Sent Rising (Dove Strong)

by Erin Lorence

  I leaned closer to the pit’s edge. “Where are they, Zech?”

  Melody’s brother mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key.

  “Not smart.” Chaff unfurled a woven blanket reminiscent of fallen pine needles over the hole.

  “No! Nooo! Don’t bury me. Not again…” Zech’s sob cut off, and he began to croon a song about a clock, one his dad had once sung.

  Chaff settled back and folded his long fingers together. “He doesn’t like being underground without light.”

  Jezebel crawled over Chaff’s fern-wrapped shoes. “I’m taking the cover off and letting him out.” She lifted the edge of the blanket.

  Wolfe shrugged. “Fine. But he’s the one who got me locked in the CTDC. And he took me away to California where he wouldn’t let me come home. Oh, and he helped try to drown Dove and Trinity.”

  Jezebel dropped the blanket’s edge, calling down to Zechariah through the covering. “You sit in there in the dark and think about what you did!”

  I took a deep breath. “Uncover him, Chaff.”

  “But...oh, fine.”

  Zechariah stopped singing. His eyes rose to the stars overhead. A gentle smile appeared. “The captives are close...being held in a building at the edge of that Heathen village. Close but you can’t get to them. Because we will stop you...yes, we will stop you.”

  I leaned closer. “Reed will try to stop me? And is Reed planning to take the government officials hostage tonight?” Behind me, someone inhaled as if surprised.

  Zech chuckled. “The commander calls that our bargaining tool.”

  “Bargaining? How is it bargaining if Reed is the one holding both groups captive?”

  “Oh, Dove...naïve Dove. That’s the beautiful point.” He rapped on his skull. “Think. Reed knows this. You and I know this...but no one else does. What will happen when Reed gathers the unhappy Sent, as well as the remaining non-Sent, at the village where important officials are staying? Once there, he’ll announce that the Heathen are holding our kidnapped families close by...and that these Heathen refuse to release them. Then he’ll suggest a brilliant idea. We take their nearby officials captive. Because, of course, then the Heathen will trade and let our people go. Plus, it’ll give them a taste of their own poison.”

  I slammed my fist against the ground. “Their own poison? This is crazy! The nonbelievers aren’t responsible for anyone being kidnapped. They won’t even understand what’s going on. All that will happen is...is...”

  Chaff nodded, rustling the bush on his head. “Exactly. All that will happen is that our people will attack non-Christians, who’ll defend themselves. And the war will begin.”

  Lobo crept next to me, his night-vision glasses raised onto his chopped hair. “But I’m wondering, how can your leader think a small attack like this will matter so much? Violence happens every day. Why will this one cause a war?”

  “Answer, Zech.” Chaff fluttered the blanket in a threat near the pit’s edge.

  Melody’s brother reclined with his arms behind his head, smiling at the stars. “You all have no vision. Obviously, ours is only the first wave. Other groups in other places are waiting for us to start. Then they’ll attack, too. Like a game of Follow the Leader. That’s a fun game...”

  “The radio,” I muttered. “Danny D and Rahab...they’ll be broadcasting Reed’s movements to others who’ll begin the second wave of attacks in their own states.”

  “Ding, ding, ding!” Zech lurched up, his eyes wide. “You are correct.”

  47

  My fingers tightened around Jezebel’s sweaty hand. “Slow down and let that group ahead go on. Their torchlight is too bright.”

  I kept my voice soft and my face parallel to the ground until the Christians we’d been trailing trudged out of sight. Jezebel’s neon shirt glowed another second, and then the night enveloped us.

  I wiped my streaming face. The closer we got to the meeting spot, the better chance that Reed’s followers were on the lookout for me.

  “Are we there yet? My feet hurt.”

  “Toughen up, brat,” Wolfe whispered. “Do you hear Josh whining?”

  I pulled her through the darkness to where I could feel a steep wall of dirt rise. A smooth boulder rested above my head.

  I was close. This was the spot where’d I’d last met Bull. Someone had fired the gunshot just beyond the slope.

  My pulse thrummed in my ears. “Rest here. The building I need to scout for the captive Christians is up ahead. Wolfe, you coming?” I began to scale the crumbling dirt wall, but someone yanked me off.

  “Sky alive, Lobo!” I exhaled. “Let me go.”

  Light flashed, and I bit my tongue. A piece of the tree-filled terrain ahead lit up, and a trio in deerskins approached. Bows and sheaths protruded from their backs.

  “It’s just more believers heading to the meeting spot.” I patted the wall to find my handhold.

  “Stone’s up there,” Wolfe breathed and pointed to a different spot on the wooded slope—to an ominous figure Lobo must’ve sighted with his see-in-the-dark technology.

  The Bender brother stayed still as a tree trunk, letting the lantern-light slide over him, the cowboy hat dangling from his motionless fingers. The group of three trudged past without seeming to notice him.

  A circle of light flickered in the opposite direction. It bobbed closer until a beardless, uniformed body with a dim headlamp stopped in front of Stone. “How much longer until we release our captives, Warrior Stone?”

  “My brother said to let them go at midnight.” Stone’s voice rasped as if he’d used it up. “That’s fifty-three more minutes. Can’t you hold them? Most are old or weak.”

  “We’ve held them for a month, sir, so we’ll try one more hour. The problem is, a few have begun to suspect who we are.”

  He rotated the hat in his oversized hands. “Our people guess their guards are Christian and not Heathen? That’s...unfortunate.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how they’ve guessed, sir. We wear our uniforms every second. And we haven’t slipped and spoken our language around them. I swear.”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Just...just do what my brother would do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Keep the suspicious ones separate from the others.” His voice dropped an octave. “And...keep holding them.”

  “You—your brother—doesn’t want us to release them when we let the others go free? So they don’t fight against us?”

  Stone sighed and tossed the brimmed hat into the shadows. “I guess that’s what I mean. I’ll come with you, in case there’s trouble. But I’m not in uniform, so I can’t let them see me.”

  “Of course, sir. Thank you.”

  The headlamp faded up the slope. I wedged my foot in the crumbling dirt and began to heave up to follow. An urgent tug brought me back down.

  “Ouch! Quit pulling on me, Lobo!”

  “Except I can see what you can’t. Look.” He clamped his thick glasses down over my eyes before I could duck away. “See? We still are not alone.”

  Through his lenses, the woods became darkness and daylight at the same time. I gasped. A human wearing western-style boots was at the bottom of the slope. Bull lay sprawled in a patch of nettles.

  48

  Bull wasn’t dead. But Wolfe’s keychain flashlight revealed he wasn’t about to stand up and stride off whistling either.

  “Help me get him flat on his back. Watch the nettles.”

  Jessica and Lobo heaved him over, and a small book slipped from his limp fingers.

  Itchy hotness stung my wrist as I rescued the palm-sized Bible. I tucked it into his boot. “Sorry, Bull. I’m so sorry.” Why hadn’t I warned him of the possible danger gathering here? That he should stick to the horse barn and stay away from these woods?

  “Lobo, call the police.”

  I jerked up. “No, Jessica, he can’t! That’s exactly what Reed Bender would want. You want to make everything worse by bringing more
people with weapons to this area? Don’t force a fight!”

  “Calm yourself, Dove. Jesse, she’s right.” Lobo pulled up the man’s lids, then applied a brisk knuckle-rub to his sternum.

  Bull groaned and raised a trembling hand in defense.

  Lobo rose. “He’s only stunned. Concussed. He’ll live. No need to call in the police...not yet.”

  I exhaled and faced the slope.

  “Don’t go up there searching for your mom, Dove.” Wolfe grabbed my shoulders. “Please. We both know what happened to Bull wasn’t an accident. Stone did this. And Stone’s at that building.”

  “But—”

  “Please wait. Just a little. Let’s go spy out the meeting spot then circle back. We’ll approach it from a different direction that’s safer. Plus, you heard...Stone’s guards are going to release your family soon. So maybe we don’t need to do anything except wait and see. Don’t...force a fight.”

  Don’t force a fight. I grimaced at Wolfe’s use of my own words.

  I glanced again at the unconscious figure, strained to hear over the breathing and forest noises then handed Lobo his glasses.

  “Stone said suspicious prisoners won’t be released. If I don’t see my family in one hour, I’ll break into their prison myself. I’m not afraid of any Bender.”

  I pulled my cap’s brim lower to hide my face and let Wolfe steer me in a new direction, away from the cement prison and the slope Stone guarded. The place where for sure—in one hour— I’d visit.

  The guards wouldn’t release my grandpa. Jonah Strong would be a suspicious one, watching his captors with hawk eyes...noticing inconsistencies and seeing through their lies.

  Before Jezebel could whine again, we broke out of the trees. Our shoes sunk into the spongy grass. On the horizon to our right, lit-up village buildings cast their glow onto the hills ahead where groups of Christians emerged from the forest’s edges. We all seemed to be traveling in the same direction—toward the lake.

  “So, Dove Strong, what’s your plan?” Lobo’s wide lenses swiveled side to side. “Because of course, you have one to foil the evil schemes of this bad dude Commander Reed?”

  Uh, Lord, what is Your plan? Are You ready to tell me what You want me to do?

  Silence stretched.

  Lobo chuckled. “We’ll wing it. My favorite kind of plan.”

  Jezebel reached down from riding piggyback on Wolfe and patted me. “Dove always knows. Trust her.”

  Joshua glanced up, his eyebrows at his frizzy hairline in disbelief.

  Jessica’s strides kept pace with mine. “We shouldn’t have to have a plan. What happened to all the security around here? All week they’ve been blocking the road and snarling up traffic. And tonight, they’re what...taking the night off? Why aren’t they here, seeing this and stopping everyone?”

  Bull...sprawled in the nettles...I bit my lip. Had Reed and Stone used similar tactics against the security people? Were they scattered in unconscious heaps around the village?

  The bright lights seemed to blaze brighter on the horizon. I shook my head. “I think they’re all...contained somewhere. Focused on something going on, maybe inside those buildings.”

  “Yeah, they wouldn’t be scattered around the golf course at night. They’re probably positioned around tables at a team-building dinner.” Wolfe, bent over by the weight of his sister, sighed. “Eating rich people’s leftover steak and lobster.”

  I rubbed my damp temples. Strategy. This was Reed’s plan. How did Reed think?

  I lifted my eyes to the lit rooftops disappearing behind the golf course’s swells. “Reed likes his enemies contained in one spot—he told me so at the beach. I think he decided to act tonight because he knows the government officials are joined together with security tightened around them. Probably gathered in one of those buildings for a meal like Wolfe said. It makes sense.”

  “Fine. Lobo and I’ll go interrupt their dessert and tell them to come do their jobs.”

  “Not yet, Jesse.”

  She threw off Lobo’s restraining hand. “Why not? We’ll get them to meet this Reed guy and head him off. The security people are trained. They can force the radicals to stop whatever it is the lunatic has got planned.

  I sucked in my breath, my eyes on the place where the rooftop had disappeared behind a hill. “And you’ll begin a bloody battle that will excite Christians in other places to start their pieces of the war. Didn’t you hear Zech? Why can’t you understand? It’s too late for nonbelievers to step in and use force to stop what’s building. It’d be like adding a smoldering ember to a bucket of tree sap. Or a spark to gasoline. Any fighting here will trigger a nationwide war.”

  “Kaboom!” Jezebel threw out her arms.

  Jessica gripped my sore wrist and pointed. A new source of light had appeared over the slope ahead. The harsh glare came from powerful lightbulbs strung up on poles near the black stretch of lake.

  We halted outside the circle of light that bathed the tremendous mass of Christians in its glow. I squinted into the tight-packed crowd of believers who seemed to crawl over each other like bees on honeycomb, flattening the uneven expanse of grass and dirt that ended at the water.

  “Whoa,” Joshua whispered.

  Jezebel shook her head. “Awesome!”

  While Lobo muttered in a language I didn’t understand, Wolfe reached for my hand. “I didn’t realize...so many of them...this is bad, Dove.”

  I nodded. Except for Lobo, the others hadn’t seen the camps, so they weren’t prepared for the sheer number of humans carrying bows and spears.

  I wasn’t either.

  A looseness flowed through my knees. My eyes couldn’t penetrate past the crowd’s outer edges, except for a small section near the lights where the ground rose up. At the tree line to the left, Christians hurled knives at tree trunks. But nowhere did I see fire...or familiar faces.

  “I’m going to look for Becca.” Josh ducked and disappeared behind a group of girls distributing what looked like bullets to bearded youths with long-barreled weapons.

  “Brothers and Sisters. Honored Sent. Welcome!” Reed’s familiar voice drowned out every other sound. “Prepare yourselves. Gather stragglers and unite. In ten minutes, we’ll begin our rally.”

  I rose onto my tiptoes, straining to catch sight of the speaker. Ten minutes. That’s all the time I had until Reed began something that would lead this crowd down a path that required the use of knives and guns.

  “Hold still, Dove.”

  I started at Trinity’s unexpected voice. A rough cloth covered my head, and the scent of home filled my nostrils.

  “Quit fighting...or hugging me or whatever you’re doing. Keep covered. They’re looking for you.” Trinity tugged again, and the cloth became a hooded cloak. I could now see my cousin with Micah standing behind her. Neither smiled.

  I held the scratchiness in place under my chin. “Who’s looking for me?”

  “Half of those assembled here. I was clueless before about the number of believers who recognize you...and who wouldn’t mind putting a spear through you. Maybe we should’ve stayed in California. Micah and Gil have been busier than mosquitoes in June keeping me alive since I look like you. What’s with all the friends you brought?”

  Jezebel sat up straighter and adjusted her purse. “We’re radicals now, too. So, we’re allowed to come.”

  Micah snorted, but my cousin eyed Wolfe. “About time. But Dove, bringing them wasn’t your most brilliant idea.”

  “I couldn’t stop them. Speaking of stopping people, were you able to—”

  She nodded and raised Micah’s clasped hand into the air in a symbol of victory. “Yeah. I did it.”

  Micah puffed out his thin chest. “You mean I did it.”

  At his overzealous brag, some city rats squinted in our direction.

  I pulled my hood tighter and lowered my voice. “Micah, the explosives you’re in charge of, Trinity explained about deactivating them? Were you able to—”
/>   “They’re duds now, the whole lot of them. It was super easy for me because I knew that by removing a small piece from each, I could kill them. Although of course, no one else knows but Trinity. But see?” He pulled out a metallic disc from his sleeve and offered it.

  Wolfe and Lobo jumped backward. Jessica used me as her shield.

  I shook her off. “No. We believe you, Micah. Put away the dud. And, um, good job.”

  He returned it to his sleeve and shifted away from the two women smearing black stripes across their cheekbones. As they painted, their eyes stayed on us.

  Micah fiddled with his beard. “Just don’t tell Gil, yeah? He and I spent an hour planting the duds between here and the village on routes Heathen might take if they notice us. He’d get mad if he knew.”

  My eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. Was Micah lying? It seemed impossible he’d be so eager to sabotage his own handiwork. And disappoint Gilead.

  Trinity reached to adjust my blanket and whispered, “He never liked the idea of using them on people. It gave him nightmares. He’s really not bad, Dove.” She gave the cloth a tug so I stumbled forward a step. “Listen to me. He’s not like his brother...or sister.”

  Melody. My attention darted past the war-painted women, now glaring at Trinity’s blonde head, to the bodies milling between groups sitting. Some tapped their sharp-edged weapons against their knees. Others rolled their shoulders and stretched, as if warming up for a training session.

  I knew Micah’s brother was trapped back in the woods and guarded by Chaff. But Melody had to be somewhere close, probably in this mess of Christians.

  “Those must be the radio folks, yes?” Lobo pointed. “Next to the generator on that little hill?”

  Distracted, I followed his finger to the blinding bulbs at the top of tall poles. Underneath them, on an elevation near the tree line, Danny D and Rahab Rae stooped, doing something I couldn’t see with cables and a plasma generator, a technology I recognized from my own interview. Other indistinct electronics littered the grass at the base of the poles.

  Lobo rubbed his palms together. “Let’s see...transmitter. Receiver. Antenna. Speakers. We heard a microphone. Ah, yes, they’re setting up for a remote radio broadcast.