The Sect (37 page)

“Are you all right? Did he touch you?” Noah asked, touching my face tenderly, his eyes holding to concern as he stared at my head wound.

“N-no,” I stuttered, almost squeaking my reply. “I mean, he didn’t really touch me. I…I don’t know if I’ll be okay.”

“You did better than I thought you would. You will be okay, princess,” he said with a wistful smile. “That’s a promise.”

Nadine rushed into the room, appearing frazzled and scared. Black soot covered her hands and decorated her face. “It’s spreading fast we have to go—”

“Thank you for stating the fucking obvious, Nadine.” Noah reached up and unbound my wrists. I fell against him, staring at him while still in shock. “Go with her,” he ordered me, steadying me by grabbing my hips. “Get out of here now.”

“W-what’s going on?” I asked, bewildered.
 

“Does this look like the best of times to seek clarity, Keaton?” He pushed me toward Nadine and brushed past us, disappearing down the hall. “Go. Now!” he shouted from over his shoulder and disappeared into the grey cloud in the hall.

“He can take care of himself,” Nadine promised me while shaking my shoulders and trying to pull me out of my near catatonic state. “Keaton, now is not the time to go postal. Trust me. Come on. We don’t have much time before the Feds arrive and are climbing all over this place with guns and tear gas. We have to get to the horses now.” She dragged me down the hall and I yanked back.

I tried to grasp my clarity and sanity and think about the one person I wanted to save. “N-not w-without, Jayme. Where is she?”

“Where else?” she snapped. “With Reven in his room. You can’t help her now. So let’s go.”

Shaking, my head, I turned on my heels, covering my mouth with my hand to prevent inhaling the dense cloud of smoke as I navigated my way to the room I wasn’t supposed to go in. The smoke became thicker, turning me to places I didn’t intend to go. If it hadn’t been for Jayme’s screams and cries, as though she were in agony, I never would’ve found her.
 

She was on Reven’s bed, he was in her arms, laying across her lap, straining for breath. As I neared them, I saw the slow forming red spot in his white dress shirt. Fear was evident in his eyes as he struggled for life. His eyes flickered at me and he began to mutter something over and over again. “It was never me. It was never…me.” A portion of his button-up was open, showing glimpses of bruises—maybe a couple days old.

“Jayme,” I coughed at the smoke, “we have to get out of here.”

She held him tighter, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m not leaving him here. You wouldn’t understand. He was never a monster. He was never responsible. I’m not leaving him.”
 

Grabbing her arm, I tried to force her, but she drew back, shaking her head.
 

“I know he doesn’t love me, Keaton. I know he never will. He only loves one person and that’s his family. But they…betrayed each other like they hated one another.” She touched the bloody spot on Reven’s shirt.
 

“Did you do this to him?”

“No!” she shrilled. “I would never do this to him. I love him. You don’t understand. Even though he doesn’t feel the same, if I go out there I’ll never be able to live with myself. I’d rather be here with him until the end than to be out there without him. You’ll never understand what it’s like to love someone so much and know they don’t feel the same. It kills you. I’m already dead. I know what you thought about this place. What most of you thought, but this was home to me. I finally fit in. I had a purpose.” She shook her head, holding tight to Reven’s body. “You have somewhere better to be, and I don’t. Just…go.”

I walked backward, I was having trouble leaving. She grabbed her well-worn copy of The Doctrine from next to the body of her listless lover and shoved it at me. “Go, Keaton. Maybe someday you’ll understand.”
 

Walking backward, we said out goodbyes in silence. Guilt took hold because as I walked down the hall and left her, I didn’t think I’d ever understand any of it.

I nearly crawled down the hall, keeping low to avoid the denser clouds of smoke, and finding Nadine on the landing of the stairs.

We had traveled for miles bareback on one of the horses through the backwoods. The morning sun began to rise, casting a glow over the horizon. I looked over Nadine’s shoulder as I sat behind her. A few yards from the ravine, I saw what looked to be a rundown hotel over-pouring with black cars and men and women in FBI jackets.
 

She halted the horse and dismounted, helping me down.

“Are you ready for this?” She grabbed my shoulders, shaking me a little. “Keaton, focus here. We need to get our stories straight. Tell them everything you know and everything that happened to you, but leave Noah out of it. If you have to say anything, give him a new name, or say one of the harbingers did those things to you. Are we good to go down?”

In a daze, I clutched the book Jayme gave me, wanting to read the last line. Concerned that if I did, it would it throw me even deeper into the chaos that became my brain.
 

Nadine snapped her fingers and tapped my shoulder. “It’s over, Keaton. You’re going to be reunited with your parents and go back to your life.” She took my hand showing a warmth toward me that she never had before. “It’s over.” She eyed the book. “Let it go.”

I clutched the book tighter. “Why do I have to lie about Noah?”

“You think he deserves to be punished, that’s fine. They will never find him and the case will stay open. Don’t speak about him because Noah Oliver is a savior. He saved many people’s lives today, including yours. Show him what many can’t because they are dead.”

I clutched the book tighter. The scene behind us replayed as though I didn’t see it the first time. The houses engulfed in flames. The large plume of black smoke peeking out of the tops of the trees indicating the theater was on fire. And the explosion…the disaster was a well-planned way to erase Rebirth.

She grabbed the book, trying to pry it from my hands. “Please, Keaton. A lot of people died tonight so that many more could live. Let it go.” She pulled the book from my reluctant hands. Ducking down, she clawed at the ground, burying the book underneath a shallow layer of dirt.

I had questions. I needed answers, but freedom was only a short walk away. It was over. It was all over, and while I’d never know the why and the how, I just knew I’d finally gotten what I wanted, freedom.

T
HE
INTERROGATION
room smelled of musk and looked a little differently than I expected. The light was almost too bright and the room was crowded with agents waiting to hear my story. I couldn’t speak, because I could barely work through it all.

Disgruntled voices were heard as someone burst in. I recognized the man. He was a friend of my father’s who was once the D.A., but I’d heard through the grapevine while I lived on the street that he had returned to general practice when Gregory was acquitted of murdering Phoebe and Reese.

“This interview is over”—Richard pushed his way through—“ladies and gentleman. My client has gone through a harrowing ordeal and needs to be reunited with her family and rest.”

“Keaton?”

The voice I never thought I’d hear again became a song in my head that pulled me out of the dark hole my mind had found comfort in. I stood, searching the room. “Mom?”

The small crowd separated, revealing my mother and father with tears in their eyes. They looked weary and broken, but upon sight of me, their entire faces lit up. I ran to her, hugging her as we cried in each other’s arms.

“Oh, baby girl. I’m so sorry,” she chanted over and over again, while smoothing my hair.

The things I never thought I’d miss became sense memories, serving to bring back their daughter. My father held us both, clinging to us like he’d never let us go, and cried with us.
 

I felt overjoyed in the moment, happy to be with them. It didn’t matter where we were, they were the equivalent of home to me. A place I never thought I’d see again.

As we walked down the hall, their arms around me, keeping me close and sandwiched between them, I had almost succeeded in pushing down the awful memories of seven months. Seven months that I was stuck in that place and had no idea. I didn’t believe it when the agent had told me, based on when I said I was taken. I was so careful in counting the sunsets, but it seemed either the days ran together, or I had days unaccounted for.

Then, I saw something that forced the dark clouds to cover a small peak of the sun. An agent casually walked by, carrying the slightly burned and tattered version of the Rebirth Doctrine. I stopped immediately, calling out to the woman.

She looked at me surprised and confused. I grabbed the book from her, much to her chagrin as she protested, warning me not to tamper with evidence.
 

Ignoring her, I ripped the plastic open. I had to put my assumptions to rest. I had to see so I could move on. As I read the last line, the only handwritten sentence on the page, the hell came flooding back to me like a maelstrom, making it all make sense.

A man of true power, the one with boundless influence, wields it while hiding in plain sight.
 

It was so far removed from the teachings in the book it would’ve been hard to miss for those who clung to the sex-centered teachings of the book. But I saw it, and I completely understood it. I dislodged myself from my parents’ grip and began to walk back down the hall.
 

Clutching the book, I stomped down the corridor while screaming Nadine’s name. My parents looked after me, lost and confused, likely thinking I’d lost my mind in a place that stole what was left of my soul.
 

A door creaked open and an agent questioned what was going on. It was then that I saw Nadine, seated at the table, sipping a cup of coffee. Anger fueled me as I grabbed her up to stand. Agents protested, trying to talk me down as I marched down the hall with her. The slithery snake spoke with her forked tongue, assuring everyone that we just needed a bathroom break. I shoved her into the ladies’ room, slamming and locking the door. I checked the stalls, making sure that we were alone, we were.

“What is the problem, Keaton?” Looking annoyed with me, she threw her arms across her chest. “The way you’re acting, they are going to shove you into a mental home.”

I threw the book at her, hitting her square on the shoulder. She winced and looked down at the floor. Upon realizing what it was, her face sank. “Where did you get that?”

“How long did you know?” I asked, keeping my voice level. “Were you a part of it this whole time?”

With her eyes flickering, she continued to stare at the book. “What?”

“Don’t do that to me!” I shouted, pointing at her. “You know what I’m talking about. Noah was The Revenant and he always was.”

Her posture sank as she turned to the sink and closed her eyes. “Are you going back on your word, Keaton? Are you going to tell the agents the truth?”

“I don’t even know the truth!” I shrilled. “Is he going to rebuild a place like Rebirth again? If he is, I will.”

She turned, sinking against the basin. “Keaton, you have no fucking idea, do you? God, you’re so clueless. The answer to your question is no, unfortunately, he won’t and that has everything to do with you. That fire back there had everything to do with you. You ruined everything. We had a good thing going for a while. I don’t know how or what you did to ruin it. Noah is a tough one; a pretty, tight pussy and a beautiful face is not enough for him. Why he fell for you? I don’t know.”