With a scream, I launch myself at her mom, but before I can grab her hair and rip it out of her brainwashed head, I’m lifted away. My legs kick air, and then I’m thrown over a shoulder, fireman lift style, and hauled out of the church through the back door.
“No.” I kick my legs and beat my fists against Cain’s back. “I want to stay with her.”
When we reach the outside of the church, Cain gently sets me down on the ground. Roman’s face swims into vision as he sits beside me.
Cain is moving around me, lifting my hair, checking me for injuries, but Roman is simply holding my gaze.
I can see in his eyes all the pain he’s suffered in his life, and how much he’s feeling for me now. It hurts so much I don’t know if I can carry it; the weight of the pain is overwhelming. I can hear people screaming, and there are figures running over the fields. I recognize some of them. Where do they think they are going? They don’t trust the woods beyond, but perhaps they fear them less than what’s happening to their home.
“We need to get out of here,” Felix says. “The commune won’t be happy when they find their Prophet dead.”
He’s right, of course, but I can’t even bring myself to care. This all feels too cruel. We were supposed to free Daisy and her family from the clutches of the Prophet, and instead we’ve delivered them into a fresh kind of hell.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and rock back and forth, trying to suppress the need to scream at the top of my lungs.
“We’ve got to get back to the vehicles, Angel.” Cain’s voice breaks through my internal screaming, and I slowly raise my eyes to his. “Here, put this on. You’ll freeze.” He takes off his sweatshirt, leaving him in just a t-shirt, and pulls it on over my head. I lift my arms listlessly like a child being dressed by a parent.
“We have bikes, just up over the hill. We need to go. Now, Ophelia.” Mal’s voice holds an urgent edge to it, and when I hear angry male shouting, I realize why.
While many of the commune are scattering and panicking, some of the men sound like they’re organizing.
A wail starts up from inside the church. A woman’s voice, loud and plaintive. “They killed our Prophet. Oh, Lord, no, they killed him. Our Prophet. Oh, help us.”
“Fuck.” Cain growls under his breath. “Ophelia, can you run? We need to make for that tree line and the bikes right now.”
I nod. My mind is so close to shattering that being told what to do is actually helpful.
“Good girl,” Cain says.
He takes my hand and pulls me with him as he sets off racing to the tree line. He’s faster than I am, and I struggle to keep up. Cain notices, and he bends down, scoops me into his arms, and keeps on running, as if I weigh nothing.
Despite everything, the feel of his big arms around me and his familiar scent offer me comfort and ground me in a feeling of safety.
We reach the bikes, and a gunshot rings out behind us.
Deacon and Roman stop, turn, and both open fire back toward the church and the still burning buildings.
I stare in shock at the place that used to be my home. The flames have spread beyond the initial building, and the entire settlement is at risk.
More gunshots ring out, and I scream at the whizzing sound of a bullet flying far too near us.
“Shit. Get on, Ophelia.” Malachi holds the bike steady as Cain places me on the back before getting on in front of me.
“Hold on tight to me,” Cain orders.
The other men grab their own bikes. Felix and Roman on one, and Malachi and Deacon on the other. The bikes tear off, wheels spinning in the dirt. As we roar away, both Deacon and Roman, who are on the backs, keep shooting toward the men who are racing up the hill after us.
I close my eyes as the bullets zip by and pray to God they miss us. Soon the sounds are faded, and I peek to see Roman andDeacon have put their weapons away and are holding the shirts of the men in front of them.
Hands gripping Cain’s top, I cling on for dear life as we race through the woods, the bike bouncing over the dirt, back toward the RV and the rest of Cain’s men. I can’t remotely process all that has happened, but as the bikes twist and turn through the trees, I let my mind drift.
I lost Daisy, and it hurts so bad, but I also took my power back. I killed the Prophet. He was going to kill me—and my men if he had half the chance—and I turned the tables.
Something hot and powerful burns in me. My entire life, ever since he took me, has been about fearing that man but now he’sgone.
He wasn’t some big scary monster at the end of the day, he was just a man, and like all men, he bled, and, like all men, he could die.
We finally reach the clearing, and Cain’s men rush up to us as we climb off the bikes. My teeth are chattering, and I don’t think it’s from the cold. My legs are weak and wobbly, and I feel as if there’s a barrier between me and everyone else. The world has faded somehow and seems a lot less solid.
