Away From the Dark (The Light #2)(25)

The compassion that continually licked at my heart for this man evaporated.

“Then don’t say it,” I said with alarm. “Whatever it is, Jacob, please don’t say it. I want to go back. I need to go back.”

Though he sadly shook his head, one side of his lips turned upward. “See, Stella, it isn’t that easy. You just called me Jacob. Sara is who you are to me.”

I nodded. I hadn’t even realized I’d said his name. “Jacoby,” I said, the name sounding foreign. “Please don’t say whatever it is. Just let me go. I need to. I have connections. I can save Mindy. I can save others.”

“Mindy?” he asked.

“She’s my friend. She’s part of the reason I started investigating The Light.”

He sat taller. “What? You were investigating The Light? Are you with the police?”

“I’m not police. I was, or am—hell, I don’t know anymore—an investigative journalist. I’d been following some leads that led me to The Light.”

He stood, again fisting his hair. “Shit! I didn’t know that. They didn’t tell me. All they said was that you were chosen.”

“What? What do you mean . . . I was part of the chosen, or I was chosen?”

“Most men don’t get to see their wives until they arrive, but I was different. I’m a pilot.” He grinned a real grin. “See, not everything is a lie.”

“Army?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s true too, and so was Iraq. Anyway, because I travel to the different campuses, about a week before you were taken, Brother Uriel, from—”

“Eastern Light,” I interrupted. “Uriel Harris or Harrison.”

Jacoby’s eyes grew wide, staring at me as if we’d never met. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “Yes. Well, he took me to this festival in Dearborn, Michigan.”

It was my turn to collapse onto the bed. “You saw me there? You saw me with Dylan?”

“Yes, I saw you.” He sat beside me. “Do you remember me telling you how the first time I ever saw you I knew you were mine?”

I nodded, trying to forget the emotion I’d felt that night, the night he’d started painting me a mental picture of our past.

“Well, it was true. I saw you with Richards . . .”

Gasping, I covered my lips with the burned tips of my fingers. “You know his name?”

He nodded. “But like I said, I did know you were mine. I wasn’t being figurative. Brother Uriel told me that you were. I remember listening to you laugh, how f*cking carefree you were. At the same time, I knew. I knew it was all about to end.”

I didn’t understand. “Why? Why? Why did you do it?”

Jacob seized my shoulders. “I didn’t do it. Don’t you get it? It wasn’t up to me. Father Gabriel said I was to have a wife. I didn’t choose you. You were chosen for me.”

“So you didn’t want me?”

He gently reached for my face and, so as not to hurt my eye, tenderly cupped my cheeks. “I didn’t want a wife. I’d tried to avoid taking one, but from the first time I saw you, I wanted you.”

He released my face and stood. As he paced the length of the room and back, the silence grew. Each step upon the carpet was a beat of a mystical drum, each one increasing the pressure until he exploded. “I know it makes me as f*cking wrong as all of them! But I did! Damn it, I wanted you. And once you were there, at the Northern Light . . . once you were there and you were mine, I did everything I could to save you.”

Indignation rose as I stood. “Really? Really? Lying to me, correcting . . . f*ck that . . . beating me, was to save me?”

“Yes, Sara, it was.”

“Stella! Use my goddamn name!”

In two strides he was before me, his large hands holding my shoulders, our noses nearly touching. The heat of our breath grew as his chest touched mine. “Stella.” He’d calmed his tone, yet his words were separated, punctuated for emphasis. “Every. Goddamn. Thing. I. Did. To. You. Was. For. You.” With only a whisper of distance between us, his lips crashed over mine. Their warmth was the fire that ignited my body in a way I no longer wanted to admit.

I reached for his shoulders and pushed him away. “No!”

Hurt swirled in the depths of his eyes.

“No!” I continued, “You want me to believe that you didn’t get off hitting me with your belt. Well, I don’t believe you.”

“Think about it, Sara. Just think about the bigger damn picture.”

I was too upset to correct my name again. “Bigger picture. Fuck you, Jacob, or Jacoby, or whoever the hell you are! I didn’t see a bigger picture. I don’t see it. Remember me? I’m the one who had the reminders on my ass!”

“We were being watched, continually. Every encounter was a test. If I failed, you failed. If you failed, I failed. The only time I corrected you was when your transgressions were witnessed. It was when it was expected of me. Only once did I do anything without someone to witness it.” Remorse filled his words. “It was at the clinic when I slapped you, but even that, like the other times, was for your success.”

My mind spun. I thought about all the times he’d corrected me. I tried to recall what had preceded or followed each instance. He was right. There were so many times I’d expected him to do it, and he hadn’t. Yet there were other times when I’d thought my transgression was minor, but he had. I sank back to the bed. Every instance had had witnesses.