by I. T. Lucas
“Perhaps they are related,” Lokan suggested. “They look like they could be cousins.”
“Putin would have killed his own brother for a failure like that,” Turner said. “Gorchenco must still be useful to him.”
They were getting off track. Lokan wasn’t nearly as scared of the Russian as he was of his father.
“If Gorchenco hasn’t sent assassins after me yet, he’s not going to. What I’m worried about is the summons. What if my father has somehow discovered my connection to the clan, and he plans to execute me or imprison me on the island?”
“Again, that’s not likely,” Turner said. “If he had, Navuh wouldn’t have summoned you for a week from now. He would have ordered you to get to the island right away.”
The guy’s cold logic and deductive ability were welcome.
“Maybe he’s unhappy with the job you’re doing,” Kian suggested.
“I didn’t give him any reason to be.”
“Then perhaps he has a new position for you,” Turner offered.
Thankfully, neither Kian nor Turner were using the opportunity to ask him what exactly he’d been doing lately.
“That’s possible. Navuh doesn’t let anyone get too comfortable in their positions, and he likes to reshuffle things every so often. I’ve been stationed in Washington for a long time, but as the only compeller he has, I’m irreplaceable.”
“I hate to repeat myself,” Kian said. “And I’ve said it before, but perhaps it’s time for you to bolt.”
Lokan appreciated Kian for worrying more about his safety than the clan’s best interests, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. If he severed contact with the Brotherhood, he could kiss his ambitions goodbye.
“I need to find out what my father is planning. What if it’s a strike against the clan?”
“Right,” Kian agreed. “There is that.”
“Are you going to rescue me if Navuh throws me in prison? I doubt that he’s going to execute his only remaining heir.”
“Somehow, we would get you out,” Kian replied in all seriousness.
“I was joking. You wouldn’t storm the island to rescue me. How would you even know that I’m in trouble? It’s not like I can call you with updates while I’m there.”
“Actually, you can,” Turner said. “I’ll give you a number to call if you feel like the noose is tightening. The front is a dry cleaning service in Washington. When you call, tell them that you forgot to pick up your dry cleaning, and that you are out of town. Ask them to store your suits in the back room. That’s going to be the code that you are in trouble, and they will let me know.”
“That might work only if I’m not immediately thrown into a prison cell.”
“You could ask someone to call the dry cleaners for you. And just so it looks legit, take a few suits there before you leave.”
“I’ll memorize the number, but I probably won’t use it.”
“I hope you don’t need to,” Kian said. “Still, Turner and I need to come up with a contingency plan for extracting you.”
“Don’t put too much effort into it. It’s going to be okay.”
Or so he hoped.
He needed to call Carol and tell her about the summons. She would freak out and demand that he drop everything and come to live with her in the village. If he refused, he wouldn’t be surprised if she assembled several of her Guardian friends and came to get him.
5
Anastasia
“It’s so damn cold out here.” Anastasia stuffed her gloved hands inside her puffer coat pockets. “I wish I'd remembered to bring my scarf.” The ocean-spray-infused freezing air whipped her hair around her face.
Margaret removed hers and handed it to her. “Here, put it on.”
The woman was selfless to a fault.
“You need it more than I do.” Ana took it from her and wrapped it around Margaret’s head and neck.
“You fuss over me as if you were my mother.”
“Someone needs to. At the rate you are going, you will work yourself into an early grave.”
Sometime during the three months they’d known each other, Ana had adopted Margaret as an older sister. At first, it was out of respect and gratitude for the dedication and compassion that she had shown Ana and the other acolytes she was counseling, but it had soon turned into something more.
Even though Margaret was much older and had come from a very different background than Ana, they had clicked from the very start and formed a friendship, masking it as private counseling. Just like romantic relationships, close ties between just two people were frowned upon by the community. Everything was supposed to be done in groups and be inclusive rather than exclusive.
Pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable terrified Margaret, but she was doing that anyway because she needed Ana just as much as Ana needed her.
The counselor was overworked, under appreciated, lonely, and in a constant state of stress. But since all of those things went against Safe Haven’s mission statement, she refused to fess up to any of it.
“Perhaps we should head back,” Margaret suggested.
“No way. I love our walks.” Ana wrapped her arm around her friend’s slim shoulders.
“I do too,” Margaret whispered. “These are the only breaks I get.” She smiled at her. “Thanks to you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Under the guise of additional personal sessions, for which Ana’s father was paying extra, Margaret got to take daily walks with her. Sometimes they talked about Ana’s issues, but mostly they just enjoyed each other’s company.
Tomorrow a new group was arriving for the two-week retreat, and Margaret had only a couple of days of rest after the last one had ended.
Not that those had been spent actually resting.
In addition to counseling at the retreat, she was also running workshops for the permanent residents of the community and giving private sessions to those who needed extra help.
“Emmett asked me to create a couple of new workshops for the community, so I’m not going to be doing individual counseling at the retreat this time. I will only be running workshops for the community.”
“That’s still a lot of work.”
“It is, but I’ll be spending a lot of time in the library and collecting material for the workshops. I really enjoy doing that.”
They were squeezing every last drop out of the woman, but instead of feeling used, Margaret was elated and grateful to be in a position to help others.
She was a true giver, and Ana doubted she herself could ever reach such a level of selflessness.
“Knowing you, that means more work, not less. You’ll be burning the midnight oil in the library and not getting enough sleep.”
Margaret shrugged. “Helping people gives my life meaning. When you graduate from the program and become a counselor, you will understand. There is no other calling as satisfying.”
“I’m sure that’s more satisfying than scrubbing toilets.”
Until she completed the training Ana was assigned to housekeeping, which was where all the newbies started. Supposedly, the simple tasks of cleaning the retreat’s guest rooms and scrubbing pots in the resort’s kitchens were part of the process. It was physically exhausting but oddly relaxing, and since all of them were dealing with one issue or another, resting their minds was deemed therapeutic.
There was something to it. But after six years of higher education, Ana hadn’t expected to be doing menial tasks.
It was worth it, though.
When she wasn’t working, she attended classes and group discussions, and she was finally talking about the voices in her head. After hearing others share their various issues and traumas and seeing how accepting Margaret and the other counselors were of it all, Ana had mustered the courage to share her story as well.
It had been such a huge relief to get it off her chest. Unlike her father, no one had made fun of her or told her that she needed psychiatric help.
People actually b
elieved that what she was hearing might be real. But despite her own doubts regarding the origin of the voices, this was the most lighthearted Ana had felt since her mother’s death.
She was free, even though every minute of her day was accounted for, and she was happy, even though she was working her butt off.
It was all thanks to Margaret and the friendship they shared. It had filled a void in Ana’s soul, providing her with the first solid, trusting connection of her adult life.
As they reached their favorite spot on the beach, they sat down on the flat rock that served as their bench. The horseshoe-shaped outcropping behind it provided shelter from the whipping wind and, most importantly, privacy.
Margaret removed the scarf from her head and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I’ve given some more thought to how you can tell if the conversations you hear in your head are real.”
Ana tilted her head. “How?”
“You said that sometimes the voices speak in foreign languages that you can’t understand. You can write it down phonetically, and we can try to match it to known languages. If we can decipher even a few words, you’ll have proof that they are real.”
Ana sighed. “Don’t you think that I have already tried that?”
“And?”
“I’ve managed to decipher a few words, but not enough to string together even one coherent sentence.”
“Still, it’s better than total gibberish, right?”
“Not really.” Ana sighed. “We collect a lot of random memories without being aware of them. I could have heard those words in a movie or a song, stored them in my subconscious, and then my imagination could have woven them into the conversations I hear.”
“You don’t believe that, though. You are convinced that what you hear is real.”
“Convinced is a strong word. I want to believe that they are real, because otherwise, I’ll have to accept that I’m crazy and that my father has been right all along. I hear the distinct voices, male and female, and the emotions behind them. That’s why they seem so real to me. Also, the stuff they say is sometimes as mundane as making a shopping list, and sometimes as dramatic as professing love or admitting infidelity. It’s encouraging that they don’t talk to me, which is what most schizophrenics report. Auditory hallucinations that are positive or neutral are usually not associated with mental disorders.” Ana closed her eyes. “But what if they are scenes that my mind recorded from movies or books and stored in my subconscious?”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t watch so much television.”
“If I’m focused on a show or a movie, I fall asleep before the voices come. I watch until I can’t keep my eyes open.” Thankfully, the voices didn’t bother her during the day. Mostly, she heard them right before falling asleep, when her mind was relaxed, and she was starting to drift off. “I wish I could get rid of them and whatever is wrong with my brain that makes me hear them, but since I can’t, mitigating the symptoms is the only thing I can do. That’s why Emmett agreed to let me have a television in my room.”
None of the others had them, but Ana had asked for one and had been granted temporary permission. The device wasn’t connected to any of the networks, and all she could watch were movies that had been approved by the head of their community, but it was better than nothing.
“Emmett has been very gracious in allowing you to have it.” There was a slight undertone of jealousy in Margaret’s tone.
Like most of the community's female residents, Margaret worshiped the ground Emmett walked on, and not just as a spiritual leader. They were like a bunch of groupies obsessed with a rock star, fighting for a turn in his bed.
After the television had been delivered to Ana’s room, the others naturally assumed that she’d expressed her gratitude that way, and even Margaret had doubted that nothing had happened between them.
When Ana had been granted an audience with Emmett, she’d been apprehensive about him expecting her to be like the others, but he hadn’t shown that kind of interest in her. He’d asked her a lot of questions about the voices, and he’d seemed interested in her as a person, but there had been no sexual innuendos.
She’d left his reception room somewhat offended.
The guy had bedded nearly every female in the community, and yet he had shown absolutely no interest in having sex with her. Ana was no beauty queen, but neither were the others.
Not that she would have been open to his advances if there had been any. Unlike the others, she wasn’t vying for a spot in his bed.
Emmett was charming, charismatic, and despite being old enough to be her father, he was also quite handsome. Not that he looked his age, but he’d been running the retreat for the past twenty-seven years, so she assumed that he was in his mid- to late fifties.
The guy kept himself in extraordinary shape for a man his age.
Nevertheless, despite her daddy issues, she wasn’t looking for a father figure in a lover.
In fact, the idea grossed her out.
She hadn’t connected with any of the other men either, which had earned her several stern reprimands about being selfish and closed off emotionally. But because she was still new, she had been given more time to adjust to the free-love culture of Safe Haven.
Eventually she would have to partake, or she might get voted out of the community. Her father’s money wasn’t the only thing Ana was obligated to contribute to the collective. Members were expected to give everything they had, and in return to receive all that they needed.
Those who were deemed selfish were not welcome to stay.
6
Leon
As the bus stopped in front of the Safe Haven lodge, Leon slung the strap of his duffle bag over his shoulder and followed Peter down the steps.
The plan was to pretend they didn’t know each other before arriving and then pretend to become friends during their stay, which was why he hadn’t sat next to Peter or Eleanor on the bus.
Leon stopped next to his friend and looked at the cloudy sky. “Do you think it’s going to rain today?”
Peter sniffed the air. “I don’t think so.” He offered Leon his hand. “Hi, I’m Devlin.”
“Sam.” Leon smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
After the driver had finished offloading everyone’s luggage, Peter pulled his suitcase from the pile. Stretching, he took a deep breath. “Just smell this air. You don’t get such a fresh ocean breeze even in Malibu.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Leon found his suitcase and pulled it aside. “I’ve never been there.”
Since they were supposed to be from two different states, neither of them being California, Peter shouldn’t have mentioned Malibu.
“I have an aunt who lives there,” the guy corrected his slip. “She doesn’t have an ocean view, but she gets the breeze.”
Being walking distance to the ocean shore had been one of the retreat’s main selling points, and in the summer it was probably lovely, but it was too cold now.
For someone who had grown up in the Scottish Highlands, Oregon’s winter weather was mild, but Leon had gotten used to California’s nearly year-round sunshine and loathed leaving it behind.
He also didn’t like arriving at the place on a bus and not having his own mode of transportation.
All the guests had been instructed to get to a nearby train station and were collected from there, which meant that the only way out was either on foot or by hijacking the bus.
The problem was that Safe Haven was completely isolated, with the nearest town more than half an hour's drive away.
Eleanor, or rather Marisol, which was her fake name for the mission, passed them by and joined a group of women gathered around a female counselor in a white puffer coat.
“Men over here!” a male counselor called out.
“What is this? PE class?” one of the guys grumbled.
“This is just for the orientation.” The counselor motioned for the men to follow him.
Leon’s gaze followed the wome
n, who headed inside through a different entrance than the one the male counselor was leading them to.
The location was breathtaking, but the structure they were entering looked like an enormous renovated barn.
Inside, it wasn’t too bad though. The decor was simple, with exposed beams on the ceilings and hardwood floors. Several seating areas were arranged around lit fireplaces, and everything was spotless, which he appreciated.
Cleanliness was a sign of good organization.
“In here, gentlemen.” The counselor opened the door to a large classroom, where another group of men was already seated.
Apparently, the bus had made an earlier trip to collect guests from the station. It made sense. Not everyone had arrived on the train. Some had flown in and had taken another mode of transportation to get there.
“Here it comes,” Peter murmured as he took a seat in one of the student chairs. “The New Age mumbo jumbo.”
Sitting down, Leon shot him a reproachful look. They were supposed to pretend that they were into the stuff, not scoff at it.
The counselor walked in last and closed the door behind him. “Welcome to Safe Haven. My name is Henry. Let’s get to know each other, shall we?”
There were about forty men of various ages in the classroom, but none of them were minors, which took care of one of Leon’s concerns, and none seemed to be over forty, which he found curious. Older humans were usually wealthier than young ones, so apparently, the retreat’s main objective wasn’t to collect members who could contribute the most money to the collective. It seemed they wished to create a cohesive group.
Once each man had introduced himself by first name, age, and hometown, Henry launched into a short sales pitch, repeating pretty much verbatim what they had already read on the retreat’s website.
“Any questions?”
One guy lifted his hand. “If cellphones are not allowed, what happens if someone needs to reach us in an emergency?”
Leon rolled his eyes. Everything had been spelled out in the brochure they’d received in the mail together with the invitation to the retreat. Apparently, some hadn’t bothered to read the instructions.