“Of course,” Joshua said with a smile.
“We’ve tried so hard to do right by Great Spirit,” Rowena said, a bit pathetically.
“And yet Great Spirit is so disappointed in you,” the prophet said.
“What should we have done?” she begged. “I know we made some mistakes, but wouldn’t it have been wrong to abandon our son, who needs us? We made the choice we thought Great Spirit wanted—to protect our baby boy. Our boy that Great Spirit blessed.”
Her husband interrupted, “Grace said she knows where he is.”
The whole room turned to me. Samuel tried to catch the prophet’s eye, pass some kind of knowing glance, but the prophet ignored him—entirely focused on me. This was the moment I’d been terrified of. “I don’t,” I said, glad to be able to tell the truth.
The prophet walked over to me, concerned. To be the sole focus of his critical eye made me tremble. “What do you know, Grace?”
“I said someone took him away. I lied to them. I was scared,” I said. I knew as I spoke, my face wasn’t changing. I didn’t feel the tiniest bit guilty for lying to save my skin. “Clint was torturing me. I just wanted to tell them something that would keep them from killing me.”
Joshua stared at me a long moment. I had no idea what my face was doing right now. If it betrayed anything, I had no idea.
“Where did you get that story from?” Joshua asked.
“I thought if I said someone else had him, they’d have to keep me alive.”
“Why couldn’t they tell you were lying?” Joshua asked. A good question.
“I don’t know. I was so scared, I was sure they were going to.”
“She was telling the truth!” Rowena cried out.
“You just invented the story out of thin air?” Joshua asked me. I wondered—did he know the truth about what had happened in the woods that night? Maybe Zack was working for him. Maybe all these people were connected.
“I told them what I thought they wanted to hear,” I said, spinning. “They kept telling me I’d been following Ciaran, that there had been others following him. I made up a story I thought they’d believe.” I looked at the Ramseys, as though they could offer me help of some kind. Their wordless stares forced me to return my gaze to Joshua. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Joshua finally seemed sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you just went through.”
I nodded, grasping on to another idea. “I think Great Spirit put the words in my mouth. I didn’t even know what I was saying, I just let Him talk for me. I was praying that I could keep them from killing me, from doing any lasting damage, that someone would come and rescue me. And He sent you.” I gestured to the guard with ice-blue eyes, hoping my trembling would be seen as innocent, my fear mistaken for gratitude. “Thank you,” I said to him.
“You’re welcome.” The guard smiled back at me.
Perhaps Joshua considered the issue resolved, one way or another, because he didn’t ask any more questions. He simply returned to the Ramseys, asking, “Clint, Rowena. Are you ready to experience the power of Great Spirit?”
He reached out and made contact with both of their heads. At his touch, I saw Clint’s face repair itself, nearly glow. This was the prophet’s famed healing touch. It was as impressive as the images I’d seen on TV, more magical in person than I could have imagined, even now that I suspected it wasn’t magic at all.
“Great Spirit,” Joshua began to pray, “please Forgive these two people. Their crimes might have been great, but they committed them out of love for their child. And isn’t love the very thing you intend for us all to aspire to, in your name?”
The Ramseys quivered, fearing Great Spirit’s reprisal. Joshua continued, “Whatever your judgment, we accept it with open hearts.” As he said this, Mrs. Ramsey let out a scream. Her face began to change, morphing more dramatically, horrifically, than I’d ever seen. Clint’s followed soon after. Within seconds, they were on the ground, struggling to breathe.
“No!” I screamed instinctively. Only self-preservation restrained me from rushing to their sides. As their wrists swelled beyond the width of their handcuffs, the skin split, and they began to bleed.
Joshua prayed intently. I stared at him. I was sure he’d poisoned them somehow.
While everyone’s attention was focused on the Ramseys, one person had his eyes on me—Samuel. I felt my face—it was bloating, changing. I’d been so focused on the Ramseys’ plight, I hadn’t noticed. I realized the depth of the guilt I felt for my role in bringing the Ramseys here, that they were bleeding on the floor because of me. Because I’d been selfish, gone to the black market where Clint could see me. Because I’d listed their crimes to the prophet. Because I knew things they didn’t, that as terrible as these two people were, deep down I felt like it was in some way my responsibility, with my extra knowledge, to find some way to protect them. My guilt was changing my face—I could feel it, and everyone around me could see it.
I hid my face in my hands. I took a deep breath. I’d had to do what I had to do, I told myself. I tried to harden myself to the realities of the world. I had to be more like the Ramseys. I had to see my actions as justified, and I had to do it now. And slowly, I felt the Punishment begin to reverse.
“Grace?” It was the prophet’s voice. I had to look up. I removed my hands, hoping I’d healed myself in time . . . and I saw a gruesome scene before me. Both of Ciaran’s parents, dead, in pools of blood. I couldn’t hold back the tears in my eyes. “Sometimes the work Great Spirit has to do isn’t pretty,” Joshua said. “But that’s the price of living in His heaven on earth.”
I nodded. “I’m not used to seeing people pay that price.”
His expression was grim. “You’re lucky. I see it every day.”
“That must be hard,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was standing here comforting Prophet Joshua.
He nodded morosely. “Great Spirit provides great bounties. And great pain.” His eyes held a warning. My breath caught in my throat. Was the prophet threatening me? And then he smiled, the warning fading away. “I’m glad you’re all right, Grace.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, bowing my head in deference.
Joshua turned, leaving the room. Samuel was supervising two of Joshua’s aides, who’d entered to collect the Ramseys’ bodies. The guard nodded to the exit door, and he accompanied me out into the mirrored hallway. I was relieved to see that my appearance seemed to be normal. I had survived.
When we exited the building, my father was standing, waiting for me. Someone must have filled him in on how I got here, because he shook as he hugged me. “Thank Great Spirit, I was so worried.” I held him in that hug as long as I could. I’d never been happier to see my father.
“They’re dead,” I told him. “The Ramseys.”
He nodded, somber. “Great Spirit’s work is done.”
It wasn’t Great Spirit, I wanted to tell him. It was Joshua, or Samuel, I’m sure of that. But I held my tongue as we drove home, again. It was over. I hoped now, maybe, I could go back to my regular life. As back as you can after causing the deaths of two people and having your entire worldview smashed to bits.
Or maybe I wouldn’t need to. Because as we pulled into our driveway, I saw a familiar motorcycle waiting outside. Jude. As we pulled up, he drove away, around the corner. I turned to my dad. “Can I borrow your car to run to the store? I’m dying for some ice cream.”
I was done with all of this. Every relationship I had from now on would be full of lies. Everything I’d ever cared about was gone, and I’d never get it back. I only had one honest thing left, and it was Jude. I had to find a way to keep him. Even if it meant giving up everything else.
I was going into hiding with Jude.
Chapter 15
I followed his motorcycle for block after block, mile after mile. He finally pulled off the road outside a ramshackle village—an Outcast encampment, it looked like. As he pulled off his helmet, I could
tell he wasn’t happy. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“You shouldn’t follow me like that. I told you, I can’t see you anymore.”
The way he spoke made me angry. “I almost died today. Twice. But instead, I watched two other people suffocate and bleed in front of me. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jude said, his tone shifting.
“I want to leave, I want to get out of here. I want to disappear like you did.”
“That’s not so easy,” Jude said. “Dawn had to get a lot of people to help me . . .”
“I don’t want her help. I want yours.”
“I can’t help you, Grace.”
“Yes, you can. We can just leave, we can just run away to some other country where no one knows us and start over.”
He was suddenly tense, his expression drawn in sharp lines. He said, as gently as he could, “What makes you think I’d want to do that?” The statement hacked me right through the heart.
Thrown, I tried to explain, “Because you can’t be with anyone you love either. But if I went with you . . .”
“I don’t love you, Grace.” He said it gently, but firmly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re my friend. I care about you, of course. But we’re very different. Even if the accident hadn’t happened . . . I remember what I was thinking, right before we crashed. You’d put me on the spot. I was trying to figure out how to let you down without hurting you. Because I didn’t want to lose you as a friend.”
I tried to wrap my mind around this, make it make sense. “But the kiss . . .”
“In the bathroom? You were walking into a dangerous situation. I wanted to give you courage, make you feel loved.”
“Even though you don’t love me.”
“As a friend, of course I do. But I have another life, I have other responsibilities.”
“And they’re more important than me?”
“A lot of things are more important than you, Grace!” He was frustrated, angry now. I’d never even considered—did he have a girlfriend out there somewhere? His next sentence, though he said it as gently as he could, cut through me like a steel blade. “I’ve never been in love with you and I never will be.”
“But you’ve been following me . . .”
“To save your life. That was how I convinced Dawn not to shoot you—I said I’d keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t put us in danger.” It made sense. It all made sense.
So that was it. He didn’t love me. One more brutal truth. One more thing that had been staring me right in the face my whole life that I was too stupid and self-involved to realize. I looked at him for a long time. “If that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, full of compassion. Even now, when he was breaking my heart, he was still the best guy I’d ever met. I tried my best not to burst into tears.
“You’re a good friend,” I said. “I won’t bring it up again.”
Tentatively, I reached out and took his hand, squeezed it. Mercifully, he let me. “Are you going to be okay?”
I tried to imagine a time when I might be, and came up short. “Yeah,” I lied.
He looked at me with sympathy. “I know you will be.” He let go of my hand, and I walked back to my car. I waited until he’d walked out of sight, into the camp, and then I sat in my car and began to sob.
Chapter 16
I cried and cried and cried. I wasn’t sure why I’d been surprised. The past week had been one moment after another that proved just how little I knew about anything. The world wasn’t what I thought it was. Jude was alive. Jude didn’t love me, had never loved me. Everything I thought I knew for certain, in my shallow little brain, was just dead wrong. I was a stupid, stupid little child, and I was getting exactly what I deserved for all of my self-satisfaction, my smugness.
All I wanted to do was wallow in my heartbreak, and in the guilt I felt over Clint and Rowena. As soon as I got home, I bolted for my room, ready to take a pill, the kind that would at least mute the loud hammering of remorse inside my brain. If I couldn’t leave town, I was going to hide from my father and the rest of the world as long as I could.
But as I opened my bedroom door, my adrenaline jolted. Someone was sitting on my bed. And it wasn’t Jude. It was Zack.
Before I could scream, he grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth, closing the door behind me.
I tried to stomp my feet, make noise my father might hear, but my feet made no sound on the carpet.
In one swift movement, Zack picked me up, set me on my bed, and put a finger to his lips. I stared at him, silenced. He whispered, “You can trust me. Promise me you won’t scream.”
I nodded, and he let go of me.
“I’m sorry to scare you like that.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
As he prepared his response I realized how upset he was. Vulnerable even. “I need your help,” he said finally. “It’s Macy. She’s dying.”
Book Four
Chapter 1
“Why? How?” I asked.
“Did you tell her about the pills?”
The way he looked at me, with such urgency, it was hard to lie. But I tried. “What pills?”
“The ones you stole from me. Does Macy know about them?”
I feigned frustration, loudly saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Zack clamped a hand back over my mouth and put a finger to his lips again. I just stared at him, shaking with fear.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I need your help. Does she know what you know?”
He eased his hand away from my face, and I squeaked out, “No.” Zack sighed and sat down on the bed next to me. “Why?”
“I messed up.”
“How?”
“I knew it was you. I should have . . .” As Zack tortured himself with this new knowledge, I looked at the door. I wanted to run, but I was afraid of Zack catching me. “Have you told anyone else about them?”
“No.”
“Did Ciaran take you home after your date?”
“Yes.” Zack looked at me a long moment. I could tell I hadn’t fooled him, so I said flatly, “No, he didn’t.”
“Then I guess you already know that I don’t have a boring office job,” Zack said. I nodded. “And you can probably guess that I can’t tell you anything about it.”
“If you can’t tell me I can’t guess.”
“If you promise to stay quiet about this, and if you help me save Macy, I can keep you safe. Not from everyone, and not forever, but from the people I work for.” A shiver ran down my spine. How many more people like Zack could be out there?
I asked again, “What happened to Macy?”
He hesitated. And then he told me.
Chapter 2
He said he should have suspected me as the pill thief. But if it had been me, that would have left too many loose ends. It would have meant I’d probably seen him in the woods, which would have compromised his position at work (I didn’t ask what that meant). So he convinced himself it couldn’t have been me, that I hadn’t had access, that he would have been able to tell immediately if I’d stolen from him.
And in fact, he’d noticed Macy had been extra beautiful lately. He wondered, had she found the pills? He tried to ask her, but he was met with Macy’s usual snark. “Gross. Why would I go in your room?”
Zack called a friend from his team and explained the situation. “I don’t think she’s doing it maliciously. I doubt she knows anything. For all I know she just started using a new moisturizer that’s making her skin look great.” I happened to know that was exactly what had happened—a moisturizer I’d recommended.
Zack’s friend was understanding. “You wouldn’t be the first to be careless with your meds. You just need to test her. If it turns out she’s found them, we have a protocol.”
“How do I test her?”
>
His answer didn’t surprise me. It would involve the kind of pill Jude had taken when he met me in the Walden Manor bathroom. “Give her half of that, mix it in with her food so she doesn’t know she’s taking it, and if she’s not on uppers, she’ll react to it. If she is, nothing will happen, and you’ll know we need to bring her in.”
Zack did as he was told. He mixed the powder from the pill into Macy’s mashed potatoes. An hour later when she was still on the couch, seemingly fine, refusing to give him the remote—that seemed to resolve that question. Zack debated what to do. His friend hadn’t told him what exactly the “protocol” was, but Zack knew enough about the organization he worked for to be wary of what might happen to his sister if he followed orders.
He decided maybe he should just talk to her. See if he could convince her that the pills were harmless and get her to give them back. He waited until their parents had gone to bed and then knocked on her door.
“Macy?” She didn’t answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. The door was locked.
He knocked on his parents’ bedroom door. “Mom, have you seen Macy?”
His mom was annoyed, sleepy. “Isn’t she in her room?”
They both went down the hall. “Do you think something happened?” Zack asked, worried. For all he knew, the pill was poison. Maybe that was “protocol.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Mrs. Cannon said. “Macy, I’m coming in!” She jiggled the knob. “Macy, open the door!” Still no response. “We’re going to break it down if you don’t open it.”
“I’ll get a crowbar.” Zack ran down to the garage, frantic. Had he just killed his sister?
His hands shook as he tore through his father’s toolbox, pulled out anything that looked like it could break down a door. He ran back upstairs. Macy’s door was open now. He cautiously approached her room. Macy was sitting on her bed, crying. Her skin was crusty, her eyes yellow. She looked ill. He knew for certain that she hadn’t been on “uppers” . . . this was the kind of Punishment that all the makeup in the world couldn’t fix.
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