From the Shadows

by Jacqueline Brown

  “Too much for her?” I asked.

  “She, as nicely as she could, told me my family and I had too much drama going on and she didn’t want that in her life, and so she didn’t want me in her life.”

  “She broke up with you! Because your sister was raped and you hit your dad?”

  “She did,” he said, with a nod for emphasis.

  Confusion replaced jealousy, and then protectiveness surprised me. “How dare she!”

  He laughed. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  “I mean, you at least wait until the drama has subsided a little. I mean, I wouldn’t do that regardless, but if you have any kind of decency, you at least give the guy a day or two to try and start dealing with his sister being impregnated by a sociopath. You don’t just dump him when he tells you.”

  “She was young. Her life had been pretty straightforward, not a lot of bends in the road. This was a bend, and she didn’t know how to handle it.” He shrugged.

  “You’re awfully forgiving.”

  “It was a long time ago, and we weren’t right for each other.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I stood up, kind of in a fog, not believing all of these horrible things were really happening. I got in my car and drove. Eventually, I came to a bar near campus that I knew didn’t ID. I didn’t usually drink, but it seemed like that was a good night to start.

  “It was nickel beer night; the place was packed and loud. I didn’t care. I sat at the bar and got a beer. I finished one and ordered another. The bartender was pouring my drink when this woman came up and ordered three beers. She was maybe twenty, but she was cute, so I knew the bartender would serve her. Then he started trying to flirt with her. It made my skin crawl. He was old enough to be her grandfather. She was being polite as she was waiting for her beers. But he kept trying. Eventually, she turned to her friends. The bartender made eye contact with two guys who were sitting on the opposite side of the bar from me. One nodded, and the bartender dropped a pill into each beer. The girl came back, this time with her two friends, paid fifteen cents for the beers, and went back to their booth. The guys at the end of the bar put a hundred-dollar bill on the bar, and the bartender pocketed it.”

  “What were the pills?” I asked, my heart racing, though I didn’t know why.

  “That’s what I wondered. It was all so weird. I sort of thought I had imagined it, because it made no sense. Then, after a few minutes, the women started to act drunk. The guys at the end of the bar went toward them, and I did too, though I wasn’t sure why. One of the guys offered one of them his hand. She wobbled her head in what was supposed to be a no. He laughed and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward him. He started to lead her to the back of the bar. The other guy did the same with the other two.”

  “They were taking them to the back?” I asked with repulsion.

  Jonah nodded. “The women were like zombies. Their bodies were moving, but their eyes were glazed over and they were going along with the guys. It was clear they’d been drugged, so I blocked the first guy. He told me to move. I said that she’d said no. He tried to make light of it. Said she was drunk, they were old friends. When I still refused, he offered me time with them. I punched him. It was more of a reflex than a decision. I didn’t even know how to fight back then, but I guess the little I knew was enough. He fell to the floor. His friend hit me and I hit him back. My fist connected with his jaw and I felt it pop out of place.

  “Half a second later, the police were there. The bartender told them I was picking a fight with the guys. That the guys were trying to protect the women from me.”

  “Protect them from you?” I said.

  “They believed him, and I was arrested,” he answered.

  “Arrested!”

  He nodded.

  “It turned out the guy whose jaw I broke was the brother of the state attorney.”

  “Who cares whose brother he is? He drugged those women!”

  “And he, like every other rapist, is innocent until proven guilty.”

  I stopped. “I never thought of that.”

  “Yeah, the system, or the old system, put the victim on trial, not the rapist. In this case it was me against him, or them, because the drug they gave the women erased their memory. They had no idea what happened. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. The state attorney wanted me in jail so her brother could appear less evil.”

  “That’s why you went to prison? You were saving three women from being attacked?”

  “Prison? Who said anything about prison?”

  “You said you were arrested,” I said, trying to backpedal, and then I blurted, “Haz said you went to prison.”

  “He did?”

  I nodded. “He saw your tattoos. He said they were done in prison.”

  “I bet he was a good cop,” Jonah said. “But he was wrong. I’ve never been to prison.”

  “But you were arrested.”

  “Yes, and I spent eight months in jail. There is a difference.”

  “Eight months! You spent eight months of your life locked up for helping people? Did you have an attorney?”

  My father’s clients never spent more than a few days in jail unless they killed someone or embezzled millions.

  “I had a public defender,” he said, as Astrea bounded from my lap and went to the glass door. “Why didn’t your parents get you a private attorney?”

  They couldn’t have afforded someone like my father, but they could have retained someone with more time and resources than an overburdened public defender.

  “It was time for me to grow up, to accept responsibility for my own actions. I was an adult and I wouldn’t allow them to speak to attorneys on my behalf.”

  “How could they let you sit there for eight months?”

  “I didn’t leave them on good terms.”

  “Jonah, I know your parents. They would do whatever it took to protect you.”

  “Don’t you see? It was time for them to stop protecting me. It was time for me to figure out my own life, so I didn’t call them. I didn’t call anyone until I’d been there a week. Then I called Eli.”

  “He came the next day, didn’t he?”

  Jonah nodded. “He drove over eight hours and showed up in his Roman collar, and as he picked up the phone to talk to me through the clear plastic, I was struck by how far I’d fallen from God’s plan for me.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “Yeah, in the bar I did, and I would do it again,” he said, leaning his head against the wall. “I guess I never thought I was in jail for what I did to the rapists. I know technically I was, but I always thought the experience was more about my temper and what I had done to my dad. I figured that’s what I needed to learn and grow from.”

  I picked at a loose strand of fabric on the ankle of my pants. The moonlight barely lit our glass confessional.

  “Is that when you decided to be a priest?” I asked, now understanding Eli’s consistent belief that Jonah was never really called to the priesthood.

  “That image of my brother, it stuck with me. He didn’t usually wear his collar around me. That day, when he showed up, it was like a sign from God that I needed to think more deeply. That I needed to get to know him better. I was raised Catholic, of course, but I didn’t get it. I didn’t feel his love burning within me. But in jail, when there was so much darkness, it was clear I needed to seek the light.”

  I was glad he couldn’t see the confusion on my face. Yes, I understood his words, but not the emotion behind them. I believed Jonah. I believed that he sensed the presence of God, and I believed that this sense and this presence were real. I had felt a tiny amount of the presence, but I had never felt a desire to know God better. And in this moment, I wondered why.

  “Eli had a Bible mailed to me, and I read and reread every word. I fell in love with Jesus. And when you love someone, you want to give your whole self to them. So when I got out, I applied for minor seminary, with the plan bein
g to finish my college degree there and then go on to major seminary and eventually become a priest. Things changed, though, and after my first year there, I started to realize God wasn’t asking me to serve him as a priest.”

  “How?”

  “How?”

  “How did you know he wasn’t calling you in that way?”

  He leaned forward and tilted his head toward me. “There were little things here and there. No massive signs from heaven. I’d been discussing it with my spiritual director for months. He agreed he didn’t think God was inviting me to be a priest. He could tell I was frustrated by the lack of clarity and so he told me God would make it clear when it was time. Then,”—he paused, turning away for a moment and then back to me—“I met you on the side of the road and even though the world had turned upside down, I had clarity.” My heart raced as his eyes locked onto mine. “When I met you, I finally understood what God had been whispering to me and it scared me to death,” he laughed in a nervous sort of way. Waiting for me to respond. Waiting for me accept him and his words or turn away in disbelief.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  A broad smile crossed his face and embarrassment filled mine, as the realization of what I’d said sunk in. Yes, it was how I felt, but why did I have to say it? Why did I always have to be so honest with him?

  The tiniest bit of moonlight reflected in Jonah’s eyes. Astrea whined and jumped between us.

  He pushed her out of the way, leaning toward me. She growled and nipped at his hand.

  “Ow,” he said, holding his hand.

  We saw the light at the same time. He threw his body on top of mine as I grabbed Astrea and our packs and scooted toward the metal desk.

  The opening was only a few feet, but it was our only chance. I pulled her onto my lap and wedged myself in as tightly as I could, making room for Jonah.

  The three of us huddled under the metal desk as electric lights lit the shelves behind us. The shadow of the desk cast a large rectangle against the shelves of car parts.

  “What is it?” I asked, my heart beating so loudly I could barely hear the sound of the approaching vehicles.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. His gun lay across his stomach, his finger on the trigger.

  Headlights shone through the windows, making the glass room bright as day.

  I counted the lights and the sound of vehicles. One, two, three, four, five, six. The room darkened and the night became quiet. Jonah began to inch his way from the desk.

  Astrea wiggled on my lap, whining. The hair on her neck was standing up. A deafening bang signaled someone trying to open the metal garage door. Jonah and I had locked it. My friends were safe in their metal sanctuary, but only glass surrounded Jonah, Astrea, and me.

  “Come on, we have to keep up,” a man’s rough voice called while a single beam of light moved around the office. The rumbling of a motorcycle engulfed the silence of the night.

  “Just a minute,” another man called back, his voice vibrating through the glass.

  He tried the door; it didn’t move. Glass shattered to the floor, and the lock clicked. My right hand held my gun, my left hand held Astrea’s mouth closed.

  “I’m not waiting. We have our orders,” the first man called over the roar of the engine.

  A moment later, that motorcycle rode away.

  The flashlight shone on the floor, and the glass crunched as the intruder came nearer.

  Jonah inched away from me. We were at a disadvantage, stuck on our backs beneath a desk. But the intruder didn’t know we were there and he was now alone. If he was armed, which I was sure he was, he’d easily fire a shot before I could get out from under the desk.

  I followed Jonah, creeping toward the open space. At some point I would have to release Astrea, but once I did, the man would know he wasn’t alone.

  The flashlight was methodically going along the shelves. He was looking for something. When it reached the end of the shelves, the light fell to the floor and then was gone. We heard the sound of crunching glass, followed by the hurried start of a motorcycle.

  Jonah crawled from the desk and stood, with his gun aimed in front of him, but nothing happened.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  I released Astrea, who bounded out from the desk, sniffing wildly around the office. The door behind Jonah opened. Josh knelt so he couldn’t be seen from outside of the shop.

  “It’s all right, they’re gone,” Jonah said. He offered me a hand, helping me to my feet.

  “Who were they?” Blaise said as she entered the room behind Josh. Sara, who had her arms wrapped around a shaking Juliette, followed. Astrea ran to her, jumping up and placing her front paws on her thighs. Juliette picked her up.

  “I don’t know. It was a convoy of some sort. I counted six large trucks and two motorcycles behind them,” Jonah said.

  At the windows, I was staring out into the dark of night.

  “Thank God the garage door was closed,” Sara said.

  From the back of the group, Hayden said, “You have no idea.”

  Turning to him, Sage asked, “What do you mean?”

  “They were harvesters,” he said, in a tone meant to create fear.

  “Like on a farm?” Blaise asked, the crossbow resting on her shoulder.

  She looked so natural with a weapon in her hand. The irony of that, even months after her last yoga class, still struck me.

  Hayden leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. “A harvester will harvest crops, though mostly they stand around and wait for you to do it for them. Their real job is to harvest people.”

  “Harvest people?” Sage asked, her voice shaking.

  “They find the healthy, young, and strong, and collect them,” he said.

  “What do they do with them?” Sara asked, her voice as shaky as her sister’s.

  “Take them to the city or put them on controlled farms.”

  “Controlled farms? Like the one you were at?” Blaise asked.

  “We gave them crops in exchange for leaving us alone, but we weren’t a controlled farm,” Hayden answered.

  Josh crossed his arms. “Why should we believe anything you say?” He asked.

  “Do or don’t, it makes no difference to me. But I’d rather be dead than be harvested and die a slow, tortured death.” Hayden turned his back to us and shoved his way back into the garage.

  “You didn’t have to be so mean to him,” Sage said, pushing Josh to the side and following Hayden.

  “What’s with her?” Josh asked, rubbing his shoulder.

  “She’s always been a sucker for a wounded puppy,” Sara said, her voice sounding worried.

  “Him?” Josh asked. “But he’s so … flat.”

  Sara, Blaise, and I burst into laughter at Josh’s use of the term that he used to make fun of us for using.

  “What does that mean?” Jonah asked.

  “You know flat. Bland, no fizz,” Josh explained.

  I was laughing so hard my side hurt. Sara braced herself on the desk, and Blaise practically lay across Juliette.

  “Why is that so funny?” Josh asked, sounding hurt. “He is, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Blaise laughed.

  “That’s not what’s funny,” I added.

  “Then what is?” Josh said, arms folded.

  “You sounded a little funny saying it,” Blaise said, as she attempted to stop laughing.

  “You three have always had double standards,” Josh huffed, as he stomped away to the garage.

  “Honey, wait,” Blaise called after him, still chuckling.

  Juliette and Sara followed them each laughing softly as the door closed. Leaving me alone with Jonah, once again.

  “You know,” Jonah said stepping toward me, “before all of that, you said something, and I didn’t get a chance to respond.” Though we weren’t touching, I could sense the energy from his body pulsing against mine, erasing any remaining hint of laughter.

  “Oh, t
hat’s okay. You don’t have to …. I-I wasn’t thinking. Just, uh, forget it,” I said.

  “Bria.” His body now pressed against mine. “I will never, for the rest of my life, forget what you said. And you may not have been thinking, but you are all I can think about. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. Every second we aren’t together actually hurts, and every second we are together I only want to be closer.”

  My face burned.

  “Really?” I whispered.

  “Really,” he whispered as he pressed his lips to mine.

  Twenty-Two

  The land was different—bright and alive. But the routine was the same. Though now that we knew about the harvesters, we avoided the roads as if they were rivers of acid waiting to melt our flesh.

  The hill where the town had been built was the beginning of the land pushing up toward the heavens and then plummeting back to earth. My father never could have made this journey, and some days I wondered if I could. The hills were no longer hills, but mountains. Sometimes we were able to find trails or remote roads, other times we were making our own trails. Before we left home, we had calculated the journey from Sara’s home to Blaise’s home to be about 160 miles. It would take us into the rural heart of Pennsylvania, and if we still had the truck, it should have taken five or six hours. Now it would take us weeks. Though the truck wouldn’t have helped us, not with inclines like this. It never would have made it, and the fear of suddenly rolling backward would have kept us from trying. We were destined to be on foot.

  It was no longer spring, and while the nights remained cool and often cold, the days were warm—at least the days when the sun shown. It rained often, which was good for the earth and helpful for our fresh water supply, but awful for hiking. We could hike in the rain, but we’d pay for it later in blisters and rashes where wet skin would rub raw. When the rains came, we sought shelter.

  Before the light, the only time I’d spent in nature had been my summers at the beach, learning to sail. I’d always found the ocean pretty, but the land before me now was nothing less than breathtaking. Even as we struggled to crest a mountain and my lungs and legs were burning, begging to stop, the rest of me was in awe of the land and the view.