The Defiance

by Laura Gallier

  I knew I could. That was just it—his character was so squeaky clean, so solid and dependable, I couldn’t relate to him.

  He gave me his phone number, then started to walk away.

  “Ethan?”

  He faced me. It was too late now to turn back.

  “How come you’re such a good person? Like, how do you do it?” I immediately regretted asking. It felt like I was a tail-tucked dog that had just acknowledged him as the alpha.

  He gave me a kind smile. “Well, I definitely have my struggles. That said, it’s been a huge blessing to have parents that are people of faith. And growing up in a church community has been invaluable.”

  “It has?” I didn’t mean to sound so surprised.

  “I mean, there were times I didn’t want to go, and my parents made me. But looking back—all the Bible stories I learned at Sunday School, the songs I memorized and sang, plus my mom and dad praying with me at dinner and bedtime, the unconditional love and acceptance they always showed me . . .” He shrugged. “It’s caused me to want to know God myself. And he’s never let me down.”

  It felt like a raw egg was oozing down my face—shame I couldn’t hide. One, for having only seen the faults in the church, hardly ever any potential upside. Two, for despising Ethan all this time when his only real offense was liking the same amazing girl as me. And three, my bitter envy. I couldn’t imagine dinnertime at the table with adoring parents, much less having been tucked in bed—and with a thoughtful prayer.

  Ethan’s parents had loved and wanted him. But mine . . .

  “So, I’ll see you at ten o’clock?” He hurried toward a nurse’s station.

  “Yeah.”

  I wandered out of the hospital, tempted to feel sorry for myself, even without any Creepers shooting pathetic thoughts at my head. But there was no time for that.

  I raced to the cornfields and jogged to the abandoned house, anxious to know whether Molek was still restrained or roaming free. When I saw that he was gone—his throne missing too—my gut throbbed with adrenaline.

  I tried jogging the whole way back but had to settle for a fast-paced walk a few times, sucking in air while mentally sifting through every detail Zella had reported to me. Was I overlooking something?

  My motorcycle came into view as I recalled that Creeper she’d had with her. Deception was linked to Zella, I thought, yet she had clarity of mind—enough to choose life over suicide and realize the other students needed rescuing.

  The demon hadn’t done its job at all.

  I slid my helmet on, then froze.

  Then again, maybe it had executed its assignment—using Zella to deceive me.

  But not for long.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I WAS A SWEATY MESS and still out of breath as I entered the attendance office at Masonville High. “I’m Owen Edmonds, Gentry Wilson’s mentor—is he in class today?”

  I was surprised I cared enough to see it, but the forty-something-year-old lady behind the desk had a mask of addiction fitted on her face. “There’s no mentoring today.”

  “I know. Can you please just tell me if he’s here? There’s been an emergency.” It was true enough.

  After using my ID to verify I was, in fact, in the mentorship program, she clicked on her mouse. “He’s marked absent today.”

  I knew it. “What about Zella Benny, his girlfriend?”

  More clicking. “Absent as well. Do you mind me asking—”

  “There’s a purple-haired girl . . .”

  “Presley Baker?”

  “Presley—that’s it. Is she here?”

  Three more clicks. “Hmm. She appears to be absent too.”

  Of course she was. I couldn’t name the rest of the thirteen students, but I didn’t need to. I was sure they’d all skipped today.

  I stormed out of there, still convinced a group suicide was set to go down, but also suspecting Zella had lied to me about what time and maybe where—even though she was somehow marked as a defender. By midnight, the horrific ordeal would be long over, already making national news. For all I knew, the students were in the woods now, gulping down pills—if that was truly how they planned to do it.

  I clung to the hope that they weren’t dead already.

  I hurried toward the main exit doors but paused to take a sweeping glance around the foyer. Not a single Creeper visible anywhere. Unheard of in this school. They were bound to be in the woods, frenzied spectators to their Creeper King as he attempted to raise his throne.

  I charged through the parking lot in the rain and called Ethan. I got his voicemail. “Hey, I need your help now, not tonight. There’s no time to meet up at the school. If you have any way to find the Caldwell Cemetery in the woods behind Masonville High, go there—I can’t really explain how to get there. If you don’t see anyone there, or can’t find it . . .” Where else was I supposed to tell him to go? “Just search the woods for people, okay?”

  I started my bike and called Elle. She sounded fairly confident she’d locate Jackson soon, but she admitted getting him away from Dr. Bradford would be tricky. “Do whatever it takes,” I told her. “And Elle, please don’t go public with this until you have Jackson, but any minute now, there’s going to be a group suicide somewhere on my property—if it hasn’t happened already.” I didn’t waste a minute explaining. I hung up and sped off the parking lot.

  The skies were gray and pouring, but that didn’t explain why the spiritual atmosphere was dormant. I’d expected to see battalions of Watchmen and hordes of Creepers, as intense a battle as the last time Molek had attempted to reclaim Masonville.

  I raced down the one-lane, unpaved street that ran along the back of my acreage, dodging waterlogged potholes. I finally made it to the makeshift road that, months ago, had served as the secret passageway through my property to the human auction. I drove down the path, aiming to get as close to the Caldwell Cemetery as I could before venturing there on foot. I knew the students weren’t likely to be there, but I had to check.

  I parked under a soaked cedar, then charged toward my ancestors’ graveyard, where the Mary statue stood. Lightning cracked like a leather whip, lighting up the overcast woods brighter than the sun for seconds at a time.

  There was still no sign of paranormal life in the trees or air. It made no sense.

  I tripped over tree limbs and stumbled a few times but kept running. Then suddenly, with every stride, my feet began to sink into the earth up to my ankles. I don’t mean I was traipsing through mud. I was slipping through the ground supernaturally. My Nikes—aura included—sank like I was standing in quicksand, only they didn’t create holes in the ground.

  I got stuck in one spot and kept sinking until the ground was at the middle of my shins. Then came a distressing sensation, like there was nothing but air underneath the soles of my shoes—as if I was somehow floating underground.

  I pulled one knee up, removing my foot with ease, and stepped to the side, where it turned out the earth was solid—as in, not swallowing my shoe. I pulled my other leg out, and, once standing securely on un-sinking turf, lay flat on my stomach, thinking maybe I could plunge my head down and spy underground.

  I assumed I’d peer into another spirit-world grave, which I dreaded, but I couldn’t ignore what might be happening. I grabbed a small but firmly rooted shrub with my right hand, closed my eyes, and held my breath, then pressed my face down in the same spot where my feet had fallen. And down I went, until my upper body was suspended above an underground void so immense, I gasped, horrified of falling in. I clung to the shrub with all my strength.

  It was endless miles wide and unfathomably deep—not hell’s fiery chambers but a spirit-realm space of some kind. There was a shifting mix of darkness and radiance, but the lighting was eclipsed by the action and noise.

  It was the most intense, loudest battle I’d ever seen. Hundreds of armored Watchmen wielded giant swords and shields, taking on gangs of Creepers as the demons whipped long chains around, attempting to
maim and bind the Watchmen. Heaven’s army was too strong to be restrained, but the Watchmen would grit their teeth and groan when metal links struck their necks or slammed their helmets, crashing against their shiny armor.

  Extra-tall robed Watchmen dumped a few of those stained-glass bowls on the fray, but they were half full—with only enough shimmering liquid to disable handfuls of Creepers. And I could hear people—humans—talking. Some praying. Others casting spells. All at once.

  “Custos!” I spotted him diving down—headfirst, shield extended. He blasted through a clustered wall of Creepers, and it sounded like freight trains colliding.

  No wonder the skies had been empty. The war raged underground.

  Everything in me wanted to stay there, watching the action unfold, but who was I to be lying down during the heat of battle, spectating while God’s army fought with all their might? I jumped to my feet and resumed sprinting in the wet woods, praying I didn’t fall through the ground and plummet into the gargantuan war zone.

  Finally, the Caldwell Cemetery’s black iron fence was within sight. Not surprisingly, I didn’t see any students at the Mary statue.

  As I stood there contemplating my next move, my own battle caught up with me. More like overtook me.

  The crying infant wasn’t close by or pressing against me now; it was screaming between my ears, as if it was lodged in my brain. And that haunting, stalking presence . . .

  I felt it inside me, like it had made itself at home in my bones.

  I slowed to a jog and clawed at my head and chest, moaning and praying without words for God to send the old man to my rescue again. But like the torrential downpour, the assault continued to batter my soul, overwhelming me completely.

  “Who are you?”

  How could I fight an enemy I couldn’t see or comprehend? One that had withstood every spiritual weapon I’d aimed at it, even the name of Christ? And the crying inside my head . . . the sheer decibel level was maddening to the point of insanity.

  I hit the soggy ground on my knees. “Tell me what you are!”

  It’s me. It was my own voice, answering me.

  “Get out of my head!” I was on all fours now, crawling like an animal.

  I can’t.

  “Why not?” I gave in to the lunacy of conversing with myself. But there was no reply this time.

  I collapsed facedown, scooping fistfuls of mud and dumping it on the back of my head—a useless attempt to bury the noise echoing through my mind, ringing louder than the church fire alarm had.

  “Please, God, help! Have mercy on me!”

  My nose and mouth became covered in mud, smothering me. I lifted my chin and spotted a puddle catching drips falling from tree limbs. It was just beyond my reach. I dug my fingers into the ground and pulled myself forward, then rinsed my face in the water, inhaling lifesaving breaths.

  I hovered on my forearms and elbows, coming unglued inside, staring down at the puddle in the storm-shrouded daylight.

  At my reflection.

  But instead of my face, it was the single most terrifying image I’d ever seen.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I COULDN’T TELL if the face reflecting up at me was male or female or if it had skin or scales, but its eyes were completely gone—just two dark, empty sockets. It had a sunken nose and razor-thin lips pressed tightly together and sewn shut with thick thread in a messy crisscross pattern.

  I tilted my neck to the left, and the bald head moved in sync with me, like a mirror image. Like it was me.

  The ears were grossly malformed—clumps of flesh with no openings.

  I extended my arm, the hysterical child still screaming in my brain. I reached out until my fingertips grazed the water’s surface. The reflection moved too, only its arm was broken off—nothing from the bicep down.

  I reached with my other arm. Same thing. No elbow or forearm or hand. Just a shredded bicep.

  I stayed fixated on the monstrosity but spoke to the infant, desperate for some silence. “Shh. Don’t cry.” Just like Ray would soothe Jackson.

  Had the wailing actually eased a bit?

  “It’s okay, I’m here. You’re alright.”

  It was absurd and insane, but the more I coddled the infant, speaking words of comfort, the more settled it became. But nothing I said silenced it completely.

  The hideous image in the water—the villain inside me—couldn’t move its lips, yet it managed to utter a single word. In my voice. In my head.

  Orphan.

  I rose to my hands and knees and shoved my face so close to the reflection, my nose touched the water. “I am not an orphan! My mother raised me. And my father walked out, but he’s in my life now.” I waited for a response, then shouted, “Do you hear me?”

  The creature in the water shook its head, and I realized I was shaking my head too.

  I lost it.

  I punched the puddle. Drove my fist into the mud. Pulled my own hair.

  “Stop torturing me!”

  “Easy, Son.” The old man’s soothing voice. He placed his warm, dry hand on the back of my neck.

  “Help me!”

  “Calm down.” He let me catch my breath, then pressed down gently until I was face-to-face with the horrid reflection again. The baby was no longer sobbing, but sniffling.

  “What do you see?” the old man asked me.

  “Pure evil. With no eyes.”

  “No eyes to see you. To look you in the face. To behold your expression. And the ears?”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “No ears to hear you. To listen to you. To understand.” He lowered to one knee behind me. “The mouth?”

  “It’s sewn shut.”

  “That’s right. No affirmation. No words of affection. No guidance or wisdom or prayers.”

  I cupped my face, enduring an avalanche of emotions. The monster couldn’t mimic my gesture. “It has no arms.”

  “No holding you,” the old man said. “No hugging. No pats on the back.”

  I’d never felt such hatred. Or sadness. “Make this demon go!”

  “Look at me, Owen.”

  I turned my head and stared into his golden-brown eyes, my own pooling.

  “It’s not a demon, Son.”

  I searched his face. “Then what is it?”

  He wrapped his strong arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a fatherly embrace. “It’s the wound you carry. In your soul.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, I looked down at the monster again.

  And for once, I let myself think it.

  And feel it.

  And finally say it: “I wasn’t raised in an orphanage. But all my life, I’ve felt like an orphan.”

  “I know.” The old man rose and stood behind me. “God knows.”

  My stomach dropped when the earth beneath my knees gave way, and I started sinking. I reached for the old man’s hand but couldn’t find it. I looked for him but didn’t see him. Within seconds, I was buried up to my waist.

  “I’m falling!”

  I grasped at every twig and rock within reach but kept sinking. The baby in my brain sobbed again.

  I was up to my chest in mud when my worst enemy approached. Molek circled me, stalking me on his hands and knees like a prowling lioness. “You’re too late,” he raved in shrill whispers. “They’re as good as dead. All thirteen—and the little boy.”

  “No.” I kept working to pull myself out but only became more entrenched. “You’re a liar!”

  My shoulders sank, restraining my arms.

  How had it come to this? My enemy, unearthed and free, while the ground swallowed me alive?

  Molek hovered over my head, watching me fall with his hollow-white pupils in a sea of black. “My son . . .” It was the cruelest thing he could have called me, especially given our history. “You’re rejected.” That thick black concoction shot off his tongue and stuck to my face, stinging my skin.

  “Abandoned.”

  More pain.

  As my head
sank into the soggy soil, a final insult sliced my skin and soul: “Orphaned.”

  Everything went black. I was freezing. My face was burning. I was no longer falling but stuck, unable to move—not a muscle. And I could barely breathe.

  I knew then that this was how I would die. Trapped and alone. The infant wailing within was my own nagging pain, I understood now. A lifetime of neglect. The tormenting fear of abandonment.

  God . . .

  I couldn’t speak. My thoughts were all I had. Honest thoughts, finally.

  It’s so unfair. My shattered family. Loss after loss my whole life. Ethan’s face surfaced in my mind. His self-confidence and success—my fears and failures.

  For once, I let myself feel the full brunt of suffering. The ache of injustice. The crushing grief of unspoken disappointments. It felt like my pounding heart was fracturing into a thousand agonizing pieces. It was becoming impossible to breathe.

  Finally, the infant inside me was silent.

  Any minute now, I’d face my Creator—the one who had given me this life and was taking it now. All that was left for me was to choose.

  Do I blame him . . . or trust him?

  I was shivering uncontrollably. I could hear Molek pacing above me, no doubt counting down the seconds until I died. He couldn’t capture my eternal soul, but he was sure to revel in my failed earthly mission.

  I inhaled, but there was no oxygen. No time left. Nothing but a last thought. The choice of a lifetime. My final decision . . .

  Lord, even when my father and mother abandoned me, I trust you were there, holding me close.

  A warm hand plunged down and gripped my arm, then tugged with massive force, pulling me up and out of the ground until I was lying in the dirt on my back.

  I wiped mud from my eyes, working to pry them open . . . “It was you.”

  The old man was on his knees, hovering over me.

  I pushed up onto my elbows. “When I was four years old and trapped in that sewer pipe, you were the man who pulled me out. I remember now.”

  He grinned and nodded, then his lips flattened with urgency. “Hurry.” He stood and pointed. “That way.” He turned to go.