Weird how she noticed the tiniest details right now.
It was an amazing fuel, rage. Stronger than anything she’d felt in her entire life, it propelled her to the truck, where the keys hung in the ignition. It helped her get it started on the first try.
Without headlights, she rolled down the hill, finally accelerating through the curve and pushing it harder when she heard the first shout behind her. Of course they’d yell. They’d follow her, too, she assumed, which meant she had to hurry the hell up.
Motherfucker, cocksucker, and all those other choice expressions she’d stored up in her time outside rose up, but none of them seemed right. None of them felt like the insult she intended.
God hater.That would be a fitting insult to the man who’d set out to destroy her.Infidel, she thought, hatred and hysteria filling her head with idiocies. Every last bit of emotion she’d denied over the past months—no, years—coalesced into a solid wall of fury, righteous enough to run down anything in its path. She’d kill Isaiah. That was it. The only fitting punishment for what he’d done. All the lives he’d ruined. The one he’d destroyed by burning those vines. And for what? To hurt her? To get her back?
From somewhere close by came another explosion, and from the direction of town, more emergency lights added to the fray, blue ones, along with sirens. It rocked the truck and left her half-deaf. She shook her head to clear it of an image of Mama dead, planted her foot on the accelerator, and shot down the mountain.
* * *
There was Denny, watching her as she drove up with eyes she couldn’t understand. He looked as charred as the wreckage of the Center. As destroyed as she felt, as she gagged on the smell.
On a moan, she shoved out of the car, bent over, and vomited, narrowly missing his dusty, black shoes.
When she lifted her head again, there were more of them—the men. They’d lost their self-righteous sheen, which she didn’t understand until it occurred to her:They don’t know the kids are out.She looked around.And their wives. They think they’ve killed their own wives.Oh, no wonder they were such burnt-out husks.
“You were willing to kill the babies but not yourselves?” she tried to scream, but it came out raspy and weak.
Betrayal hung in the air around them, coiling in oily layers, thicker than smoke. The memory of Jeremiah’s tiny, warm hands, the smell of his head as they bumped up the drive, made her push just a little more. They deserved the pain of not knowing.
And it might not be the Christian thing to do, but she wanted to punish these men. Every single one of them.
“I can’t believe we were ever family. Or friends,” she spat.
“Friends?” Isaiah’s voice broke in as he appeared as if by magic in a cloud of smoke. How could he remain so unmoved by the poisoned atmosphere?
His voice cut through the air, slick as Sunday morning. “You were only friends with these men insofar as Adam was friends with Eve. Or the snake.” He smirked, and Abby could see that snake clear as day, right here before her. “You think any of these men hold a torch for you? How many did you take liberties with? How many did you defile?”
The men shuffled awkwardly, but not one moved to defend her.
Slowly, Isaiah walked to the front of the group, his steps measured, theatrical.Good, she thought through painfully rushing breaths,come here so I can claw your eyes out. “God’s will is done on the mountain tonight. With the flame of His wrath, the balance is restored and the sinners shall be punished.”
“Are youkiddingme? Sinners?Murderer!” she screamed and lunged for him, but the men stopped her, yanking at her arms. Trapped. Always trapped by this man and his vile army. “Who’s the sinner here, Isaiah? Me?I’mthe sinner? Is that what you’re saying? What about the babies? You did your best to kill the babies!”
“It was their time.”
Through a half sob, half laugh, she spoke. “Oh? Was it? Well, then your God’s not as powerful as you thought, is he?”
“What are you talking about?” Isaiah’s step faltered. Oh good, she’d taken him aback.
The hold on her loosened, and she stood her ground. Ignoring his question, she let her voice grow stronger. “No more hurting children. I wasfifteen years oldwhen you gave me away. Who’s the sinner there? Me? Or you? Or the man old enough to be my grandfather? Oh, but he sinned in the end. Did you know that?
“I tried to take him away. Bet you didn’t know that either, huh? Tried to get him to a hospital at the end. He wouldn’t let me. Because of your stupid version of God, who would allow His most devout subject to suffer.”
“If it’s God’s will, what may we do but obey and—”
“God’s will!” she broke in with a choked laugh, not moving a muscle as Isaiah drew closer. “Oh, you think it was God’s will that Hamish died when he did? Did your God tell you that in one of your dreams? On one of your treks to your magic rock? Is that it, O fearless leader? You’ll be disappointed to learn thatHamish died by his own hand. Not your angry God.”
The men around her started to step back, her arguments widening the cracks in their conviction. She took in the horrified faces around her.
“You didn’t think I’d sit back and let another person suffer, did you? Oh no, I helped him put an end to his misery.Foxglove, it’s called. Such a pretty flower. And the best part?Youchose it. Remember how you had us selling flowers at the market last summer? Remember those pretty purple flowers just so tall and graceful? Who’d ever think those sweet flowers could fell a grown man? ’Course, by the time he started begging for death, there wasn’t much left of Hamish.”
“You killed Hamish?”
“He killed himself.”
