by Erin Lorence
As I turned away from my cousin, my blurring vision snagged on a word on a building straight ahead. Jonah’s.
Jonah? I blinked and took a step toward the tan, peeling paint. Saint Jonah’s Thrift Store.
What was a thrift store? But my grandpa’s name. That was promising. So were the colored articles—clothes—visible beyond the glint of sunshine on the store’s glass window.
“Dove? Unclog your ears. I asked you how.”
“This way.” My feet hurried toward Saint Jonah’s Thrift Store but began to drag at the threshold. They stopped.
“We’re going in there?”
I nodded.
“Inside there?”
I didn’t answer or move.
“You scared?”
Jingle, jingle. I grabbed the tarnished bell rigged to the door I’d opened, no doubt positioned to alert a person inside of our entry. My grandpa used a larger bell back home for a similar reason.
With a small, tense movement, I darted inside a half a step. A jumble of colors and shapes collided before my vision. The odor of a thousand musty objects filled my nose. I swung around to escape, but Trinity stood in my way.
“Incredible. Like the junkpile...but...wow.” She slipped past me and moved forward, her arms outstretched to touch every item.
The fake, cool light illuminated a junkpile of electronics and unknown objects. Books and cardboard. Shoes. Then shirts. A million of them, all lined up. Row after row of shirts.
I jogged after and steered her away from a pink jar laced with primroses but no lid—worthless. “Leave that junk. Here. Choose a shirt, and let’s go.”
The bell jangled. Before it ended, I pulled Trinity down next to me on the scratchy, stained floor.
“What!” One hand clenched mine. Her other hung onto the chestnut-colored sweater on the rack she’d been stroking. “What’s wrong, Dove?”
I answered in the softest whisper. “Someone else is here. Stay low. I sense evil. Don’t you?”
“No.”
Melody would have. If she were here, we would be having an unspoken conversation about danger. Our communication had formed that unbreakable bond between us.
I shivered.
But Reed had broken it. He’d twisted my friend with his persuasive words and strategy, transforming her into my enemy. Now Melody shared his sinful dreams of taking back America, and she’d thrown away our friendship in the process.
“Hurry up and pick one.” I crawled down the narrow path between metal racks. I parted the hanging shirts to peer through.
No one was in sight.
I waited another few seconds and then eased back onto my thighs. As I scooted back a few feet, my palm pressed down on…the toe of a shoe?
It was a cloth, machine-made shoe. Above was a too-tight pant leg, followed by a sky-blue shirt with the words Saint Jonah’s Thrift stitched on the chest.
The baby-faced girl in the blue uniform gazed down at us. My cousin spared a glance before peeking at the rainbow, paint-splatter shirt in her own hand.
“Looking for something?” The stranger’s tone expressed no welcome. Yet her round eyes that matched her shirt didn’t glare or widen in surprise that we crouched on the floor of her store.
I shifted my hand off her checker-toed shoe. “No.”
Trinity squinted up. “That’s a vivid shirt you have on. Peacock color.”
Vivid. The shirt was the same type of blue that Rebecca had worn the first time I met her.
“Sure.” The stranger directed a bored thumb over her shoulder to a limp curtain at a bare patch of wall in the clutter. Still no hint of disgust or welcome appeared in her pale features. “Dressing room’s there.”
“To camouflage myself?” Trinity held up her handful of bright clothes.
The girl shrugged. “For whatever.”
“I’m ready, Dove. Keep up.”
We began a fast crawl toward the curtain, leaving the worker behind. I hesitated in the open space where the row of shirts ended and crouched behind a table holding a ratty bear toy. No one was in sight except the worker, who wandered toward the front part of the thrift store.
“Dove. Get in here!”
I obeyed my cousin’s whispered command and snapped the privacy curtain shut behind my back. “Make this the fastest change of clothes in your life, Trinity.”
She tossed a plain, black top at my head.
Before I finished pulling it on and shoving Rebecca’s ruined shirt in my pack, Trinity posed before me. The image of a godless female.
“Sky alive. I...I’m a worldly woman. Mom would kill me. Look at me, Dove. What would Gran say?” She stepped closer to her image in the splotchy mirror. She touched her hair that rested in a long braid over her shoulder, which her new outfit left exposed.
The splattered shirt of neon colors was nothing compared to her tattoos. It’d been over a year since I’d seen her arms uncovered. Her skin represented every color of the rainbow. My name appeared at least four times amidst a jumble of waterfalls, galaxies, and garden plants. But at least Micah’s was nowhere.
I frowned. “There’s such a thing as too much ink, Trinity. Why so many?”
“You were gone a lot. I had extra free time.”
Her thin fingers curled over the leaf-green letters D-O-V-E on her forearm that ended in the scrolling strawberry vine. “I guess I missed you.”
I swallowed and rubbed my own inked shield and sword. “I get it.”
“You got lonely too when you were away?”
“You have to be alone to be lonely. That was rare.”
“Because God stayed with you?”
“Him...and others. But I understand because your gift,” I held up my tattooed shield and sword, “was a part of you I carried the whole time. It helped me.”
A bell jingled, and I slashed the air for silence. No time for mushy, cousinly sentiment. Had a new wicked creature entered the building? Or had evil departed? I clenched the dank, orange material I hid behind in concentration. But Trinity’s was the only whisper cutting the silence.
“Do we leave the money for the clothes here on the floor and walk out?”
I rummaged in my pack. My fingers closed around the wad of paper Wolfe’s grandma had given me for my crops. “I don’t know. I think we hand it to the worker.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “We just do.”
The wide, cluttered room still appeared empty of humans except for the worker in blue. She leaned behind a flat counter near the bell-rigged door. Keeping close to the room’s perimeter and ducking behind larger objects when possible, Trinity and I crept to where she stood.
The worker set aside the flat electronic that was similar to Wolfe’s. Her eyes stayed on its bright images.
“Um. Here. Is this enough? For what we’re wearing? Take it.” I thrust the wad of paper money between her and the screen.
The blue eyes snagged on the money and then focused on our torsos. “Tags.”
“Huh?”
“You still got the tags on.”
She raised a sleek, handheld device and aimed it at the white cardboard dangling from Trinity’s armpit. She directed it at me. A little light at the end of it flickered red. “And I wouldn’t go flashing this sort of cash around. Dangerous.”
With one hand, she separated a piece of money from the rest. With her other hand, she pointed the device at the wall behind us in a vague sort of way. The little red light at its end flashed four times. Paused. Then flickered twice. Four flashes. Pause. Two flickers.
Trinity gasped. “What—”
I elbowed her into silence and backed away. Past the electronics. Past a ripped, red chair. At the shoes, we turned and sprinted away from the front of the store where the worker had become engrossed in her flat electronic.
I hurdled a basket of blue plastic ferns and headed for the rectangular patch of bare wall between the shelves at the back of the store.
Trinity and I threw ourselves against the back door, and it squeaked
open. We escaped into the blinding sunlight. Columns of stacked crates teetered in the shade. We dropped down behind them.
“Dove. That was Amhebran code. How did she know Amhebran?”
I released the sweaty roll of paper money back into my pack. “I don’t know.”
“But the red flashes. She told us, ‘Escape. Back way.’”
“I’m not blind. I saw.”
“Why did she say that?”
Why? I swiped the new, stretchy shirt material across my damp forehead. “She didn’t. We made a mistake. There’s no way that worker’s a believer or part of the Sent...is there? Let me check something. Stay here.”
“No, wait—”
Trinity’s glare burned between my shoulder blades as I crept to the front of the building. The worker either knew Amhebran, or she didn’t. If she did, she had warned us. Escape. Fine then. Where was the danger we had to escape from?
With my quick steps forward, the hairs on my arms pricked. I braced myself in the ominous atmosphere. The blood in my ears thrummed while my body begged to retreat. Other way.
I eased around the building’s corner.
Three people with crossed arms leaned against the peeling paint at the doorway of Saint Jonah’s. The leathery female from earlier stared at the scummy glass. Two lanky, sunburned males in various shades of green waited with half-closed eyes.
Less than an hour ago, the woman had shouted something about us being an army. Was this hers—her troops united, here to meet us...to hurt us...to stop us? How long until they found out the Christians they thought they’d cornered in Saint Jonah’s had slipped away and wouldn’t walk out that door?
I inhaled the thick air and stumbled backward, knocking into a body at my back.
Trinity! We grabbed at each other and sprinted along the back of the building to a nearby road. We turned the corner onto another and slowed.
My breathing quickened at the sheer number of people and vehicles in the sunlight. Evil. Evil everywhere. Evil hunting for us. A whirlwind of it, surrounding and overpowering.
“Dove. Shalom, Dove?” Trinity snapped her fingers in my face. “You brought us here to look for a building. What building?”
The rectangular shelters wavered in the heat, smearing together into solid walls. They formed a box. A trap.
I scrubbed my face. “A...a tall building. The tallest. And keep your eyes open for a tall, dark girl with bushy hair. And W—” I clamped my lips together.
Trinity’s dreamy expression sharpened. “And Wolfe?”
“I...quit looking at yourself in every car mirror we pass, Trinity, and pay attention. Find a tall building with windows. Lines of windows.”
I grabbed the back of my slick neck and held on. The city pressed closer—too wicked, too huge.
God. This is too hard. I can’t do it alone—
Not alone.
My lids fluttered open. The whirlwind of people and cars against the gray background stilled. And in front of me stood Trinity.
Trinity Strong. Uncle Saul’s daughter. Uncle Saul, who obeyed God and understood His will so clearly that he’d located Rahab’s Roof last spring without a moment of confusion.
How had I never noticed how much Trinity resembled her dad? With the same eyebrow that arched higher than the other. And the storm-gray irises, created to cut through ugliness and spot potential beauty...and truth.
“Dove, why are you grinning like an idiot? What? What do you see?” She swiveled.
I secured her face between my palms. “I see...you.”
She batted me away. “You’re sun damaged.”
“You have a gift, Trinity, the same one your dad always had—seeing more than the rest of the family.”
“Seeing beauty and potential for it? A dumb gift.”
“You’re as hardheaded as Gilead. Don’t you see? Your dad never fully recognized what God gifted him until he spent time alone…wandering, really listening to Him. In that time, he changed.”
Her nose wrinkled as if her father stood in filthy rags before her. Her body slumped. “You’re right. Dad changed.”
I fought the urge to shake her. “Yeah. He changed. For the better. He realized his gift was to recognize truth instead of mere beauty. God’s truths. His will. Last year, your dad showed up out of the blue to save me from rattlesnakes. He appeared again to drive me to Portland. He was able to locate Rahab’s Roof. He discovered his gift wasn’t about recognizing God’s handiwork. His real gift was recognizing God himself.”
She shook her head. “My dad didn’t find the Brae boy that he searched for. He searched for seven years. If he understood God’s will so well, then why didn’t he find Micah’s brother right away?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t God’s will for him to know. God stayed silent on that. He reveals what He wants to and not everything...and only what’s best for us. He also expects us to pay attention to what He does reveal.”
“So?”
“So pay attention.”
“I’m not my dad, Dove. Or you.”
“No. You’re you. God hasn’t sent me to Portland by myself. I’m not doing this job alone.”
“You have God.”
“And I have you.”
She blinked a few times. “I can’t help. I don’t know where to go or what the building even looks like.”
“Try asking God.”
“Dumb.”
“Have you ever tried?”
“Dove—”
“Do it. Now. Don’t worry about an attack. I’ll keep lookout. And He’ll protect us while you talk with Him.”
“How do you know?”
I grabbed her pack away and slung it over my own shoulder. “Quit stalling. Now c’mon. Ask Him.”
She threw me a dagger look and crossed her inked arms.
“Ask Him, Trinity Strong!”
After one last glare, she bowed her blonde head.
16
I held my clear bottle up to the late afternoon sun. Not a drop left. I pressed the hot plastic to my lips anyway. My parched throat convulsed while my eyes continued to scan the sidewalk and the humans who traveled it.
Trinity stayed motionless, the rays beating off her pale hair. A wrinkled woman with bags jostled her in passing, but my cousin’s sunburned lips continued to twitch in her sweat-drenched face.
A man more ancient than my grandpa paused next to us. His twisted mouth released a blast of nonsense words. Then he spat at my shoes and shuffled off, still mumbling. I dropped my bottle into my bag and eased my weight from one aching foot to the other, avoiding the evaporating spit mark on the pavement.
Honk, honk.
A boxy vehicle passed—the same one that had passed us two times before. I reached my hand out to Trinity and then dropped it.
No. No one had exited the vehicle. I would give her a couple more minutes, until the sun touched the highest roof at the horizon, before I interrupted her attempt to hear from God. But she needed to hurry it up. Because when night fell, we couldn’t be caught standing on this open piece of asphalt in this wicked city.
As I pivoted in a slow circle scanning the terrain, green moved into my peripheral vision. I jerked my head around. The green wasn’t from nature—no trees or plants grew in this part of the terrible city. It was faded green clothing.
“Trinity!” As I shook her elbow, an enormous white and blue vehicle displaying the sign Electric Metro Bus rolled to a halt on the road next to us. Despite its wall of windows, the bus blocked the green-clad, evil trio from my sight.
“Trinity. Enough trying. It’s OK, you can give up now. Really.”
The bus continued to loiter, but my legs tensed, ready to run. Had our hunters sensed us on the other side of the obstructing vehicle?
My cousin’s gray eyes opened. “I’m not you, Dove. Don’t expect me to be.”
“I don’t.” I craned my neck. Was that person darting around the back of the bus wearing green? No. Gray. Gray and black with gold. I continued to chew my peel
ing lip.
“And I’m not my dad.”
“I know, I know. Your dad has a beard.”
A quick pain seared my scalp. “Ouch! What, Trinity? Why’d you pull my hair?”
She flicked her chin at the orangey sun setting in the opposite direction of the bus and our hunters. “Pay attention, Dove. We go that way.”
17
A sharp edge jabbed between my ribs.
“Dove, you awake?”
I batted away the cardboard piece. “Sure.”
Even though my eyes were open, I still reclined in total darkness. As I yawned and struggled to sit, a stack of cardboard slithered down with a whisper.
Thunk.
“Ow. Quit moving,” my cousin’s voice demanded. “You’re making a bunch come down on my shoulder.”
“It’s just cardboard.” But I stopped trying to squirm up. “Do you hear any more cars leaving?”
“No. It’s been quiet a long time. It’ll be middle of the night by now.”
“Then it should be safe to enter the building. Let’s go. Umm. Which way is the entry chute into the building?”
“Sky alive, Dove! You’re the one who’s been in this horrible, suffocating bin before. Which way did you and my dad go?”
Which way had Uncle Saul led?
I glanced up, half expecting to see his silhouette appear as it had above that other snake-infected bin. Was he off surviving on his own now? Or with Mom and Grandpa, being held somewhere miserable?
This was the reason I was here now—to find out.
I shoved a stubborn obstacle from my path and plowed through until my palms pressed the warm, metal side of the bin. There was a thin lip, then...the chute entrance.
“Found it, Trinity. And the stack under the opening is high enough so I don’t have to lift you.” I shifted aside.
She grunted. Cardboard slid. Her shoe clanged against metal, and her voice echoed back from the tunnel above. “You mean I don’t have to lift you.”
A muscle in my cheek quivered at the same comeback Jezebel would have flung at me.
Oh, Jezebel. Wolfe...
Alive. He had to be alive. Right God? You won’t let him have begun eternity away from me. Away from You.
I heaved myself up onto the slippery metal. Seconds later, I dropped into cooler darkness. The sharp smell of chemicals assaulted my nostrils.
