Fearless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  “Of course,” he said, not missing a beat. “It pains me every day that I was Forgiven for things that so many others weren’t. That my sins were washed away while others were Punished.”

  “Like what happened with my mother.” I wasn’t going to let this go until he gave me a straight answer.

  His voice grew quiet. “Like that, yes. If she was taken, I should have been, too.”

  There it was. It was true. They had been having an affair. Though I’d come in with such bluffing confidence, the reality of it still blew me away, left me weightless, adrift, reeling. How could I reconcile this newly uncovered sin with the impeccable picture of my mother I’d always held in my mind? I’d idealized her, filled in the gaps in my knowledge of her with wishes instead of facts. But all those stories I’d told myself about her perfection would have to be rewritten now.

  “I’m sure Great Spirit had His reasons for taking her,” I mumbled, trying to conceal my shock.

  Joshua could tell I was upset and softened his tone further. “All I can imagine is that Great Spirit needed me to help lead humankind toward enlightenment, despite my moral failings. Though what human doesn’t have those?”

  As he spoke, I realized that my trail of clues had reached a dead end. It seemed as far as Prophet Joshua knew, my mother really was dead. Which meant, if he was right, I had a whole new reason to hate him—he was the one responsible for her death.

  “Why didn’t you try to help her?” I couldn’t help but ask. “She didn’t die right away; you could’ve sat at her side, like my father did. You help people. You touch them and they’re Forgiven.” I could hear the accusation in my tone, despite my best attempts to contain it.

  “I tried, of course I did,” he insisted, with a kind of passion that made me believe him. “I wondered why I couldn’t help. But eventually I had to accept that Great Spirit must have had His reasons. I assumed He wanted to free me from all possible distractions.”

  My stomach curdled with that last sentence. A distraction. That was what my mother had been to him? And the way he said that word—“all”—it sounded like my mother wasn’t the only distraction. A picture was sharpening of the kind of man Prophet Joshua really was, beneath his holy veneer, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  Slowly, over the course of our conversation, I’d started to accept that maybe Dawn had been right; maybe my mother really was dead, that the woman I’d seen in the bunker was just some hallucination caused by smoke inhalation. All the hope I’d been holding suddenly felt silly. Prophet Joshua himself thought she was long gone, thought he’d been the reason for her Punishment. Here he was confessing it all, with what appeared to be real remorse. Dawn had never heard of Valerie Luther; if she was alive, surely there would have been some paper trail, some evidence.

  Though Joshua was the last person in the world I would have thought to trust, the truth made clear by his admission was unavoidable. My mother was dead. I’d hallucinated her. That was the only explanation that made any sense.

  But—Great Spirit had wanted me to end up in this room for some reason, I was sure of it. The calm I felt looking at Prophet Joshua seemed to confirm that theory. I tried to figure out why, what purpose this meeting could have to our larger goal, but I came up short.

  Here was this man who had foisted a lie upon all of us. He had killed millions, possibly billions of people, and he didn’t care. Not even about the ones he knew intimately. I was seized with a sudden urge to tear him limb from limb—if I couldn’t find my mother, I wanted to at least avenge her.

  He must have seen that, must have expected what his disclosure might do to me. He looked down, casually spinning a prayer wheel on a nearby table. “I’m telling you all this because I trust you,” he said.

  And because you know if I catch you in a lie, I might start to guess the truth—that you’re evil.

  His faux-empathetic eyes bored into mine. “You don’t need to tell your father anything we talked about today. Great Spirit won’t mind if you keep this secret.” He was trying to relieve me of my guilt.

  I nodded, and as he placed a hand on my arm, I could feel myself being Forgiven. The beauty bestowed upon me via the prophet’s touch was unlike anything I’d felt since the Moment. Instinctively I was awed—there was a reason Joshua was famed for his healing hands.

  But then I glanced at the prayer wheel he’d touched right before laying his hands on me. Though it looked perfectly ordinary, I was certain there must be something on it, some sort of drug that worked like Zack’s pills, that entered the bloodstream through skin contact. As he let go, the faintest hint of yellow residue on my skin confirmed that suspicion.

  “How do you feel?” he asked with a charitable smile.

  “Amazing. Thank you,” I said, making my voice breathless, remembering I had to play my part.

  “You’re welcome.” It was time for me to leave.

  As I exited, the high of Joshua’s fake healing touch faded into my very real misery. Any hope of seeing my mother again was dashed, and I was going to have to grieve her all over again, now that I’d learned the truth. I wasn’t quite sure what my defiance of Dawn had accomplished, although I remained certain it would prove to be the right decision in the long run. Except that now I had no idea what to do next.

  As I exited the building, I felt pinpricks down my spine: someone was watching me. Certain it must be Zack, I glanced around until my eye eventually caught a tall, shadowy figure—most definitely not Zack—leaning against a wall, gaze trailing me.

  A lurch of fear went through me—was this it, finally? Had Joshua sent someone to do his dirty work for him? He couldn’t have me die in his office, after all.

  But when the man lifted his head, I recognized his features—the square jaw, the deep brown eyes, the mess of dark hair. It was Jude.

  5

  It took me a moment to really believe it was him. It had been so long, and I wasn’t expecting to see him, especially not here. But the moment I pieced his features together into a face I recognized, the moment I realized that the man I’d been trying to push out of my mind for months was finally standing right in front of me, my heart soared. Jude was alive. He was here, in Washington, D.C. He’d found me. My instinct was to run to him, kiss him, but I restrained myself. We were in public, within yards of Walden Manor.

  He made eye contact with me and walked away down the street—a sign he wanted me to follow. I trailed behind him, ease washing over me as I watched his familiar gait. He entered a public library, and I followed him up the stone steps, deep into the racks of books. Finally, he turned to me, full of concern. “Are you okay?”

  I was overcome with emotion, hearing his voice. I thought of all the imagined conversations I’d had with him since we were separated . . . now, finally, he was here, and real. Instinctively I moved to embrace him, but he took a step back as I touched his arm. “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. There was a strange hesitance between us, like an invisible barrier had gone up while Jude was gone, and now I didn’t know how to break through again.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. Are you furious? Do you hate me?

  “Everything’s fine,” he said gently. “I just think we should leave all that in the past.” Despite his careful tone, I could tell something wasn’t the same. That my decisions had hurt him, whether he was willing to admit it or not.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again. “I wanted to reach out, but I couldn’t . . .”

  “That’s not what I’m here to talk about.” His voice stayed businesslike, erasing our history in a way that irked me. “Dawn says your cover’s blown, but you refused to go into hiding.”

  “I just walked into Walden Manor and sat down with Joshua. My cover’s fine,” I said, defensive.

  “Because Dawn had your back,” Jude said firmly. “She disabled all the security cameras at the hospital. And since you used a fake name, they haven’t traced the incident back to you—yet.” />
  “But eventually they will,” I finished for him.

  “Eventually. For now, it seems like Zack is covering for you, too. We’ve hacked their network, we’ve seen all his correspondence.” So Zack had been telling the truth. I thought back on everything Zack had said over the past few days. Letting me know my house was bugged; in retrospect, that was a pretty big admission on his part, a risky play if it wasn’t sanctioned by Prophet Joshua.

  “Do you know why he covered for me?” I asked.

  “Maybe he’s in love with you,” Jude joked. A hint of jealousy? Or was I just hoping it was?

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s not in love with me. I think he’s protecting me so I’ll trust him, tell him things.”

  That seemed to concern Jude. “If that’s true, you don’t have much time. At some point, he’s going to tell Joshua the truth.”

  I knew that already. Had Jude come here just to scold me? Pick up where Dawn left off? “You think I haven’t had this conversation with Dawn already?”

  “Dawn told me this is all because of your mother. What’s going on, she said you saw her?”

  Something about hearing the question from Jude gave me strength, no matter how skeptical he sounded. He’d met her, he’d been to her funeral; my mother was a real person to him, in a way she never could be to Dawn.

  As I relayed the whole story, I finally felt like someone was listening to me, believing what I’d seen. And the way he nodded, I knew he didn’t think I was a crazy person, which was gratifying after Dawn’s reaction, and even Zack’s.

  “But the way Joshua was talking about her . . . don’t you think I must’ve been wrong? She’s dead, isn’t she?” I finished.

  Jude looked at me with sympathy. “I honestly don’t know. But I do know that you have friends who care about you. And a massive network of people on your side, who can help you. But trust me, they won’t be inclined to look for your mother if you’re running around as a liability to them.”

  I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Dawn sent you to bring me in, didn’t she?” It stung to think that was why he was here, just following Dawn’s orders.

  Jude’s face was pained. “No. She left you for dead. I came myself as soon as I heard.”

  “You thought I’d listen to you.”

  “Well, no.” He smiled a little bit. “You’re not much for listening to anyone. But I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for you to die.”

  He’d risked his life to try and save mine. Again. At that, I couldn’t help myself—I gave him a hug. For a moment, he let me, wrapped his arms around me tightly, and it was like coming home; I’d forgotten I could feel so safe.

  He tried to stay focused. “I’ve got a passport for you, under a fake name. We’ll get you out of the country, somewhere out of Joshua’s reach.” He pulled away and looked me in the eye, waiting for a response. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said softly.

  “Go home, get ready. I’ll send a taxi to your house at eight, it’ll take you to the train station. Get in it. And this time—don’t get out until you get there?”

  I smiled, finally. “I promise.”

  I reached out and took his hand—he squeezed it, but quickly let me go. I watched him hesitate before finally building up the courage to say, “There’s one other thing I should tell you.”

  My stomach lurched. “What is it?”

  “I thought you’d be more likely to get in the cab if you didn’t know. But . . . I don’t want to lure you somewhere under false pretenses.”

  “Jude, what is it?” I couldn’t handle the suspense.

  He said gently, “There’s someone else.” My heart nearly stopped, but I remained silent as he continued. “We’ve been dating for about four months, and she means a lot to me. You’ve been my friend as long as I can remember, and nothing can change that, but . . . I know we’d started down a road, before you had to go radio silent, so . . .”

  I felt the pressure of tears beating against my eyelids, but I managed to keep them at bay, keep my face neutral. At least, I hoped so. “I totally understand,” I said quickly. “I’m happy for you.”

  “You’re still coming?” Jude looked at me, relief and skepticism warring in his expression.

  “I’ll get in the cab.” I swallowed and plastered a smile on my face.

  The tension seemed to drain out of him, finally. “Good. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  I know, I wanted to say. I know you’ll always worry about me, even when you love someone else. That’s what makes you so wonderful. That’s why I’m so heartbroken.

  He gave me instructions on where to go once I got to the station, before leaving me with one final reminder: “Eight p.m. Don’t bring anything with you.” As he walked away, I stared at his receding form, steeling myself. I couldn’t cry until he was out of sight. I was the one who had chosen this road, after all. And I hadn’t been lying; I wanted Jude to be happy, more than anything. I loved him. But my insides burned with regret. In that moment, I hated myself for not making it to that meeting point, not running away to Nova Scotia with him.

  Don’t get in the taxi, was all I could think, as I found myself descending into a fatalistic spiral. Why even bother? The moment Jude disappeared into the stacks, I gave in to my despair. Jude might be alive, but he was no longer mine.

  I cried as quietly as I could, the cold metal shelves digging into my spine as I collapsed against them. You had a mission, I reminded myself. You gave up your own happiness to try and make a difference. But nothing I’d done felt worth it. It had all been a waste.

  My brain’s disparaging voice grew louder as I crumpled into a ball on the library floor. Why keep running? What’s the point now?

  “Grace?” I’d been so caught up in my sadness I hadn’t even noticed a figure approach. I sat up and swiftly brushed away my tears, hoping my crying hadn’t been too audible.

  It was Zack. Of course it was. His voice brimmed with a kind of certainty, a finality. “It’s time for you to tell me the truth.”

  He was sterner than I’d ever seen him before, his usual charm, his friendliness, nowhere to be found. And as much as that charm had annoyed me before, now that it was gone I desperately missed it. “You ignored my advice. You went to Walden Manor, asking questions. And now, Samuel is asking me questions. And I can make up a story, I can keep covering for you; I’ll do that. But if you don’t tell me what’s really going on, I’m going to have to tell him the truth sooner or later.”

  “And what’s the truth?” I asked haughtily, calling his bluff.

  His tone was deadly serious. “That you pass mysterious notes with strangers. That you conveniently went for medical treatment at a hospital in New York, under a fake name, at the exact same time that a terrorist attack occurred in the basement.”

  My whole body went numb. He knew everything. “I’m not a terrorist,” I stumbled out, my lips dry and trembling.

  “You’re right, I can’t prove it. Because the only person who could have identified you died in the blast.”

  In my haste to find my mother, I’d forgotten about the guard. No, I corrected myself; I’d intentionally put him out of my mind because on some level, I was afraid of what the truth might be. Afraid of what I might have done, for good reason. I tried to hide my horror, keep my cover, but my guilt was too overwhelming. “Died?” I sputtered.

  Zack seemed almost pleased to have finally pierced my armor. “Pronounced dead last night. Proud of yourself?”

  No.

  I’d been part of the raid on the West Virginia prison-lab where dozens of scientists had perished . . . but that had been Dawn’s fault. Dawn’s mistake. This mistake was mine. Someone else was dead because of me, my actions, my failure.

  I was a murderer.

  I’d been raised with such black-and-white rules about morality; they were the rules that kept our world safe. I’d always been taught that there was no such thing as killing in the name of a god, or a nation, or an ideology—no
t even in self-defense, not even to protect those you loved. Killing was wrong, no matter the circumstance. And Punishments proved that: the Punishment for committing murder, for any reason, was always swift and deadly.

  In my early childhood, I could remember people justifying war as something that was for the greater good . . . but that was logic from an archaic time, when mankind was ruled by less civilized principles. Now we knew better—violence only begets violence, that had always been obvious. But here I was, making those same brutish justifications, trying to find some way to make myself feel okay about this. I was a soldier, I told myself. I was following orders. I’d taken one life, but saved millions. It was the same logic Dawn had used to justify the massacre in West Virginia—the irony was not lost on me.

  I felt sick. I’d joined this cause because I’d thought I could do better than Dawn, that I could make her movement better. But instead, Dawn had made me worse.

  I’m a murderer. For the rest of my life, I’d be a murderer. The guilt tore at me, left me in shreds.

  And as I spiraled, I realized, I hadn’t taken a pill since the previous night . . . and I was experiencing a Punishment that fit my crime. The guilt I felt was literally suffocating me.

  And I wanted it to. I deserved it, I deserved more than death.

  I gasped, my lungs constricting. Just before I passed out, I felt myself falling to the ground, falling into Zack’s arms. And then I felt nothing.

  6

  When I regained consciousness, I could feel the residual pinprick in my arm; Zack must have shot me up with lifesaving drugs. I could feel them coursing through my veins, easing my feelings of remorse. But not erasing them. Nothing ever could.

  I lay with my head in Zack’s lap, and my eyes fluttered open to find him staring down at me. No longer angry, no longer judgmental. Just looking at me with an unexpected empathy, and concern.

  But I knew he knew. “Let’s stop playing games, okay?” he said.