by Bev Elle
Obsidian Faith
by Bev Elle
Published by Bev Elle Press
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
OBSIDIAN FAITH • Copyright © 2014 by Bev Elle
Editing by Rare Bird Editing www.rarebirdediting.com
Book design by Thaigher Lillian
All rights reserved in all media under International and Pan-American Copyright conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, now known or hereinafter invented, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions,” at the email address below.
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CreateSpace Trade Paperback Edition Published 2014.
ISBN 978-0-9905062-2-5
First Edition: December 2014
14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright Page
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
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
A Note From Bev Elle
Upcoming Books From Bev Elle
An Excerpt From The Parisian Assignation
PART ONE: The Substance of Things Hoped For
Chapter One
February 1997
“Leave me alone!”
The plaintive wail got to him. At ten, Trevor Landon knew to mind his own business, but something about the little girl, Shanice, the newest resident at the Baptist children’s home, made him feel protective. Trevor had learned in his short three years in the system to keep his head down. He was only an orphan, after all. Not an idiot. Sometimes orphans had to be selfish in order to survive, but today he couldn’t ignore the cruelty, even though it wasn’t directed at him.
Maybe his reaction to Shanice was because she reminded him of his little sister, Natalie, who’d been about her age when their crazy-assed mom decided child-rearing wasn’t for her. A few weeks shy of her fourth birthday, and his seventh, Natalie stepped into an open elevator shaft while dear old mom was taking them on a field trip at three a.m. to score some meth from her local dealer.
That was the last straw for the Department of Children and Family Services, and they inducted Trevor into the foster care system. When his mother overdosed six months later, he became a “permanent resident of the system.” His mother may not have killed his sister with her own hands, but she might as well have. He didn’t know what the hell had saved his life, and he had mixed feelings about it most of the time. That was about to change.
“Stop it!” Shanice said.
She had a cute little voice with the slightest lisp. He moved away from the computer, which is where he planted himself most days after his chores were done.
A couple of older children were picking on her, and he’d had enough. Trevor wasn’t a vigilante, per se, but he’d certainly learned to take care of himself since he’d become a ward of the church-operated facility.
“Give it back,” Shanice said, now near tears. She reached in vain for the teddy bear the bullies had taken from her. One boy, Darrien, and a girl, Shayla, both taller and bigger, were playing keep-away with it.
“Don’t be such a baby.” Shayla sneered. “There’s no room for teddy bears in a children’s home.” She tossed the bear to her partner as Shanice looked on in terror.
“Yeah, a baby in diapers even,” Darrien said. “They only adopt babies from this joint, so maybe you’re onto something.” He tossed the bear back to Shayla.
Shanice reached for her toy. “I don’t care. Give it. It’s mine.”
Trevor stepped up to Darrien, who he bested in height by an inch or so. “Give the little girl her toy back. Now,” he said, careful to make his ten-year-old voice sound as ominous as he could.
“What’s it to ya?” Shayla asked. “This brat your little sister, or something?”
Hitting a girl, no matter how mean, wasn’t an option, but he remembered what his mom used to do. A few well-placed pinches and she dropped the teddy bear, which Shanice promptly scooped up. When Darrien moved into Trevor’s personal space, fists raised, Trevor tagged him with a perfect right hook. Blood spewed from the boy’s nose like a geyser, and he cried harder than Shanice had just moments ago.
With all the noise they made, they wound up in the office of the house parents, an apprentice pastor named Isaiah Bailey, and his wife, Brenda. Trevor liked them better than the last house parents, because they were fair and actually listened to what the kids had to say. Isaiah had a pro wrestler’s build, but he was a kind man. While Brenda took care of Darrien, Isaiah took them, one-by-one, out into the common area to get their stories.
Afterward, Isaiah said, “I have two of you telling one version of events and two telling me another. It’s almost dinner time and I want to get to the bottom of this. Right now, Trevor, I can say you’re clearly the aggressor, because you pinched Shayla and punched Darrien.”
“They were asking for it. Picking on Shanice who’s new and younger than the both of ‘em.”
Isaiah touched Trevor’s shoulder in a calming gesture. “That may be true, son, but how do we handle conflict here?”
“With our words, not our fists,” Trevor mumbled.
“Now, how am I to rule on this one? Shayla and Darrien say you used violence against them for no reason. They were just playing with Shanice.”
“What if I can prove them wrong?” Trevor said.
“How would you do that?”
“I left the video cam running on the PC when I asked them to stop bothering Shanice.”
Isaiah’s eyebrows rose. “Want to play the video back for me?”
“Sure.”
Pastor Bailey was so impressed with Trevor’s video surveillance he began to use the makeshift security cams to help figure out who was breaking the rules and to solve disputes. Trevor was able to do things on the PC the average adult couldn’t do. This included writing programs and retrofitting the outdated systems.
Recognizing Trevor’s skill, Pastor Bailey introduced Trevor to his friend David Kyle, a Harvard-educated computer programmer who’d also been a Marine intelligence officer. David was one of the best “white hat hackers” in the world, and he began grooming Trevor when he was able to get up to the Sanford facility. But the majority of their mentoring sessions were done by computer.
Aft
er the incident with the bullies, two things changed. Because of David Kyle, Trevor’s computer skills improved exponentially, and Shanice was so thankful for his help, she became his lifelong fan club of one. She was never far from him when they got home from school, and she always sat next to him at dinner. They fell into a routine of doing their homework together in the common room. Shanice would try to get Trevor, who usually liked to keep to himself, to talk to her any way she could.
“Can you write all your letters and numbers?” Shanice asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “You kinda have to know that stuff in order to do homework.”
“My homework is writing letters and numbers…and making colors,” she said glumly. “When will I be able to write lots of stuff like you?”
“Probably when you’re about second grade,” he said.
“Good, because I’m bored.”
She colored another picture, being careful to stay inside the lines, while Trevor turned back to his own math homework. She stopped coloring and sighed.
“Trevor, do you remember your Mommy?”
He frowned. “Yeah, probably more than I would like to. How about you?”
“Yeah. She got sick and throwed up then went to sleep and didn’t wake back up. The lady in the blue suit brought me here, and I didn’t see her again.”
“What about your Dad?”
“I never had a daddy. Mommy had lots of boyfriends, though.”
“Don’t tell that to the other kids. Darrien and Shayla will use it against you.” Trevor learned this the hard way when he naively believed all the other kids in the home were his friends.
“Okay. It can be our secret.”
Trevor also knew about mothers who sold their bodies for money and drugs. He didn’t like to think about how he’d never know his dad, because it hurt. Even though Shanice was half his age, he knew he could trust her. It was likely neither he nor Shanice would ever know their biological fathers.
“I miss my Mommy. Do you miss yours?” she asked. Her brown eyes were wide with curiosity.
“I do, and I don’t.” Trevor missed the mom he’d never known. The one before she became a meth-head.
“I have a picture of my Mommy. You want to see it?” Shanice asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
She picked up the tiny locket she wore around her neck all the time and opened it. Inside was a picture of a brown-skinned African American woman who looked to be in her early twenties, and on the other side was a white baby.
“This is my Mommy before I was born, and this is a picture of me when I was a baby.”
Trevor pushed his blonde hair out of his eyes and studied the pictures.
“Uh... nice.” He didn’t have many good family memories, so he didn’t quite know what to say.
“You know what we should do, Trevor?”
“What?”
“We should adopt each other, since we don’t have a Mommy or Daddy.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “We can be like the two musketeers.”
Shanice looked confused. “What’s a musketeer?”
“They were like these special soldiers who guarded the king of France a long time ago. Their special motto, uh, saying, was ‘one for all and all for one.’”
She looked more confused. “And what does that mean?”
“They had each other’s back... looked out for each other.”
“Like we’re always going to do, right?” She said and gave him a big smile.
“Right.”
From that day forward, in Shanice’s eyes, Trevor could do no wrong.
Chapter Two
Trevor and Shanice were in the common room a few months later, when Brenda Bailey came to them. Trevor was manipulating a screen of computer code, and Shanice was sitting in a comfy chair not far from him reading a book. She smiled at them. Brenda loved how he and Shanice had bonded and had told Trevor as much, but he knew her too well. She was about to give them some news he wasn’t going to like.
“Thought I’d find you two out here,” Brenda said.
Trevor and Shanice gave her their undivided attention.
“Hey, Ms. Brenda,” they said almost in unison.
“Would you two come to the office? Isaiah and I have some news for you.”
Trevor was sure it wasn’t to tell him he was adopted. The older he got, the less likely it was to happen. Shanice stood a greater chance, because she was adorable and still young enough to luck out. But he wasn’t sure how he would feel if that happened for her. She’d taken Natalie’s place, and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her.
When they entered Pastor Isaiah’s office, David Kyle and another woman were there.
“Trevor, Shanice, you know David Kyle, and this is David’s wife, Elena.”
Elena Kyle looked happy to meet them. But even though the Baileys were cool, after what his mom did, Trevor still didn’t trust adults until they’d earned it.
Isaiah smiled and said, “In a couple of weeks, Brenda and I are leaving the home, because I’m accepting the pastorate at Trinity Baptist Church in Orlando, but we’ve begun proceedings to adopt Shanice, so she’ll be going with us.”
Shanice ran to Brenda, who had her arms waiting to receive the new addition to their family.
“Oh, Ms. Brenda,” Shanice said. “You’re going to be my mommy!”
“Yes, I am,” Brenda said.
Then she stood back and said. “Are you and Pastor Isaiah going to be Trevor’s mommy and daddy, too?”
The question caught them briefly off guard. Then Pastor Isaiah finished the rest of his news. “Trevor is going to be adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Kyle.”
To say Trevor was stunned was an understatement. The Kyles seemed like decent folks, especially David, but Trevor would reserve judgment until he got a chance to know them better as his foster parents.
“But I don’t want to leave Trevor,” Shanice said, her bottom lip trembled, as her eyes filled with tears.
Brenda kneeled in front of Shanice so they were on eye level. “You won’t have to. Not really. The Kyles live in Orlando right down the street from where we’ll be living. You’ll see Trevor all the time.”
Trevor tried not to smile. To stay cool. But he couldn’t. He felt his face break into a grin. The best he could do was to dial his smile a little lower than Shanice’s.
Getting a new family was a dream come true for Trevor. All he’d ever wanted was someone to care about him, to truly care what happened to him. To love him.
When Trevor entered the two-story Tudor house with the red brick, white trim, and red shutters, he finally felt as if he was home. When the Kyles wrapped him in their arms, he knew it was what he’d been waiting for all his life. He grabbed his duffle bag and unpacked it in what would be the first room he’d had to himself, ever. Then he went to explore the rest of the property. There was a huge backyard with a screen-covered pool and the greenest grass he’d ever seen. He couldn’t wait to play catch with David, as if he were a regular kid.
Like any other kid in a place that was almost perpetually sunny, Trevor played sports. Oddly, he found he was good at them, despite being the biggest geek alive. Growing up in Orlando was the best. It was an orphan child’s wildest dream. Disneyworld was practically in his backyard, and there was never a lack for anything to do.
As time went on, Trevor realized the Kyles were almost as nice as Pastor Isaiah and Brenda. Sure, they had to get through some rough parts, mostly because of his trust issues, and the Kyles had to set him straight about what they expected from him. Even though David was a former marine, he was as much a computer geek as Trevor. And Elena was kind of a pushover.
Trevor settled into a routine that resembled family life for the first time. Just as the Baileys promised, if he wasn’t at their house, Shanice was at the Kyles. He and Shanice got to play and swim together with the other neighborhood kids, to go to Trevor’s games with the Kyles, and to Shanice’s dance recitals and other activities. The summer flew b
y, and he and Shanice were enrolled in a school affiliated with Pastor Isaiah’s church, rather than Orange County public schools, so this meant they were able to go to the same school for a change. Brenda and Elena took turns driving them.
The night before the first day of school, David came into Trevor’s room to talk to him. He was already in his pajamas and about to go to sleep.
“Ready for your big day tomorrow, son?”
“Yes, sir.” Trevor said. He’d learned David appreciated the title of respect, because he’d been in the Corps for so long.
David reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty. “Here’s lunch money and pocket change. Elena will set up an account once you bring home all your paperwork, so you won’t have to carry cash.”
“Thanks.” Trevor took the twenty and put it in the nylon wallet Elena had purchased for him with all his other back-to-school stuff. Small gestures like that made him happy but still afraid he somehow didn’t deserve it. He tried never to take anything for granted.
David fidgeted with the parts of a model car they were working on together. Trevor could tell he wanted to speak to him about something else. Finally, he turned around and straddled the desk chair facing Trevor, who yawned widely.
“You’re tired, so I’ll say this and let you get to sleep.”
“Okay, sir.” Trevor sat up so he could pay better attention.
“You have unique skills in math and computer science that surpass those of many men I’ve known in the field. You have a God-given talent for it, and some day you will be able to hold your own among the best in the world.” David smiled, and Trevor could see the pride in his eyes. It made him get a lump in his throat, but he tried not to show his emotion.
“I love working on computers more than anything. Thank you so much for letting me have one in my room.”
“You’re welcome,” David said, then he seemed to think about it. “As long as you don’t abuse the privilege.”
“I won’t. I promise.” Trevor said, trying to sound as sincere as he could.
“I’d like you to not call any attention to yourself by showing off at school. Elena and I are doing this to protect you, because if some academics or branches of the government learned of your abilities, they might exploit you in ways you’re not ready for. Do you understand, Trevor?”