Away From the Dark (The Light #2)(14)

Each glimpse of the world around me showed a new paradigm. No longer did I see a bustling community. Now, as an investigative journalist, I saw things as they were. Our coffee shop and stores were simply warehouses, similar to the pole barn, divided by partitions and filled with only the supplies the Commission deemed necessary. The walls surrounding the community no longer served as our protection; they were our cage, designed to keep us all peacefully within.

I wondered whether they truly were necessary. After all, it wasn’t as if, on the edge of the circumpolar North, we followers had many options for leaving. Nevertheless, the walls made any notion of escape impossible.

I recalled from when Jacob and I had been sentenced to our temporary banishment at the pole barn that the only acceptable way to pass beyond the walls and the multiple gates was within a vehicle. No one walked away.

For that reason few people had access to vehicles. Primarily it was the chosen men and those followers who had clearance to work beyond the walls, those who needed to access areas such as the pole barn for supplies, the power plant, or the mill.

The world where I’d been forced to live became clearer with each passing day. Our buildings were mostly accessible by foot. Snowpack paths in the winter and hard dirt paths in the summer connected one to another. The apartments where we lived were closer to the temple and main buildings than those housing the non-chosen followers. While ours were in what looked like three-story barracks, theirs were in what resembled dorms on a run-down college campus. Each building was sufficient to protect people from the elements, not constructed for visual appeal. Since vehicles weren’t needed to get from housing to work or community centers, when not in use, they were parked away from the main cluster of buildings.

As I took my morning walk, I made my way past the followers’ housing and toward the outskirts, the direction in which Jacob and I often ran. Because it was at the opposite end of the community from the greenhouse and production buildings and more remote, fewer people were in this area. The solitude gave me a sense of freedom, allowing me to lift my eyes and truly see.

It wasn’t until I reached the place where many vehicles were parked that I noticed what I believed to be Jacob’s truck, parked along a row of vehicles. It caught my attention because Jacob was gone. He would have left it at the pole barn and hangar. Making the only logical deduction, I figured that Thomas, the new pilot, was the one who had driven it into the community.

At nearly the same moment, my heart began to thunder in my chest: Thomas was my ticket to freedom.

I scanned the area. Seeing no prying eyes, I hurried to the truck and hid under a blanket on the floorboard in the backseat. With each passing minute, I contemplated Thomas’s return. I’d seen him before within the community. I wasn’t sure why he was allowed to enter. Xavier never had. However, I knew he’d done it. One time in the coffee shop with Raquel, I’d noticed him. He was a large man, about Jacob’s age, with short hair in a military cut.

Raquel and I had both recognized Thomas as new. There was something about him, the way he behaved: nodding and making eye contact with females before he said hello. The men of The Light didn’t do that. In general male followers didn’t acknowledge female followers. As Elizabeth had once told me, they didn’t owe us their words. If a man and woman crossed paths, the woman looked down and the man moved on.

That was the way it was.

I sucked in a breath as the door opened and slammed shut. From my hiding place, I caught a glimpse and knew I was right. Thomas was in the driver’s seat. Slowly he backed up and turned toward the gates. I feared he could hear my racing heart as the truck slowed and he pressed the code on the first, the second, and finally the last gate.

As the truck lunged forward, a sense of freedom bubbled from deep inside. Elation at passing the final barrier fought with the fear of the unknown. I hadn’t been out of the community since Jacob’s and my banishment. And up until a week ago that hadn’t bothered me. Given the way the tires bumped against the floorboard of the truck, the road was as uneven as it had been all that time ago.

I fought the urge to take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the air outside those walls. I couldn’t. I wasn’t really free, not yet. Once I made my presence known to Thomas, if he decided to take me back, I knew that I’d be punished. What I didn’t know was how severely.

Would I end up dead, like the women in Tracy’s morgue? Would it be Jacob’s decision, the Commission’s, or Father Gabriel’s?

Although what I’d done was a risk, I couldn’t stay at the Northern Light another day. I needed to get back to my life and do whatever I could to help my sisters and the children. I wanted to save Mindy. After all, she’d been part of the reason I’d first learned of The Light.

I silently said a quick prayer to Father Gabriel that I wouldn’t fail her or everyone else.

My heartbeat echoed in my ears as the road noise faded and the truck came to a stop. Though it’d been a long time since our banishment, I was relatively certain that we hadn’t driven long enough to reach the hangar. I held my breath as the driver’s door opened and then the one beside me. When the blanket was ripped off me, I didn’t know what I feared more: Thomas, my possible punishment, or the polar bears that could be near.

Thomas smirked as he leaned back on his heels, as if to get a better look, and shook his head. “Look what we have here.”