by Erin Lorence
In the breathless pause, Jezebel stopped twisting. Even the dog halted mid-snuffle.
“Don’t,” someone whispered. “Don’t say it.” Or it could’ve been a breath of wind. Or my own last whimper of self-preservation.
“I am a Christian.”
My statement rang loud in the charged air until it was swallowed by more thunder.
“You...Chrissstian.”
Radical! Killer! Spy! Jesus freak! Extremist! They spat the words at me from all sides until I was disoriented and dizzy. They surrounded and ringed me in. No arm hid me.
But I no longer felt like throwing up.
I gripped my Lord’s promises, while wrapping my arm around my waist.
He loves me. He’ll protect me. And no one here has a power that can touch His.
I am untouchable.
My heart found its normal rhythm. I opened my eyes.
The females made the first move to grab me—although they seemed unsure whether or not I’d fight back. The Spirit warned me not to sneer at their fear. But scared of me? I didn’t even have my bee call.
Their fumbling hands revealed something else: their exhilaration—the kind that fear feeds. Like gasoline on a flame.
Kaboom.
The males shot straight for Melody. They raced to scale the woodpile. Still balanced at its peak, Melody’s lips moved. Unmistakably, they formed Amhebran words. Oh, God. Help me.
A second later, a wild cat’s scream pierced the twilight.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck pricked. I staggered from my quick release and whipped around, peering through the gloom at the line of nearby trees.
A sharp grunt broke the quiet. A boy hanging off the woodpile had fallen onto his back in the grass. Diamond, and a female with tufty hair nearest the tree line, sidestepped behind the tallest girl. A silent fight began. No one wanted to be closest to the woods.
The tufty-haired one lost. She cowered where she’d landed, flinching from the uneven bumps of forest. The dog whimpered.
Diamond glared into the shadows one last time before refocusing on me. She stepped closer, her hands balled into fists so I could almost feel them, hard against my skin.
“Well. Let’s hurry then. And get this thing started. And finished.”
With the cat’s next crazed yowl, Diamond reacted, scuttling for the solid home where I glimpsed Wolfe still holding Jezebel. She clung to him.
And now, I smiled. Only I had noticed Melody’s trembling lips open and her throat move, synchronized with the chilling animal noise.
So this was God’s provision to Melody’s plea for help. He’d locked away her panic, but allowed her to use this miraculous gift to confuse our attackers.
Melody’s foot inched to the edge of the roof, level with the woodpile.
Run for it?
Meet you on the other side. I chin flicked toward the boxy home.
As soon as Melody threw her last bloodcurdling cry, I bolted.
My bare feet pounded over the sharp grass. Two strides, four strides, six, eight…Shouts sounded behind me—they hadn’t expected us to make a break for it right then.
I curved around the square structure and headed for the opposite side. Above me, Melody’s silhouette hesitated at the edge.
My stomach plummeted. I faltered a step.
She wasn’t going to jump. Of course not. This was Melody mouse...and it’d be a ten-foot drop at best.
Can’t go without her, huh, Lord?
I flung my arms up midstride. Fine. I’d catch her.
The crippling blow hit me from the wrong direction—in the small of my back. I smacked the ground, knocked my chin, and lost my oxygen.
Paralyzed lungs...can’t breathe...clawing panic.
Then I could breathe again, and the dog clawed my side and back, squirming to escape from under Melody, who, a millisecond later had slammed down on us both.
Extra weight pounded me into the hard clay. Another body joining our heap.
Diamond hauled me to my knees. Wolfe hadn’t tackled us this time. The slope-shouldered guy pummeled the grass while rolling onto his feet. “Yeahr!”
After that, everything got confusing and jumbled together. And painful.
Faces, words, feet, and fists. None had distinct owners anymore. I closed my eyes and didn’t try to keep tabs on who took a shot at me.
So what if Diamond’s punches landed without mercy? She wasn’t only clueless but an idiot if she thought she did this of her own power. She was a puppet, and Satan pulled the strings. The Puppet Master.
At my feet, Melody became a tight lump of fur. In the whirlwind of evil and pain, I clung to one sustaining thought: the Lord kept His promise. I didn’t cry or show weakness. He’d done what I’d asked—he would keep me strong to the end.
No, this couldn’t be the end.
Words rolled through my brain. Repeating. Endless. A chant between blows.
Not the end. Save my family. Please, no. Not the end...I’m the dove. Please, no. Not the end.
13
Peals of thunder boomed louder now. But it was the scattered raindrops that brought me back from a fuzzy, more comfortable reality where I’d drifted. When another set of footsteps crunched over the grass to where I sprawled, I played dead. The footsteps faded, and I let myself breathe. I cracked open my sore lids. Melody.
She huddled on her side a few feet away, her knees level with my throbbing chin.
I doubted she was as unconscious as she seemed. Either playing opossum like me, or too sore to move. Also like me.
Satan’s teens had gone ahead with Wolfe’s idea of the bonfire, despite the rain. Its heat and light didn’t touch me where I lay, although its smoke did. It bullied away the fresh scent of rain meeting baked earth. Flames popped and crackled, weaving between excited voices.
Different kinds of crackling reached me too. Familiar from the junk pile back home. Plastic food wrappers.
My thoughts flitted to memories of clearing trash from our land, working with my cousins, and sorting out plastics. My grandpa perched in the tree canopy, his eagle eyes missing nothing, protecting us.
Glass shattered, interrupting my peaceful escape, followed by something so horrible I almost struggled to my feet.
Another attack. The laughter, the yells of encouragement—they were all familiar.
Too familiar, I realized a second later, recognizing Melody’s muffled “warrior” in Amhebran. I pressed back into the stiff blades.
Some sort of electronic device must be repeating the violence they’d committed. What was the probability they’d captured another Christian tonight?
I’d guessed right. For the second time, I heard the woman drive up. This time she approached from next to the fire instead of from the road farther away.
“What in the world are you up to, Diamond Collins? Does your mama know you’re out here doing...what are you doing?”
“Hi, Mrs. Lee.” Diamond sounded little-girl soft.
But then, someone called, “Wait! Let me, let me.”
Forcing Diamond to speak normally. “You didn’t hear? Radicals attacked in our woods today. Right here in Sisters! Terrifying, but we’ve contained them now.”
“No! Where? Is that them? Well...I’m not sure you all should be the ones to take care of this. But, I guess with the way police let anyone go nowadays...” Her voice melted into sing-song. “Oh, hi, Bobo. You make sure to keep away from them nasty radicals. They eat doggies like you for dinner, yes they do.”
The sing-song vanished. “By the way, Diamond. Bo got into our trash again last night. Papers and garbage everywhere.”
There were some tut-tutting noises.
“It wasn’t Bo. I never let him out after dark. Bet you it was these two. Stealing identities keeps them off the grid, so not to make you freak out, but I’d keep an eye on your accounts if I was you.”
The woman gave a strangled cry, demanding to know if we’d been searched. Her goodbye was swallowed up by tires hissing
over wet ground. Then the terrible background noises took over.
Three times they forced me to listen to the nightmare. Until every hateful word, every laugh, every noise from Melody was etched in my brain forever. I couldn’t even cover my ears without giving away that I wasn’t only alive, but conscious.
The shouts and bursts of laughter continued. Two silhouettes backed by flames pretended to throw punches and wrestle.
The rain steadied. It beat down the flames in the metal barrel, leaving a vague glow and a bunch of smoke. A couple of times, I caught the word “fanatics,” but the rest of the sentences were swallowed up in the rising wind.
After an eternity, the talking dropped off—although someone’s giggling continued, died down, and grew again. The ground trembled from thunder. Glass thunked against metal. Plastic wrappers crinkled. Someone began to whistle.
Then silence, except for the pattering rain and an occasional distant car.
My conviction grew with the silence. I’d been wrong earlier—back in the woods. Somehow, I’d heard wrong. I shouldn’t have trusted the godless. We should have run for it. But we weren’t dead yet—we still had a chance.
I eased my foot over. But before I could toe-nudge Melody, footsteps skittered over and stopped next to my head. The grassy rustle told me someone was settling there. I held my breath, listening to a bunch of ominous little tearing, ripping sounds.
Something solid—fingertips, it felt like—poked my leg, my arm, my other arm, my forehead. Each time they zeroed in on my sorest spots in some new form of torture.
I didn’t flinch. Any movement would trigger another full-blown attack.
The fingers jabbed a painful area on my chin when I heard Melody flop.
“Micah.”
No, no, no. Keep still. But I couldn’t warn her.
As soon as she called for her twin again, another set of feet crunched over. In the strained stillness, I sensed the Heathen’s scrutiny.
“This isn’t good.”
“Shut it.”
“I liked this one, Woof.” Jezebel’s whine rose. “You should’ve stopped them—”
“I said. Shut. Up.”
Melody’s unexpected voice croaked, “She’s not breathing! See?”
Someone grabbed my wrists, but I focused on being dead. Limp. I’d be as unresponsive as a blade of grass to whatever they did to me. That way it might end quicker.
My head lolled and bounced when they rolled me onto my back. I braced for pain…seconds away. I wouldn’t flinch.
“Uh...”
“Do it. Now,” his sister’s voice demanded. “I said now!”
Something smashed my nose and mouth. Air billowed into my lungs. Uncomfortable and unnatural but...
Ahh. God’s breath of life. Huh. I must’ve been worse off than I thought. But God wouldn’t let me die. Not all the way. Now He was saving me, breathing me to life again.
More air gushed down my windpipe. I tried not to fight it.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! This air was tainted and bad. I felt it now, burning my throat—as if I’d swallowed gasoline vapors.
My lids snapped open, and I shot up so fast, black dots danced. I spat while scooting backward, away from Wolfe who scrubbed his mouth on his arm.
“How dare you?” My body shook with a suppressed cough. I clamped both palms across my mouth, peering through the rain.
The motionless figures slumped around the barrel a few yards away. They didn’t react. I tensed anyway, waiting for the attackers to come.
Five long seconds passed. Then ten. Wolfe handed me my damp, balled-up clothes and shoes. “Yeah. They’ll be out for a while. So you can cough, talk, scream at me, whatever.”
Melody’s nose raised in the smoky air as if to sniff out the level of our danger. Even in the weak light, she looked way better than I felt.
Huh. Wearing fur had defensive advantages I hadn’t considered.
“Shut your eyes, pervert.” Jezebel released a clump of plucked grass at her brother’s face and yanked my shirt down over my head and undershirt before I was ready. My arms were peppered with three-inch rectangles of some sort of thin, neon plastic.
I ripped one off, which stung since it stole some arm hair.
“No.” Jezebel confiscated the pink strip and tried to reapply it. “Don’t you even know how Band-Aids work, dummy? See this?” Both her thumbs jabbed at the long scar I’d avoided seeing. “This means I’m an expert. Do what I say, and you’ll be OK. Keep ‘em on.”
I tore my eyes away from the pale line. I focused on the few sprawled figures while pulling my pants on with unnecessary help.
Even moving this small amount made me ultra-aware of each bruise and the rawness of my elbow.
I tugged on a shoe. “Looks like some of your friends ditched you, Wolfe. And how stupid of the rest of them to all fall asleep at the same time. Oh. Wait. You’re awake. So, that’s it, huh? It’s you. You’re our guard dog. Let me guess your plan—tie us up, take us to jail. Oh, and for sure keep attacking us every time we move since you and your friends are so good at it.”
He threw my backpack at me with such force I grunted. Then, he handed Melody hers, helping her put her arms through the straps. She shrank away. He tried again, and once more she recoiled. The process took time.
He sighed. “Where’s the thanks?”
“Huh?” Jezebel’s disbelief mirrored my own. “Are you delusional? This is all your fault.”
He scowled at her. “Hardly. What I meant, brat, was why do you think everyone’s sleeping so hard?”
He mimed pouring something down his throat.
“Drunk?” I whipped around, astonished.
“Like...like with wine? Like Noah?” Melody’s neck craned to see the intoxicated teens. I could tell our experiences with drunkenness were the same. Only what we’d heard from the Bible.
Wolfe scratched his cheek. “Noah’s wine? No, no wine—nothing that nice. I only kept flowing the supply of what Tin’s mom had on hand. And speaking of—I’d better get you both something to drink. A soda, I mean. And something to eat. You must be hungry since you’ve had a, you know, a long night.”
A long night? I raised my eyebrows at the lamebrain inadequacy of this, but he missed it. His eyes surveyed the grass, his fingers, his sister...
She stopped picking the bottom of her big toe, sprang up, and shook my arms. Every bruise from armpits to wrists moaned.
She gave another brutal shake. “Me, me! I’ll be right back with the most delectable thing you’ve ever tasted in your life. I can’t tell you what it is, though. It’s a sur-prise.”
She flung her arms around my damp tunic. I was so unprepared for a hug that I allowed it. “It’s cool you’re not dead. I didn’t get dead once either. That makes us the same, you and me—not being dead. We must be made the same. Tough. I bet we’re sisters. Only our mom gave you away first because—”
“Jezzy. Enough. Go if you’re getting them food.”
“You’re not Grandma, Woof. You can’t tell me.” But she sprinted for her boxy home.
I trailed her with my gaze. “You gave us back our stuff you stole. You’re letting us go.”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re fine turning Judas on your friends. Betraying them. All to help us escape, your enemies—who you’re convinced do terrible crimes against the world.”
He flinched. “Whoa. You skipped over ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re a great guy’ and decided on that?” At last, he looked at me. “I don’t get you. You want to be prisoners? And go to jail or to where they send delinquent kids?”
“Don’t be a lamebrain. But I’m right.”
“Well then, what do you want me to say? How about this. Promise not to go around blowing things up. And tell me where you’re headed and why. And if it sounds decent, I’ll let you go on your merry, fanatical way. And I’ll deal with this lot in the morning. Actually, they’ll probably think it’s hilarious you got away.” His grin reappeared. “You called
me ‘Lamebrain?’”
Melody shook her head at me in warning.
I rolled my eyes. How could she believe I’d tell this pagan anything important about our commission?
The rain trickled down my scalp. I shivered. His hair was drenched and the drops shone on his skin—the same as when I first spotted him. Yet now, I no longer saw him as a killer or a threat. Only an ignorant Heathen with messed up morals and too many questions.
“I won’t murder anyone. Or blow anything up. Or hurt anyone. And that’s something that no one here but her,” I motioned at Melody who again gave me the let’s-go signal, “and I, can say without lying.”
I leaned forward. “And how deaf are you? I am not going to tell you, and will never tell you, where we’re going. Got that? I can’t have more obstacles when you run your mouth off to everyone. Lots of lives depend on us getting to where we’re headed. So unless you’re prepared to tackle us again, goodbye.”
“Whoa!” Wolfe sidestepped to block my path. “If people are going to die—as in die—if you don’t get to wherever you’re going, then I think I should go with you. As a kind of guide. Or at least as a guard since you’re a lamebrain at knowing who to avoid.” He gestured at himself. A bad joke. “Plus, then I can make sure you keep your promises about not hurting people.”
“Dove.”
Twin red dots glowed from under the chair frame by the barrel. The hound that’d been asleep now watched us.
Danger.
“Forget it.” I brushed past. “And I always keep my promises. So, shalom.”
Something hooked my pack.
“Pretty harsh of you to leave the kid this way. No goodbyes or nothing.” He released me, so I slipped forward on the wet grass. “Abandoning her when she’s doing something nice for you.”
I straightened my straps with a jerk. “A second ago you offered to do the same, leave with us. Which is way, way worse since you’re her brother.”
“I wasn’t going to up and leave this second without...argh! You’re so...so...” He raised his fists, then dropped them and exhaled in a gush. “Fine. Only tell me one thing first. How’d you do it?”
“Do?”
“How’d you sit there and take it? When they hurt you? I could tell Melody didn’t feel much through her animal skins and the way she was all curled up on herself—the smart thing to do, by the way. But you. You had to have...”
