His smoldering gaze sent a chill up my spine. I turned around and hightailed it out of that room. I didn’t understand my reaction to Tech, and I wasn’t going to find out. I wasn’t about to jeopardize my dream job for anything or anyone.
Chapter Two
TECH
“Come on, Cody,” I told my best friend.
“Allen, I don’t think we should be out here two nights in a row. If Sire catches us, you know he’ll give us lashings for a week.”
I shivered at the thought. Even though Sire was my father, he didn’t want me calling him that. He was Sire to me like he was to everyone else around here. We basically had our own little community here. The children never left the compound. Ever.
We had our own school and a doctor. Not that we learned much in school. Every day, we were taught the word, or at least that’s what the adults had been leading us to believe.
At thirteen, I was pretty savvy with technology. Recently, Cody and I hacked into my father’s computer and did some research. I’d always felt something was off about this place. I had never seen another human outside of the ones on this compound. The few times I’d snuck and watched the television, which was forbidden, I had seen that the way we lived wasn’t normal.
That sparked my curiosity, which led to my research. I learned that what we were was indeed not normal. We were a cult. And the things they were teaching us were not okay.
Whenever we asked questions about our teachings, we were beaten. I didn’t understand why we would get lashings for questioning the things they wanted us to do.
Sire, by far, was the worst. He hated me. Although he had never said it, his actions showed it. He never missed a moment to remind me that I was the reason my mother was dead. From what I heard by listening to his conversations, my mother died while giving birth. She had been eighteen, and my father had been thirty.
Sometimes, I wished I could know how it felt to have a mother, but then I would look around and see how the women were. They were puppets. They did anything and everything their husbands said. Some of the men had multiple wives, including my father.
There was something about this place that didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t find a connection to it, no matter how many times I got beaten for it. Cody was the same. He hated it here. We weren’t allowed to be ourselves. We couldn’t say how we really felt about a lot of things.
One of those things was why I had brought Cody to the creek two nights in a row. Last night, I chickened out, but tonight I would finally tell Cody how I felt.
I battled with this for a very long time. I liked my best friend as more than a friend. When I first started feeling this way, I tried praying them away as we were taught. But it didn’t work. The feelings grew each day. I even did my research to see if what I was feeling was a mental illness, like my father said. Turned out there were thousands of people just like me. The more I read, the more I realized that we had been lied to.
Everything they were teaching us was based on their hateful beliefs. So, tonight I was finally going to tell Cody how I felt. I had a feeling he felt the same way. Whenever we came out here, Cody loved to hold my hand and hug me for a long time. He even kissed my cheek a few times. That made my stomach feel funny in a good way, though.
“It’ll be okay, Cody. Sire took some sleeping pills, so he’ll be out all night.”
“You sure?” he asked as he looked around nervously.
“I’m sure. Come on.” I grabbed his hand and led him to the lake. This time, I initiated holding his hand. He looked down with a small smile. “Cody, I have to tell you something.”
He raised his head to look me in the eyes. He appeared to be nervous and worried. “W-what is it, Allen?”
This was it. I was finally going to say everything I had been feeling for the past couple of years. I didn’t care anymore. I just knew I couldn't go another day without telling Cody this.
“I’ve been so scared to tell you this. I don’t want you to hate me if you don’t feel the same way.”
Allen grabbed my other hand, squeezing them . “I would never hate you, Allen. Ever. I promise.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed. “I like you, Cody.”
“You like me?” He stared into my eyes.
I nodded. “Yes. Not just as a friend.”
“Really?” He smiled and moved closer to me.
“Yes. Wait… are you happy?”
He bobbed his head up and down rapidly. “Yes. I thought I was crazy, Allen. They tell us that this is wrong and we’ll burn in hell, but I can’t stop it. I tried so many times. I swear.”
“Me too,” I agreed with him.
