The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Stevens, Taylor

  She stood by the window, morning light reflecting onto her hands, and she gazed at the invisible macula of death that marked them. There was a quiet knock and the door opened. Bradford stuck his head inside the room and then, without waiting for a response, entered fully. He closed the door and walked over to her, staring out over the city.

  “Did you leave evidence behind?” he asked.

  She turned her eyes slowly to him and said, “Not that I know of.”

  Bradford reached forward, touched his thumb to her chin, and said, “Maybe taking this assignment would be a good thing.”

  She leaned her head into his hand. “If those men really were police, there’s sure to be fallout, and I won’t run from my mistakes.”

  “That would only be a side bonus,” he said. “God knows you’ve needed a break, and I’m sure you’ve kept busy, but have you considered that the extended downtime might be part of your problem?”

  She turned again toward the window, to the ants and toys that crawled along the city streets. There was no doubt that she needed to work; it had been almost eight months since Mongomo, and the internal pressure was steadily building—a violent tension that could only be eased by the pure focus of an assignment. But this thing that Logan offered? This was a form of madness.

  “Death follows me,” she said. “I can get the girl out, but I can’t guarantee that others won’t die, and one way or another, those people are all connected to Logan.” She turned again toward the window and the city streets. “Logan is blinded by desire and need, so much so that he’s ignoring the possibilities, ignoring the potential for”—she found Bradford’s eyes—“the potential for savagery.

  “There’s something he’s not telling me,” she said. “He wants this far too badly for it to be as simple as what he’s explained.”

  “But still, you go.”

  She nodded. “I’m bracing for it and the many repercussions.”

  Muted sounds of laughter filtered in from beyond the door, and they both turned toward it. “The rest of them are awake,” she said. “It’s time to play the game.”

  She pulled an ankle-length dress off a hanger in the closet and said, “Excuse me for a moment,” and then stripped down, not caring if Bradford stared or averted his eyes, knowing he would want to do the former but do the latter.

  Having shed the fatigues of the night and reverted once more to harmless and demure, she paused with her hand on the door handle.

  “Coming?” she said.

  Seeing her manner of dress, Bradford raised an eyebrow, and she grinned in reply, then closed her eyes, a brief flash in time while she shifted from one mode to the next. When she opened her eyes, she had become the girl who would walk out the door.

  The four who had stayed the night had joined Logan in the living area, and as far as Munroe could tell, the lively discussion centered on breakfasts of times past. The television had been switched off, and although Logan interacted little, he did well at masking the undercurrents of stress that had so recently played across his face.

  Munroe entered the room with Bradford beside her, and as had happened the day before, the conversation hiccupped when a stranger joined the mix; it was not so much a closing of ranks as a concern that the newcomer might misunderstand what he’d heard.

  With a mischievous grin Munroe introduced Bradford. “Soldier of fortune,” she said, “mercenary for hire, and sometimes my bodyguard.”

  Hands were shaken, small talk made, and Gideon said to her, “The way Logan tells it, you shouldn’t need a bodyguard.”

  His words, spoken lightly, held the undercurrent of challenge, and Munroe, finding no reason to defend or explain, turned from him. She reached for the phone intending to order room service for the group, and Gideon stopped her, hand to her shoulder.

  Gideon was thirty-five and bore himself with the assurance of a man who had experienced hand-to-hand combat and lived to tell about it. At six-foot-four and 240 pounds, he held a six-inch, hundred-pound advantage, and by his behavior seemed to believe that Munroe, in her late twenties, light, lean, and innocent, would be easily schooled.

  Munroe froze. The room went silent. Her vision faded, the world turned gray, and her mind ran a series of rapid calculations. In that moment of suspended time, she yearned for the catharsis and soothing relief of pain, for the exhilaration of spilled blood.

  Logan should have warned Gideon; he should have known.

  She’d taken on larger men and feared nothing of it. To strike was instinct; second nature. She could move with devastating speed, a frightful sense of crazy that bordered on true insanity and became, not shock-and-awe, but shock-then-die; a drive to kill that had been carved into her psyche one savage knife slice after another.

  Standing straight, her back still to him, her voice low and monotone, she said, “Remove your hand.”

  In minute calculations that reported back like echolocation, she placed each person in the room and readied for what was to come. Bradford had stood up from the sofa and then stopped. Logan had stayed seated. Neither would dare move for fear of triggering a violent reaction. The others had remained where they were, and Gideon’s hand was still weighted on her shoulder.

  Forcing down the urge to strike, her back still to him, she said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Gideon’s fingers tightened. He pulled. “I’m talking to you,” he said.

  Darkness descended. Time ceased. Movement blurred. Instinct without thought, and then Gideon was on his knees, hands to his throat, gasping for air, and she was standing over him prepared to strike again.

  Munroe’s eyes darted to Logan, and instead of finding horror on his face, as she expected, he was smirking.

  She understood then that this was Logan’s doing—Logan and his stupid, dangerous games, proving points that didn’t need proving. She stood upright, reached a hand for Gideon, pulled him to his feet, and gave him a gentle jab to his arm.

  “Give it a few minutes,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

  Conversation in the room slowly resumed and gradually the moment passed as if nothing had occurred. When breakfast arrived, the discussion turned again to the issue of bringing Hannah home. Logan said little and his eyes hurried often to seek Munroe’s, as if begging assurance. She smiled in reply, but under the circumstances the gesture was probably more confusing to him than not.

  In the stories of the children of The Chosen, in the sincerity of their pain, she understood the insanity of accepting the assignment and exactly why she would. There was no logic in it, no list of pros and cons; it defied the calculation and the meticulous exactness that had thus far defined her career. This desire to accept welled from deep inside; a child’s innocent yearning from years long past; the prayers for rescue never answered.

  In this round of discussion, Bradford asked the questions, and while the others answered, Munroe withdrew in order to observe body language and facial cues. As it had been yesterday, there was a collective aura of disbelief. And rightly so.

  Unlike typical clients who wore expensive suits and made decisions with businesslike detachment, who had millions of investment dollars at their disposal, who plotted outside of board meetings, and who knew Munroe only by reputation, this assignment was being run on a shoestring and intensely personal—everything was being staked on the commitment and ability of a stranger.

  The conversation increased in volume, and Munroe watched amused as the silent battle lines were drawn. Bradford’s questions were direct, tactical, had less to do with sentiments and feeling than with logistics. He was a soldier ignoring emotion in order to calculate risk. His detachment wasn’t personal, it was the way of war, and of those around the table only Gideon and Logan, each former military men, seemed to grasp it.

  Munroe stood. A long and slow movement that pushed the chair back fully and stopped the conversation cold. She shifted forward, palms against the table, and said, “I’m ready when you are.”

  Chapter 7

 
Buenos Aires, Argentina

  Hannah snuck down the stairs and tiptoed toward the kitchen. It was terribly disobedient being out of bed at this late hour, but she had to look, she couldn’t sleep until she found out, and since she hadn’t been in any trouble lately, if she got caught, it shouldn’t be too bad.

  Compared to her room, which was crowded and never really quiet, the house was very dark and very lonely, and the schedule board seemed at first just a blob along the hallway wall. Hannah stood in front of it, squinting at the marker print, looked for her name, and found it under the kitchen crew.

  She groaned.

  Normally she liked kitchen duty. It was way better than going out on the streets or to offices and stores in order to raise money, and definitely better than scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets. But if she was assigned to the kitchen, it would make it very difficult to find Rachel alone, because unlike Hannah, who rotated between the ministries, filling in wherever she was needed, Rachel had a full-time one. Rachel was a whole year older and stayed with her children’s group all day, nights too, every day except on part of Sunday.

  If Hannah was in the kitchen, she’d need a really good excuse to get to the toddlers’ area to talk with Rachel, so tomorrow would have been a good day for cleaning toilets.

  To tell what happened was disobedience, but Sunshine hadn’t said anything about asking. And if what had happened to Hannah yesterday had also happened to Rachel, then nobody was really telling anything to anyone because they both already knew, and that made it sort of a gray area. Maybe. But the only person that Hannah could possibly go to, the only one who might understand, was Rachel.

  Hannah would try, because sometimes the only way to feel better, when forgetting didn’t work, was to talk to someone who knew how bad the thing could be.

  It had taken Sunshine three whole hours to come back yesterday. The more time that passed, the meaner that man had become, and it had been harder and harder to stay far away in her mind and to hold back the tears. But she had.

  And it seemed like Mr. Cárcan knew exactly when Sunshine was coming, because he’d let Hannah get dressed and then sent her to the reception room to be alone right before Sunshine walked in the door.

  Sunshine had taken her back to the van, where Zadok was still waiting, and nobody said anything. If ever by accident you were alone with someone in the Void, the adults wanted to know everything, every word, to be sure you hadn’t been spiritually poisoned or said something Secret to the wrong person. But this time they didn’t seem to care, and maybe it was better that way because Hannah was ashamed and embarrassed and really, really didn’t want to talk to them; she wanted to forget.

  She understood that Sunshine had said it was Secret and that to talk about it was disobedience, but Sunshine needn’t have bothered. Hannah would never talk to another adult about it; even without the warning, she knew better than that. If any of the Representatives found out, they would blame her, just like last year in Chile, when she’d told about Uncle Gabriel and they’d said that it was Hannah and her influencing demons that had tempted him, and it was she who had been shamed in front of the entire Haven, and then later punished more.

  Hannah turned from the schedule board and tiptoed back down the hall, snuck up the stairs and then into bed, all the while trying to figure out how to arrange a way to talk to Rachel—Rachel, who had not so long ago been a good enough friend that the Haven leaders forbade them contact.

  That was the way things were—you could be friends but not get so close that you were the best of friends. Best friends, like married people, might put another person above the Lord, or The Prophet, or the Haven, and tempt her to keep secrets. Sometimes, even if you were just good friends it might appear like best friends to the Haven leaders, and since you couldn’t explain, you had to be careful, which they hadn’t been.

  Things were better now, at least they were allowed to talk to each other again, but the leaders still kept an eye on them, and that’s why they’d moved Rachel into the toddlers’ room and her full-time ministry, so there wouldn’t be many opportunities.

  In morning devotions, Hannah sat as still as possible, staring at the pages even though she wasn’t reading. Her own conscience rebuked her, but she gave up trying to focus, because no matter how hard she tried, the words just filtered in and filtered out, and whole pages would pass before she realized she hadn’t really read a single word.

  The Instructives, the words of The Prophet, were important for her spiritual health and absolutely necessary to keep the Devil and his demons at bay, but her mind kept jumping. She tried not to fidget, tried not to look at the clock until, at last, the two hours ended, and the living room emptied.

  More than a dozen people, some of them adults, but mostly young people who were rotators like Hannah, went to the schedule board to find their assignments for the day. Hannah already knew where she belonged but followed anyway, and after an appropriately long glance, went to the kitchen, where lunch preparation would soon go into full swing.

  She found an opening in midafternoon when Hezekiah, the kitchen leader gave her a fifteen-minute break before dinner prep started. She liked Uncle Hez because he was easy on the rules and he wasn’t serious and strict like most adults. As long as you worked hard and didn’t disrespect, he didn’t care about much else, and sometimes he even joked around.

  Hannah knew the schedule, knew Rachel would be outside with her group, which wasn’t as good as if they were in the toddlers’ room, where no one would pass by and see them talking, but it was the best she would get. As long as nobody got very interested, and as long as neither Hannah nor Rachel went to the leaders about it, there shouldn’t be a problem.

  Today, Rachel sat on a makeshift bench, and nearby the six little ones played while Mercy, Rachel’s eleven-year-old helper, stood watch over them.

  When Hannah approached, Rachel scooted over on the bench to make room, but she didn’t say anything. That was how it was when you got in trouble and were separated; it was hard to know how to start again.

  Hannah sat down, but still Rachel stayed quiet, so Hannah watched Mercy play with two of the kids. The ten- to twelve-year-olds had it so much easier than the thirteen and ups—they worked only half days, still got to see their parents after dinner, and, best of all, still got to have a few hours of school. Hannah missed the school, mostly, and the fact that she never got a chance to learn how to do fractions.

  Mercy moved a little closer to the bench, and Hannah could see on her face that she was curious about why she’d come. Even though Hannah would be very careful with what words were used, she didn’t want Mercy to get close enough to hear the conversation, so quickly and quietly she said to Rachel, “Did he hurt you too?”

  Rachel didn’t look up, but after a while she nodded. The good part was that, without really having broken any rule, Hannah had learned something, and without being specific, they both knew what they were talking about.

  But it was too risky to say more unless Rachel contributed. Hannah waited, but Rachel kept quiet, and before long Mercy was there right next to the bench like a nosy eavesdropper waiting to hear anything they said.

  Hannah’s time was up, and it had been mostly wasted except that now she knew she wasn’t the only one—but because Rachel had been so quiet, she was a little worried that Rachel might say something to the leaders. With her stomach swirling, Hannah went back to the kitchen, and since her hands could work without her really needing to think much, and Hez wouldn’t say anything as long as she kept up the pace, she let her mind wander through most of the afternoon.

  It was late that evening when Uncle Elijah came for her.

  He stuck his head into the girls’ room and asked her to step out for a bit. He needed to talk to her, he said, and that was enough for Hannah to feel she’d have to throw up. There was never anything good that came from a talk.

  She’d been careful, she’d not technically broken any rules, but in the end that didn’t matter because appar
ently Rachel had reported her, and there was no way to know whether what she’d said was true or not.

  Elijah took Hannah to his little office, put a sign on the handle, and shut the door. That was worse. Elijah was the main leader of the Haven. If he said don’t come in, nobody would come in, and that meant anything was possible.

  He told her to sit on one of the folding chairs. She did, and he sat opposite. He was quiet for a minute, staring down at her, and even if she wanted to look back at him, she just couldn’t. Inside and out, her body was shaking, and the best she could do was to just hold back the tears that always came when she was afraid.

  “The Lord has shown me that you’ve been disobedient,” he said, “and we just can’t have that. It’s an opening for the Devil into our ranks.”

  Elijah didn’t say what she’d done, they never did, and she was afraid to ask, because she might make it worse if she were to offer something he wasn’t already aware of. And even though Hannah hadn’t truly disobeyed today, she couldn’t explain herself and so had to accept whatever he measured out.

  It was so frustrating never being able to explain, to just swallow the punishment without at least having a chance to change things.

  Hannah’s eyes smarted.

  “You’ll be on probation for two weeks,” Elijah said. “I’ve asked Morningstar to be your Keeper for that time, and you’ll be on silence restriction until I feel your heart is right with the Lord again.”

  Hannah nodded, and though she tried to fight back the tears, she couldn’t. The fear, the things that happened on that trip into town, Rachel reporting her, this punishment—all of it was too much, too fast, one thing on top of another without anything in between to help dull the effects and no time to process and shove them away.

  And there was relief too. Two weeks of being watched full-time by Morningstar and not being allowed to talk to anyone else wasn’t so bad, not nearly as bad as being paddled in front of all the members of the Haven until she begged for mercy.