by Erin Lorence
Trinity steadied me. “Now what?”
“Rahab’s Roof...well, it’s up. On the roof.”
I sensed her eyeroll.
Arms outspread, I eased forward around blind obstacles. A bucket. Possibly a ladder. “Last time with your dad, he started to sing. Really belted out a hymn. To offer himself up as a distraction—a sacrifice—so the guards would be drawn to him and leave me so I could make it up to the roof.”
She stayed silent a few seconds. “Is God telling you to sing? Or sacrifice yourself?”
“No...you?”
“No.”
“Then we make a run for it. And if you see a guard or cop—”
“Keep running.”
“Right.” I cracked open the door.
Hurry. The moonlight gleamed against the polished stone and grillwork. We passed the glowing exit sign, and as I jogged up the endless stairs, my burning thigh muscles triggered a memory of urgency. Of being God’s messenger, racing to win against Satan and his plans. But this time, I didn’t risk delivering a message. Instead, I sought to find one—or at least a clue to where my family had been taken.
“Where—are—the—guards?” Trinity doubled over on the last stair. Her hands braced against her knees.
“Don’t question…God’s provision.” Let’s go. Still panting, I stumbled through the door into the empty hall.
A third of the way down the dim, less polished corridor, the sounds of my cousin’s footfall stopped. I spun around. She clung to a section of grillwork. Her reflection glowed ghostlike in the pane of vertical glass window.
“Admire your outfit later, Cousin. The way to the roof is this way.”
She rested her forehead on the bars. “Is this what it’s like?”
I skittered back to her side. “What? Is this like what?”
“Standing on top of a mountain...like where the guys are right now. Is this what that’s like? Seeing the world spread out at your feet. A galaxy of lights below, pricking the earth.”
Despite the idiocy of pausing in this hall and my impatience pulling me toward the roof, I joined her at the window.
I bit my lip. Was it?
Rebecca’s little brother, Joshua—a music obsessed city rat—had once compared this Portland to the Council hidden on the top of Oregon’s Mount Jefferson. The goofy kid had claimed the two civilizations were identical. Gullible Melody had believed him, and Rebecca had cuffed him for his lie.
I shut my eyes to the warm lights of the city at night. Beautiful, despite the wickedness of the people they represented.
Mount Jefferson’s peak was Christian turf. At night, a person at the Council could see snow patches swallowed by shadows. Rows of crooked shelters huddled against towering stone cliffs. There was no light, except for what the moon gave to the people in animal skins who crowded together for warmth. And Warrior Reed, who accused me of belonging to Satan, now lived there.
I opened my eyes. “No. A mountain isn’t the same, but it’s just as dangerous. Now c’mon before a guard shows up and one of us has to become a singing sacrifice like your dad. Don’t forget, I’m tone deaf and don’t sing.”
~*~
“That can’t be Rahab.”
“No.” The male wearing black clothes and a garbage sack wasn’t Danny, the other radio guy, either. I eased further behind the concrete blocks.
Trinity thrust her elbow into my side, toppling me into the open. “Well, hurry up and ask him for information. That’s why we’re here.”
“Shish.” I regained my hiding place. Silence settled as the alarm we’d triggered below in the stairwell cut off. I put my mouth near her ear. “That so-called-Christian, well, he and I aren’t friends.” Last time we’d met, he’d considered throwing me off the roof.
I waited. But I still didn’t hear Danny’s cheerful “Righto!” No Rahab skittered around the rooftop like a city squirrel. Only the grudge-holding stutterer I’d heard on the radio days ago lurked at this broadcasting station. Was he alone up here?
Trinity got to her knees. “Fine. I’ll go ask him.”
“No. Wait.” I glanced up at the dark sky and nodded. “You’ll be safe. He doesn’t know you and has no reason to hate you. Just don’t tell him you’re searching for Wolfe or anyone who’s godless.”
“I’m not searching for Wolfe.”
“And stay away from the roof’s edge. In case.”
Trinity picked her way toward where the guy worked with his wide back to us. His large hands adjusted something overhead on the metal tower.
“Shalom.”
He jumped. “Sh...shal...who are you?”
She answered in Amhebran. “A Christian looking for my family and answers. They’ve gone missing. And since you’re part of our radio station, I figured you could tell me what you’ve heard about the disappearances.”
“A Christian? You look Heathen. And like someone...familiar.” He stepped closer to her.
My breathing hitched. But he went past with purposeful strides toward the roof opening that led to the stairwell below.
I crept to the other side of the concrete pile to stay out of sight.
He knelt at the roughhewn board I’d replaced over the rectangular opening. His fingertips skimmed its grain. “You set off the alarm?”
“Yes.”
“You’re alone?”
A block’s edge dug into my palms.
After a three-second delay, Trinity shook her head. “God’s with me. You?”
“Yeah. God. Only God. The others got taken. Danny. And Rahab. Ambushed on a supply run. Your family’s been taken, too?” He shook his head and stood. “Bad things happening here. And in California. And Washington.”
She nodded. “Ugly things. Who’s responsible, have you heard?”
“Heathen. Their military. Terrorist hunters. Rounding up our people. Scared of us.”
“That’s dumb.”
“N-not really. They should be scared.” A slow smile stretched through the stubble. He swung an invisible sword and pointed it at the block pile. “We’ll strike. Soon. Real soon. And get Rahab and Danny back. Your folks t-too.”
With a pounding chest, I ditched the blocks and headed for the broadcasting crate’s shadows. I eased myself around the metallic power box connected to cables that snaked the rooftop.
“How do you know all this?” Trinity asked.
“I hear things. Messages. From the Council. From the west coast. Believers are angry. Excited to fight. More disappearance means more Christians joining our ar-army.”
“So, the more loved ones go missing, the more believers decide to do violence. Gil was right...” Trinity trailed off, no doubt remembering Gilead’s satisfaction when he heard how angry Mrs. Brae had become when her husband was taken. “The view and the lights are amazing from up here.”
Lights? Was she at the edge? I shifted up, but Trinity was out of my sight line. Her next question came from the other side of the cement blocks. Safe.
“Have you heard if the Heathen military is holding our families around here?”
My sigh of relief froze. This was the answer we’d come for.
His voice rang out louder than before, without its time-consuming stutter. “Trinidad. That’s a town in California, near the ocean. The coast.”
In a weary movement, I let my head fall back against the broadcasting crate. California. A place I didn’t know and had never visited. A place too far to walk.
Clatter. With my slight jostle, an object rolled off and hit the pavement beside me.
“Wh-what was that?”
Trinity’s voice was louder now, too. “Oh, uh, something fell? Haven’t you noticed all the meteors and comets and the strange things coming out of the sky...”
I scooped up the fallen earpiece and shoved it next to the microphone on top of the mess of yellow plastic strips. Footsteps approached.
He was coming! Run. Hide. But my body stayed rooted in place. Handwritten words in block letters stared up from the strip of
thin, yellow, plastic twisting across the broadcasting surface.
FIGHT. WIN RECLAIM.
I untangled the strip that was the replica of the warning barricade I’d slipped past in the stairwell. There was more handwriting. Around the familiar word, CAUTION, a message scribbled in black ink filled the spaces. I slipped the ribbon free of the jumbled radio equipment and held it up to the dim moonlight.
Heathen government retreat at Black—an illegible scrawled word—Hold enemies for ransom. FIGHT. WIN RECLAIM.
Invisible fingers pressed down against mine. A warning.
I wadded up the yellow plastic and shoved my fist behind my back. A single breath later, a callused grip enclosed my bicep. “It’s y-y-you! Heathen Lover. I knew it! Is she your sister?”
At his tug, Trinity winced and stumbled forward.
The vicelike fingers cut into my arm. A cool numbness grew in my hand and up past my elbow. I stomped my foot. “Let go of her.”
“So, your sis-sister distracts me while you sabotage my broadcasting equipment. Did you mess with my generator?” His foot nudged the cables. “Or are you here to send out another message on the radio? Was that your smart plan?”
My free hand clenched the balled-up message tighter behind my back.
With an unexpected smile, his grip relaxed. “I might help you broadcast. D-d-depends on what type of message you’re sending this time.”
With a rush of warmth, my fingertips began to prickle.
Trinity, rubbing her freed wrist, eased toward the roof opening. We’d gotten the information we’d come for. Nonbelievers held our family captive in Trinidad, California, near the ocean. Time to go, Dove.
I hesitated. He’d let me go when he hated me. What other type of message did he think I’d give our people except for peace? I gestured at Trinity—scram—and squinted up into the hopeful, thick-lipped smirk. “Explain what you mean.”
His arms crossed and pulled the garbage bag tighter across his chest. “I’ll help if you’re going to give another message like your last. Re-remember? You said, ‘Everything that’s awful in this nation is the fault of every human who doesn’t have the br-brains to accept God.’ And they announced your name.”
I swallowed twice before my voice rose above a mute whisper. “I never meant...how did you hear that I said that?”
“The radio on the enemies’ stations. I patrol their news.” He smiled. “You called them brainless puppets. Believers are joining the c-c-cause because you’ve switched sides.”
“What cause?”
“The cause to fight the godless. And take back America.”
No. No! How could I have been so stupid to vent my frustration to Jessica when she had a camera pointed at me? All that I’d done before, risking my life and shouting to Oregonian Christians to love the godless...I’d cancelled it all out. It meant nothing now.
God, how could You have let me be so rash?
He scooped up the microphone. “A further call to pre-prepare? For the Reclaim?”
“No.” I knocked the electronic offering from his hands. “I was angry. I never meant to say what I did. I never will again.”
His grin vanished. His gaze lifted from the microphone on the rooftop to my arm behind my back. It flickered to the top of the broadcasting surface with its lack of yellow. His scribbled message on the yellow plastic was gone.
“Sabotage,” he whispered.
A lifetime of living with Gilead sharpened my reflexes. He lunged, and I jumped.
He missed me by inches. “Give it back!”
My descending foot came down on the top of the broadcasting platform—not as efficient as a springy branch...but good enough. I sprang off of it, higher into the air, and reached.
“Oof.” My rib knocked against the steel bar while my arm flung over another. I dangled from a section of the metal tower half a second until my feet discovered secure footing on a lower strip of steel. I began to climb.
“Hey! How did you...you—” His grizzled jaw hung slack as he stared at me, at least eight feet higher than the top of his head. He reached for the lowest foothold.
Now I was ten feet higher. I stopped climbing. My eyes measured the distance to the top of the cinderblock pile. A couple yards beyond that, Trinity’s colorful upper body hesitated at the uncovered roof entrance. At my nod, she dropped out of sight into the stairwell.
I held my arm out and let the crumpled strip of yellow unfurl from my sweaty palm. Grasping its end, I whipped it in the still night air.
My pursuer halted, his pupils fixed on it. “Mine. That’s mine.”
“Number one rule of a messenger. Don’t leave your message laying around.” I whipped the yellow plastic at his upturned face to accentuate my point. “Keep it near. Keep it safe. Or you lose it.”
He sprang up for it and missed. “Tr-traitor!”
I shoved the plastic inside my waistband. Judged the distance again. And leaped.
I made a bullseye landing, but the cinderblocks shifted under my weight with a groaning scrape. Pain twisted through my ankle. I tumbled off the pile and limped for the roof’s rectangular hole. Footfall thudded behind me, and my pursuer exhaled in grunts, as angry as a half-starved bear.
My escape hatch loomed ten feet away...five feet...two...
I plunged into the void. My fingers slipped off the roof’s edge, and I tumbled to the ground, smashing onto a bulk softer than the floor.
“Even Jovie could have landed that better. Get off.” Trinity squirmed out from under. “Are you—”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
Loud breathing from above brought me to my feet. My ankle could bear my weight without much pain, so I yanked open the door to the stairwell and shot through into the empty hall. The alarm blared—the second time we’d set it off tonight.
We pelted over the dusty tiles toward the closed door to the far stairway.
“Fourth time tonight!” Through the deafening ringing, a booming complaint issued from the other side of the closed door. “Fourth time! The Department of Workers’ Compensation better know it’s paying for the hearing aids I’m gonna need after...”
I skidded to a halt and grabbed Trinity. Her hands covered her ears.
We backpedaled, whirled around, and sprinted toward the door we’d come through. But those stairs and the roof weren’t an option, so we turned the corner to a new hallway. The tawny moon didn’t cast its light so directly through the windows we passed. A few paint cans laid scattered near a lumpy, oversized garbage bag in a patch of shadow.
I paused, staggered, and half fell on top of the bag.
“Ow, ow,” someone under the sturdy plastic mumbled.
“We’re Christians, too,” I whispered. “We need to hide. The guards are coming. Help us!”
“Go away.”
“What do we do?” Trinity swung back and forth between the end of the hall and the bag.
I kicked the solidness inside the black sack. “Do you have more bags? Quick, so we can hide, too.”
The trash bag trembled. A muffled voice replied, “More bags would look stupid. Suspicious. Go away.”
Trinity gasped. “This door! It’s unlocked!” The door she’d touched opened a crack.
I darted after her into the thin slice of black and eased the door shut. “Lean against it.”
“I am.”
“Oh. Good.” I hadn’t been able to tell where she was since it was pitch dark inside the space. I wound the plastic with the message around my wrist, using my teeth to tie a hard knot. “How did you know this door was unlocked?”
“I just knew.”
The alarm cut off. “Finally!” a distant voice called in the throbbing silence. I quit nodding at Trinity’s excellent use of her gift and braced myself against the smooth wood that cooled my cheek.
The guard’s voice became louder. “That’s the fourth time tonight that alarm has gone off. I tell you, a wire’s not right or something. Go call the alarm company and let them figure it out. My
legs are tired of looking.”
“Shouldn’t we try all the doors? Maybe a thief’s hiding behind one?”
Trinity’s respirations came quicker.
Make the guards go away. Please.
“Go ahead if you like. We’ve checked a million doors down below. What’s up here to steal? Paint cans? That bag of trash? Naw. It’s a loose wire misfiring somewhere in the system. This has happened before, but go ahead and check if you want.”
“I think we should.”
“Go head, I tell you! I’m not stopping anyone.”
I locked my elbows to hold the door in place in case someone decided to push the other side. A distant door slammed. I blinked in the darkness. Had the guard found another unlocked door in the hallway to check? Or had he exited to the stairwell? Maybe one guard had left, and the other was trying doors in the hall.
I pressed my ear against the coolness.
Tap, tap tap.
My head jolted back. Someone stood on the other side of the door. Knocking.
18
“Coast is clear. Open up. Hurry. Hurry fast! Are you deaf?” The unfamiliar voice on the other side made its demand in Amhebran. The door handle clicked frantically.
I wedged my shoe tighter against the bottom of the door. With a grunt, my cousin shoved her weight forward.
“I didn’t hear a stutter, Dove.”
“No.”
“It’s probably the antisocial garbage bag guy from the hall. He sounds Christian.”
“Probably.” I shifted for a second to readjust the too-tight plastic tied around my wrist.
The tapping persisted. “Open, open, open.”
My forehead bumped against the door. “Trinity, we’ve got to be clear of this place before morning. The longer we stay in this room—”
“Right. Let’s get this over with. We face whoever this is. Now.”
“Be ready to run, in case.”
“Obviously.”
We stepped back from the door, and a gangly, human figure pitched forward into the room. The scant light from the hall’s windows illuminated a lanky guy with a wheat-colored beard. He scrambled off the stone floor from among stacks of paint cans and rubbed his elbow that stuck out from his too-small gray shirt. “Ow, ow—oh, it’s you.”
