Sent Rising (Dove Strong)

by Erin Lorence

“Can you believe it, Dove? He never thanked me.”

  The tip of the spear lowered. It became a prod that strained against the orange shirt until the tanned fingers around mine clenched.

  Wolfe’s white teeth flashed at me. “Sorry, Dove. I’d stay to be skewered if it’d do you any good. Ease up, giant. I’m walking. I’m walking.”

  He retreated toward the foot of the bluff with his guard. A wall of six or seven humans clothed in gray closed around them. The Warrior emerged from their midst.

  “You—” I lunged at Reed, but two Christians barred my way. I stumbled back to Trinity, whose arms were crossed.

  I copied her ticked-off stance. “What is all this? Why is Wolfe here? Why are you here?”

  The Warrior’s lazy lids drooped another millimeter. Then he blinked. Was it a signal? Someone with large hands captured my wrists and tugged them behind my back.

  “Chaff, you traitor. Let her go!” Trinity sprang at him.

  Chaff stumbled, knocking me to my knees.

  “Enough!”

  Within seconds, my cousin and I knelt side by side on the small patch of wet sand and shell fragments. I tugged against the cords of tape that dug into the flesh of my wrists.

  “She has your message, Commander Reed,” Chaff mumbled. “The one that Zech had me deliver. It’s the yellow plastic—that thing around her forearm.”

  “No matter.” Reed pulled out a skinny knife. “You succeeded in your mission. That particular missive was communicated to its proper recipients despite Dove’s thievery. You’ll be glad to hear I expect an excellent response.”

  The frog-faced bodyguard held my arms while the blade sliced through the plastic as if it were a blade of grass. Without a glance at the scribbled words, Reed chucked the message over his shoulder into the waves.

  Trinity shifted forward. “You’re Reed, huh? You must be the disgusting murderer who trapped Gran. Well, murderer? Are you ever going to answer Dove? Why are you here? Why attack us?”

  The lines around Reed’s eyes smiled. “I’ve discovered it’s wise to keep my enemies together when possible. Contained and safely out of the way of core operations. And it’s best that I’m present to ensure that my plan has been carried out properly...at least when Dove is concerned. No more messups. That’s why I’m here...and why you are here, Dove’s cousin? You are Trinity, correct? Trinity who appreciates pretty things? Flowers and sunsets and—”

  “Where are my parents? And my grandpa and aunt?”

  He tapped his hair in pretend concentration. “Hmm...not here in California I’m thinking, Cousin Strong.”

  I squinted at a certain Christian standing behind Reed’s narrow body. His familiar shoulders were tilted forward, as if the ocean pulled at him. “Trinity, meet Micah’s older, more despicable brother. Zechariah Brae.”

  At his name, the Brae figure shifted sideways. I shivered at his wild animal eyes. They were worse than they had been last spring, opened too wide with an unblinking intensity.

  “Yick.” Trinity never hid her revulsion well.

  The Brae brother slow-clapped. The sharp rhythm echoed off the cliffs. “You showed up on time, Strongs. As I foresaw.”

  I staggered to my feet, but Frog Face shoved me down.

  “Stop pretending, Zech! You chose a path away from God’s when you decided to support the Benders in their plan to force our nation to sin. Which means you’re no longer listening to the Spirit. If you ever truly accepted salvation once, you haven’t lost it since you can’t, but your gift? Your special insight? Pfft! That’s gone. So, don’t pretend you saw us coming.”

  Zech pivoted back to the water. His eerie applause continued.

  “Is your sister still alive?” My question burst out before I could swallow it.

  The clapping stopped, and Reed chuckled. “Ask her yourself. Melody?”

  A tiny figure in shaggy clothes stepped out from behind Stone’s solid mass. She clung to his healed arm.

  “Melody. Please come forward. Your old neighbor wants to say shalom.”

  She let go and picked her way across the beach until she stood near Reed. “Shalom, Dove. I—” A rogue wave licked the pebbles at her heels, and she skittered forward as if chased by a viper. The surf retreated. “I...I’m glad you finally showed up.”

  I swallowed again to unstick my heart from my throat. “Why are you even here? You don’t believe in the Reclaim. You know Reed would trade you for a truckload of ammunition if he could. And apparently, the ocean freaks you out.”

  Reed’s arm snaked around Melody’s furs, tugging her to his side. “People in love stay together. Where I go, she goes. Even if it’s somewhere that ‘freaks her out.’ Which is ridiculous. She knows not to be afraid.”

  “Huh.”

  “Warning, Commander.” A muscly blonde woman in ragged deer skin pointed up at the line of vegetation where I’d stood minutes before. “A Heathen vehicle is approaching the trailhead.”

  Reed released Melody and limped to face the Pacific Ocean. “Reunion’s over. Let’s move.”

  I dug my knees into the sand while Melody skittered back to the bluff’s base. My glare followed. Let the others follow brainlessly after the deluded leader toward whatever destination he planned. Maybe a hidden shelter across the beach. Or a grouping of rocks in the ocean. Or a train.

  Something sharp nudged me. Lurching onto my feet, I batted away Chaff’s spear tip. “How could you betray us, Chaff? You owe me. I got you out of that building where you were stuck.”

  “So? I got you to the train and out of Portland. We’re equal.”

  “A train to where? To here? To a trap?”

  “Well...you ate my trail mix.”

  He must have recognized this was weak because he added in a harsh whisper, “And, and I didn’t know you when I agreed. I was just trying to repay that Zech guy, the one with the crazy eyes. He could have left me locked in that broken patrol car that night of the CTDC transfer. And everyone would have blamed the guards’ deaths on me. But he freed me. Now walk. People are looking at us.”

  With the weapon directed at our vertebrae, Trinity and I trudged after Reed’s group. Wolfe moved at the front of the pack with Stone shadowing his defeated steps.

  As we walked, the beach narrowed to a lumpy strip of damp, ankle-twisting debris. To the west, larger solid gray chunks rose up from the frothy surf. The greatest of these was an arch of stacked slabs whose left column entirely blocked the beach.

  Reed paused at the column. As if waiting for his arrival, the ocean sucked the water out, leaving an unimpeded expanse of sand and rock under the arch. He limped under the curved structure, followed closely by Wolfe and Stone. A cluster of four Christians dashed through.

  Crash! A new round of waves attacked the beach. Angry water swirled, filling the walkway under the arch and separating my cousin and I from Reed’s strongest soldiers...from Stone.

  I bumped Trinity’s arm. Escape?

  Stone Bender reappeared under the water-pummeled arch. He stayed steady as an oak tree as the water splashed against his hips. He assisted the pale, frog-faced guard through the water with his eyes on me.

  I released my cousin’s shirt. Never mind. A wall of water wouldn’t hinder Stone from catching us if we broke away from Chaff.

  Melody stepped from a rare patch of sand onto the rock next to me. I sniffed and turned away. Then I surveyed the empty beach.

  “Where’d Chaff go, Trinity?”

  She spun around on top of a half-buried boulder.

  “Maybe the earth opened up and swallowed him.” Her eyes flickered to the tiny figure at my side. “Sometimes traitors get what they deserve.”

  The waves rolled out, and I ducked through the arch. A rock path stretched ahead into the surf—a crazy kind of hopscotch with one simple rule. Step on the rocks to stay above the water.

  “I doubt you’re supposed to walk with me, Melody. Or talk with me. Reed wouldn’t like it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. But he’s busy
talking strategy again.” She squinted at the leader surrounded by his followers while wilting like a plucked lettuce leaf left under the July sun. “He won’t notice me.”

  “You made your choice.”

  I glowered at the Bender giant who lifted and hurled Wolfe onto a small rock island at the end of our hopscotch. The figure in orange sprawled a moment, then began to squirm across the bare stone without the use of his hands. “Nope, Melody. I won’t feel bad for you.”

  “OK. I won’t feel bad for you either.”

  Crash. Chill ocean water from a wave soaked my shoes. Its spray pricked across my hot arms and face. Trinity’s angry exhale at Melody’s words morphed into a gasp of pleasure.

  She stood ankle-deep in the Pacific Ocean. “OK. Now I can die. I’ve been in the ocean.”

  “You’re not supposed to die.” Melody balanced on her dry rock with scrawny arms windmilling. Fear transformed her pinched face into someone about Jezzy’s age. “That’s not why you’re here...not to die.”

  My bound arms automatically shot out to steady her...though why did I still protect her after all she’d done to me? Betrayal. Poison. More betrayal.

  I dropped them. “Then why are we here, Melody? The truth. Why did Reed get Chaff to lure us to such a faraway place?”

  “Sorry. I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Huh.” I sighed. “Go ahead. Grab onto my backpack or Trinity’s. No point in your breaking your neck and dying, too.”

  Splash. Trinity was back in the ocean. A waist-high swell collided with her, and she staggered. “No way, Dove! She so much as touches my pack and—”

  “Help her, cousin. She’s Micah’s sister.”

  “Oh...oh fine. For him...not that he deserves my help either.” Still muttering about brown-eyed Judases, she struggled onto the boulder.

  I swayed backward and almost toppled. Melody had latched onto me.

  “Oops. Sorry, Dove. And thanks. Both of you. I don’t swim good. And I promise I’m not lying about the not-killing-you thing. Reed just brought you here to be far out of the way from...well, I can’t say. But it’s not because he’s scared of you, Dove. He just knows you’re super powerful. A powerful opponent is what he called you. He said that Satan’s power makes you strong in influencing other Christians. The weak ones, obviously. And he doesn’t like that you sway the Heathens’ thinking, too. He’s frustrated. All his hard work, and you go on that Heathen surviving show and...well, it wasn’t the best for getting the Reclaim going. Although, your last message...that one Reed approved of.”

  Heat flared in my cheeks. The one where I blamed the world’s problems on nonbelievers?

  “But he guessed your change of heart wouldn’t last. And that your outburst was a mistake.”

  I shrugged. “Of course. Reed’s a jerk. But he’s not stupid.”

  A body-length gap existed between my boulder and the first rock island, shaped like a turtle. Reed’s followers had picked their way over to the opposite side in order to reach the second, larger island.

  The water in the gap before me gleamed dark and deep. The kind that a person would need to swim. Which explained Stone’s catapulting Wolfe through the air at this spot. It was difficult to make the leap with no hands.

  Oxygen escaped my lungs in a gush. “OK. We can make this jump, Melody. Trinity, you…”

  My cousin was in midair. Her knees and stomach smacked against the island’s surface and then began to slide downward. Without the use of her hands, her feet scrambled for purchase on the slick stone.

  I leaned forward. Biting my lip. Pain throbbed in my wrists from pulling against the binding.

  She found a hold with her toe and shoved up. She rolled over and glared back across the gap. “Brae, I’m not scraping another inch across this rock, breaking another tooth, or giving myself another concussion until you explain what you meant when you said that Dove and I were brought here to be out of the way...if you’re all not trying to kill us.”

  My hips swayed as Melody tugged my pack in front of herself like a shield. “Your tooth? Ooo, ouch. I’m sorry. I...I guess you sort of need your arms free for balance—”

  “Answer her, Brae. I want to know, too.”

  “But I can’t. That part I can’t tell you, except...you understand that Reed won’t have you messing up the great work he’s doing for our people. Right? He doesn’t want to kill you...or even hurt you. So, if you both just stopped—”

  “Mel!” Reed balanced on the edge of the second, larger rock island where Wolfe rocked forward, as if ready to dive into the water despite his tied hands. His gaze stayed clamped on me. His pale lips twitched. Don’t drown.

  Reed pointed. “Mel, why are you touching Enemy Strong? Stone, why aren’t you keeping control of this situation? If Mel needs help on the rocks, you or I help her. Don’t trust our enemy. Ever.”

  Stone detached himself from the finger formation of rock to our right. With red-tinged ears, he landed catlike in the few free inches next to us.

  I leaned away from his warm bulk and then gasped. Stone had ripped apart the tape that held my hands captive.

  “Um. Go ahead first...Strong.” Stone continued to hold Melody in place, completing my memory of when I’d last seen them in the MTV cave at Mount Washington. Side by side. Hands clenched. United.

  Except now my gut didn’t twist. I turned to the second island that rose from the ocean like a giant, lopsided beehive capped with seagulls. Trinity’s feet touched down on its rock lip that rose above the green slime. And Wolfe, wearing his idiotic grin, bobbed his head.

  Get over here, bird girl.

  I held my arms out for balance and leaped.

  24

  “Where did Chaff disappear to? How can no one know? This is ridiculous, Enemy Strong. He was nearest to you.”

  Since tape adhered my lips together and trapped my wrists behind my back, I let my blank stare answer him. Don’t know where Chaff went. Don’t care.

  Reed began to pace the small bit of gloomy cave. Christians who lined the cavity smashed themselves against the dank walls to give him room.

  Limp, step. Limp, step. “Last seen walking with our enemies...but he completed the mission without fail. Which gives me no reason to doubt his loyalty. But his manner of disappearing...strange. We must find him.”

  At his decision, his posse moved en masse toward the cave’s opening. The oldest follower, a man with a torso-length beard, led onto the skinny ledge above the ocean.

  “But...but brother. I think...you’re mistaken.”

  Long Beard paused at Stone’s outburst. Every other beard also turned toward the giant stooped over in the rear of the cave.

  Stone gulped. “I mean, brother—I mean, Commander—wasn’t the whole point of us hiding out on this island and in this cave...to stay hidden? Until dark? And then relocate to the camp so the local Heathen don’t see? You said it wasn’t time for the Heathen to—”

  “Circumstances change. Plans change. Even perfect plans.” Reed limped toward the cave’s opening, and the Christians melted aside to let him pass.

  He eyed the ocean that stretched to the horizon. “Stone, Bethel, and Myrrh. Head to the beach and comb the rocks as well as the bluff. I will join you. Zech, you told me Chaff is a local resident of Trinidad?”

  “Aye, aye.”

  My slumped shoulders jerked up. Chaff hadn’t lied. He did live here. Or at least Zech and Reed believed he did.

  “Can you locate his home before sundown?”

  Zech paused in sniffing the cavern’s aroma of ocean creatures and slime-covered rocks. He saluted. “Aye, aye, Commander.”

  Reed strode over to where I leaned at the back of the cave. His face mirrored Zech’s inhuman expression when he checked the strength of my bonds and Trinity’s. He gave an order to reinforce Wolfe’s mouth.

  “Melody, you’ll come with me to the beach. Olive, Noah, and Eli, you’ll remain to guard the captured. I’ll return before high tide tonight to supervise the prisoner
s’ relocation. Until then, keep them in this enclosure. And do not be afraid to use your weapons. Remember, the ocean is your ally. Use it.”

  The Benders left to hunt for Chaff, accompanied by the Braes and another set of siblings—a sister and brother with snub noses and serious mouths. Which left only three of Reed’s posse to stand guard.

  They positioned themselves in a half-circle facing us. Each fidgeted a sharp-edged weapon, except for the strong-looking blonde girl. A gun rested in the holster against her hip.

  Wolfe winked. He leaned his shoulder over to brush a white-tinged line on the wall next to him. The horizontal-reaching discoloration separated the upper, lighter rock from the darker wall below. Trinity seemed fixated on it.

  I puffed my cheeks out. What? What did the line matter?

  Ker-splish. Water spilled across the cave floor from an ocean swell taller than the cave’s lip. The crouching sentries sprang up as if stung.

  “What in the—”

  “Hey!”

  They clutched their wet backsides and tunic hems.

  Wolfe stirred the inch of pooled water with his orange shoe. “Expect more where that came from. Tide’s coming in. And just to clarify, your...err...commander said we prisoners had to stay in the cave. Not you.”

  “Wha—? No talking, Heathen. Olive, where’s that tape cylinder? I’ll fix him up.”

  The gray adhesive square flapped against Wolfe’s chin. “Go ahead and add more. Add the whole roll, but it won’t work. My skinny head won’t cooperate. You saw. Ol’ Reed couldn’t keep a gag on me either.”

  “Stop talking.” The frog-faced guard created a tighter X over the gray patch on Wolfe’s mouth. As he secured the loose end around his black, shaggy hair, another wave covered the cave’s floor.

  Wolfe scrunched his nose. His jaw and cheeks wiggled. He spit the gag out of his way. “Really. It doesn’t matter to me whether you get waterlogged undies—”

  “Stop talking!”

  Our sentries repositioned themselves in a standing half circle. Wolfe’s low whistling echoed around the space.

  “Stop wh—”

  The water rolled in. A rush of iciness covered my knees and hit me in the gut. As I darted upright, Trinity’s muffled gasp became lost in the shouts from the guards.