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When we reached Ronan’s boundary gate, my eyes, blurring with poison, spotted Edmund and another man there at the guard house.

“I yield,” Rhyder said, his voice jagged, low with fear. “I yield to the Prophet Ronan, Son of Jonas.”

They looked at each other, unsure for a moment what to do.

Reality felt like it was flashing by in bright patches, like going to a movie theater and something was wrong with the screen.

Maybe I was hallucinating already, because I was here in the middle of the wilderness thinking about an Unsaved indulgence I would never be allowed to do again.

But one time I had been to the theater and a man outside had harassed me walking home, followed me in his car for several blocks, taunting me because he had heard I grew up in a Congregation.

No way to protect myself. Cops turned the other way.

There was only me with keys between my fingers and my heart in my throat.

Would I leave Rhyder again?

No

Hard, brutal, controlling.

I could never leave him.

Rhyder made no comment as Ronan’s guards bound his wrists around me, cuffing him across the face and head once they were sure he wouldn’t fight back.

“Take us to the Prophet’s Helpmeet,” he said. “Please. I’m begging you.”



















Chapter 21

Was the poison finallytaking me? The sky seemed to have strange red streaks in it, the earth tilting at such a dizzying whirl that I had to close my eyes tightly.

“I love you,” my brother said, and I felt his heartbeat against my cheek as we sat in the back of their truck together, bouncing over the rough paths to the center of the settlement.

Erratic, panicked, his heart pounding out his love for me, as it always had.

“I love you too,” I said.