“We cannot get in the way of God’s will, no matter how difficult that might be,” he had said. I’d been angry with him before, but I’d never hated him as much as I had in that moment.
Bekah moaned as another contraction seized her. She instinctively pushed like she’d been doing all day, unable to hold back, and the feet pressed through again. I had tried grabbing and pulling them once and the sounds that had come out of her weren’t human. I wouldn’t put her through that again.
“It’s okay, Bekah. You’re almost there,” I said through my tears, but we both knew I was lying.
All the women had filed in to the birthing tent in the beginning, but they had started leaving almost immediately. Mothers were the only ones who stayed behind, since they’d been through it before, but they’d left as the intensity increased, until it was only me and Margo. There was no way I was leaving Margo alone. She was crying as hard as Bekah, her love for her as strong as mine for Willow.
I didn’t touch Bekah’s body during contractions. Touch only made it worse. We had learned that the hard way. I tried to breathe for her, willing my air into her lungs. Suddenly, her head rolled to the side and her eyes closed. Margo grabbed her head and lifted it up. “Bekah, don’t you go to sleep on me, honey. Don’t fall asleep.”
She’d already passed out from the pain twice. The second time we’d had to slap her to wake her up. We didn’t have any choice, because she was so unresponsive.
“Oh my God, Kate. She’s out again.”
I raced to the head of the bed and put my face against hers. She was barely breathing.
“Abner!” I screamed. “Abner!”
He flipped open the tent flap and rushed inside.
“She’s really struggling. We have to do something.” Margo and I talked on top of each other.
Abner knelt next to her just as Sam rushed in behind him.
“I don’t care what you say, Abner. I’m not staying out there.” His voice shook with anger. “I love her, and that’s my baby. I deserve to be in here.” Sam’s eyes were lit with anger.
Abner sprang back up from Bekah’s bed. “I told you to stay outside until it was finished.”
Sam lifted his chin in defiance. “I don’t care what you said.”
Abner’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I said go.” He pointed to the exit. “And the Lord commands that today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart in rebellion.”
Sam stepped toward Abner until they stood chest to chest. “I’m staying in this room. Period. That’s what my God would want me to do.”
Abner shoved him, and he went flying backward. Sam sprang up and charged Abner. Margo and I jumped up.
“Stop it!” Margo screamed as we stretched our bodies between them. Sam’s chest pounded against mine. “Stop acting like idiots and help Bekah.”
The fight left Sam at the mention of her name, and he rushed to her bedside. I breathed a sigh of relief as Abner angrily stomped out of the tent. Sam would pay for it later—probably Margo too—but at least it was over for the moment.
Sam hovered over the bed. “What’s happening?”
“The pain is too much for her. The baby is still twisted the wrong way inside her,” I whispered. If Bekah could hear me in whatever space she was in, I didn’t want her to hear me say it again. The last time I’d told her what was happening, she’d clung to me sobbing and begged me to let her go.
Pain filled his eyes. “Nothing has changed?”
I shook my head.
“Oh my God.” He ran his hands through his hair. “What about the baby? Is the baby okay up there? I mean . . .”
Margo laid her hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re losing them both.”
“We have to save them, I mean, one of them. They can’t both die. Jesus, Margo. They can’t both die.” He moved in anxious circles. “What was I thinking? What was I ever thinking?”
“Calm down, Sam,” Margo said in her most soothing voice. “Just calm down. Maybe you should step outside to get some fresh air.”
As if on cue, the tent opened, and Abner burst in, holding his gun and pointing it directly at Sam.
“What are you doing?” Margo shrieked.
“Inflaming fire and inflicting vengeance upon those who do not obey.” Abner took a step closer to Sam. “It is my duty to obey the word.”
Sam moved closer to him. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” He gave him a cocky smile. “You’re going to shoot me now, Abner?”
“The word says that ‘whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.’”
Sam shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a crazy man. You know that?”
“I will ask you to leave this tent one more time, and then I will not ask you again.” His hand never wavered from the gun.
“I’m not leaving.” Sam took another step closer. “Go ahead. I’m not afraid of you.”
The shot shattered the air. Margo and I let out bloodcurdling screams. Everything rushed forward. I flung myself on top of Bekah. Margo piled on me. Sam held his stomach, where he’d been shot, stumbling to his knees before falling to the ground, his eyes wide with disbelief and shock.
The family flooded the tent until no one else could fit inside. Abner stood rooted to his spot, staring down at Sam. “The word says that ‘whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.’”
Bekah’s body was still underneath mine. “Please, Abner, we have to do something for Bekah.” I couldn’t let her die underneath me. I just couldn’t. Abner didn’t budge. “Abner!” I had never shouted at him before. He snapped to attention.
“Get him out of here,” he barked, pointing to Sam’s crumpled body.
For a second, nobody moved, but then Keith rushed to Sam’s aid, and Sol quickly joined him. They threw an arm around each shoulder and lifted him off the ground. Sam yelped like a wounded animal. Blood stained the front of his shirt, leaving a trail behind him as they dragged him out the door. The others moved aside so they could get through and rushed to help once they were outside the tent.
“Let the Lord’s will be done,” Abner said to them, motioning everyone away with one swipe of his hand. They all scattered quickly, leaving us alone. He sealed the tent behind them.
Everything stilled. Margo and I peeled ourselves off Bekah and stood together holding hands, like little girls on the playground on their first day of school. We waited for Abner to speak as he strutted around the tent breathing heavily. His left hand still gripped the gun. Margo’s fear chased mine. He walked to the head of the bed, stepping over Sam’s blood like it was nothing. He leaned over the bed and felt Bekah’s neck for a pulse, then her wrist.
“She’s alive, but barely,” he pronounced. He tucked the gun in the waistband of his pants, and I released the breath I was holding. “Let’s see about this baby.” He moved to the end of the bed and knelt between her legs, peering at her in the same way my obstetrician had done to me so many years ago. “Margo, bring me my knife.”
A tremble passed through Margo’s body. “I can’t.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Kate.”
The way he said my name made my blood boil, but I didn’t have a choice. I wouldn’t be responsible for another person’s death. I squeezed Margo’s hand before letting go. Sam’s blood pooled with Bekah’s in the middle of the floor. I closed my eyes and forced myself to step over it. I fumbled with the tie and lurched into the night air, gasping for breath, head pounding.
They’d moved Sam to the gathering tent and were racing around camp trying to find medical supplies. I hurried to Abner’s makeshift cabin. I’d never been inside, but he only had one knife—the one he used to skin all the animals with—so it couldn’t be that hard to find. I swallowed the horror creeping up the back of my throat and focused on scanning the room. There wasn’t much time. We might already be too late. No time to think. And then I spotted it on a hook above his
bed. I grabbed it and rushed back to the birthing tent.
TWENTY-SEVEN
MEREDITH
NOW
I looked at the clock: 4:12. Ugh, only two minutes since the last time I’d checked. My head throbbed. I never should’ve had that second glass of wine at book club, but it had felt so good to be out of the house. Nobody had brought up our situation, even though they all knew about it, and it had been such a relief not to talk about it. I’d been up for over thirty minutes, and my body buzzed with restless energy. I eased out of bed, doing my best not to wake Scott, since he was such a light sleeper. I tiptoed into the bathroom, careful not to turn the light on or make any noise when I was finished. I crept out of our bedroom and headed downstairs. Maybe I would make a breakfast quiche for everyone, since I was up so early.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen. Kate stood beside the refrigerator, holding the phone up to her mouth. Shock stopped me in my tracks. She slapped the phone back on the wall at the sight of me. It took me a second to process what’d I’d just seen.
“Were you talking to someone?” I asked in disbelief.
Her eyes were wide, and she quickly turned around so her back was to me and whipped open the refrigerator door, disappearing behind it. “No.” She laughed nervously.
I stayed rooted to my spot. “But you were holding the receiver when I walked into the kitchen? And I heard a voice when I came around the corner.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said. She closed the door. “Are you okay?”
I pointed to myself. “Me? Uh . . . yes, I um . . . I just woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep.” My thoughts wouldn’t come together.
“I just finished feeding Shiloh, so I got hungry.” She flashed me the apple she’d gotten from the refrigerator. She moved by me and kept walking without looking back. “Good night, Meredith.”
I stood there stunned as she hurried back up the stairs. Who was she talking to? I rushed upstairs and shook Scott awake.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, sitting up.
I put my finger up to my lips. “Shhh. Be quiet. I don’t want her to hear us.”
“Who?” he asked.
I pointed next door and mouthed, “Kate.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s going on?”
I kept my voice low too. “I woke up at three and couldn’t go back to sleep. You know how I get sometimes when I drink. Anyway, I went downstairs around four, because I figured I’d make everyone a big breakfast, since I was up. I walked into the kitchen, and Kate was on the phone with someone. She played it off like she’d come downstairs to get a snack and denied being on the phone when I asked her about it.” I still couldn’t believe she was denying it after I’d caught her red handed.
“She was on the phone?” he asked, trying to clear the sleep from his brain.
“Yes, except she said she wasn’t. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“Maybe she wanted to talk in private.”
“At four in the morning? Who is she having private conversations with at this time of the night?” He didn’t have an answer for that. “Do you think she was talking to one of them?” I didn’t have to let him know who I was referring to.
“I doubt it.”
“What if she was, Scott? What if she’s been making calls to them in the middle of the night this entire time? You have to call Dean.”
“I will, but I don’t think you need to worry about it. Either tonight is the first night she’s done it, or she’s been doing it the entire time, and they already know about it. If they already know about it and didn’t say anything to us, then it’s not something to be concerned about.”
“Can you make sure to ask Dean about it tomorrow, please? At least I’d know they’d looked into it, and there was nothing to be paranoid about.”
“Meredith, I just said that I would. I have to work in the morning.” He was already moving back underneath the covers, willing to let the entire thing go that easily, but I wasn’t.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ABBI
NOW
I stared at the blank screen in front of me like I’d been doing for the last hour, debating whether or not I should log on to the Vanished forums and update Mom’s status. It’d been active again since word had gotten out about her return, but it was only speculation and stories. All the news outlets had interviewed the gas station attendant, but none of us had spoken to the press, and the police had only given scripted responses about the investigation and asked people to respect our privacy. Dad had said it would be a long time before they stopped hounding us for interviews. They still camped out at the end of our street. It was only the city ordinances that kept them off our yard and driveway.
I’d never posted anything before. Dad had never told me not to, but it was only because he trusted me not to be stupid enough to do it. But I wanted to tell her followers that she was doing okay, that she got better every day. They would be thrilled to talk about her progress, and so far her homecoming had only been depressing. I understood why, obviously, but I was happy she was home—no matter what the circumstances were—and wanted someone else to at least pretend to be excited about it too. Elziehunter, mindjam21, and crystalclear had been following her case since the beginning. You could feel how much they loved her in the things they said about her and how much time they spent on her case. They deserved to know how she was doing.
I logged on. When I’d first discovered the forums, I’d spent hours weeding through them. There’d been something comforting about it. Oddly enough, it still gave me the same feeling. I’d been on them every night since we found Mom, combing through them with different eyes. I clicked on the main page, browsing quickly to see if anything grabbed my attention before scrolling down to Mom’s thread: Arcata Mom Vanishes. There’d been an update last night by someone named Gloria. I clicked her profile. Gloria had one post and had only been a member for two days. My gut churned.
I quickly scrolled down to the message and clicked it open on my screen:
Kate Bennett is a dead woman.
KATE
THEN
I hugged Bekah’s baby boy close to my chest as the smell of smoke filled my lungs. The weight of my backpack pressed down on me, making it almost impossible to run. The home we’d worked so desperately to build burned behind us.
“We have no choice,” Abner had screamed last night. Fury had lined his face and filled his voice. “This land is cursed. If you don’t believe me, then look around at the bloodshed tonight.” He waved his arm at our bloodstained paths. Sam’s body lay covered in a sheet outside the gathering tent. Bekah’s lay inside the birthing tent. Their baby was the only one who’d survived.
“Take him.” Abner had shoved him into my arms shortly after he’d cut him out of Bekah, and I’d been holding him ever since. Images of his birth flashed through my mind unbidden, and I shoved them down. I would push them down as far as they would go, and, when they couldn’t go any further, I would find another way to make them disappear. I kept telling myself over and over again that at least Bekah was dead when it happened, but it didn’t matter how many times I said it. Her body was still warm when we cut into her.
The baby stirred against me. He was starving. I stuck my finger into his mouth, hoping it would pacify him. Without Bekah’s milk, I didn’t know how we’d feed him. I’d given him small sips of water with a few sprinkles of sugar in it, but that hadn’t been enough. He had cried all night and into this morning. He was only quiet now because he was too exhausted and hungry to cry.
Margo sobbed behind me, a steady stream of tears as we walked. Will was holding her up while they went, and she plodded along as if each step hurt. I knew that feeling. The pain of being alive when someone you loved dearly was gone. It hadn’t lessened.
She wasn’t the only one crying. Intermittent sobs broke into the early morning as we stumbled along in shock. We’d failed God miserably. Abner had made that clear last night when he was the only one
who’d remained calm and sought God’s help while the rest of us flailed around hysterically. It had been utter chaos. Everyone had been fighting. Screaming—some for help, others for deliverance. He had had to fire the gun again just to get us to stop and settle down. He had ordered us to build a fire, and we had immediately moved into action, grateful to have a voice to listen to. We had stood around the fire when we’d finished.
“Don’t look back when we leave this place. It will be just like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah when we leave camp.” The fire in his eyes matched the flames of the ones the others had set this morning. “The Lord ordered them not to look back, but what happened?” He didn’t wait for us to respond. “Sarah was turned to a pillar of salt on the spot.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Because when you leave, you leave it all behind. You burn your bridges and your ships.”
And that was what we had done. We’d loaded ourselves up with as much as we could carry and run through camp, setting things ablaze.
“Burn it down to the ground,” Abner had ordered.
I choked on the fear working its way up my throat. It left a bitter taste. I could barely make out Abner and Will at the front of the pack, leading the way through the snarled forest, the only ones who’d been back to the vans since we set up camp. He was wrong about everything. This wasn’t the beginning. It was the end.
TWENTY-NINE
MEREDITH
NOW
I was having a hard time remembering Scott’s password, since I rarely used the computer in our bedroom and stress made me forgetful. I still hadn’t calmed down from this morning. Abbi had come into our bedroom before breakfast and told us that someone had posted a death threat to Kate on the forums. She was completely freaked out about it, and even though Scott assured her it was probably just another troll, she’d begged him to let her stay home from school. I was glad he’d made her go, though. There’d been so many nutjobs over the years who’d posted that I didn’t blame Scott for staying away from anything written about Kate online. But the threat, stacked on top of Kate’s phone call last night, had my nerves on edge, and Scott’s conversation with Dean hadn’t helped at all.
When She Returned Page 18