this one more time, and I’ll spare you the humiliation by putting you out of your misery once and for all.” She kicked him to the ground then bounded from rock to rock and disappeared before he had even risen to his knees.

  She made the mistake of fleeing into the trees. Her rage sent the birds flocking into the sky. Now everyone would know where she was. She tried to control the emotion as her mom taught, but it was no use. It spewed off her in an uncontrollable rush.

  How dare Darius come at her like that. Not only had he attacked her, he put her in a predicament of telling her dad or handling it herself. Plus, now she wondered if the others felt the same way about her. Did all the guys see her like he did?

  Maybe she should tell her father, set an example for the others. Yet, wouldn’t Darius’s sprained wrist, bloody lip, cut throat, and the limp she knew he would have, send an even better message? She didn’t need her daddy to solve her problems or her brother for that matter.

  “You’re unfocused.” Butler’s voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

  She hung her head. “You caught me.”

  Butler shrugged and pushed off the tree he had been leaning on, a grunt escaping his lips. His one good eye watched her, while he adjusted the arm that hung useless in the sling that had become his signature apparel.

  “Everyone gets caught sometimes, girlie.” He scanned the area as he approached her. “Now, do you want to tell me what that was all about?” He pointed to the birds settling above their heads.

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself.” He backed off but halted a few steps away. “I saw who slunk toward your rock, and I don’t see him returning.”

  “It might take him a few minutes to collect himself, but I didn’t toss him over if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “If you had, I’m sure he would have deserved it.” Butler reached up and squeezed her arm.

  “Oh, it was,” she muttered. “You’re not tagging me?”

  “Me? Nah, I didn’t see you. Besides, this drill is for you young’ns.” Butler winked and disappeared into the forest.

  She watched him go, her heart aching like it did each time she saw him. His pain was heavy and hit her harder than anyone else’s besides her family members. It was like his pain mirrored her own, as if they both held an emptiness for what Meyers had stolen from them.

  Tucker had promised him that his son would one day return, and though Butler fought against it, he had stayed in the community. Maybe Lexi had convinced him he wouldn’t do his son any good if he were dead, because he wouldn’t last in an actual fight. He did well enough during spars, but without the use of his dominant arm and no sight in one eye, he was at a serious disadvantage.

  A sense of danger nagged at her, pulling her back to the present.

  Mercy felt them coming before she could see them, their eagerness giving them away. She scrambled up a large cedar tree, clinging to the bark and wedging her moccasined toes in the thick depressions until she reached a high branch wide enough for her to lie across.

  A smile tugged at her lips. She may tire of the drills, but once in the game, she was all in. Mason came into view, then Charlie and two younger boys. Four. She twisted silently to check her quiver. She had five powdered arrows. Pulling one out, she pointed the blunted end wrapped in padded leather and covered in green powder down toward the forest floor before her.

  It would take a day or two for the color to wear off, long enough for everyone in camp to know who had marked them. Her chest warmed, thinking of the pride in her dad’s eyes when they lined up at the end of the drill.

  She slipped three more arrows out so she could shoot them in rapid-fire. As the birds above her quieted and flew back to their nests, her pulse rushed through her, sounding as loud as the spring runoff.

  “It had to be her,” Mason said, an arrow drawn back as he scanned the forest.

  “No one else affects the birds like that,” another said, looking straight up. He grunted as an arrow whacked him right between the eyes.

  The others watched him, stunned long enough for Mercy to let loose two more arrows, hitting her targets in the chest. A twang sounded from below, and she pulled herself close to the branch. An arrow shot past, spattering orange powder on the trunk behind her.

  She quickly nocked the last arrow, aiming from the opposite side of the branch and let loose the arrow just as Charlie turned into it.

  “Again!” Charlie shouted and stomped on the shaft at his feet. She heard the snap of her arrow and groaned. Making arrows was not her favorite thing to do.

  Mercy slipped her bow over her head and shoulder, then swung around the branch until she hung six feet above the ground. She dropped into a crouch, watching the guys cautiously. They weren’t supposed to retaliate. A hit meant you were out of the game, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to mark her after they were out.

  Slowly, she rose to a stand, watching Charlie warily while she retrieved the end of her arrow with the blunted point. An arrow was bad enough. She would not grind more seed for the powder.

  “You didn’t have to break it,” she muttered as she stuffed the point in her pouch.

  Charlie smirked before sauntering back toward camp with the others glaring at her before following.

  Mercy didn’t let it bother her. She snatched up her arrows, twirling them as she replaced them in her quiver. Five in one drill, not bad.

  Something slammed into her shoulder, spinning her as she crouched, pulling her knife and ready for an attack. A lighter green powder settled around her as she looked into the face of the foe who bested her.

  “Tucker.”

  Her brother walked toward her and reached a hand down to help her up, but she pushed to a stand without his help.

  “Looks like I’m still better,” he said with a wink.

  “For now,” she muttered.

  He stood a head taller than her, a fact that frustrated her to no end. He tugged off her hood
. “No need to hide that beautiful hair anymore.”

  Mercy shook the bun loose, enjoying the feeling of her hair hanging down. Tucker wrapped an arm around her as a double warbled call ended the drill.

  “You couldn’t have waited another minute?” she asked.

  “Nah, someone has to keep your head from getting too big.”

  As they closed in on the camp, she saw Darius hobbling ahead of them. Rage stiffened her movements despite her resolve not to let him bother her.

  Tucker halted them. “I saw him follow you. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  Mercy shook her head, hating how her eyes stung.

  “Little Sis, if he crossed…” Tucker blew out a breath, dropped his arm from her shoulder, and squeezed his fists together.

  “I put him in his place,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You need to tell Dad.”

  “I can’t have Dad solving all my problems.” She huffed and stuffed her hair behind her ears.

  “Then Arland, or I’ll take care of it.”

  “I told you, I handled it. Now leave it alone. I’m not getting disqualified for arriving late.” Mercy reached back and tugged him as she moved toward the lineup.

  Tucker always protected her, but this time she needed to stand on her own two, capable feet.

  Her dad walked the line, noting who had what colored mark on them. The men and women, boys and girls, stood jousting each other and kidding around. When he came to Mercy and Tucker, he nodded appreciatively and his lips twitched when his eyes landed on Tucker’s mark coloring her shoulder.

  The smile disappeared as he turned back to the group. “You laugh,” he shouted, his voice booming through the ravine. “Yet only five out of twenty of you have no mark. That’s five alive out of twenty!”

  The line of young men and women sobered. Each drill had a unique call. This one only involved older teens and unmarried adults. Her dad swore there was a purpose in segregating drills like this. She didn’t care enough to wonder about it.