Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(65)

Matt shifts in his seat. “Did he, uh,” he clears his throat, “did he touch you?”

“No.” I nearly jump at the sternness in my voice. “I’d have punched him in the throat if he did.”

Everyone around the table seems to exhale simultaneously.

“Then what happened, Kennedy?” Jonah asks.

Five sets of hopeful, pleading eyes stare at me, and I hold my breath.

“He threatened me,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears.

Matt stiffens at my side. “How?”

I keep my voice cool and collected. “He said I was a threat. That I was a threat, my father was a threat, and my friend who played football was, too.”

“That bastard,” Matt growls through clenched teeth. “I knew he had it out for me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he really does. I think he was saying that to scare me into doing what he said. Because he knows I’d protect you.”

“How’d he threaten you?” Marla asks.

I shrug. “There were lots of implications. Like … basically I have to stay in line and make next-to-no noise or else my time at CU, and possibly Roland’s, would be … limited.”

“Who have you told?” Matt rests his forehead on a fist.

“No one.”

“Good,” Jonah interrupts. “Don’t.”

“Not even Roland?” I ask.

“Not yet,” John answers. “We’ll go to him when we’re ready.”

I look at the group with new eyes. “What are you guys up to? And how do you know about Dean Baker’s sleazy reputation? Is this even a PK group?”

“It’s a PK group,” John assures, “because we’re all PK’s.”

I arch my eyebrow toward the girls, who have been the quietest during this whole … whatever this is.

“My sister was raped two years go,” Caitlyn admits with tears spilling from her eyes. “And Dean Baker swept it under the rug.”

“What?” My nostrils flare and my cheeks heat with rage.

Marla nods. “Stuff like that has happened a few times. Not always rape, but other sexual assault, drug use, whatever. Dean Baker waves some things off, and chases after others like a rabid dog.”

I exhale, puffing out my cheeks and burying my face in my hands. “What are each of you doing in this group? Is this an Anti-Dean Baker Group?”

“I don’t trust a Dean of Students who would take me under his wing knowing everything my dad has done,” Matt admits in an exhale.

“Which you’re going to tell me all about, and soon,” I snap. He exhales heavily.

“What about you?” I ask John.

He grins. “I don’t want to be here. My parents are making me come here because they won’t pay for me to go anywhere else. Since I have no interest in taking out a ton of loans in my name … here I am. Everything looks a little too picture-perfect from the outside, if you ask me. And, hearing what some of the guys in my dorm struggle with, and the first question they’re asked by peer counselors is how often they masturbate? Something’s off.”

I pull my head back and look to Jonah. “Seriously?”

He nods.

“What about you?” I ask of him.

“When I graduated high school and packed my bags for this place, I assumed I’d hop on a pastoral track and enjoy the ride.” Jonah’s cocky statement catches me slightly off guard. “But, the more I listen to your da—Roland’s sermons, the more I realize … I don’t think this school stands for much of what Jesus taught at all. At least not from what I can see. And the school’s model of Christ-like is causing me to question my relationship with God. My faith.”

Jonah’s features darken, and a rare anger circles his eyes. I’ve sensed he’s been struggling with something, but assumed it had to do with his relationship with his dad, not that Carter University was dismantling his belief.

“It’s fine.” I wave my hand in an effort of levity. “We can just use dad, I guess, since that’s what he is. But, is this why you don’t want me to tell him about this?”

Marla nods. “That and he’s a faculty member. And, even though he is your dad … I don’t know, we just need to be sure.”

I look around the table and a helpless chuckle erupts from my chest. “What’s your plan here? To take down the faculty? Shut down the university? If you all hate it so much, why are you here?”

“You aren’t listening,” Jonah says gravely. “With some exceptions,” he eyes John, “most of us want to be here. I like that this school focuses on the Bible and works to groom us to be respectful, responsible adults. I just think that it’s become a caricature of itself over the last ten years. Rules have gotten stricter as society has gotten more out of control. Rather than reaching out to those who are struggling, the university seems to be locking us further and further from reality.”

Caitlyn, having regained some composure, speaks up. “A third of the students who leave here go on to work in public policy in one capacity or another. How prepared, socially, do you think we can be to live in a city like D.C. when we’re not even allowed to go off campus with someone of the opposite sex by ourselves?”