Page 42 of Longing for Liberty

THIRTY-TWO

President Wright walked with a cane, though he didn’t seem very frail.

When he made it inside, he cracked the cane against the wall, making me jump.

Amos pulled us swiftly to the side, and I saw Walinger and Roan scramble, a look of shock and fear on Roan’s face as he shoved himself into his pants and quickly zipped, sloppily tucking his shirt.

The music shut off, leaving a silence that almost hurt my ears.

“Father!” Roan rushed forward. “So good to see you.”

Father? What in the fresh cold hell…

Wright leaned against his cane as the other two men spread out like they were looking for something. Roan’s eyes flicked to both men, then back to Wright.

“We wanted to welcome the academy’s top five,” Roan said, sounding young and desperate. “I wanted them to?—”

“Alcohol!” one of the men called from the kitchen. Wright nodded and swiveled his head to the other man, who wiped a finger across the eagle’s wing, studied his finger, and nodded to Wright.

When Wright looked back at Roan, the current president immediately fell to his knees.

“Forgive me, sir.”

Oh my God.

Amos whispered, “Stay back.”

He and Walinger went forward and dropped to their knees on either side of Roan, all of them sitting back on their heels, torsos tall, heads bent.

Wright pointed his cane at the five boys and then pointed his cane at the floor.

Without hesitation, all five boys came forward and took the same submissive positions behind The Three.

I’d seen a lot of creepy things over the past six years, but this was the most stunning. And I had no doubt this was something normal to them, which made it so much worse.

“Women,” Wright said, not looking away from Roan. “On your faces.”

What? I looked toward the other women, who all fell to the floor where they were, faces down.

I did the same, having no idea what was going on.

My belly was flat against the cold floor, arms at my sides, forehead on the tile like the other girls.

I breathed hard, and I could hear the sounds of everyone else’s ragged breathing echoing through the room.

I was almost too confused to be scared. Wright had always come across as slightly aloof.

Unaware. Easily swayed. Not the secure, strict man who’d walked in here today.

He’d been president when the worst terror attacks on American soil had ever happened.

His poor decisions had crashed our economy and ruined foreign relations.

America couldn’t wait to get him out and get Roan in.

I tried to remember that bombshell reporting about the Order of Mercy.

It said he was tied to the OM, and I had thought it was a stretch. But all along…wow. Roan’s own father.

“Thirty of our people are dead this month, Samuel,” Wright said. “And instead of praying for their plight to end, here you are plunging your bodies into Satan’s pleasures.”

“I’m sorry, Father. I’ve been so upset! I needed to forget for one moment?—”

“Silence! You are the President! And the future leader of OM! You don’t get to forget .”

“Yes, Father,” he whispered. “You’re ri?—”

Whack . Roan made a small sound that made me jump, but he seemed to suck the sound back in. Good Lord, he was hitting him! When the next hit came, Roan barely grunted. His father must not have liked that, because the next whack was louder, and he gave a muffled cry.

“And you, Amos,” Wright said, making my stomach clench. “You are supposed to be my shepherd. The one leading my boy to the light. The prodigal son who became the strong one. What would my brother think if he were here to see you, his devout son, with a harlot on your arm?”

Wait, wait, wait…my brain skipped right over the harlot part to the first part. My brother…

Amos said nothing, and when a whoosh and snap sounded against his body, still nothing. He was hit five successive times, each one getting louder, until a gruff sound finally escaped him.

He moved on to Walinger, who let out a pitiful shaking moan with each thwack .

I tried to think through the horror of the situation.

Were Amos and Roan cousins? This was all too disturbing!

And the beating sounds of the cane against the men’s backs were making me ill.

My eyes began to burn, and I couldn’t hold back the shaking as tears silently fell to the tile.

What kind of fucked up family unit was this? I wanted no part of it.

“And you!” Another whack followed by a younger boy’s yell. “Is this what you want to emulate? A leader who falls victim to every vice known to man?”

Whack !

“No, Elder!” the boy cried out, and I heard him actually crying, sniffling, and my own tears came faster as I squeezed my eyes shut.

Around he went, hitting the men and boys, shouting. And while I agreed with some of the message, the method left much to be desired.

They took so many hits that Wright started to sound tired. He was quiet for a long moment, as if catching his breath, and several of the boys were sniffling now.

“Being one of the chosen comes with its benefits of immediate forgiveness for the hierarchy,” Wright said.

“But a true man practices willpower. You’re lucky I heard from the academy dean and came when I did.

I had a feeling, and I was right. Disgusting.

” He made a spitting sound. “Boys, you will come with me.”

“Yes, Elder,” they all murmured.

“Women, your husbands will be notified to punish you accordingly.”

They said nothing, so neither did I. I remained still while the sounds of shuffling feet and footsteps rang out, then the beep of the elevator and the swish of it closing.

Two seconds later, a hand was on my shoulder. I looked up at Amos’s fallen face.

“Let’s go,” he said in a low voice. I stood and followed him to the elevator, afraid to look up at any of them. When the door slid closed, he kept his eyes forward, his body upright and stiff, but there was a tremor in him. We got off at his floor and went into the penthouse.

Inside, we stood there awkwardly, not looking at each other.

“I can go,” I whispered softly.

“No.” His hands went to my shoulders. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.

” He lifted my chin to look at him, and I couldn’t help it—there was so much pain in his eyes—I started crying again.

I didn’t want to think about how they were raised and brainwashed and beaten into submission.

Taught that they were “chosen,” therefore better than others.

It was all so gross, and the opposite of mercy.

The opposite of faith, even, which wasn’t something that could be forced; it had to come of free will.

I didn’t want to feel sorry for Amos or any of them.

These people had worked together to lie to the entire world, tricked us all to fulfill the sick goal of their own utopia, with them seated at the top.

I wiped my face.

He pulled me to his chest, and I gently wrapped my arms around him. We’d never hugged before. It felt strange, but my nervous system was so overstimulated that I accepted the momentary comfort of resting my cheek against his chest while we both calmed.

“You’re no harlot,” he whispered.

Well, that was up for debate and highly subjective. But that was the least of my worries at the moment. I had so many questions, so many things I wanted to say, but I knew it wasn’t my place as a woman in this society to be inquisitive.

He pulled back and took my hand, leading me to his bedroom where I’d spend the night with him for the first time.

I was nervous. There’d been no time to disassociate after what just happened in Roan’s penthouse.

I’d done well to put up walls when it came to Amos, but tonight I felt vulnerable, and I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like the way he gazed at me as I lifted the dress over my head and let it drop.

I didn’t like the way he looked when he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it.

Or how, when he turned to place his belt on his dresser, I saw the red welt lines across his back.

I didn’t like how he took my face gently and kissed me with reverence, like a man falling in love for the very first time.

I wasn’t able to disassociate until hours later, after he’d had me twice and finally fallen asleep with his arm draped over my waist. I lay on my side, wide awake.

Jeremy knew I couldn’t fall asleep if I were being touched.

It was one of the many things Amos didn’t know about me.

While I listened to his deep breathing, feeling out of my element in that room, in that bed, with that man, my brain and heart finally separated enough to let me think clearly.

And the final, determining thought that settled in my mind was that if Amos Fitzhugh was willing to fall, let him fall.

Let them all fall. And let me help make that happen, no matter what it looked like.

What I was doing went against everything I believed in—everything that made me me .

I didn’t recognize this woman who was able to manipulate and brazenly lie.

But I was willing to embody her. To do so, I would have to deny myself the empathy I’d always held dear.

That instinct to nurture and help every wounded thing I encountered would have to be saved for the victims of the OM.

Because these men were walking wounds. They festered.

And the few places inside of them that had healed in unhealthy ways were now crooked and covered in rot.

I wanted to believe there was hope for Amos, but hope had been my downfall before, and I wouldn’t let that happen again.