“Gage,” Roz said gruffly, as if he knew how much this was killing him.
He used to complain about hauling those cans, pulling weeds in his mother’s garden every Saturday morning in the summer, and shoveling the snow during the dreaded winters.
He’d taken that peaceful existence for granted.
It’d been a mundane life, but it was safe.
Chicago Theological Seminary classes Monday through Friday. Bible study on Wednesday nights, volunteering at the food bank on Saturdays. Church on Sunday mornings. And quiet family dinners each night.
He’d been so desperate to get a taste of “real life” that he’d ignorantly walked into a pit of fire, not thinking he’d get burned.
He’d just wanted to make his own decisions and not have to do exactly as his father instructed. Make how own mistakes.
Mission accomplished, Gage.
“You ready?” Roz asked.
“Yeah,” he whispered, reaching for the door handle.
Before he could touch it, his mother’s familiar voice floated across the street, sweet, respectful and so unexpected it knocked the air out of his lungs.
“Thank you both so much for coming,” she said. “I think this is a wonderful cause you’re fighting for.”
His father’s deeper baritone followed, full of that pulpit conviction Gage had grown up with.
“There needs to be changes in the penal system,” his father said. “It’s not right what happened to my boy. He was a good man. A Christian man.”
Another male voice answered, smooth and calm. “A lot of men trapped in the system are good. It’s why we started our prison reform program, Pastor Harrington.”
Gage went still. He knew that voice.
Recognition struck like a shockwave as a cold ripple slid down his spine.
Roz leaned over him as if he were trying to get a better view out of the window. “There’s two guys talking to your folks.”
“What do they look like?”
Roz sucked his teeth. “Umm, they’re not facing us. They’re tall, kinda built, I think. I don’t know, they’re wearing heavy coats.”
“They said they’re doing some kinda prison reform,” Gage whispered.
Roz’s gasp was loud near his ear. “You can hear them?”
Gage shushed him as footsteps scuffed along the concrete.
“What color are their suits?” he asked.
“Why does that matter?”
“Just tell me,” he snapped.
“Uh…I dunno,” Roz said slowly. “Like a…dark green. Blackish green. It’s dark. I can’t see their faces, and they’ve got hoods on. They sure don’t look like any Mormons I’ve ever seen.”
They found me.
Cold spread through him.
“What the hell is up, G. You look terrified,” Roz said. “I’m getting you outta here. I don’t like this.”
