“Fuck!” Luc muttered, along with some French words that didn’t sound nearly as pretty as usual. For a few dull-witted seconds, Abby watched him slam out of the truck and stalk to where Clay stood, a good distance from where the firefighters worked on the cabin.
It was no use. She knew it even as the people toiled, their blue and red lights ironically festive against the rock face above the barn, the only structure they’d left intact.
His home was a pile of destruction. Beyond it, a lighter cloud of smoke rose from the vines, the few surviving vines standing like eerie scarecrows in the dawn light.
She waited another beat or two in the shelter of the truck. This is because of me.
Even from this distance, Luc’s silhouette looked exhausted as he indicated the truck. Clay turned, his expression hard, and moved toward them. Around her, the kids stirred, antsy and crying now when their lives were no longer in immediate danger.
“We need to get you all into the barn, and I’ll call for backup.” Clay looked at Abby. “You get all the kids out?”
“Yes. But we need to drive back down for the others—they’re headed up on foot.”
“We’ll go.” Clay’s mouth tightened. He was no doubt beating himself up, although it wasn’t his fault either. He yelled for a deputy, and they called for reinforcements, sent someone down to pick up the others, and moved the group of refugees into the barn, which, if nothing else, was warm.
“You okay?” the sheriff asked her once everyone had been located and brought to safety.
“I think so.”
He looked at Luc, who nodded.
“We’ll get these people out of your hair as soon as we can. Someplace where the kids are safe and…” His phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it, running his fingers through his short hair.
Abby lifted a hand to Luc’s face—to wipe a smudge off, ostensibly, but really to touch him. To keep him to her, to apologize, to hold the pieces of him—of them—together. He looked wild and desperate. All she wanted was to make this right. How could she make this right? Down below, the men continued to fight the remaining flames.
“I’m sorry, Luc. I’ll help you. We’ll—”
“May I have a word, Luc?” It was Clay, sounding official, wanting to get to the bottom of everything. This was bad. It was all so bad. And what was happening next door?
On that thought, she was done. Done with it all. No more tolerance, acceptance be damned. What she felt was… Oh Lord, it was good. Pure. That amorphous guilt hardened like crystals, hot like the brightest spark, but calm and cool like the dingy snow lining the ground down below.
She stopped listening as the two men discussed the mess they’d find next door. Gesturing vaguely, she mumbled something about going to the bathroom and, instead, headed right for the door, then down the hill to the truck they’d driven up here. Rory’s truck, with its farm vehicle license plate.
Weird how she noticed the tiniest details right now.
It was an amazing fuel, rage. Stronger than anything she’d felt in her entire life, it propelled her to the truck, where the keys hung in the ignition. It helped her get it started on the first try.
Without headlights, she rolled down the hill, finally accelerating through the curve and pushing it harder when she heard the first shout behind her. Of course they’d yell. They’d follow her, too, she assumed, which meant she had to hurry the hell up.
Motherfucker, cocksucker, and all those other choice expressions she’d stored up in her time outside rose up, but none of them seemed right. None of them felt like the insult she intended.
God hater. That would be a fitting insult to the man who’d set out to destroy her. Infidel, she thought, hatred and hysteria filling her head with idiocies. Every last bit of emotion she’d denied over the past months—no, years—coalesced into a solid wall of fury, righteous enough to run down anything in its path. She’d kill Isaiah. That was it. The only fitting punishment for what he’d done. All the lives he’d ruined. The one he’d destroyed by burning those vines. And for what? To hurt her? To get her back?
From somewhere close by came another explosion, and from the direction of town, more emergency lights added to the fray, blue ones, along with sirens. It rocked the truck and left her half-deaf. She shook her head to clear it of an image of Mama dead, planted her foot on the accelerator, and shot down the mountain.
* * *
There was Denny, watching her as she drove up with eyes she couldn’t understand. He looked as charred as the wreckage of the Center. As destroyed as she felt, as she gagged on the smell.
On a moan, she shoved out of the car, bent over, and vomited, narrowly missing his dusty, black shoes.
When she lifted her head again, there were more of them—the men. They’d lost their self-righteous sheen, which she didn’t understand until it occurred to her: They don’t know the kids are out. She looked around. And their wives. They think they’ve killed their own wives. Oh, no wonder they were such burnt-out husks.
“You were willing to kill the babies but not yourselves?” she tried to scream, but it came out raspy and weak.
Betrayal hung in the air around them, coiling in oily layers, thicker than smoke. The memory of Jeremiah’s tiny, warm hands, the smell of his head as they bumped up the drive, made her push just a little more. They deserved the pain of not knowing.
And it might not be the Christian thing to do, but she wanted to punish these men. Every single one of them.
“I can’t believe we were ever family. Or friends,” she spat.
“Friends?” Isaiah’s voice broke in as he appeared as if by magic in a cloud of smoke. How could he remain so unmoved by the poisoned atmosphere?
His voice cut through the air, slick as Sunday morning. “You were only friends with these men insofar as Adam was friends with Eve. Or the snake.” He smirked, and Abby could see that snake clear as day, right here before her. “You think any of these men hold a torch for you? How many did you take liberties with? How many did you defile?”
The men shuffled awkwardly, but not one moved to defend her.
Slowly, Isaiah walked to the front of the group, his steps measured, theatrical. Good, she thought through painfully rushing breaths, come here so I can claw your eyes out. “God’s will is done on the mountain tonight. With the flame of His wrath, the balance is restored and the sinners shall be punished.”
“Are you kidding me? Sinners? Murderer!” she screamed and lunged for him, but the men stopped her, yanking at her arms. Trapped. Always trapped by this man and his vile army. “Who’s the sinner here, Isaiah? Me? I’m the sinner? Is that what you’re saying? What about the babies? You did your best to kill the babies!”
“It was their time.”
Through a half sob, half laugh, she spoke. “Oh? Was it? Well, then your God’s not as powerful as you thought, is he?”
“What are you talking about?” Isaiah’s step faltered. Oh good, she’d taken him aback.
The hold on her loosened, and she stood her ground. Ignoring his question, she let her voice grow stronger. “No more hurting children. I was fifteen years old when you gave me away. Who’s the sinner there? Me? Or you? Or the man old enough to be my grandfather? Oh, but he sinned in the end. Did you know that?
“I tried to take him away. Bet you didn’t know that either, huh? Tried to get him to a hospital at the end. He wouldn’t let me. Because of your stupid version of God, who would allow His most devout subject to suffer.”
“If it’s God’s will, what may we do but obey and—”
“God’s will!” she broke in with a choked laugh, not moving a muscle as Isaiah drew closer. “Oh, you think it was God’s will that Hamish died when he did? Did your God tell you that in one of your dreams? On one of your treks to your magic rock? Is that it, O fearless leader? You’ll be disappointed to learn that Hamish died by
his own hand. Not your angry God.”
The men around her started to step back, her arguments widening the cracks in their conviction. She took in the horrified faces around her.
“You didn’t think I’d sit back and let another person suffer, did you? Oh no, I helped him put an end to his misery. Foxglove, it’s called. Such a pretty flower. And the best part? You chose it. Remember how you had us selling flowers at the market last summer? Remember those pretty purple flowers just so tall and graceful? Who’d ever think those sweet flowers could fell a grown man? ’Course, by the time he started begging for death, there wasn’t much left of Hamish.”
“You killed Hamish?”
“He killed himself.”
She gagged on the memory but forced herself to remain strong, knowing just how much this hurt him—this hateful Messiah. More folks arrived during her confession, gathering silently together in the lightening night. Behind her, she heard the sounds of vehicles approaching, saw the red and blue lights reflected on smoke, but it didn’t matter. Worse than killing Isaiah was embarrassing him in front of his men—his people. It would be all the vengeance she needed.
“What about the Mark, Isaiah? Is everybody here aware of what you and a few of the men did to me?” He took another step in her direction, this one furtive rather than self-assured, but she ignored him, turning in the glow of the headlights and unexpectedly catching her mama’s eyes.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her thoughts briefly scattered. “Oh, Mama, I was so afraid you were dead. I thought—”
“What are you doing?” her mother asked, looking horrified.
Abby forced herself to go still, not to rush to her mother. Instead, she studied her, trying to put the pieces of everything she knew and remembered together. The mother of her childhood, before this place; the woman standing in front of her now.
“Did you accept the Mark, Mama?” Abby impulsively asked.
No response.
“You did, right?”
Her mother nodded.
“Did you know they forced me? To take the Mark on my back? Over and over again?”
Abby wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe some sort of acknowledgment that her mother hadn’t wanted this for her. What she got instead sent her back a step.
“You’re a wicked child,” her mama hissed. “Always been that way. Too curious by half.”
“He tell you he was gonna take me as his wife, Mama? Two wives for this man?”
Her mother blinked and glanced at Isaiah—at her husband.
“Didn’t know that, did you?”
The crowd parted as Abby made her way to her mother and grasped the older woman’s hand. “Did he tell you how he cut open my best Sunday dress to get to me, Mama?”
Behind her, people whispered. From farther off came the sound of footsteps in gravel, but no one interrupted. “My back…here.” Turning, she urged Mama’s hand up the back of her coat and shirt, to where the ridges of her shame resided like braille, the letters scabbed up beneath her fingertips. “You feel that? I didn’t want it, so I got it tenfold. All over my back. You think God wanted that, too? Huh?”
“Oh, I knew all about it,” spat Mama, pulling away and shocking the words right out of Abby’s mouth. “You think Isaiah’s the one who gave you to Hamish? You think he’s the one who hears God?” Her gaze swung around to take in the crowd, her body vibrating. Everyone was still. “Isaiah may be God’s tool on this mountain, his mouthpiece, but I am the eyes and ears. Only God told me the people wouldn’t heed the word of a woman.” As she leaned toward Abby, the words came low and vicious. “If he’d let me, I’d have marked you every day of your life, you vile, wicked child. Defiled and rotten to the core. With a father like yours, I’d have—”
“Were you the one who ordered the children killed, too, Mama?”
Silence.
“Lord, I knew you lot had this place rigged to blow, but I didn’t think you’d do it.” She threw an accusatory look at the crowd behind her. “You all let him do it?”
Someone in the crowd said an outraged No! and people moved, the tide changing. From out of the murmuring came a woman’s voice.
It was Brigid. Lord only knew how she’d gotten back down here so fast. “The children are fine.” To the side, behind the men, Brigid stood stiff, her skin black with soot, her chin held high. She met Abby’s gaze with a burning one of her own, and a strange sort of sisterhood bloomed between them.
Isaiah jolted, a look of sheer surprise on his face. It would have been comical if this weren’t such a tragedy.
“She helped us get them out in time.” Brigid’s attention moved from Abby to Isaiah. “You could hurt anyone else you wanted, Isaiah. I’d take it, for the sake of our Lord and Savior. But I couldn’t let you hurt the babies.” She looked around the crowd, her eyes soft and sad. “We’ve all been defiled here, ain’t we? I never did like Abigail, but she’s right. God surely don’t want the babies to suffer. So we got ’em out. While you men were guardin’ your perimeter, us women saved the babies.”
Isaiah was livid. “You’re just worried about your own child, aren’t you, Brigid? Always—”
“Yours, you mean?” she responded, and everyone stopped.
Benji, mouth open, turned between his wife and his leader, looking lost.
Isaiah spoke. “Listen, Brigid, you’re—”
She spun toward Abby. “You think you had it bad with Hamish? I was thirteen when Isaiah started making me do things. For God, he told me, over and over. Then he got me with child and used Benji to cover it up.”
“Oh, Brigid,” whispered Abby, but the woman wasn’t done.
“I let you destroy my childhood,” she continued, focused back on Isaiah. “But you won’t destroy another child’s. I’ll kill you first. And, lucky for us all, Jeremiah’s not yours.”
“This is the Blackwood Sheriff’s Department.” Clay’s voice came over a loudspeaker, breaking the group apart. “I need you all to put your weapons down.”
Slowly, the men complied, setting down their rifles. All but Isaiah.
The crowd shifted again, and from out of the fog came the crunch of footsteps. A glance to the side showed Clay and his deputies, Luc with them, weapons raised.
“I want to see hands,” Clay yelled.
A sea of hands rose into the air, the men and women backing away from Isaiah.
Minutes passed, punctuated by the sound of walking on gravel, men and women switching sides, leaving just Abby, Brigid, Isaiah, and Mama.
“You, too, sir,” said Clay.
Silence.
“I want him to suffer,” said Abby.
“He’ll suffer in prison.”
“I want to press charges.”
Clay was a few steps away now, where Luc also stood.
“You can do that. But you don’t need to.”
“Against her, too. My mother.” She stared hard at the woman who was supposed to protect her and had instead thrown her to the wolves. “For whatever you’d call branding a woman against her will.”
“I believe I’d like to do the same,” Brigid said at Abby’s side; her voice was strong. Her eyes held Abby’s for a few moments as they waited for what came next.
“Yes, ma’am.” The footsteps crunched closer, and with a new energy, Abby watched Clay move—flanked by deputies—to Isaiah, who surrendered his shotgun. He looked small and scared facing off against someone he couldn’t bully. “Isaiah Bowden, you are under arrest for arson, assault, and battery…” Clay recited a litany as he led the man away.
With one last, long look at her mother, Abby turned her back on the only family she’d ever had and headed into a future that she couldn’t possibly begin to imagine.
28
Abby was down below with one of the deputies, giving her statement, and Sammy was playing out in the
tractor cemetery, leaving Luc alone.
The fire trucks had left a couple hours before, and now there was just a single cop car parked in his torn-up drive, along with his truck, and the one they’d borrowed from that British bartender. They appeared gaudy among so much colorless devastation. Luc stood, looking at it all, alone with the filthy vestiges of his life.
God, that place—the Church’s Center. And the room where they’d hurt Abby… He squeezed his eyes shut, picturing the kids.
He sighed in relief that it was all over and they were safe, but there was pain in his chest for all the wrong that had been done. What a viper’s nest that place was. Too much to unravel, even though Clay’s task force—which he’d already begun to assemble—had started pouring in. He wondered how long it all would take.
From somewhere behind the barn, he heard the clanging of metal. For a second, he considered telling Sammy not to mess with his things. And then he remembered how pointless it was. Who cared if Sammy screwed the tractor up even more? Who needed a goddamned tractor, after all, if he didn’t have vines or even a place to live?
Another loud clang. He should check on Sammy. But still, he waited.
Without leaves on the trees, he could hear everything up here. Especially now, Luc thought, forcing his gaze to take in the charred mountainside, posts and vines and rocks mangled together, with the rare survivor standing intact above the rest. How did those bastards douse it all so fast?
With that amount of accelerant, you’d think the whole thing would be flattened—a clean slate, which would at least have the beauty of potential new beginnings. But no. Instead, it had the carbon-on-snow look of a movie battlefield, grim and gray and a filthy mess to clean up. And no matter how deep he reached, he couldn’t find the energy to do it. Part of him wanted to tear the surviving vines down, too—to drown them in gas and burn them with the rest. He might muster up the strength to finish the destruction. Rebuilding, however…
The sound of a vehicle forging up the drive broke through the dead silence of this lifeless hillside. Luc felt no curiosity. Nothing. It could be anyone coming up to see him. Anyone at all, and he had absolutely no more fucks to give. The last of them had been cremated by neighbors he wished he could wipe off the face of the earth.
In His Hands Page 31
