Briar forgot how to speak. It didn’t matter, because she’d forgotten every word in the English language as well. She remembered only how to blink and swallow.
“Maybe you should set your sights on someone more attainable. Like Derby.” Reid’s smirk turned into a full-blown smile filled with too many teeth. “Now there’s a catch.” She laughed loudly.
Turned out Reid had a sense of humor after all.
~*~
Breathing a relieved sigh, Briar turned the doorknob to her apartment. Never was she so ready to be alone. Nothing like a couple of hours with Reid Laughlin to make a person long for isolation.
“If you need anything, call Derby or Lukas. I’m taking the night off.”
Briar nodded. As if she would call Reid for any reason—ever. Not on a bet or a dare. Not even if she awoke in the night with her head stapled on backwards. Asking for Reid’s assistance was not happening.
“I heard my name.” Derby appeared in the hallway, his usual lopsided grin glued in place.
“Hi, Derby. Reid was telling me to call you if I need anything later on. In the event something comes up.”
“Miss Laughlin’s a smart lady. Mighty good looking, too.” He glanced at Reid, turned back to Briar and winked.
Without a word, Reid spun on her heel and walked away.
Derby watched her go. By the glint in his eye, he enjoyed the view.
Briar wondered what he could possibly see in Reid. She wished she could tell him what the woman had said earlier—the cutting remark she’d made about him—but she never would. It would shatter him.
As she surveyed Reid’s departure, Caster turned the corner, slamming into Reid at the end of the hallway.
Briar lunged inside her apartment, heart racing. Something about Caster Stone made her uneasy. Uneasy? Who was she kidding? The guy terrified her. She couldn’t stomach the sight of him.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Derby stuck his head into the doorway. “You missed the collision. Dr. Stone nearly knocked Miss Laughlin to the floor at the end of the hallway. She’s all right, though. He caught her on the way down and steadied her upright.”
“Come in and close the door. Hurry.”
He stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him. “You OK?”
Briar shook her head. “I’m sorry. Lukas’s brother makes me really nervous for some reason—as if I’m doing something wrong by existing. Pretty much the same as Reid does. I think they’re a match made in heaven.” She mock-glared at Derby. “You’re not going to turn me in for mentioning heaven, are you?”
He grinned. “No, ma’am. Not a chance.”
“So, what is Caster’s deal, anyway? I mean, I realize he lost his wife a while back, and that is completely terrible.” Briar pulled out her desk chair and motioned for Derby to sit. “But is that really what makes him behave so…superior?” She sat on the bed.
Derby frowned and tugged at the brim of his ball cap. “Superior. Not so sure that’s the right word. I’d say it’s more like he’s desensitized.” He glanced at the closed door and lowered his voice. “It wasn’t only that his wife died—sure, that’s bad enough—but she’d left him six months before. Caster’s always been difficult, so the fact Kate left him wasn’t a surprise. But no one could believe she’d leave Gatlin.”
Little Gatlin’s hazel eyes flashed through Briar’s mind. How could anyone, let alone his own mother, abandon that sweet little boy?
“As you can imagine, Kate’s leaving so abruptly caused people to whisper. Everyone assumed she was having an affair and that she’d up and left her family to be with the other man. Was quite a scandal. Caster paced around here like a caged lion, eaten up with rage.” Derby shook his head. “None of it sat right with me. I knew Kate. She was a good wife. The type of woman who would put up with anything to keep her family together. Heck, she already had, the way Caster was always runnin’ around on her…” He blew out a breath. “Disgraceful.”
No wonder Briar knew instinctively Caster was a jerk. He was putting off some kind of lecherous vibe. “How did she die?”
“Cancer. There’d been no love affair. Only radical radiation and intense chemotherapy. For months, she’d known she was dying. She’d checked herself into a cancer treatment hospital someplace in New York and kept it under wraps. She’d given the doctor specific orders not to tell her family. Kate thought of everything—even prepaid the funeral home director to take care of the final arrangements. When the time came, they picked up her body at the hospital and she was cremated. No muss, no fuss.”
“She never got the chance to say goodbye, I love you, or maybe even, I’m sorry?” Needles of sadness pricked the corners of Briar’s eyes. “No one was allowed to see her?”
“She wanted it that way. Caster saw her, briefly, right before the incineration. That’s when he discovered the truth about why she’d left.” Derby looked down at his folded hands. “The next morning, he brought the urn back to Sickle Ridge and we had a little memorial. Just the five of us—Caster, Gatlin, Lukas, Reid, and me. A small celebration of life with a few flowers. Afterward, I took Caster and Gatlin up in the balloon to release her ashes. Lukas stayed on the ground, of course.”
“What about her family? Mother, father, siblings? None of them came?”
Derby shrugged. “Subject never came up. And I’m not the type to ask personal questions, especially at a delicate time like that. Especially not to Caster Stone.”
Briar nodded, seeing his point.
Derby tapped the screen of his cuffphone, pried it from his arm, and snapped it flat. “Here’s a picture of her. The only one I’ve got. Maybe the only one in existence, for all I know. She took down all of her social media sites when she left town. Everyone figured it was to hide her new life. Turns out it was to hide her death.”
Briar took the phone from Derby, caught off guard by the woman’s coal black hair and charcoal eyes. “Striking,” Briar’s mother would have said. Looking closer, she could see Gatlin shared his mother’s pert nose and dimpled chin. “She was beautiful.”
“That she was.” Derby stroked a finger lovingly over the screen before snapping the phone back around his forearm. “The whole thing was such a shock. No one could believe it.” He frowned as if swallowing a bad taste. “Caster has always been callous, but he’s gotten worse since Kate’s death. He’s desensitized, like I said earlier. Unfeeling. And he’s extremely protective over Gatlin.”
“Yeah, I got that message loud and clear.” Briar lowered her eyes. “He doesn’t want me around his son, period. He thinks I will contaminate him.”
Derby concentrated on his hands, rubbing one thumb over the other. “I might have some insight on that. I gather a lot working behind the scenes—and not on purpose, either.”
“You know why he’s so adamant about keeping Gatlin away from me?”
“He doesn’t trust SAP, and he’s completely paranoid about it. That’s why he’s pushing Lukas so hard to hurry with the abstergent. He wants Gatlin’s Agathi dissolved away.”
“Gatlin’s Agathi? That doesn’t make sense. I’m sure his Agathi are nonfunctional. Caster would make certain Gatlin stayed current on his SAP boosters.”
Derby shrugged. “As I mentioned, he doesn’t trust the stuff. I didn’t say Caster was logical. I said he was paranoid. He doesn’t want to risk any of your Christian nonsense leaking through—no offense.”
“None taken.” She actually felt a little sorry for Caster. He’d taken such a blow. Trauma sometimes caused people to question everything they believed in. Although, in Caster’s case, she had no idea what that could be—if anything.
And poor little Gatlin, believing what—that his mother simply ceased to exist? That she became part of the “amissfear” as his nanny believed?
She turned to Derby. “Do you believe this life is all there is?”
“I believe Kate lived, and then she died.” He stood and returned the chair to the desk. “That’s all there is, Miss Briar.”
He tipped his cap at her. “I enjoyed our chat.”
“Me, too.”
He closed the door behind him.
That’s all there is, Miss Briar. Derby’s words resounded in her head. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live without the hope of eternal life. To believe this life was the end of existence.
But soon she would believe it—wouldn’t she? The thought tinkled down her vertebrae like an ancient requiem over piano keys.
9
Briar unwound the towel from her head and tossed it into the hamper. The scent of her damp hair caused her chest to ache. Hunger pangs of an empty heart.
She was homesick. And although she missed her mother and longed to once more see her departed father, tonight it was Granna Grace she yearned for.
She sat on the bed and tugged a section of hair toward her face—the strands barely reaching her nose—and inhaled. Lilacs. The shampoo Derby bought smelled so much like her grandmother. Amazing how aroma could transport the senses. Granna Grace had been gone for ten years yet there she was, sitting on the bed next to seven-year-old Briar, combing the tangles from her hair.
She leaned over and pulled the strap of her bag, hauling it from under the nightstand to her lap. She unzipped it, pushed the blue wig aside, and rifled through the odds and ends until her fingers wrapped around the stuffed lamb keychain Granna Grace had sewn. The ring was filled with random keys, the old-fashioned metal kind no one used anymore, with the exception of Lukas’s father. She didn’t have a car, and had no need for a house key because she never left home. The keychain was a diversion to distract from what really mattered. To preserve what was on the inside.
And it gave her an excuse to play with a stuffed animal despite her age. She smiled and gave the lamb a gentle squeeze. As always, her pulse quickened when she felt the tiny book buried in the sheep’s belly. The Holy Bible. A final gift from Granna Grace tucked into the tufts of cotton.
The book was smaller than a pack of sugarless gum and twice as thick. Granna had let her hold it before sewing it inside, explaining that God’s word would be hidden away in the lamb, just as it was hidden away in Briar’s heart.
She’d said there would be hard days ahead and that she was old and wouldn’t be around much longer. She’d prayed for the light of God to glow eternally inside Briar so that others could see it.
Yep, others could see it, all right. “Thanks, Granna.” Briar held the lamb to her chest and sighed. Her light of God was, literally, glowing. Every scan she’d ever had proved it. And now it had gotten her into deep trouble. Those blazing red God-zones were the whole reason she was here, forfeiting her soul.
So, she was going to give it all up, just like that? The virtues Granna Grace instilled in her. God’s never ending love. The truth about eternal life and salvation through Jesus Christ—a truth the world needed now, more than ever. Everything Granna Grace taught her, wasted. Dissolved to nonexistence by the prick of a needle, and she would do nothing to stop it?
She drew a deep breath through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Had the air become suddenly thicker? It was like breathing fog.
Did she really expect God to forgive her? To shrug off her decision as if she was tossing a pair of outgrown shoes into a donation box? To watch, unmoving, as she surrendered the priceless gift His Son bled and died for? Was He simply to let her slide?
Briar smoothed her hair, pretending Granna Grace was stroking it the way she used to. The scent of lilacs surrounded Briar. She closed her eyes as she imagined her grandmother wrapping her arms around her, holding Briar close to her side. “It’s hard to explain, Granna. I feel like a thief is peering through my window, leering at my most prized possession. His mouth is watering, he wants it so bad. But he’s not breaking in, he’s waiting. Patiently waiting until I turn my back. When I do, he’ll simply walk inside and take it. Take my soul.”
She rested her head on her grandma’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to do. I’m scared, Granna,” she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I’ll lose you all over again.”
Who knows whether you have come here for such a time as this?
Briar sat up straight and opened her eyes. The sound of her grandmother’s voice, loud and clear as Oklahoma hail on a new tin roof, lingered in the room.
The verse was from Esther, chapter four. The part where Esther’s uncle told her not to assume she would escape death simply because she was queen. Outside the castle her people were being destroyed in the streets. If she was silent, she and her family would die.
“Queen of Stone Labs,” Reid had once called her. Of course, that was ridiculous. Briar was no queen. However, she couldn’t deny she’d been granted special provisions. Because of who her father had been, she was safe. Resting comfy-cozy in her own private apartment while hundreds of other Christians were being stripped from their families and held captive at the ARC until the leveling process was complete.
Held indefinitely, according to her mother’s sci-fi version. “They’re slicing and dicing their brains. People go in but never come out, Briar.”
Hidden camera footage, secret documents. She’d have said anything to keep Briar away from the OLG. She was convinced the insufferable amount of work Dad accomplished for Operation Level Ground is what drove him to suicide. To Mom, the ARC really did seem like a chamber of horrors.
But it wasn’t. It was a treatment facility. A place where unleveled patients received treatment based on their specific needs.
Needs? Briar frowned. Was that really the right word? Did people like her need to be fixed? Have their brains evaluated, medicated—in her case dissolved—for the sake of progressivism?
Briar’s heart trembled. Something precious was about to be stripped from her. And not from her alone, from hundreds who shared her affliction. Who had labeled it an affliction in the first place? An affliction was a hardship—a weakness. Maybe having a working Agathi wasn’t a weakness. Maybe it was a strength. A mixture of clarity and outrage rose in her soul. The time had come to stand up and fight. Blood blasted through her veins like a call to arms. It was as if God Himself were leading her in battle.
And she was terrified.
Fight who? The OLG? She must be insane. She was no fighter. She was a floater—a go-with-the-flow kind of girl. Her encounter with Reid today was the closest she’d ever come to an altercation, and that didn’t even count. It had been an ambush. If she couldn’t stand up to a spoiled lab technician, how could she hold her own against the most powerful government entity in the United States?
Maybe Granna was trying to tell her that soon her suffering would be over. “Such a time as this,” could mean the abstergent would be a success. That Briar would soon be a part of a medical breakthrough that would change the world. Yes, that was probably it.
Her soul knew better.
The walls seemed to close in. She closed her eyes to escape, only to find Granna Grace shaking her head slowly.
“I’m sorry, Granna. But I can’t fight. I’m too afraid.”
She wished this was all behind her. If Lukas would only give her the abstergent, she could stop dwelling on the fact she was a miserable coward, and get on with her life. What was taking him so long?
A tap on the door rattled her thoughts. She pushed the lamb under her pillow and bolted from the edge of the bed. “Who is it?” she asked, padding across the floor.
“It’s Lukas.”
She tightened her bathrobe and opened the door.
“May I come in?”
~*~
Lukas pulled the chair from beneath the desk and sat down. “I wanted to check in with you before you turned in. Find out how things went in the exam room today after I left.”
Briar slumped on the edge of the bed. “Epic fail.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.
He didn’t like the crease in her forehead, or the way her mouth dipped at the corners. “How so?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t take your advice. Reid mentioned t
he Roxy incident from this morning, and I might have laughed a little.” She flicked her gaze up and right back down.
Lukas fought a grin, the image of Roxy shaking off water in the middle of Reid’s room nearly getting the best of him. “I’m sorry. She’ll get over it.”
Briar nodded as she stared at the floor.
“Hey. Don’t let her get under your skin. I’ll have a talk with her.”
She shook her head. “It’s not Reid. I mean, she’s no ray of sunshine, but I can deal with her.” A tear splashed to the tile.
“What is it?” He glanced from the tear to her bowed head. “Briar?”
She sighed. “I’m stressed, I guess. I know, it sounds stupid. What do I have to be stressed about, right? I have this really nice apartment, clean clothing, nutritious food, I’m surrounded by good people—for the most part. Still, I feel anxious.”
Lukas pulled a tissue from the box on the desk and handed it to her. “Of course, you’re anxious. That’s perfectly understandable. You’re over a thousand miles from home in a strange place, surrounded by people you hardly know. That’s enough to stress anyone out.”
Briar twisted the tissue between her fingers, her hands trembling as she wound the paper tighter and tighter. Her jittering leg kept a quick rhythm against the side of the bed. The poor girl was a nervous wreck.
“Why don’t you turn in for the night? Get some rest.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.” Her fingers worked over the tissue, shredding it to bits.
“Would a hot bath help?”
“I already took a shower.”
Lukas inhaled, catching a whiff of her clean scent. She smelled like flowers.
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