Away From the Dark (The Light #2)(88)

Fuck!

My heart raced as I hit the buttons.



Abraham: JACOB?



We waited.



Father Gabriel: AS WE DISCUSSED.



I blew out a puff of air as Benjamin shook his head. Well, that wasn’t informative. I slid his phone back into the pocket of my jacket.

Raquel winced as Benjamin lifted her from the ground. As he did, her blouse rode up, revealing a large purple bruise. I opened my eyes wider. Her side wasn’t only black and blue as Sara’s had been, the skin was distended. I’d seen it before, not at The Light, but in Iraq. I swallowed.

“Is that hard to the touch?”

Benjamin nodded.

“Brother, I think she has internal bleeding.”

His eyes glazed over as his chin fell to his chest.

If she didn’t get medical treatment soon, she wasn’t going to make it. I wasn’t a medic, but I transported enough injured soldiers in that C-12A and heard enough discussions. Images I’d hoped would remain buried came to the forefront of my mind.

I closed my eyes and whispered, “I’m so sorry.” I was. My heart was breaking as my friend held his dying wife.

Raquel turned toward me, her one blue eye staring directly at me. “It was me. My doing,” she said. “I agreed to help Sara. Don’t ever be sorry.” She looked up to Benjamin, whose cheeks now contained multiple tear paths through the grime, descending to his chin. “What happened to me,” she went on, “would’ve happened a lot sooner in my old life. I know that. I was destined to die this way.” She smiled. “I’m just thankful that before I did, I got to know love. I know there’s a lot of things wrong with The Light, but I don’t regret a day I spent as your wife.”

I was suddenly an intruder in their private conversation, a voyeur watching as Raquel’s eyes closed and she leaned her good cheek against her husband’s chest.

My temples throbbed as I contemplated Abraham’s phone. This had to end.

“Oh,” Benjamin said, stopping and turning around. “My wife didn’t do as you told her.” He peered down at the crumpled woman in his arms. “However, as it’s at my discretion, I’ve chosen not to correct her.”

What the hell is he talking about?

Benjamin walked back to me and stopped. “In the inside pocket of my jacket. Can you reach it?”

I carefully pulled at his jacket, trying not to disturb Raquel.

“There’s the phone. She didn’t destroy it as you’d told her to do. She turned it off and hid it.”

My heart raced. This was it. I needed to call. I couldn’t wait for two more days.

I spoke with new purpose. “Benjamin, I was never told the plan, if there is one. What would happen if Father Gabriel believed his dreams were threatened? Is there a plan, a Kool-Aid plan?” I added the last part to emphasize my meaning.

“There isn’t one for here. No one can find us up here, and there’s no place to run.”

I inhaled. “OK, what about at the Eastern Light?”

He shrugged. “Mandatory service. The followers know too much. If The Light is threatened, it would be time for communion.”

Please, God, I prayed, don’t let Sara take communion.

I flipped open the cheap burner phone and brought it to life. Undoubtedly the call would show up on the cell tower. I just didn’t know how long it would take for it to be discovered. After all, Abraham, who worked under Timothy, wasn’t exactly on the job right now. I dialed the number I’d memorized.

Special Agent Adler answered after the first ring. “McAlister, where are you?”

“Northern Light, sir.” I held Benjamin’s stare, and briefly wondered what he was thinking.

“We’re forty minutes out, on all campuses.”

My mind spun. “What? I didn’t authorize . . .”

“That boy the marshals took?”

“Thomas,” I said. “What about him?”

“Someone f*cked up. Over an hour ago he was allowed to make a phone call.”

The world dropped out from under me and I fell to my knees. “Bloomfield Hills, sir. Eastern Light, they have Sara . . . Stella there. Go now, don’t wait. Please go get her. Please.”

“She’s not with you?”

My vision blurred. “No, you have to get her. Do it now! There’s no Kool-Aid here, but there is there.”

“Agent, if you have any way to get out, do it. They don’t know everything, but I listened to the recording of Thomas Hutchinson speaking with someone named Xavier. Hutchinson told him about Sara and the marshals. We were able to trace Xavier’s next call to the cell tower up there at the Northern Light.” My thoughts overlapped while Agent Adler was still speaking, “. . . don’t know who he spoke to, but someone knows why you were really in Fairbanks.”

“Shit!” Now Abraham’s question about Thomas’s body made sense. From the time I’d been speaking to the Commission to the time I made it to the gate, they all knew I never killed him or dumped his body.

“Agent, get out of The Light now. That’s an order.”

“Sara?”

“We’ll move.”





CHAPTER 33


Jacob