Sent Rising (Dove Strong)

by Erin Lorence

  50

  Was she alive or dead? I didn’t know. It was Micah’s fault she’d hit the ground since he hadn’t caught her. But everything leading up to her fall was mine. My fault.

  “Stay at the camps, Trinity.”

  “Help sabotage the explosives, Trinity.”

  “Sacrifice yourself to publicly defy Reed, Trinity.”

  I might as well have suggested that last one. Because that’s what my cousin had heard tonight when I shouted truths over Reed’s lies.

  “Don’t go down to her. Dove, no.” Wolfe panted, struggling to keep me in the tree. He released my shirt and locked my cheekbones between his palms. “You can’t help her.”

  “Let go—”

  His fingers dropped. “It’s Saul. I...I can’t believe it! Saul’s here. And he’s got Trinity.”

  Uncle Saul? I took a shuddering breath and quit trying to drop onto the branches below.

  Jezebel kept her face against my chest as my uncle, who’d appeared out from nowhere like so many times before, carried my broken cousin down the far side of the hill. Micah tagged after like a puppy until the crowd swallowed him too.

  My uncle...

  A flea’s amount of hope pricked through my horror and nausea. Uncle Saul had arrived. Had Reed’s guards released our missing families?

  “Behold,” Reed boomed. “My proof. Please welcome our arrivals.”

  The chanting had grown strong as if fueled by the attack on Trinity. Now it subsided.

  I held still. There were muffled footsteps...too many to distinguish...and the thud and swish of feet over lush grass. Indistinct silhouettes emerged in the night over a hill far from where I balanced. Dozens of people were walking toward the fluorescent light.

  A low, continuous undertone of anxious voices started up. But I’d seen my uncle. I knew the arrivals weren’t Heathen.

  The adult figures that neared the fringes of light were stooped and clutched walking sticks—no, not sticks but spears. Weapons. The closest group of newcomers hesitated. The glow illuminated their haggard faces, blinking eyes, and angular bodies that seemed to creak stiffly from disuse. The men were unshaven. The women stooped under their heavy hair coils.

  An animal’s yowl rang out near the lake, and the threatening sound broke the invisible barrier. The freed Christians surged forward, mixing into the mass. More weary groups trudged over the golf course, blinked in the light, then joined. Amhebran cries broke out.

  My aunt! My stomach lurched up to greet my heart. Trinity’s mom stood in the light with her hand to her brow, no doubt searching the sea of bodies for someone familiar.

  I hunted the vicinity around my aunt, and my stomach began to sink. My mom hadn’t been released. Or my grandpa. If they had, they’d be clustered near her. Which meant they were being kept behind, locked up for being suspicious.

  The flow of freed captives coming down the hill had become a trickle, and Reed’s voice barreled on. I caught snatches.

  “Follow my soldiers...use force if necessary...bargain for the rest of our people’s release...best perimeter offensive route...”

  My eyes strayed over joy-filled scenes as family members reunited. Their joy was temporary. Reed’s plans would lead them from relief to regret in a matter of minutes.

  Jezebel pulled my face in alignment with the dark golf course. “Josh does run fast!”

  Just beyond the circle of light, a black-haired kid rocketed through the gloom toward a limping figure supported by two others. Joshua tackled the injured person in the middle.

  Rebecca threw off Brooke’s and Hunter’s supporting arms, and the siblings staggered backward, almost colliding with two more stragglers.

  My cedar bough bounced as I struggled up. I cupped my hands. “Mom! Grandpa!”

  They couldn’t hear me. They were more than a hundred feet away, and my voice was weak, swallowed up in the hundreds of others. My microphone didn’t work. I must have broken it—probably while grappling with Wolfe. I had to get down there.

  “Grandpa! Grandpa!”

  “Wait, Dove—” Wolfe latched onto me. “It’s not safe. Reed’s followers have seen you. They’ve divided up and are heading this way. We’re trapped. Maybe if we get into the woods—”

  I batted and pointed. “Gilead!”

  Wolfe’s hand tightened around mine as Gilead left the crowd and joined my relatives. Mom sighted him first and staggered forward. She clasped his shoulder with both thin hands then rested her forehead against it. Was she crying?

  My brother broke away to gesture with his knife at the out-of-sight village. He seemed to be speaking, possibly recounting Reed’s lies that he believed to be truths. Blaming the innocent godless for Reed’s kidnappings. Explaining that now was the moment for an uprising if we wanted to stay free.

  “Don’t believe him,” I whispered.

  Gilead stopped. The three stood still, as if contemplating Reed’s barrage of instructions and encouragement. My grandpa, a skinnier version of himself, raised his spear in the direction of the village buildings. He nodded.

  My blood turned to ice. “Grandpa!” Fumbling, I grabbed the wire and lifted it off my ear. “Fix my microphone, Wolfe! So I can call to him—and tell him the truth.”

  “Fix it, Woof!” Jezebel shouted.

  “I...I can’t. Half of it’s gone. Dove, we need to get you out of here. Jezebel, too.”

  My hands pressed my ears. If only Reed would stop talking. The fight mantra had started up again. If only the chant would quit...

  My eyes skimmed the crowd. Like Wolfe had said, Frog Face and his cronies had split up. Here and there their gray-uniformed bodies were struggling to get through the chaotic mass, inching in my direction. Eli was farthest away, blocked by a group chanting near the radio equipment.

  The radio. For the first time since I’d climbed this cedar, I remembered the broadcast. This nightmare was only the first wave of violence, the beginning of which would trigger a storm of other nightmares in other places.

  As Jezebel hugged me, my mom and grandpa continued to hesitate with their backs to me. There was movement in the darkness behind them. Joshua and his sister and friends scurrying away? Or curious villagers arriving who were disturbed by our noise?

  Sirens sounded in the distance, evidence that godless with weapons were hurrying toward us. Within minutes, they’d force a fight.

  Wolfe recaptured my hand. He leaned over Jezebel’s round head, speaking faster than hummingbird wings. “Dove, your family...it’s not going to end well for them. They’re going to d...die.”

  He choked on the word, then rushed on. “Or end up in a CTDC forever. You can’t help them because we’ll be caught before we get halfway to them. Reed’s soldiers are waiting for you to climb down. They haven’t taken their eyes off you since Trinity f-fell.”

  His mouth was inches away, moving faster with a new intensity. “But we don’t have to die with them or grow old in a CTDC. We can slip away—we’ll get into these woods fast, hide in the trees. You, me and Jezebel, we can make it. We’ll start a new life. Marry me. I love you, and you’re my best friend—”

  I flung my arm around his neck and pressed my lips to his.

  His lips were warm. They were sunshine, laughter, and doughnuts. Everything good. Everything I wanted.

  My other arm ditched the branch and came around his shoulder.

  It was OK to love him. To kiss my best friend. To kiss the guy I could be equally yoked with...if I chose not to die.

  I broke off and scooted away. My eyes lifted to where the moonless sky stretched above the cedar boughs. When I stood, the springy limb under my feet tried to buck me off.

  I had three choices.

  I could slip into the safety of these woods with the Picketts and begin a new life as Dove Pickett.

  I could make an impossible dash for my grandpa and mom in an attempt to stop them from joining an attack based on lies.

  Or I could try to stop this whole nation of violence-obsessed,
pigheaded Christians from making a huge mistake.

  My fist pressed an ache in my chest. No matter how much my brother—and Christians like him—annoyed me, I loved them. I loved my people. I couldn’t stand by and let them sin...not if I could stop them.

  Could I stop them?

  “Dove, what—”

  I thrust my palm outwards at Jezebel. I’d heard what I’d waited for—an abnormal hush as the distant sirens died. The crowd’s chanting became moth wings. And Reed’s commands for the attack muted.

  Then came the clear directive from Heaven.

  Have faith.

  I squinted at the crowd, an ankle-breaking distance below. Right there was the spot where I’d land if I jumped.

  The branch groaned behind me. Wolfe’s shout retreated into the sky.

  “Dove, no! Stone...no! Catch her!”

  51

  Stone plucked me out of the air and held me for a moment. “Your cousin. I thought at first it was you...that you’d fallen. Died. And it was my fault because I didn’t listen to you. I should never have...”

  He set me on my feet and spoke to the ones wearing gray grouped around us. “She’s in my control. Go.”

  Frog Face and two others slunk back toward their commander.

  I spoke fast, shouting through the crushing noise. “You let all the Christian captives go tonight—all of them. Even the suspicious.”

  “Yes.”

  I shook his arm. “You went against Reed on that. Because you’re sick of following him...of hurting people.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, quick, give me back the EMP!”

  The swollen lids of both bruised eyes slid shut. “I would if I could. But it’s in the lake.”

  “Dove!” Melody cowered beside me. “I’m...I’m sorry. You know, for being dumb. I heard what you said tonight. It’s true. Everything. And I shouldn’t have ditched you—”

  I gripped her sleeve and pointed at the platform and Reed’s back. His fist punched the air to accentuate another lie. “The truth—is he danger? Or no danger?”

  “Danger.”

  I jerked her closer. “Then help me shut down the Reclaim.”

  She held up her hands, palms up. “Sorry, but it’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late for everyone. Not for believers in other parts of the nation who are following. And maybe not for us.”

  I whirled her around to face the unreachable plasma generator on the slope, Reed’s power source. Silent but potent with energy, like every other generator I’d encountered since I’d left home. Yet Bull had mentioned chipmunks could kill their power. And I was stronger than a chipmunk. And maybe I had help.

  I glared at the technology that powered the key to Commander Reed’s communication with believers in this clearing and beyond. His microphone. His lights. His radio broadcast.

  “Be my muscle, Stone. Help me. No more hurting. No more war. We end this.”

  I didn’t wait for his response. My gaze latched onto the distant spot where the generator existed in the tight-packed crowd, and I flung myself toward it.

  I got held up at my first obstacle of a happy reunion, but I didn’t have to slow for long. Stone went before me and cleared my path. I sensed bodies and weapons flung aside. Shouts and pointing fingers followed as I wormed past.

  I skidded to a stop, panting. The generator.

  I fell onto my knees in the grass. A thick cable snaked from its smooth side. My fingers wrapped around the cord that gave life to everything Reed depended on. My muscles tensed as Melody clamped a warm hand over mine.

  “Ready, partner?”

  “Ready. And Stone, smash it. Beyond repair.”

  Together we pulled, and a crash of plastic breaking into a thousand pieces rent the air.

  Pitch darkness fell like an eclipse. There was a lull in the crowd’s noise. Then a rush of voices began, swelling like the ocean until the constant roar drowned out the sirens...and Reed Bender, who’d become invisible and powerless.

  Melody’s hand continued to grip mine. Together, with Stone, we’d assassinated—or at least disabled—this dangerous leader’s ability to command. We’d killed his radio broadcast, hopefully discouraging other zealous Christians who’d been waiting for the broadcast of his attack. I raised our hands in victory … and then screamed.

  A hundred pounds of warm-blooded fur slammed against my back, bowling me forward. Searing pain sliced my ribs. A guttural purr sounded. And something like knives stabbed my skull.

  52

  “Darcy!” Stone shouted. “No! No...retreat! Get off!”

  A bellow like a million train horns blasted my eardrums and rattled the ground I’d collapsed against. The earth shook with such bone-rattling force that Darcy screamed. Her claws retracted, and her weight rolled off.

  I tried to reach out a hand in the direction where I’d left Wolfe in the cedar, but I couldn’t move. My body throbbed against the quaking grass that’d grown damp with blood. I choked on the heavy, metallic-tinged air. My gaze lifted to the moonless, pitch-black sky.

  The noise wasn’t a train, but a trumpet. Somehow a trumpet’s blast had saved me from Darcy, Reed’s most lethal follower I hadn’t expected tonight, and it continued to jolt every cell in my body.

  Lord? Is that You?

  Light slammed down, brighter than my eyeballs could handle. Brighter than the sun. I squeezed my lids shut, and the whole world became stained red.

  Red...a red stain that spread across the nation...

  My blood.

  Truth pierced through my dizzying pain, the blaring horn, and the blinding light.

  I smiled and would’ve laughed out loud if I’d had strength.

  So many times, I’d visualized a dove flying, spreading red in its wake. Yes, I was the dove...but I’d been wrong about the red. The symbolic color wasn’t from an earthly bloodbath or a war. It was Jesus’s blood. The red meant His perfect blood He’d already shed in order to cover us sinful humans with his righteousness. His blood, the only source of eternal life. The Red.

  I sprawled on my stomach in the grass, too weak to move. Still I smiled.

  I’d been God’s messenger. Maybe He’d used me for peace, but more importantly He’d used me to spread His eternal life-giving blood to those who hadn’t yet accepted it. I, God’s dove, had expanded the reach of His salvation to those who hadn’t known about Him.

  Wolfe, Jezebel, Lobo, Bull, Grandma Pickett, maybe thousands of strangers with televisions...

  A sudden surge of joy exploded through my mind and body, the wave erasing my heart-wrenching despair about Trinity, my mom, and Grandpa. The crippling pain from Darcy ended. I relaxed in sweet relief, and I exhaled.

  My lids fluttered open.

  I wasn’t on my belly anymore but on my knees in the emerald grass. There was no more red or blood in sight. Wolfe and Jezebel weren’t in the tree but knelt next to me with their eyes shut. Beyond them was Melody and Stone; Mom, Gilead, and Grandpa; the Joyners; the Braes; and a clearing filled with hundreds of kneelers.

  A ripple of excitement drew my eyes upward to the source of light.

  I cried out, though no sound escaped.

  Jesus’s face. Sky alive, I couldn’t look away! I never wanted to look away, even though Gran was nearby. She was the same grandma I’d known—yet different. Strong and unwrinkled, she traveled without hesitation in the direction I longed to go. Upwards.

  An airy giddiness spread through my body. I raised my arms.

  My feet left the ground, and I rose. I didn’t unglue my eyes from my Savior who radiated light, but I felt the presence of thousands—maybe more—traveling with me. Jezebel was rising on my left and Wolfe on my right.

  Wolfe Pickett, my best friend, squeezed my hand. I gripped his tight.

  Together we rose, hand-in-hand, to spend eternity with our Savior, with our families, and with each other.

  A perfect eternity, united together. Forever.

  Acts 2:17-21

  �
��In the last days,” God says,

  ”I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.

  Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

  Your young men will see visions,

  and your old men will dream dreams.

  In those days I will pour out my Spirit

  even on my servants—men and women alike—

  and they will prophesy.

  And I will cause wonders in the heavens above

  and signs on the earth below—

  blood and fire and clouds of smoke.

  The sun will become dark,

  and the moon will turn blood red

  before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives.

  But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord

  will be saved.”

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