by Matt Rogers
‘No.’
‘You should.’
‘I was never going to kill you.’
Brandon looked at her with vacant eyes. ‘Did you do what you said you were going to do?’
‘It’s being done,’ Alexis said, ‘as we speak.’
Brandon’s gaze drifted to the desk.
She said, ‘How does that make you feel?’
‘This is an important movement,’ he mumbled. ‘We mean no harm. You shouldn’t…’
He trailed off, recognising the hypocrisy of his own words.
Alexis said, ‘Maeve sends you to kill people and you mean no harm?’
Brandon said, ‘Which is why you should kill me. If you’re here to do the right thing.’
He was starting to insinuate that he knew Mother Libertas and its founders were evil.
It was all the progress Alexis could ask for.
She said, ‘Come on. Up. Both of you.’
Brandon slumped back in his chair. ‘Why?’
‘We’re getting out of here. I don’t like tight spaces. We’ll go to the mess hall and wait there.’
‘Isn’t that risky?’ Brandon said. ‘They’re still prowling the commune, looking for you.’
Alexis said, ‘Not anymore.’
Brandon stiffened.
Alexis repeated herself. ‘Up. Both of you.’
Addison worked her way to her feet like she was carrying an extra hundred pounds of weight.
Brandon followed suit.
Recalling what she’d found when she searched the office drawers, she retrieved a pair of binoculars from deep in one of the lower drawers and tucked them into the back of her jeans. Then she fetched the second Beretta off the desk, held the pistols akimbo, and led the brother and sister at gunpoint out of the sacristy. She wasn’t sure why she was putting so much effort into ensuring their wellbeing.
That’s a lie, she told herself. You know why you’re doing this.
She couldn’t save everyone in Mother Libertas from the downward spiral, but she could help two people.
That was a realistic goal, and purpose in life comes from setting and achieving realistic goals.
She led them out of the empty church and over to the mess hall. The same tight clusters of disciples were scattered across the commune, but they deliberately avoided eye contact with Alexis, pretending she wasn’t there. Like they could deny the fact their world was coming down on their heads simply by closing their eyes and covering their ears.
Alexis swept the exterior corridors of the mess hall. The hallways were long and empty and lathered in shadow, devoid of human life. She guided Brandon and Addison to the side of the building that faced the farmhouse up the hill.
A small window stained with fingerprints was set into the exterior wall at head height.
She crossed to it and looked out, keeping the Berettas at shoulder height for precaution.
She saw two people’s backs like tiny specks as they made their way up the trail to the farmhouse.
King and Violetta.
Awaiting them was a crowd of disciples.
Maeve must have summoned them to the house to protect her.
Brandon was also staring out the window. ‘What’s going on up there?’
Alexis said, ‘We’re about to find out.’
104
Dane looked pathetic sitting against the wall, staring through a haze of shock at his leg.
Slater threw the switchblade away and sat down beside him.
Dane said, ‘I’m dead, right?’
Slater said, ‘Yeah.’
‘What if I put pressure on it?’
‘Won’t help you. I severed your femoral artery.’
‘Will it give me some time?’
‘Maybe. A couple of minutes more.’
Dane pressed down hard on the jagged gash in his quadricep. Blood oozed through his fingers in thick streams. There was so much of it. An impossible amount. It flowed down the sides of his thigh and coagulated in the dirt.
Dane said, ‘It doesn’t hurt.’
‘You’re in shock.’
‘How long do I have?’
‘Not long.’
‘I want to talk.’
‘Won’t do you much good.’
Slater was done with it all. He didn’t want to hear another word that came out of this scumbag’s mouth, but for some reason he couldn’t muster the determination to get the blade back out and cut Dane’s throat. The man fascinated him in some strange way. Dane had achieved so much for the worst reasons.
And the sunrise was beautiful.
They could watch it together.
Dane said, ‘Maeve is worse than I ever was.’
Slater scoffed. ‘I thought you were a demigod. Why are you trying to find salvation now? You changing your mind about everything?’
Dane sat there for a beat, his face ghost white, his eyes unblinking. It took a long moment for his internal computer to process what Slater had said. Then he said, ‘I’m not my wife. I know it’s a lie.’
Slater said, ‘I don’t understand why you’re even talking.’
Or how you’re capable of talking, Slater thought. Dane was losing blood at a harrowing rate. His grip on reality was slipping as it drained out of him, but he still talked like he was perfectly lucid.
An odd thought struck Slater.
Is this the first time he’s saying what he really thinks? Is this the first time he sees clearly? When he knows it’s the end of the road.
Possessed by the urge to know, Slater said, ‘Go on.’
Dane said, ‘She believes her own delusions. She thinks she’s a god.’
‘Was she always this way?’
Dane smiled and shook his head. It was a ghastly sight. ‘No. She was a small-town sweetheart when I met her. You know, the girl next door. I was fucked up back then. Still am. Psychopathic personality disorder. I … had a bad childhood. I won’t go into it. Anyway, I corrupted her. Changed her brain over the course of a few years, feeding her all sorts of sick ideas about the world and what the people in it deserve. This is all my fault. Because she listened to me…’
He trailed off, searching for the energy to continue. Slater didn’t interrupt.
Dane let out a guttural sigh, which made him wince, then he composed himself. ‘She … uh … she became a narcissist. She had empathy where I didn’t, and she couldn’t shed it easily, so I guess she turned all that empathy on herself. It finally clicked for her. She started thinking everyone besides her and I were subhuman. I was the reason for that, so I guess if there’s a hell, I’m going there.’
Slater said, ‘I’d put money on it.’
Dane said, ‘All that empathy she started with made her a people pleaser. She was charismatic and extroverted. She could convince anyone of anything. I was paranoid and internal. I couldn’t make small talk to save my life. So she started … I guess you could call it brainwashing people … to get her way in life, to create something for ourselves. I was like … the director. I called the shots behind the scenes, guided her to the targets, to the easily exploitable. We came up with this thing together. But you know how it goes…’
Slater realised Dane wanted him to fill in the blanks. ‘It caught momentum? Took on a life of its own?’
Dane shook his head. There was no colour left in his face. He had no energy to talk, but something was keeping his lips moving, something Slater couldn’t comprehend.
Dane said, ‘The movement never did anything on its own. Maeve caught momentum. She went from understanding it was all a ruse to believing the words that came out of her mouth. I mean, why wouldn’t she? It was working too well. We hit the perfect storm of Maeve’s charisma and my concoction of Bodhi. She—’
‘Bodhi was yours?’
‘Mostly. The benefit of being a psychotic paranoid is that when you put your mind to something and convince yourself it’s important, it gets done. Nothing stands in your way. I absorbed every piece of scientific literature I could get my
hands on and put a few chimeras together.’
‘Chimeras?’
‘Combination of compounds. I thought I’d stumbled upon the perfect dosage. It was—’
‘Dextroamphetamine, MDMA, and Benzos.’
Dane paused, but nothing fazed him. Not now.
‘Yeah,’ he said, not bothering to spend what little time he had left asking how Slater knew. ‘I had a few formulas for different dosages. I paid a buddy of mine from college who’d gone on to get his PhD and worked in a reputable lab. It was all my money at the time, but I knew to bet big on myself, and that was the amount I needed to corrupt him. He put them together, and we tried them together. The third iteration hit like nothing I’d ever experienced. Then I knew we had something unstoppable.’
‘Did Maeve use it?’ Slater said. ‘Is that why she went off the deep end?’
‘Never. Not once. She … got her high from manipulating people. She didn’t need anything else. But she used it on everyone, and suddenly she had control of them all, and she became messianic. Which made her prone to losing her temper, but it never happened outwardly. Only in private, with me.’
Slater grimaced. ‘Sounds like the perfect dichotomy.’
Dane nodded — or, at least, he tried. He lowered his chin but it hung there, resting against his chest. He didn’t have the cognisance to lift it back up.
‘Yeah,’ he mumbled at the ground. ‘She was … an ice queen in front of the disciples. But … a monster behind closed doors. Everyone trusted her, worshipped her. I wasn’t working with her anymore. I was serving her. I had no choice.’
‘You could have walked away.’
Dane let out a grunt that sounded like an affirmation. ‘And yet, no one ever walks away. I wonder why…’
Slater said, ‘I wonder too.’
Dane said, ‘Don’t … trust a word she says. That’s if you want to make it out of here alive.’
‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ Slater said. ‘You gave me a mammoth dose of Bodhi and I never trusted you.’
Dane’s face twisted. ‘You know...’
He couldn’t talk anymore. He sucked in air, trying to muster the energy.
Slater could see whatever came next would be his final words.
He said, ‘What?’
Dane said, ‘In all my years … all the things I’ve experienced … that was the greatest feat of willpower I’ve seen.’
Slater didn’t respond.
Dane croaked, ‘Whatever you do … wherever you go … don’t stop doing this. You were … born for it.’
Slater said, ‘Wouldn’t have to if people like you didn’t exist.’
Dane used everything he had left to shrug. ‘But we do.’
He settled against the cabin wall, his chin now crushed to his chest, and the life went from his eyes.
Slater got up and walked away.
105
The spectacle demonstrated exactly where Maeve had gone wrong.
King and Violetta walked across the fields, approaching the farm house. There were no defences. No one was bunkered down or barricaded in. The disciples of Mother Libertas milled around the wraparound porch, which was home to a single occupant.
Maeve Riordan wore her farm dress. She was perched on the top step above her followers. They were armed, but not well. Perhaps there was no armoury after all, no crates of weapons, just a single M4 carbine reserved for desperate measures. The disciples had instruments they’d fashioned themselves — spiked bats, clubs, two-by-fours, even a couple of pitchforks, like they weren’t permitted to be subtle with the symbolism. They’d taken what they could from their quarters and come up with a janky homemade arsenal straight out of the nineteenth century.
Everyone saw King and Violetta coming.
King estimated there were more than thirty of them — he didn’t have time to count them individually. He was focused on Maeve, watching her every move, scrutinising her behaviour.
There wasn’t even a hint that she knew her husband was dead.
King realised she probably didn’t care either way.
He paid careful attention to Maeve’s hands.
They were empty.
That’s when the full extent of her egotism became clear.
She undoubtedly had a gun inside the house, tucked in a drawer in her office or hidden in a safe in the kitchen. There wasn’t a chance she worked here every afternoon without safety measures. But if she pulled it in full view of her cult, the gesture alone would spread discontent. She was a god, after all. Relying on man-made hardware would tarnish her image, make her seem vulnerable, make her…
…human.
King realised just as Dane was a slave to his wife, she was a slave to Mother Libertas. The unwritten rules she’d created and fed to her followers couldn’t be disobeyed, not even by herself. If she wanted her disciples to act as her personal guard, she needed them to believe. And that meant taking the risk of standing in full view of the approaching enemy. It meant projecting the image of invulnerability. If she didn’t, they wouldn’t defend her so fanatically.
He could see on her face, even from a hundred feet away.
False confidence on the surface.
Crippling doubt underneath.
He stopped at the head of the dirt driveway and put a hand against Violetta’s stomach, keeping her back, instinctively protecting her. The mob watched in cold silence. The sky behind the farmhouse was light now.
Maeve regarded them with derision.
Over the heads of her disciples, she shouted, ‘Come to beg?’
King brandished the M4 and held it up in case anyone had accidentally missed the sight of it. ‘Let’s talk inside, Maeve.’
‘You don’t make the demands here.’
Violetta muttered, ‘She’s in too deep.’
‘No shit.’
One of the disciples up front held a baseball bat above his head, mirroring King raising the carbine. He was wiry, neither skinny nor muscular. His straight brown hair fell in a bowl cut over his forehead and the tops of his ears. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. King’s stomach twisted in anger that he directed solely at Maeve, the woman who’d sold these people false hopes and dreams of a better life. The majority of them might never work their way back to the truth again.
They’d been sold lies so they could become pawns.
King looked over the heads of the crowd and shouted to Maeve, ‘Let’s be smart about this.’
‘Be quiet!’ she screamed back. Her voice was nails on a chalkboard. ‘You come here spreading pestilence and discontent. You are devils in human form. Do you honestly think you can stop the cause? We have work to do, we have the soul of this planet to free, and you come to this temple asking to talk? You’ve caused enough misery in this commune. One chance. Walk away. I suggest you fucking take it.’
Right there, he knew he had her.
A couple of the disciples twitched as Maeve’s words reached their ears, the use of “fuck” setting them on edge. Maeve had lost her cool hundreds of times in private, in the presence of Dane, but never before the disciples. Her words were empty now, devoid of the calm and confident rhetoric that had become a staple of her public speech.
She knew this confrontation had to go well for her, and that put pressure on her to perform.
She’d never dealt with stakes like this.
King tapped a finger on the trigger guard. ‘We talk, or I shoot you.’
Something flashed on her face — only King and Violetta saw it. The crowd was facing away from the house, transfixed by their brainwashed rage.
But Maeve showed true fear for the first time in public.
It disappeared — she got a grip on her emotions fast — but that didn’t hide the fact King and Violetta had seen it.
They’d worked her into a corner.
She had to pretend she was omnipotent if she wanted the protection of the masses.
‘You can shoot!’ she screeched, but her voice wavered in shrill
staccato. ‘But you won’t kill. You won’t even harm. And to get to me, you’ll have to go through my children. All of them. We are all devotees to the cause, and the cause will live for the rest of time.’
King read between the lines.
What she was really saying was, ‘If you want me dead you’ll have to kill all these people between us. They’ll protect me because I live in their heads. I control their every thought. Beneath my brainwashing they are innocent, and you know it, so you’ll have to get the blood of thirty people on your hands if you want a hope of getting to me. I’m sure you can do it, but you won’t. You’re good people with morals. That won’t cut it here.’
He hated her.
He briefly looked at the faces of the crowd before him.
There would be no persuading them of anything.
They swelled with the energy of devotion. This commune was their lives, and they’d sacrificed all chance of an ordinary existence to come out here, so even if some of them were questioning the motives of the Riordans’, none of them would act on it. And the anonymity of the group gave them confidence. Here they were free to sin with impunity. They could beat King’s brains in, and then Violetta’s, and they could go the rest of their lives shirking their guilt because they were anonymous in the masses. When the blame is able to be spread between dozens of people, humans can commit shocking acts of depravity.
But King had a lifeline.
And no choice but to use it.
This house of cards was built on Maeve’s performance as a god.
If that came crashing down…
King shrugged, looked dead in Maeve’s eyes. ‘If that’s the way it has to go…’
A long moment of silence.
The disciples were practically foaming at the mouths.
Maeve spread her arms wide at the top of the stairs, letting her dress billow out. She opened her palms and spread her fingers, searching for power she was sure existed, channeling the energy of Mother Earth into her bones and brain.
Her eyes went wide and she screamed, ‘Get them!’
The disciples moved forward in a wave.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Maeve’s eyes went wide, like they were all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and she lifted her arms to the sky and—
