The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Stevens, Taylor

  They were in front of a five-story building, old and very expensive it seemed, and that made Hannah’s clothes feel all the more awkward and embarrassing. The dress was borrowed, a bit too small and pretty in a girly way that was uncomfortable. But Sunshine had told her to wear it, and there wasn’t room for possible discussion, so that was that. At least it was new-looking and not as worn out as Hannah’s own hand-me-downs.

  Sunshine took hold of Hannah’s hand and led her forward, and this made her feel even more uncomfortable than the clothes, but she knew better than to squirm, so she endured the bad feelings, shoving them away.

  Sunshine said, “Sweetie, you want to serve the Lord and be a good little soldier for Jesus, right?”

  Hannah hated that word little and everything that it implied, hated the way Sunshine talked down to her as if she were a two-year-old, but she nodded.

  “That’s good. It means God can bless you. He can only bless us when we’re obedient to Him and to The Prophet, yes?”

  The uncomfortable feeling was growing and made it hard to talk, so Hannah just nodded again.

  “Being here is a very special privilege and The Prophet wants your dedication and your obedience,” Sunshine said. “He needs you to be completely yielded, and to be Secret—talking about today is disobedience, you understand?”

  Another nod, this time solemnly.

  Sunshine’s voice grew sterner, if that were possible. “What happens when we’re disobedient to the Lord and The Prophet?”

  “God can’t bless or protect us,” Hannah said, and her words came out in a hoarse whisper.

  Sunshine nodded as if she was satisfied, and although Hannah should have felt relieved that Sunshine was pleased, she didn’t. Instead she felt worse, though she didn’t understand why, because Sunshine wasn’t behaving as if Hannah had done something wrong or as if there was trouble coming.

  It’s just, things didn’t feel right, which meant the uncomfortable was very strong and growing worse—that sick feeling that started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way outward until everything was irritating and it was difficult to think or breathe. The only thing she knew to do when this happened was to obey and then get through whatever it was, one moment at a time, until it was over and the uncomfortable went away.

  They’d reached the building, Sunshine had pushed the front door open, and as they stepped inside she looked down at Hannah, a stern and unforgiving look that Hannah didn’t have to think about to understand. Be very obedient, because Sunshine could make a whole lot of trouble happen.

  On the second floor, a hallway spanned in both directions off the stairwell, and along the hallway were solid doors, each with a brass plate and the name of a business.

  Sunshine still gripped Hannah’s hand, and the heat and sweat of the close contact made Hannah want to scream or tug away, but she held quiet.

  Sunshine went to the farthest door, which had a plaque with no name and opened onto a room with a desk backed close to the shaded windows, like it was supposed to be an office reception, but there wasn’t anybody at the desk.

  To Hannah the furniture, lamps, and wall coverings were more like a rich person’s house than any office she had seen, and on each side of the room was another door, but those were closed, and the whole place was very quiet.

  Sunshine pointed at a divan. “Sit there and don’t touch anything,” she said, and then she walked to the door on the right and knocked. A voice called out, then Sunshine opened the door, stepped inside, and returned a few moments later with two men following. One man was older, like Sunshine, the other was like the young adults at the Haven.

  While Sunshine stood aside with the younger, the older man came to Hannah and knelt so that he was at eye level. Not unkindly, he asked her name, and after she answered, he took her hand and lifted it gently. Hannah looked to Sunshine for assurance, and Sunshine nodded. Understanding the man’s intention, Hannah stood.

  His eyes went from her head down, down to her feet and then back up again. He touched Hannah’s hair, just a little flick against the strands by her ear, and then turned to Sunshine.

  “Much better,” he said.

  Sunshine said, “Hannah, I need to run some errands; you stay here with Mr. Cárcan, and I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Hannah felt a spike of panic, not because she was afraid of this man or that she minded being away from Sunshine—definitely not that—but because she was being left alone with an outsider from the Void, and that was very much against the rules. Everyone kept a buddy in the Void, everywhere and always. It was one of The Prophet’s principles of obedience, and to break this meant God couldn’t protect you.

  But Sunshine said to do it, and Hannah could only do as instructed.

  When Sunshine had gone, the man said, “Do you like ice cream?”

  Hannah nodded, and his eyes moved kind of funny. “Come,” he said. “I have a freezer in my office.”

  She followed him into a room that could only be called an office because of the big desk, but everything else about it made it look like a living room. The man’s phone rang and he took the call while opening the little freezer. He pulled a frozen bar from inside, handed it to Hannah, and motioned her to sit while he nodded to the voice on the other end, and then he laughed.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, “they’re too simple and naïve to know better, but they are very close to God and I like to have God on my side.” He’d switched to Spanish without appearing to care if Hannah understood; he probably assumed that she didn’t, because he didn’t bother whispering or stepping outside the room.

  Still on the phone, the man laughed again and said, “Yes, but in any case it’s like having your own personal priest, and I can’t help that I like them. Religion, sex, and a simple mule, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

  Hannah didn’t understand the meaning of the words, but just as when listening to Zadok or Sunshine, it was always best to look dumb and pretend to not care.

  She was on the couch, face toward the wall, fully focused on the ice cream bar, tasting it slowly to make the rare treat last as long as possible, when she realized that the room was silent and she couldn’t remember for how long. She turned to look around.

  The man was off the phone, sitting on the edge of his desk, studying her, rubbing his thumb slowly up, slowly down, between his legs. All the feelings of discomfort and trouble, and the uneasiness that she couldn’t pinpoint, which had gone away a little with the ice cream, came back even more, and the knot in her stomach made it impossible to take another taste.

  Hannah felt like she might throw up, so she just held the bar, unsure of what to do with it.

  The man continued to stare, continued to do what he was doing, and finally, when slow drips began to trickle down her hand, he stood, took the mess from her, and said, “Take off your dress.”

  The words were like a smack across the face. Like trouble. Bad trouble. And the uncomfortable feelings were so bad now that Hannah couldn’t move.

  “You love your Prophet?” the man said.

  Hannah nodded.

  “And your auntie, she told you to obey, yes?”

  She nodded again.

  “Then do the will of The Prophet, and obey,” the man said.

  The words were right, but they were confusing coming from this outsider in the Void, and the uncomfortable feelings were now both inside and outside. It wasn’t fear, but yes, it was fear. She should do what he said, she needed to obey, he might hit her, or worse he might tell Sunshine, but Hannah still couldn’t move.

  The man tossed the ice cream into a trash can and wiped his fingers on his pant leg. He reached for her hand and, more roughly than he’d done in the reception room, pulled her to her feet.

  “Come,” he said. “I will help you.”

  His hands were impatient as he turned her around so that her back faced him. It was not new, what he was doing, even if this experience outside the Haven and with this man were new. He tugged the d
ress zipper and Hannah closed her eyes. Behind her lids the tears burned hot, but she would never let them surface. She breathed long and slow, and let her mind run away, far away, to the hidden and forbidden daydreams where nothing bad happened, where there was no trouble, where she was special and wanted, and always, always safe.

  Chapter 5

  Logan pulled the picture from his wallet and placed it on the table. The photo had been taken when Hannah was five years old, just three days before she’d been walked out of class, down the hall, through the school’s front doors, and, as they’d later learned, driven over the border and into Mexico.

  From across the table, Gideon, the IT director, pulled a printout of a scanned photograph from his computer bag. He placed it on the table next to Hannah. The photo was old, dated in the way most photographs are—by hair and clothing, and the odd color it assumed over time.

  “David Law,” he said.

  A breeze caught the edge of the paper, lifting it slightly, and Gideon placed his glass on the corner to hold it in place.

  Munroe’s eyes came alive, and she reached for the page, David Law’s picture, that spark the first hint of hope that Logan had sensed since she’d arrived on the terrace.

  She’d seen the photo of Hannah now three times, but this was the first time she’d been shown David Law’s, and even a casual observer would have spotted the intensity with which her eyes roamed over his picture.

  Her glance darted back and forth between David and Logan and their striking similarities: blond hair, green eyes, similar bone structure.

  “David and I aren’t related,” Logan said to her unasked question, “at least not that I know of. David was Charity’s boyfriend at the time—a cult baby, like us. He’s the one who kidnapped Hannah and took her back inside.”

  “Where is Charity?” Munroe asked. “Why isn’t she here?”

  “She wanted to be here,” Logan said. “But she couldn’t make it and so asked me to speak on her behalf. She says ‘hi’ by the way.”

  Munroe nodded.

  Logan paused, mentally framing the context and where to continue. Over the years Munroe had heard snippets of this story, and twice her path had briefly crossed with Charity’s. Munroe knew vague details of Hannah’s kidnapping because during an unusual outburst of frustration Logan had railed against the injustice of it all, but beyond that, he’d told her little.

  “It took me four years to coax Charity out,” Logan said. He tapped his head. “For many of us the thickest bars are in here. It takes time to overcome the fear and the guilt that a life of conditioning has put into you—especially when all you’ve ever known has you terrified of the outside. Anyway, I had an apartment ready, a job lined up for Charity and day care for Hannah, and when Charity finally made her break, David came along. Five months after they’d gotten settled, David took off with Hannah and went back.”

  “What do you mean, ‘he came along’?”

  “David was Charity’s boyfriend, not Hannah’s father,” Logan said. “And he and Charity hadn’t been together long—maybe a year total, if that—so he kind of just hitched a ride, so to speak.”

  “You’re certain he wasn’t Hannah’s father? No chance at all?”

  “Not according to Charity.”

  “Then why did he feel he had a right to take her?”

  “No idea,” Logan said. “Because he didn’t have one. He got hold of her passport and then forged a power of attorney, took her across the border, and from there hopscotched into South America.”

  “So this wasn’t a custody issue of two parents fighting over who keeps the kid?”

  “Not at all,” Logan said. “It was out-and-out child abduction.” He paused and tried to find the words. “It’s hard to find the ground under your feet when you leave,” he said. “Life comes at you so fast, there’s so much you weren’t prepared for, and it sometimes feels like every day is a new attempt to break up to the surface for air. But since I’d already made the way for Charity, David didn’t have that problem. If he’d really wanted to do something with his life on the outside, he had more opportunity than any of us did, had it very easy by comparison—”

  Heidi, the project manager who was sitting next to Gideon, interrupted. “David never really fit in though,” she said.

  Munroe said, “You knew him?”

  Heidi nodded. “He didn’t seem to care much, didn’t make much of an effort to do anything, just kind of mooched off Charity, really. Not everyone can make it out here. Some go back. A lot of it depends on why they left in the first place.”

  “We don’t know why he left—why he came with her,” Logan said. “He could have loved her for a while, or it could have been curiosity, or maybe he didn’t like being ordered around every day …”

  “Never a good reason,” Heidi said.

  “Or it could be that he was asked to leave with Charity and then bring Hannah back.”

  “Would the leaders do that?” Munroe said. “Order him to find an opening to take her back?”

  Logan shrugged. “They don’t feel society’s laws apply to them.”

  Heidi said, “Their views on the children born into the group are more like property ownership. Even if they didn’t order it, even if he got the idea and planned it on his own—which we doubt—they’ve done well at protecting and hiding him ever since. That’s why it’s taken us so long to find her.”

  “And now that you’ve found her?”

  “We want you to get her out.”

  Munroe returned the photo to the table and slowly placed Gideon’s glass back on top. She sat back and then grinned. “You want me to kidnap her.”

  She’d made a statement, not asked a question, and Logan knew with certainty that she’d said it for his benefit and no one else’s. It was classic Munroe. Have you really thought this through?

  There was silence around the table.

  Munroe said, “Now that you know where she is, wouldn’t this be the time to go the legal route?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Logan said.

  Eli, the med student, said, “We’ve already tried that. If David returns to the U.S. he’ll be arrested. He’s also wanted by Interpol, and we figure that’s why he keeps to less-developed countries—less technology, harder to find him. But even still, none of it does any good when it comes to actually getting to Hannah.”

  “And we’re trying to get to her with minimal collateral damage,” Logan added.

  Munroe said, “Collateral damage?”

  “We know where she is, we know the country and the city. We don’t know specifically which commune. There are at least three in the immediate area. If we get law enforcement involved, in order to find her they will raid the communes. All of the children will be taken into protective custody, and events have a way of spiraling out of control. There’s also a good chance that in the confusion we’ll lose Hannah again, especially if they’ve forged her documents using a different name.”

  “Don’t misunderstand,” Heidi said. “We definitely think it’s an unhealthy environment, and it’s not that we don’t care about the other kids, but at the same time, ripping them away from the only structure they know and putting them in South American juvenile centers isn’t the solution.”

  Munroe paused and then said, “I assume this has happened before?”

  “Yes,” Logan said. “And then some. No matter how we may feel about The Chosen and its leaders or even about some of the individuals within it, the children are our brothers, sisters, and cousins. Right now, this is about Hannah. Charity has full legal custody, there are warrants out for David’s arrest, and it’s just a matter of getting close enough. The cleanest way to do it is to get behind their doors.”

  “None of us can do it,” Gideon said. “They know us. As soon as we get close, they’ll know what we’re doing, and they’ll move her again.”

  “So what you’re saying is that in order to get her out, I’ve got to get in.”

  “Pretty much.”<
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  Munroe was silent for a moment, and Logan could see analysis written on her face.

  “This happened eight years ago,” Munroe said, “so Hannah is what? Twelve? Thirteen?”

  “Thirteen,” Logan said.

  “In the United States, children’s passports are only good for five years, and parents have to be present in order to renew them—a situation like this, renewal in a foreign country, only one guardian who’s not even a parent—it’s going to raise serious questions. If the alerts are out, as you say they are, why hasn’t she been picked up at a consulate or embassy when her passport expired?”

  “It’s happened before,” Heidi said, “with another family. So now the leaders are wise to that and won’t let it happen again. As best as we can tell, she’s no longer using an American passport, but we’re not sure which country she carries.”

  “So, what you’re saying,” Munroe said, “is that for all intents and purposes, in whichever country she’s living, she’s not an American citizen.” She paused for effect. “Which means that essentially you want me, an American, to go into a foreign country, kidnap what may possibly be a citizen of that country, and bring her to the United States?”

  “If you want to put it cut-and-dried like that, then yes.”

  Bethany had spoken, the real estate agent, and her tone had a sarcastic edge. “We’re looking for someone who has the acting ability to get inside, the fortitude to endure it, and the skill to get her out.”

  “Okay, look,” Munroe said. “Assuming that I’m capable of doing it, assuming that I even want to do it, I can see Logan’s point in all of this—Charity being his childhood friend and his having been involved in searching for Hannah all these years. But what’s in it for the rest of you? You didn’t fly in from around the country and offer to put money in a pot just because of an arbitrary connection to a thirteen-year-old girl. Are you each related to Charity or Hannah or Logan in some way? There’s got to be more.”

  “Eli is Charity’s half brother,” Logan said. “And although we each have our private reasons—certainly some of this is about us and our personal issues with the past and the people who were responsible for what happened—it’s primarily about Hannah.”