Struck

by Jennifer Bosworth

  God speaks to him, I thought.

  Prophet shook his head sadly. “Your brother is now the enemy. He is lost to you.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “No …” I shook my head. “No! No, no, no.”

  “Yes,” Prophet said. Yes. He betrayed you, abandoned you. He rejected you because of who you are, what you are.

  Old Mia stirred inside me. She didn’t like what was happening, didn’t like what Prophet was saying about Parker. She didn’t like it at all.

  The peaceful feeling I’d had upon waking was getting chopped up. Old Mia was ruining it. She was coming back, and she was angry. The warm light of God in my heart was now burning with fury.

  “You’re upset,” Prophet said.

  “You think?” I snarled.

  Prophet stood and leaned over me in the bed.

  “Parker didn’t betray me. He was only doing what he thought was right.” I shrank from Prophet, but there was nowhere to hide. He placed his hands on my head, and I felt him like the light of God shining down on me. Immediately I calmed.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I gave you a blessing.”

  “Thank you. I feel better now.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “It’s time for breakfast, and I’d like you to meet your new family.” He stood. “I will leave you to freshen up. Come downstairs to the dining room when you’re ready. Take as much time as you need. But not too much.” He smiled. “There really isn’t much time left.”

  When I was alone again, I climbed out of bed and opened the sliding glass door to go out onto the balcony. The air was cool and smelled of brine and salt and all things ocean. My skin prickled painfully with warning. I could feel the storm beginning to take shape now, to condense as it gathered strength. I felt I should be concerned, but … I wasn’t.

  If it is God’s will that a storm should come to Los Angeles, then so be it.

  I leaned against the balcony railing and stared out at the beach. I knew where I was now: in one of the luxurious Santa Monica beach houses that stood on the sand along the Pacific Coast Highway. Peering down over the iron railing, I counted three stories below me and whistled through my teeth. A four-story beach house … that was one pricey piece of real estate, probably worth millions. Then again, property values had decreased since the quake, and beach houses were probably going for less these days, considering Tentville now stood between them and the ocean.

  In the fuzzy morning light, figures scurried among the tents on the beach, tending fires and cooking breakfast in skillets over hot coals. To the south I could see the Santa Monica Pier, shrouded in mist. And I could see the White Tent where Prophet’s revival had taken place. When had that been? Last night? It seemed like ages ago. Time was different after a full night’s sleep. I felt like I had missed something important, slept through a vital scene in the movie. But that was okay. Prophet’s blessing had set me right, made me a new person.

  There was an unopened toothbrush and a fresh tube of toothpaste waiting for me in the bathroom, along with shampoo and conditioner, and a stack of fluffy white towels.

  I brushed my teeth, and then stripped off my clothes for a quick shower. I cranked the cold water and let it run icy, examining myself in the mirror. In the white bathroom, the lightning scars appeared redder than ever, red as blood, but that was okay. Prophet had them, too, although not as many. He didn’t like that I’d been struck more times than he had. I didn’t like that I’d made him envious. If being struck was a gift from God, that meant God had favored me more than Prophet … that didn’t make sense.

  Don’t think about it.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was showered and dressed in Followers’ white once again. I wished I had a change of clothes. There were smudgy dark fingerprints on my sleeves from where that man on the beach had held me, telling me … what had he said? Something about love?

  Don’t think about it.

  Yes, it was better that way. Thoughts could be dangerous if you thought the wrong ones, and I had been thinking the wrong ones for a lifetime. But Prophet helped me think the right thoughts. He was like Mr. Kale, only better in every way, because Prophet knew God’s plan, and he could guide me.

  Now I felt calm … the kind of calm that came after a storm.

  Or was it before?

  I left the fourth-floor bedroom and headed down several flights of stairs until I got to the first floor, where I heard classical music and voices.

  The smell of food was like walking into a bakery first thing in the morning. My stomach made its presence known with loud rumbles. I followed the music and the voices and the food smells until I came to a room with a soaring, thirty-foot ceiling and glass walls that looked out on a view of water and more water, like we were on a boat at sea. All I could see of Tentville was hazy columns of smoke rising into the air.

  There was an enormous fireplace with a crackling fire burning, and a notched wooden table that extended nearly the entire length of the room. Like the Last Supper table, I thought, complete with Apostles. Twelve of them. I recognized them from TV, and from the Rove and the revival, although now the sight of them did not fill me with trepidation. The twins with their pale hair and bald eyes sat shoulder to shoulder. The boy smiled. The girl did not.

  Prophet sat at the head of the table, but he was turned toward a woman with dark blond hair that fell forward to conceal her face. Not an Apostle. Prophet’s hand lay over hers, stroking softly. When I entered, the woman turned her head to look at me. She smiled when she saw me, and even with the scars that lashed her face she looked strangely beautiful, like a wounded angel in her loose white linen dress.

  “Mia,” she said, and stood, and came to me. She took my hands. For a long moment we only looked into each other’s eyes. Then she pulled me into a tight embrace.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Mom said. “I’m so happy. I never thought I could feel like this. So … at peace.”

  “Me, too,” I said. Over Mom’s shoulder I could see Prophet and his Apostles watching us. There was one Apostle in particular who caught my attention. He had dark hair, neatly parted and held behind his ears; dark-lashed blue eyes. It took me a moment to recognize him without his Clark Kent glasses, but once I did I inhaled sharply, as though a fist had rammed into my stomach.

  The missing twelfth Apostle.

  Jeremy. The Judas. The Betrayer.

  But who had he betrayed, Prophet or me?

  “Mia, is something wrong?” Mom asked, feeling me tense. She released me and held me back.

  “Jeremy,” I said. “What are you doing here?” That question again, the one I was forever asking him.

  “I brought you here,” he answered. “Father wanted you, and I brought you to him.”

  Prophet put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “You never disappoint me, son.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  Prophet stood. “Children,” he said, “let us welcome Mia into our fold. God has chosen her, as He chose you, and has gifted her with His power … a power we need to carry out the plan God imparted to me. Mia Price will complete our circle as our thirteenth Apostle.”

  The she-twin twisted toward Prophet. “But, Father … thirteen! It’s an unholy number! And she …” The girl’s eyes cut toward me. “She is not yet proven. How do you know she can be trusted?”

  Prophet smiled kindly at the girl, but his white eyes had narrowed slightly. “Iris,” he said, “when did I lose your faith?”

  The she-twin, Iris, went stiff in her chair, as though overcome by sudden paralysis. “You have my faith, Father,” she murmured.

  Prophet looked over the rest of the Apostles. “We do not fear a number, even the number thirteen. A number has no power. The power is in our hands.”

  He held up his hands, showing the bursts of lightning scars on his palms.

  “The power is in our hands,” the Apostles agreed in unison. Each Apostle touched his or her right hand to a different place on the body. Iris place
d her right hand on top of her head. Her twin pressed his to his left shoulder. Jeremy touched his heart. I caught him looking at me again, but this time his gaze narrowed a sliver as he searched my face.

  “The power is in our hands, and with our hands we do the work of God,” Prophet said.

  “The power is in our hands, and with our hands we do the work of God,” the Apostles parroted.

  Iris, still with her hand resting on top of her head, looked at me. “Where did God’s Light enter you?” she asked, her tone still laced with a hint of bitterness, a drop of poison.

  I shook my head, confused. “God’s Light?” I asked.

  “Lightning.”

  My eyes went wide. “You’ve all been struck?”

  “We’ve been chosen,” Iris said. “Chosen by God.”

  The he-twin nodded. “God sent His holy Light to endow us with His power, so that we could carry out His plan. He gave each of us a gift.”

  “You mean the Spark?” I ventured.

  The Apostles glanced at one another, frowning and furrowing brows, shaking their heads, muttering. I had said something wrong again. I tried not to acknowledge my growing frustration, but it was there. These Apostles were ruining my peace.

  “Hush, children,” Prophet said. “Mia is new to our fold. She will learn.” He looked at me. “Mia, sit with us. I will explain.”

  I did as I was told, taking the open seat at his left, while Mom returned to the seat on his right. Prophet turned toward me. As with Jeremy, I could feel Prophet’s Spark—or whatever they called it—without touching him, like standing near a fire.

  A holy fire.

  “Mia,” Prophet said, “you have had encounters with the Seekers. I know this.”

  I lowered my eyes. There was no sense denying it. Prophet had seen inside my mind … he must know. “Yes,” I admitted.

  More muttering from the Apostles, but Prophet silenced them with the slightest raising of his hand.

  “So you know their aim,” Prophet said. “To defy God’s will, that the earth be torn asunder and then made anew in peace and beauty. To destroy our hope for a New Eden.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “The Seekers would see the world continue to rot, until there is nothing left of it but a black, moldering cancer. A disease without cure. But we have the cure, Mia, and it must be applied now, before it’s too late.”

  I nodded, but my brow was furrowed. “The Seekers have hope for our world,” I said. “And hope is … bad?”

  Deep inside me, I could feel Old Mia tossing and turning, restless.

  Prophet’s smile was kind and fatherly below his empty eyes. “No, hope is not bad, Mia. In this instance, it is merely false. It is lost. The offense would be to disobey God’s will and entertain such false hope.”

  “Oh.”

  “If God meant the Seekers to have the power to challenge His will, He would have bestowed it upon them, as He did us. Our power, our gift, comes from God and is therefore divine. The Seekers in their arrogance deny God, but aim to possess those who are gifted with God’s Light. They endeavor to seize control of that power, to turn those who lack faith against the God who gifted them.”

  “They lie,” Iris said, piercing me with her sharp gaze.

  “Yes, they do,” Prophet said. “So you see, we do not insult God’s gift by calling it by the name our enemy uses. They can have their Spark.” He smiled. “We have the Light.”

  His hands found my face, thumbs pressing against my temples, and it was like sunrise inside my mind. I couldn’t help but gasp. I felt myself opening to that light, like a flower waking in the morning. Connected to him, I could sense other energy around me, the light of the Apostles. I could connect to them in this way, I realized, because we were the same. Here was where I belonged, among people whose energy complemented mine.

  Still, there was no light that felt the way Jeremy’s did. He and I had connected in a different way.

  Don’t think about Jeremy, a voice inside me warned. I turned off thoughts of Jeremy and focused on what Prophet was saying.

  “You are the one we’ve been waiting for. The one God said would come. You are the missing piece of the plan, the last link we needed to complete the circle that will bring God’s storm.”

  The last link in the circle? I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about, but that was okay. I didn’t need to understand. I only needed to do what Prophet wanted.

  Prophet lowered his hands, and the light dimmed in my mind, but not in my soul and my heart.

  But there were places in me, still, where darkness waited behind locked doors … and for the time being I would keep it that way until I found out what Jeremy was up to.

  “Now,” Prophet said, “let us enjoy this bounteous meal. We need our strength for what’s to come. Tonight we see God’s plan through to the end.” He placed both of his palms down on the table. “Tonight we bring the storm of God’s wrath to this city.”

  At his words, my heart-fire flared to life.

  The Fire of God is in me, I thought. The Light of God.

  And finally I understood.

  The storm I’d been waiting for … it was not beyond the horizon.

  The storm was in me.

  35

  BREAKFAST WAS A feast, with steaming platters of eggs and potatoes, toast soaked in butter, melon slices and strawberries, fresh-squeezed orange juice and thick, cold milk, and tiny Belgian waffles with maple syrup and whipped cream.

  I felt guilty eating such a decadent breakfast while outside Prophet’s door there were people starving. Still, I ate like it was my last meal. I couldn’t help myself. The anxiety that had been twisting my stomach into knots had finally subsided. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in a month.

  One by one, the Apostles went around the table and introduced themselves. I’d never been good with names, and I forgot most of them as soon as they were said. The twins, Iris and Ivan, were the only Apostles whose names stuck.

  “I saw you,” I told them, “at the Rove the other night, when the fight broke out. Why don’t any of you have bruises or cuts? Did you heal them, Prophet, the way you did for the Dealer?”

  “The Dealer?” he asked.

  Heat rose in my cheeks and I looked at my plate, ashamed that I knew such a person. “The guy you healed last night, the one with the burns.”

  “Is that what ailed him?” Prophet asked in a mildly curious tone. “I didn’t notice. But, no, I did not heal my Apostles’ wounds. There’s no need.”

  Iris sneered at me. “When is the last time you had a simple bruise or a cut that took more than a day to heal?”

  I remembered what Mr. Kale had said, that one of the advantages of having the Spark—the Light, I had to remember that—was the ability to heal rapidly. At the time I’d dismissed this claim, but now that I thought about it, the only times I recalled being injured were after a lightning strike. But even then the severe burns I sometimes sustained healed completely within a few days, and the only scars I was ever left with were the lightning scars. Even my hair seemed to grow back more quickly than normal.

  “It’s part of God’s gift to us,” Ivan said, and I accepted this simple answer.

  The Apostles were friendly enough, except for Iris. None of them welcomed me with open arms, and I could tell they were suspicious of me. They gave off a vibe of protectiveness, like they thought I might steal something. And there was some envy mixed in, as well. I didn’t begrudge them their right to a little jealousy. I was the missing ingredient, after all. I was the one Prophet needed to make God’s storm, to carry out the plan, though I still wasn’t clear on what that plan was.

  As the introductions went around, I sensed Jeremy’s furtive glances. It seemed I could still feel the heat of him from across the table, and the desire to be next to him, to touch him. These feelings were wrong. Old Mia could feel whatever way she wanted about him, but New Mia should have her baser desires, her hot blood, under control.

  “And,
of course, you know Jeremiah,” Prophet said, beaming at his adopted son.

  I could no longer avoid looking at Jeremy. I turned my eyes to his, feeling a sort of giddy nausea in my stomach.

  You didn’t even know his name, I thought. There’s nothing between you. Nothing real.

  I nodded, lowering my eyes and playing with my fork.

  “Jeremiah has been a great help to me,” Prophet said. “Where God speaks to me, he shows Jeremiah images of what’s to come. I’m sure he told you of the revelations he’s had of you for so many years. I sent him to find you.”

  My hand jerked and my fork scraped across my plate. I searched Jeremy’s face. His normally angry eyes, now so serene, looked like they belonged to a different person. Was it true? Had he only come looking for me because Prophet told him to? Had Prophet told him to kill me?

  No. Prophet needed me to carry out the plan. He wouldn’t have ordered my murder.

  I cleared my throat and glanced around at the other Apostles. “So, you have gifts, like … like Jeremiah has?”

  “And like you have, Mia,” Prophet said. “And a very powerful gift it is. The ability to hold God’s Light inside yourself. To release it when you need it. Of course, you have not yet learned to control your gift. That is why it is so important you came to me. Each of my children has received a gift through God’s Light, but you are special.”

  If Iris’s gaze had been cool before, now it was downright Siberian.

  I avoided her eyes and smiled, but the smile felt forced. A gift? Was that really what I had? The only thing I’d ever done with lightning was hurt people. Well, that wasn’t true. I had hurt Janna, but then I had helped her.

  “Father,” Jeremy said, “tell Mia and her mother how God gifted you.”

  I glanced at Mom, took in the expression of admiration on her face as she waited for Prophet’s response.

  Prophet placed his hand over Mom’s and leaned toward her until their foreheads touched. Then he lifted his other hand to her cheek and cupped her face as he kissed her lightly.