Away From the Dark (The Light #2)(93)

“Neither has Jacob!” I retaliated. “This came from Thomas. The man you’re willing to believe. He’s the one who did this, and I didn’t want to go with him. He not only took me against my will but threatened to rape me once we got to Fairbanks. I don’t know why the marshals were there when we landed, but I’m sure as hell happy they were. They left me alone in an interrogation room for hours. They fed me, but kept promising I’d see another marshal and get to make a call.

“Guess who I wanted to call? Guess who I thought would be my knight in shining armor. You! I was going to call you! But the female marshal never came. Instead the first marshal walked in and told me my husband was there to get me. It was Jacob. I don’t know how it all went down, but I was f*cking terrified.”

“Of?”

“Of everything! I was scared to go back with Jacob and scared not to. These last nine months have screwed with my mind. I didn’t know who to believe or what. I mean, I was with the US Marshals for Christ’s sake, and I thought my nightmare was over, but it wasn’t.” A tear slid down my cheek. “It still isn’t, and I’m with the person who I thought would save me.”

“You lied to me!”

I couldn’t reply; instead I crossed my arms over my chest and pressed my lips together. For the first time, I looked at the room around me and saw the tall, dark cabinets, high ceiling, and designer lighting.

Where are we?

“So,” Dylan said, “you and dear old hubby concocted this lie about you missing work . . .”

I nodded. “Yes, he was afraid of what could happen to me if The Light knew I was off one of their campuses. I was afraid to tell him I’d gotten my memory back. So I told him Thomas took me.”

“How did he know where you where?”

I shook my head. “I really don’t know. Don’t you get it? I’m not allowed to question.”

Dylan smirked. “Stella Montgomery couldn’t question. How did you function?”

I slapped the stone table. The sting in my palm took a bite out of my response. “Not well, not at first. It wasn’t easy. It was my biggest difficulty.”

“I can see that.”

“Dylan, you said The Light is bigger than the three campuses. What do you mean?”

“How do you know there are three?”

“My husband, I mean Jacob, is a pilot. He’d tell me when he’d fly to the Eastern Light or Western Light. He never told me where they were, but he’d use those names. I also knew we were at the Northern Light.”

We both stopped talking as the earth shook. Wineglasses hanging upside down from racks clinked against one another as the table trembled under my grasp. My eyes opened wide as we waited for it to stop.

Did we have an earthquake?

Dylan hurried to a wall of windows and then rushed to another room. The next thing I heard was a long tirade of curse words. Scooting my chair, I quietly made my way toward his voice. The house wasn’t nearly as large as Father Gabriel’s. From the front window of the living room, I could see other homes. From their size I presumed we were still in Bloomfield Hills. It wasn’t the neighbors’ homes Dylan was watching, but a glow in the distance. Above the glow, suspended in the night air, was a plume of smoke.

He reached for his other phone and dialed a number. Though I could barely make out what he was saying and my conditioning told me not to intrude, the Stella part of me wanted to listen to every word. Quietly I inched closer. I heard the name Joel and more curse words. He asked something about all of them, but he was speaking too low for me to make out anything more.

Once he put the phone back in his pocket, I asked, “What happened?”

Dylan spun toward me. “You, and I don’t know what f*cking else. I won’t. I don’t have my damn phone!”

“I don’t understand,” I said to his back and broad shoulders as he turned again toward the window. On the wall I saw a clock, a quarter past one.

Pulling his other phone back out, Dylan swiped some numbers and turned toward me with disgust. “Damn circuits are overloaded.”

“Dylan, what happened?”

As I asked, the air filled with the shrill wails of sirens; though muffled by the walls and windows, they seemed to be coming from all directions. For a moment I prayed they’d be coming to us, and I might be saved, but that didn’t happen. Just as fast as they’d come, the sirens faded away, growing fainter with distance. I stepped toward the large window and watched as the dark Michigan sky filled with red and blue lights speeding toward the glow.

“I guess I won’t get my phone back or my car,” Dylan stated matter-of-factly.

“W-what?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s Father Gabriel’s—”

I couldn’t finish before Dylan turned back to me. “Go back to the kitchen. You wanted answers? Well, Stella Montgomery, you’re going to get them. Go sit the f*ck down and listen.”

More sirens roared, only to fade into the general chaos occurring in the distance. Unsure what I had to do with any of this and why Dylan blamed me, I did as he said and went to the kitchen. He followed close behind.

After pulling a beer from the refrigerator, he turned a chair backward, sat, and stared. Once I sat, he took a long swig of his beer and began, “As I was saying, The Light is bigger than you think. The three campuses your husband”—each time he said husband he made a point of exaggerating the word—“told you about, that’s only a portion. The Light is everywhere. It’s not just about the followers on the main campuses. The Light needs followers in the field, in the Shadows, willing to do what it takes to bring light to the dark. Those followers are in law enforcement, like me. They’re in the medical field. They’re in every profession throughout the United States and Canada. The Light reaches beyond those borders, because only The Light can stop the dark.”