No. Pastor Carter would never have stopped until we had sacrificed everything.
I knew then what true evil looked like.
Poor David. He had only wanted a purpose. A place to belong. And Pastor had warped it until it became perverse and distorted. Until it fed his need for total dominance over us all.
The ruined man that had arrived over a month ago had been set on a course toward destruction. He had come to The Retreat wanting the lies Pastor fed him. His heart was clouded by promises that would never materialize.
It’s my fault…
It’s not my fault…
Which was it?
A little of both perhaps.
I shivered at the memory of Pastor Carter’s anger. In those seconds after my refusal he had looked like the worst kind of monster. And I had finally accepted what Bastian had been saying all along. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t holy.
And now David was “Awakened.”
A sickeningly pretty word for dead.
I threw up in the bushes. Heaved and heaved until I had nothing left inside.
I was devoid of everything.
Shattered and obliterated.
This was my fault…
This wasn’t my fault…
A never-ending cycle.
Why hadn’t I realized all this sooner?
Then Bastian was there.
The air stirred around me and he invaded my space. My comfort and my calm.
Yet he wasn’t remotely calm. He was untethered and out of control. His eyes red and puffy. His complexion waxy. I could feel his rage. It tasted like a bitten tongue.
“Did you know?” His question was a demand. It was an accusation. But at its center was quaking, overpowering fear.
I shook my head, the words that would accompany my denial stuck in the back of my throat.
I hadn’t known exactly what The Awakening was. I hadn’t known what Pastor planned for David. For all of us.
I should have.
But my disgrace was my own. I couldn’t let him carry that burden for me. Even though he would have taken it gladly.
Not now.
Not after David.
Staring at the man I had come to love in all the ways that mattered, I couldn’t imagine him coming back from this. Healing seemed like some far-off concept.
But there was steel in his bright, blue eyes. A tightness to his mouth. And I knew that he was stronger than anyone gave him credit for.
