Page 3 of Rescued By the Operative
I need facts. I need witness testimony to get these jerks.
“I don’t know. Why would you ask that…”
She’s tired, and she’s fading. “Okay, Georgeanne. Eat your cup of noodles before it gets cold. If you don’t, you know it’s overcooked oatmeal sludge from the kitchen for the rest of the day.”
“I don’t suppose you could sneak in some butter and brown sugar for me.”
“You tell me more about your church and maybe we can cut a deal.”
“My church? But you joined us. Why do you need information from me?”
“Because I’m having a hard time making friends here, Georgie. And I want to understand how things work.”
She eyes me for a long time, giving me nothing. It’s unsettling, with her eyes peeking at me through a mop of tangled hair, like the girl from The Ring movie.
But to my surprise, she finally takes the cup of noodles and eats them.
She says nothing else. Just stares at me as we eat our breakfast together.
In the end, I lock her back up and return to my office, trying to clear my head of all the self-hate building inside me. I hate this assignment. Everything is cold and lonely. The men hate women and the women hate each other. The children babysitting children are the worst part of it.
“Tread carefully. We don’t want another Waco on our hands,” Carl has reminded me repeatedly.
But damn, I’ll be happy when we shut this place down and I never have to see these people again.
I’m so deep in my own thoughts when I step into my office that at first, I don’t notice anything strange.
I chuck the spent noodle cups into the trash and then turn to the cabinet, intent on learning more from Georgeanne’s file.
And that’s when I finally see it.
A mess of white drywall chunks and dust litter the rug. My eyes take in the mess, first thinking a pipe has burst or the foundation has cracked a wall in this half-assed building. And that’s when I see the huge, gaping hole in the wall.
And that’s not the scariest or most inexplicable part of my day.
No, that honor goes to the dirt-and-drywall-covered man, standing next to the hole, carrying a pickaxe, and staring right at me.
Chapter Two
Jake
My brother Ennis and I have been going over the layout of this cult’s compound for months. I know every basement, root cellar and crawl space. I know every nook and cranny.
But somehow, today, on the last leg of the job, I’ve lost my way.
Sweat drips down my brow, mixing with the dirt and dust, and now I’ve hit a literal dead end.
Wylie, Ennis, all our friends, and I have been poring over the map, redrawing it for months, with help from Olivia, Louisa, and Goldie.
By our estimations, I’m supposed to be under the women’s dormitory by now.
This is supposed to be nothing but a root cellar walled off with earthbags—literal bags filled with dirt used to make underground walls.
Not easy to pick through, but doable enough. This is where we’ve decided the mouth of the escape tunnel will be. Instead,as my brother and I demolish bag after bag of soil and rocks, pulling them down, we’re face-to-face with drywall.
“Are we in the right place?” Ennis asks.
“I’m sure this is it,” I say.