by Lily Cahill
And his only other idea was probably not going to be well received.
“We could meet at my house, after dark.”
She gaped at him, scandalized.
“Not for anything strange! No funny business. It’s just that I live alone, so we wouldn’t get caught.”
Henry deliberately avoided looking at Ruth. If she was angry at the impropriety of what he’d just suggested, he couldn’t yet bear to face it. He needed a moment to fortify himself.
Instead, she said, “All right.”
His head snapped up. “Really?”
“It’s not ideal, but I’m … I’m very scared I’ll hurt someone, and if we’re discreet, no one will be the wiser.” She nodded, as if convincing herself more than him. “I can’t do this on my own anymore. You’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll cure me?”
It would have been easy to lie, to tell her what she wanted to hear, but Henry couldn’t do that to her. “I will do all I can for you.” He reached out to touch her knee. “I promise.”
She flinched away from his hand, letting out a little cry of pain.
“What’s wrong?” He removed his hand but automatically went for the hem of her skirt.
Ruth batted his hands away. “Stop, stop. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
In Henry’s mind, he could see Edward’s hands circling Ruth’s tiny wrist as he dragged her bodily from the general store. He frowned. His voice went low and urgent. “Did he hurt you again? Dammit, Ruth—”
“Leave it alone, Henry.” She sounded tired. “I’ve given enough thought to it. I don’t need you worrying about it too.”
“That was the wrong thing to say if you want me to leave it alone.”
He moved to touch her skirt, push it up her leg to see what bruise was waiting there, but Ruth shimmied out of the way, getting to her feet and hovering by the door.
“I’m going now,” she said, resolutely.
“Ruth, wait—”
She didn’t wait. She escaped out of the room and down the hall, and Henry watched her go. He didn’t understand why she always seemed to be running away from him.
And they hadn’t set a time for them to do the blood tests.
It had not been his morning.
CHAPTER TEN
Ruth
“In these trying times,” Edward intoned as he prowled back and forth across the altar. “People want answers. We want to know why things are happening. You’re going to hear some things—you’re probably already hearing them. That this is the work of the godless Soviets, some kind of science gone wrong.”
The crowd around Ruth began to murmur, and she shrank back into her cardigan. This was by far the largest congregation to whom her father had ever preached. She’d sacrificed her front seat again and was stuck in the back of the room, pushed against the wall. There were people pressing in on her from every exposed side. She’d run out of programs just before service was scheduled to start and had worried Edward would be angry with her, but he’d been too excited about all the extra bodies to care.
Even now, he seemed exuberant. Her father had never been a boring orator, but this week he seemed to speak with a special conviction. His hands shook as he sermonized—not from fear, but from the thrill of having so many people present to hear what he had to say.
Edward was not one to waste a captive audience.
“Science is wrong. But no, this isn’t science. This is Satan, in our very town.”
Despite the heat, Ruth shivered.
The appeal of Henry’s pleas was beginning to resonate with her, whether she wanted it to or not. Her father hated everyone in town who had developed abilities. And as much as it hurt her to admit it, she couldn’t believe he would treat her any differently, if she admitted to him what she could do.
She didn’t want to see her father as a villain. For weeks, Ruth had chastised herself for her abilities, had tried to pray them away. They had gone nowhere. If it had been just her, then she could have believed this was some kind of judgment from God. A price she, personally, had to pay for some transgression.
But it wasn’t just her. It was her and so many others. A dozen people had been involved in the fight on the Fourth of July. How many more were hiding like her? They couldn’t all be condemned for this. They couldn’t all have done something so wrong.
Ruth knew she wasn’t a perfect person or a perfect daughter. But if striving for her best counted for anything, then there was no way she was damned for something she couldn’t control. She hadn’t asked for her powers—just as none of the others had asked for theirs.
She wasn’t a demon. Neither was anyone else. They were all just … people.
Something light settled over Ruth’s shoulders. For the first time since she had witnessed her skin erupt in flames, she believed it just might be possible that she could have these abilities and her religion, both.
Her father was wrong. It hurt to think the words, but that didn’t make them less true. He was wrong, and his opinions on this subject were dangerous. She had to get away. It wouldn’t be easy, and she would need to plan carefully, but there was no avoiding it anymore.
Edward saw the world in black and white. Ruth always had, too. Growing up with him as her only guide to right and wrong, she had never questioned his teachings—until now. Suddenly, there were several shades of gray creeping into her worldview. She didn’t like it. It made things complicated and messy and difficult, and she had ignored it as long as she could. She couldn’t anymore. Things had changed, and she had to change, as well.
The buzz of the crowd around her acted as white noise. She tuned everything out. She shouldn’t have walked away from Henry, shouldn’t have let her fear and pride rule her actions. She would have to go back, apologize. Make amends. Beg for his help.
Kiss him again, maybe.
He was so handsome. His hair was dark, darker than hers, and his eyes were a light blue, like the sky when the sun was high and bright. She liked how lean he was, the way he always seemed to trip on his words until he figured out just what he wanted to say.
She’d liked his lips against hers, the feel of his body. It was enough to get the blood pumping in her veins and make her squirm in her seat.
Her face burned hot, and Ruth took a deep, slow breath. The fire was inside her, she could feel it. If she didn’t calm herself down, she was going to burst into flames in front of everyone!
He was dangerous to her, Henry. Dangerous not only because he knew her secret, but because she wanted to get closer to him. She wanted it very much.
“We need to take care of the heart and soul of our little town. I love Independence Falls, and I refuse to see it go into the hands of demons.” Edward spat the word with such vehemence that Ruth flinched. The person to her right glanced at her. “What we need to do right now is rally our friends and neighbors and spread the word.”
“What word?” called out someone from the first row.
“The word of God! The word that insists we throw these people out and save ourselves and our souls!”
Ruth kept her face carefully neutral, but inwardly, her stomach churned. If he who was without sin was to cast the first stone, then she knew no one in the congregation could line up with rocks. Not that it would stop them.
Edward cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “Some of my congregants have taken the initiative to start a series of meetings around town, focusing on educating our friends and neighbors regarding the truth of this situation. I encourage all of you to attend. More than that, I encourage you to reach out to your friends, to the family next door, to everyone you know. Tell them the truth. Let us work together to expunge the plague that has taken hold of the young people in our town.”
Did June and the other powerful people know these meetings were happening? Were they being safe? Not that she thought her father wanted anyone hurt, but—
She thought back to his boasts about exorcisms, of starving out the demons. Maybe he did want to hurt them. At the v
ery least, he didn’t seem to feel much Christian love toward them.
As Edward bowed his head and began to pray, Ruth tuned him out and said her own prayer.
Keep everyone safe, she thought. June and Clayton and all of them, every single one. Forgive me for my disobedience. Forgive my father for his anger.
“You wore that dress yesterday,” Edward said as he joined her at the front of the church. Most people had filed out, but there were still a few parishioners lingering behind, chatting amongst themselves. Ruth made sure to smile at each person who passed her. Edward shook the men’s hands, nodded at the ladies. People who had refused to give her father the time of day for years were now promising to be back next week.
Ruth glanced down at her dress. It was an older one, and the hem brushed the tops of her ankles from where she’d sprouted out of it years ago. She hadn’t worn it in a long time, but her options were limited these days.
“I stayed up late to finish the programs, and I didn’t have time to do the washing,” Ruth confessed.
“Next time, don’t procrastinate with those programs.”
The memory of the programs he destroyed burned in her mind, but she let it go.
She nodded at him. “Yes, father.”
He turned to look at her, his eyes critical as they swept over her face. “It’s good to see you acting more like yourself,” he said, sounding a little warmer. “You’ve been so strange lately. It’s worried me.”
Ruth frowned at the floor. She knew that she had been acting strange, but she didn’t know how else to act. It was impossible to be herself in these circumstances, and she couldn’t tell her father what was going on. It was like her skin no longer fit correctly over her bones.
“I’m sorry I’ve upset you,” she said, because it was the truth and she couldn’t say anything else.
“You’re forgiven. Why don’t you head inside now and make us something to eat.”
Ruth automatically turned, ready to complete any order that gave her space from him. She’d barely taken a step before his hand circled her wrist and pulled her to a stop.
She resisted the urge to flinch. “Yes?”
“We were given a few donations from the town, in compensation for our car.” He looked grim for a moment, perhaps remembering how quickly their junker had gone from beat up to totaled. The look disappeared quickly, replaced with a smile. It was so genuine, and her heart broke at the sight of it. He was this version of himself so rarely, just often enough for her to wish it happened more regularly. “I got you something.”
“What?”
“Hold on, I hid it inside.” He disappeared back through the front doors, and when he came back out, he was smiling broadly. He thrust a brown paper package into her hands. Ruth carefully unwrapped it, frowning as she went.
Fabric. Hideous fabric. Dark brown and coarse. A sickly-looking yellow that would clash with her skin tone, and everything else she owned. She thought of the beautiful, soft fabric that Henry had given her. It was still hidden underneath everything in her trunk at the end of her bed.
Her father’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I think sometimes I forget that you are a woman and not a child. I can still remember when you were a tiny thing. Your feet didn’t even touch the floor when you sat on the pew. I’m sorry for being so hard on you lately.”
He gave her a watery smile, and she had to drop her eyes in order to not burst into flame. The guilt was hot in her blood. He was giving her a gift, despite everything, despite the differences between them lately. It made her want to tell him everything.
She swallowed the words and smiled at him in return.
Leaving was the right thing to do. She knew it. But that didn’t make it easy to give up all she had known, especially when Edward was like this, so sincere and kind.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she told him. There was, but it didn’t matter anymore.
She headed across the unkempt lawn that separated the church and the trailer. She circled around the trailer, losing sight of her father and the front doors of the shack. Her thoughts were far away—considering lunch and the donations and right and wrong—when an arm slipped around her waist and a hand clamped around her mouth.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Henry
As soon as Ruth started struggling in his arms, Henry saw the flaws in his plan. He pulled her around the back corner of her house, just out of view of the church, and then immediately let her go. He held up both hands so she could see he meant her no harm. He’d been so sure she’d seen him during service sitting in one of the pews. She’d looked right past him at one point.
“Sorry!” he said quickly. She took a few quick steps back from him, and he let her. “Sorry. I’m an idiot. I just didn’t think your father would be happy if he saw us talking.”
Ruth panted, her breath coming short from fear, and she moved farther down the wall of the trailer, away from the church. Henry mirrored her movements and stepped closer so that he, too, could be hidden. She moved farther away. He stopped.
Was this because he had frightened her? Or because he’d asked her about her bruises the other day?
Were there more bruises she was hiding?
“Are you all right?” he asked, keeping his voice steady, calm.
She ignored his question and hissed, “Why are you here?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Surprise blossomed inside of him at her tone. True, the last time they’d seen each other, it hadn’t ended well, but …. Was it possible she didn’t feel this thing between them?
Was it all in his head?
“I was worried about you, after you ran away,” he offered, when she didn’t answer. He spoke softly, and she seemed to relax at his tone. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just concerned.”
She straightened up, pushing away from the wall. She leaned forward and peeked around the corner, but there was still no sign of anyone.
“I thought about what you said,” she told him. She looked resolute, sad. “About getting away from my father. I think you might be right.”
Any happiness was short-lived when he saw how much it cost her to say those words. Her eyes were over-bright, and she blinked them furiously.
She’d been through so much, fought so hard, handled her powers for weeks in secret—and she still refused to cry. Ruth Baker was the bravest person he’d ever met. She was incredible, and special, and—
And about to become his patient. She’d agreed to get away from her father, to the tests. It was unethical to feel this much for someone and still try to treat them. Knowing that was a very different thing than believing it, however.
“Okay,” he said, low and comforting.
“He’s wrong.” She pronounced the words like they broke her heart, and it broke his, in turn. Every part of him demanded he close the space between them, hug her close—but he held back. She needed him to be her doctor.
He would be whatever she needed.
“He’s wrong about the powers and about the people who have them. And I—I can’t just leave, obviously, he’d tear the town apart to find me, but I need ….” She bit her lip, that same gesture again. It still did terrible, wonderful things to him. “An exit strategy, or something.”
“Do you still want to get rid of your powers?”
Her head snapped up, liquid brown eyes searching for his. The moment their gazes connected, the pull was there, drawing him closer to her even when he knew he ought to stay away.
“I—I don’t know. I always saw them as a punishment, a curse, but I’m starting to think that ….”
His hand reached out entirely without his permission to trace the line of her arm. The cardigan between them was too much. He wanted her skin against his. She remained silent, so he prompted, “What are you starting to think?”
“I can have them,” she whispered. “I can have them and still be good.”
He ached for her. What had her father done to her head that she thought she was an
ything short of wonderful?
“Of course you can.” His voice was a murmur. She was inches from him—when had they gotten so close, and why weren’t they closer? He smiled gently. “But it’s okay to not want them, too. Or to not be sure. I think—I have a theory, and I think you could help me figure out what’s really going on. But if you don’t want to move forward, that would be fine.”
If she said no, if she wanted to keep her ability, then she wouldn’t be his patient, and he wouldn’t be her doctor, and he wouldn’t have to fight the urge to kiss her every moment of every day. Don’t agree, his heart screamed.
She blew out a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll do it. I think I’d at least like the option.”
Disappointment crashed through him, overpowering any part of him that was curious about the mystery of it all. BBCs and his grandfather’s strange behavior were not nearly as compelling as the curve of her mouth.
He moved back to put space between them, and she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, for being so abrupt. It’s just been a difficult few weeks.” She looked up and caught his eye. The spark, the connection. She had to feel it—it was so real it was practically tangible. “I don’t like lying to my father.”
“I can’t imagine what it’s been like.” He really couldn’t. Ruth woke up every morning and did her best to please someone who hated people like her. Her burdens were unimaginably difficult to conceive, and he’d grown up with a pretty terrible parent, himself. “We’ll brainstorm tonight, think of ways to get you out of there.”
“Tonight?”
“You’ll come, won’t you? To my house?”
A tiny smile touched the corner of Ruth’s mouth. “Yes. 10 o’clock?”
“Perfect.” He wanted to touch her, but he held himself back. “Are you safe, for now?”
“As I can be, I guess. But the things he says about everyone with powers ….”
Henry had sat through the sermon in hopes of catching up to Ruth. He’d heard her father’s words, and they’d disturbed him. Her father was cultivating a culture of fear amongst the most vulnerable townspeople. The meetings he’d mentioned had to be the same ones Mrs. Williams’ husband was attending so frequently.
