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I'll hold my fist pump until I'm alone.

Five days later, I'm greeted in Tallahassee by my family and Tommy's parents. Faith and Hope both look older. Maybe they’ve actually grown, or maybe it’s the stress of having their sister stolen away in the night. Either way, it breaks my heart a little. I don’t want to miss their next decades if this goes poorly.

My father hugs me—tugging the passport from my hand as his arms come around me—and I allow it, hiding my disdain as my face presses to his shirt. “I knew you’d come back to us,” he says.

You have no idea what has come back to you. But you will.

“God waited until you were ready for my son,” says Tommy's mom, Mrs. Wells. Her gaze gently sweeps from my chest to my waist. “We set the wedding date for July twenty-fifth. Will that be okay?”

Only a month now. Is she rushing because she wonders if I’m pregnant? Any guilt I felt about involving her goes out the window.

“That’s perfect,” I reply.

She pats my hand. “We've got your room all ready.”

My head darts between her and my mother. “My room?”

“Well, it would be hard to plan a New Hope wedding from Penhallow, Grace,” my mother says. In her chiding laugh I hear the echo of a prison door slamming shut.

Someone, I'm guessing, has suspected my plan all along. If so, then they won’t let me out of their sight.

My gaze jerks toward the exits.

Say you’re going to the bathroom, then run.

I dismiss the thought as soon as it occurs—I’d never get another chance to break away if I tried and it failed. I could flag down a police officer and claim I was kidnapped. Except...Bright Covenant has their hands everywhere. I’m certain that there’s a cop on their side, one who could make this go away. Then I’d wind up with none of the things I want.

I need to wait until I've exhausted every other avenue before I try to run. Mostly, I’m just praying that Kappy has an idea I don't.

I say goodbye to my sisters and my parents—my mother promises to visit New Hope within the week to begin working on our plans—and climb into the Wells' backseat. Mrs. Wells keeps up a steady stream of chatter, asking what kind of dress I'd like and how many children I want to have. Tommy, it turns out, is the youngest of ten. I get the sense that he was, perhaps, a disappointment to his parents. I'd be disappointed if I'd given birth to Tommy too, but not in the way they are.

Their house is larger than ours was, and it echoes when the three of us enter. “It'll be so nice to have you and Tommy living here,” she says.

Living here? I assume she means until the wedding, but given that Tommy will only arrive a few days before that…the phrasing is odd.

She smiles at my obvious confusion. “I suppose you wouldn't have heard. All the marital housing is full. So many couples came back at once from the last mission that they can't get new ones processed.”

I clear my throat. “No, I hadn't heard. How long will it be?”

“Why would you need your own home?” says Mr. Wells, arching an eyebrow. “This place is big enough for ten families.”

“It really is,” says Mrs. Wells. “That's how the church did it in the old days. All of us under one roof. And then you can care for us as we age.”

So always. If I don't find a way to escape this situation, I'll be living here always. Taking care of Tommy, Tommy’s parents, and Tommy’s offspring. My God.

When I finally climb into an uncomfortable double bed, theoretically the bed I'll share with Tommy for the rest of my life, a piece of me wonders if I shouldn't just have remained in Bolivia and refused to choose anyone.

I’ve got to find a way out of this.

For the next five days, Mrs. Wells is glued to my side. There’s a phone, but she’s never out of sight long enough for me to use it.

We spend long hours together—me learning while she instructs. She talks me through family recipes while sitting comfortably at the kitchen table. She has me cleaning all the bathrooms daily, then shows me how she likes the beds made and the towels folded. No wonder she's so giddy about this marriage: she got herself a maid in the process. She doesn't require me to go to Bible study. “It might be hard to hear all your classmates preparing to leave,” she says, and she claims to have a migraine during Sunday's service and demands that I remain home with her.

She’s either worried I’ll have second thoughts, or worried that any contact with the world outside of her home will allow me to run.

That I’m actually a prisoner here is confirmed on the one day she decides to go to the store. “Mr. Wells is coming home early to stay with you,” she tells me.

Any hopes I have that he’ll be a less watchful jailer are destroyed when he takes her place at the kitchen table.