“It wasn’t just us,” Cain says. “Ophelia trusted her. That was the only reason we did, too.”
Is he blaming Ophelia? We can’t let this create conflict between us. It’s what the Prophet would want, so I don’t argue with him. That can wait for later.
Roman looks around at the men. “There’s no point in beating ourselves up about it. We can’t go back and change things. We can only figure out what’s ahead and work out what to do next.”
He’s echoing my own thoughts, and I nod. “Agreed. We need to focus fast and come up with a fucking plan.”
Felix starts coughing, and it gets so bad it leads into him gagging. He struggles to catch his breath enough to speak. “You can’t be thinking of going into the town, just the three of you.”
Cain grits his teeth, his expression cold. “We have no choice.”
“Your father won’t like that.”
“Fuck my father,” he snaps. “The five of you were supposed to keep us safe, and look what’s happened. You think you’re still going to have jobs once this is done? We might as well have had children standing guard over us.”
As if to prove a point, one of the men, Smith, lets out a loud groan and bends to vomit behind a tree. He slumps back to the ground, his head in his hands.
What the fuck are we going to do?
I look around at the other Preachers. “The Prophet will be expecting us, right? He’ll think we’ll try to get Ophelia back, and he’ll be ready for us. That means there’s a much greater dangerto us, to Ophelia, and to the other commune members. This rescue can’t go wrong. We need a massive amount of firepower and some way to still retain an element of surprise.” Although how the fuck we do that, I don’t know.
Roman scowls. “Or will he think we’ll hightail it home? Maybe he’s not expecting us at all. He took out the guards, after all.”
Cain shakes his head and kicks out at the dirt. “What, and leave Ophelia with him? He must be crazy.”
I almost laugh at that. “Heisfucking crazy. Isn’t that the point? He’s convinced a whole town’s worth of people to commit suicide, and now he’s gotten our girl involved, too. I bet he does think he’s untouchable, and that’s what will be his downfall. My fear is, he’s going to take Ophelia with him.”
Roman stares at me, terror in his eyes. “Do you think he’s going to kill her?”
I give this some thought, even though I don’t want to let my brain go there. “The best we can hope for is that, after the ascension, he’ll run and take her with him. At least then she’ll be alive.” Then I square my shoulders. “Not that it matters because he’s not having her either way. We will get her back.”
We haven’t got much time. It’ll be morning soon. No time to bring in extra men or get help from anywhere. No time for the men we have brought with us to recover from whatever gas they’d been knocked unconscious with. No, it’s just us Preachers who must somehow get our girl back.
I picture Ophelia back in the Prophet’s clutches, and it makes me want to tear the trees up by their roots and launch them through the air, all while screaming my fury. She’ll be so fucking scared. The monster she’d thought she’d escaped has come back into her life, and it’s our fault. We should have left her at Verona Falls. We’d brought her with us, thinking we’d keep her safe, but we’d delivered her right into his hands.
How could Daisy have betrayed her so badly?
It doesn’t make sense, though. Daisy wanted us to leave Ophelia at home, she practically begged, so why would she do that if she needed her here? Unless she’s some grand, 4D-chess-level master of planning, it isn’t making sense.
We did the opposite of what she wanted, in case she was playing us, and instead she’s still managed to double cross us? This is all so fucking weird, and the only answer is Daisy, which is mind boggling.
How have we been fooled by a sheltered, seventeen-year-old girl?
CHAPTER 18
Ophelia
My head is pounding.The pain splits my skull, making the world shrink to nothing but intense agony.
It’s so bad that for a long moment, I can’t move or open my eyes.
The pain is all consuming and the first thing I become aware of. The second thing I become aware of is the pain in my wrists and shoulders—and how badly they’re strained. A kindling of panic burns in my stomach. The third, and most terrifying thing of all, is the icy cold realization that I can’t move.
I try, but I am tied to something, restraints biting into my flesh.
The events that brought me to this moment are blurry. I remember following Daisy out of the RV, and then…nothing.
What happened?
