“Do you know what happened the last time the devil visited Jesus?” he asked.
I knew the story by heart. I’d begged Ray to bring me something to read, because the only thing worse than the panic attacks was the mind-numbing boredom of being in a closed space with no interaction. He’d given me a Bible, and the temptation of Jesus was the first thing I had found. The story had been there in black and white, just like he’d said it would be. “He takes Jesus to the top of a mountain and shows him all the land below. He promises to give him all the souls in the world if he bows down and worships him. Jesus refuses, and that’s when the devil finally leaves.”
Ray grinned. I loved when he was pleased with me.
“Is this it? Am I close?” I asked.
He nodded. Excitement surged through me.
“You’ve denounced the world, much like Jesus. In the same way, you’ve curbed your earthly appetites and desires. The only thing left is to denounce the devil by putting the self to death.” He gave me a second to gather my composure before ordering me to stand. I stood slowly.
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
My clothes were the same ones I’d been wearing the day I left my life. I’d lost so much weight that my jeans hung on me, the waistband rolled over to keep them up. I stepped out of them and tossed them to the side. I stood in my sports bra and underwear, since I hadn’t worn my T-shirt in a long time. I’d torn it into strips, one to hold my hair back and the others to use as cleaning rags. Cleaning my small space gave order to my days. Wiping my body down with the same rag day after day was pointless, but it made me feel like I was still a human being.
“All of it.” His voice filled with threat.
I knew what he was asking me to do, but I couldn’t get my arms to move. My body froze. I willed it to move, but it refused. The crack of his belt against my leg snapped me back into my body. I fumbled with my underwear, pulling it down to my knees. The mortification never got easier.
“Turn around.”
I turned away from him, facing the brick. Shame burned my cheeks. I understood why Jesus wept blood in the garden of Gethsemane.
“The Lord says we must put to death the evil deeds of the body.” His belt cracked against my bare skin, making me jump. “Let those who know the Lord renounce all wickedness.”
Another smack. And another. Each one harder than the last. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out.
“Do you feel the sin leaving your body?”
I stumbled over my words, the pain making me stupid. The next hit almost knocked me to the ground. “I belong to the Lord so . . .”
It was gone. I couldn’t remember. Where did it go?
“What does the word say?”
He barely gave me a chance to respond before smacking me again. My stomach heaved into my throat. Suddenly I remembered. “I belong to the Lord so crucify me,” I blurted out.
He unleashed on me. I lost track of how many hits. Tears burned my eyes. My backside screamed in pain. I didn’t recognize the sound of my cries.
“Please, please,” I begged over and over. It was as if he couldn’t hear me, or if he did, my words meant nothing. My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the floor before everything went black.
SEVENTEEN
MEREDITH
NOW
“And how long were you in the cellar?” Brian asked after Kate had finished describing what happened to her on the day she left and in the following days. We’d called Dean last night after our conversation with Kate, and he’d made arrangements to have everyone on the team here at eight to hear her disclosure. Brian and Camille were the only ones in the living room with Kate. The rest of us were watching the interview on monitors Dean had set up in the dining room. Abbi had been sleeping when people started arriving, and I’d told Scott he should wake her for it, but he’d insisted we let her sleep, since she’d been up most of the night with Kate.
“Forty days and forty nights, just like Jesus,” Kate said while she played with Shiloh’s fingers. It’d taken everything I had to sit through her descriptions of the cellar. For a second I thought I detected a hint of pride on her face at having survived down there for that long with no human contact besides Ray, but it was gone that quickly, leaving me doubting that I’d seen it at all.
“Refresh my memory, since it’s been a long time since my Catholic school days—what exactly was Jesus doing in the desert?” Brian asked.
“While Jesus was being groomed and prepared for his ministry, he was taken into the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights.” Her voice changed whenever she quoted scripture or anything else related to their theology. “His experience was actually much worse than mine. The devil was relentless in his pursuit.”
Watching her talk about Love International would’ve been fascinating if it wasn’t so disturbing. She was barely coherent, but the moment the conversation shifted into discussing Love International, she became an articulate and well-spoken individual. I had never studied psychology, but I didn’t need to have a background in mental health to see she’d been brainwashed and indoctrinated with their propaganda. She’d obviously been coached. She was like an automaton trained to respond to certain trigger words.
I watched Camille during the interview as much as I watched Kate. She kept quiet, allowing Brian to ask all the questions, but her eyes were laser focused on Kate. I would’ve loved to get inside her head and see what she was thinking about all of this.
“Was the devil relentless in his pursuit of you?” Brian asked.
She nodded.
“That must have been awful.” Was the concern in Brian’s eyes genuine, or was he just trying to get her to talk? I couldn’t tell. “What did you do to get through it?”
“I read.”
“What did you read?”
“The Bible. I read to Abbi. That helped.”
“Did you do anything else?”
She took a minute before answering, either working to gather her thoughts or trying to decide if she should tell us. “I put myself places,” she finally said.
Brian looked interested. “You did? What does that mean?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and for a second she almost broke down, but she pulled herself back together. “I traveled outside of myself a lot.”
“Where did you go when you traveled outside yourself?” Brian asked like it was normal to believe you could leave your body and take little trips around the city. I couldn’t wait for the interview to be over. It was making my skin crawl.
She paused. “Home.”
“And what did you do at home?”
Her gaze shifted upstairs. “I watched them sleep.” She smiled like she was watching them now, or maybe it was the memory. “Not Scott. Abbi slept. He walked. I counted his miles.” Scott burst out laughing. Kate let out a small giggle when she heard him from the other room.
He told me his insomnia started after Kate left, but that couldn’t be right because how else would she know that he was up pacing, unable to sleep from stress? Why would he lie about that?
“Doesn’t it say something about how the angels attended to him after he was taken out of the desert?” Brian asked.
“It does.”
“Did the angels attend to you when you were let out?”
“They welcomed me.”
“The angels being the other disciples?”
She nodded.
“What kind of ceremony did they have for you?” he asked. He never let time lapse between questions, as a way to keep her talking.
“A welcome-home one,” she said.
“Welcome home . . . hmm.” He made an exaggerated production of looking around the room, taking in the framed picture of Abbi, Scott, and Kate displayed on the mantel above the fireplace. “But I thought this was your home?”
Scott sat at his desk in the corner, trying to catch up on his emails from work. He was struggling to stay on top of things even though he
hadn’t complained about it. His supervisors were completely understanding about our situation and told him to work from home for as long as he needed, but commercial sales wasn’t a job that was easily done from the desk in our bedroom.
He typed while he talked. “I keep trying to put myself in her situation, picture myself there, and I just can’t wrap my brain around what it must have been like to be thrown in a cell and kept in complete isolation for that long. Prisoners go crazy when they’re kept in seclusion rooms, and those guys are hardened criminals. Kate isn’t a wimp, but she’s hardly someone that you’d think could survive in those conditions.”
“When are you going to tell Abbi what’s going on?” I asked. She’d slept until after ten, and Kate’s interview was already over by then. Camille had spent the rest of the afternoon with Kate, so Scott had had plenty of time to fill Abbi in on the details she’d missed since last night, but he hadn’t. He’d spent hours going over yesterday’s videos with Dean instead.
He wrinkled his forehead. “She knows everything that’s going on.”
Was he avoiding telling her? She would find out about it at our next debriefing session anyway, so what was the point? There was no way to shield her from the hurt.
I placed my hand on top of his, forcing him to stop typing and pay attention to me. “We knew this would be hard, but you’re only prolonging the inevitable by not telling her. She would much rather hear it from you than a bunch of stiff FBI agents. Besides, you can frame it for her in a way that will mean more and might help lessen the blow.”
“Meredith, come on, you saw how Kate was in there today. Nothing about her joining Love International was voluntary. That man completely brainwashed her while she was down there.” He shook his head in disbelief and astonishment. “The crazy part is how he played with her and worked his way into her head without her even knowing he was doing it.”
Brian had said something similar during one of our coffee breaks this morning. He’d said if you wanted to brainwash someone, you used language specifically designed to draw them in, coupled with mind-control tricks. He had sworn people didn’t stand a chance over time when the practices were grounded in the so-called purpose and will of God.
“Did you hear how many times he told her that he liked it when she smiled? He knew that would only make her want to work harder to please him.” His eyes were on fire. “He knew her so well, right into her psyche. It’s how he made her into his slave. Think about what it must have been like for her. You’re all alone in a dark space, and he becomes the only contact with the outside world. Christ, she depends on him for food and water; her entire survival depends on him. It’s genius. It bonds her to him in a way that wouldn’t be possible any other way.”
“Scott, can we get back to my original question?” He would have gone on forever if I hadn’t stopped him.
“That’s what I’m talking about, honey. This gets to your original question. It’s too complicated and convoluted to tell Abbi that her mom abandoned us. It’s not that simple.” He eyed me pointedly.
He was avoiding it like it wasn’t going to be real until he told Abbi, so he was putting it off for as long as possible. But even that didn’t explain his behavior. Worry seeped into my thoughts. He’d made that strange comment last night about me not knowing the full story—even if he’d laughed it off like it was because he was tired, he’d still said it—and now this.
“I love you, Scott, and I know how unbelievably difficult this must be for you.” I was beat from the stress, and mine paled in comparison to his. “All I’m saying is that I think you shouldn’t waste any more time before bringing Abbi up to speed.”
He pulled his hand away from mine and shoved the keyboard aside. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore. It’s not your call to make.” His words stung. I raised my hand to my cheek, like they’d left a physical mark. We were supposed to be on the same team. “I’m going downstairs to get myself something to eat.” He didn’t wait for me to respond before leaving the bedroom and heading to the kitchen.
I wasn’t going to let him avoid the conversation. Someone had to think rationally about our situation, and I had to be the one to do it, since he was too emotional. I quickly followed him downstairs.
EIGHTEEN
ABBI
NOW
I rushed around the corner and into the kitchen just as Meredith said to Dad, “I think you should tell her right now. She—” She stopped as soon as she saw me.
“Tell me what?” I asked, since they were obviously talking about me.
They both froze. I was supposed to be upstairs doing my homework, but I’d forgotten my math book on the table and couldn’t finish without it. They turned to each other, trying to communicate with their eyes, like married couples do, but I wasn’t going to give them a chance to get their story straight. “Tell me what?” I asked again, more direct and forceful this time. I’d walked in on something, and I wasn’t leaving until they told me.
“Is your mom still resting?” Dad asked.
I nodded. She’d been lying down since after dinner. She’d gotten one of her horrible headaches after her session with Camille this afternoon. Those sessions wiped her out more than the others. I wouldn’t want to be interviewed by Camille either. Everything she said came out sounding like she was mad at you.
“This is probably a great time to have that conversation we’ve been talking about.” Meredith eyed Dad, their exchange barbed with hidden meaning. He glared at her.
“Do you want to sit?” Dad asked me. He pointed to the table, where my math book lay splayed open, just like I’d left it.
“What? Just tell me—what’s going on?” Dad never made me sit. It must be really bad news. Why did people always make you sit down for bad news? I stayed standing.
Meredith tried to appear relaxed, but her anxiety peeked out from behind her smile. Dad’s anger boiled beneath the surface, like he was only keeping it together because I was in the room. His temple throbbed every time he looked at Meredith. He was a teddy bear until you pushed him too far.
“It’s your mother,” Dad finally said after a few more beats had passed.
I nodded. Obviously. I waited for him to say more, but he stayed quiet.
Meredith cocked her head to the side. “Scott?” she prompted.
“What is she talking about, Dad?” A knot of anxiety balled in my stomach.
“I told you I wasn’t sure about this.” He struggled to control his voice. Meredith put her hand on his back and pushed him toward me, like getting him closer would make it easier for him to talk. “Your mother wasn’t taken from the Target parking lot . . .”
I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “Where did they take her from?” I asked.
“She left from Target.” Sweat dotted his forehead.
“You just said they didn’t take her from Target.” I sneaked a glance at Meredith. She looked fine. Was Dad in some kind of shock again? This was starting to freak me out.
He sensed my fear and quickly spoke. “Your mom wanted to become a disciple of Love International, so she left everything in her car to join them and walked to their campus. When she got there, she agreed to let them take her in a van—”
“Wait? What? Slow down.” He was talking too fast for my brain to process. Mom left? That’s what he was trying to get at?
“Your mother joined Love International because she wanted to. It was voluntary,” Meredith said. “Nobody kidnapped her.”
I turned to Dad. “I don’t understand. What’s she talking about? Are you saying Mom left us?”
His face contorted like he was in physical pain. “Yes.”
My brain couldn’t wrap itself around his words. “No, she wouldn’t leave us. You said she would never leave us. Dad?”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. Meredith stepped toward me. “She told us last night and confirmed it again this morning—”
“You found out last night, and you’re just now telling me?” I shrieke
d. “What happened this morning? What else haven’t you told me?”
“I’m sorry, Abbi—you were sleeping this morning, and I didn’t want to wake you,” Dad said, reaching out to hug me.
“Seriously? That’s your excuse?” I pulled away. My head swam. Mom had left us, and I’d missed the moment she’d told us why.
“I know this must be so hard for you to process right now on top of everything else,” Meredith said. “We just thought—”
“Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it.” No more. Not from her. Not from them. Not from anyone. They were too close to me. I had to move. I couldn’t process this with them staring at me. I needed to think. I turned on my heels and headed back through the house.
The two of them followed behind me.
“Abbi, stop. Talk to us,” Meredith called out to me.
I hated when she referred to the three of us as a unit. Always had.
“I’m sorry,” Dad said. He’d already apologized. I wished he’d stop apologizing. “Where are you going? What are you doing?” he asked as I opened the front door of the house.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I took off running as soon as my feet hit the pavement.
NINETEEN
MEREDITH
NOW
“I couldn’t find her anywhere.” Scott’s voice shook. He’d just gotten back home after driving around for almost an hour searching for Abbi. He’d bolted after her as soon as she’d left, but she must have zigzagged through backyards, because he hadn’t found her. “Did you get ahold of Meaghan?”
“Yes, and she hasn’t heard from her.” Abbi had left so fast she’d forgotten her phone. I’d gone through all her contacts and texted all her friends. Nobody had seen her, and she hadn’t gotten in touch with anyone yet from someone else’s phone.
“What’s going on?” Kate interrupted from the top of the stairs.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing.
When She Returned Page 12