Page 54 of Rescued By the Operative

This is not what I wanted to do today. I expected resistance from some of the women, even some of the older teenagers.

But things have taken a turn.

“You don’t know what you have there. Just put it down.”

But this woman isn’t listening to anything Ennis is saying.

The light from outside reflects off her stony, resolute face.

“Floydene, it doesn’t have to go like this. You can just walk out. You’re not in any kind of trouble,” Nelly says.

Nelly knows her name. This is a good thing. Maybe she can help calm her down.

“Don’t come any closer!” Floydene says, holding up the remote. “I already know what you did. Do you think I’m stupid, Wynella?”

She’s aiming her diatribe at Nelly, who is desperately trying to defuse the situation with very little information.

Hell, I barely understand what’s going on.

“Ennis, can you explain to her and the rest of us what will happen if she doesn’t put that device down right now?”

“She must have found the remote. I thought I hid it better than that with our tools in the mine…” Ennis says, sounding truly terrified.

Floydene is undeterred and uninterested in returning the remote. “I saw everything. A file cabinet pushed against the wall isn’t going to hide a giant gaping hole forever, idiots. After I got tired of waiting for you at the hospital, I came back and moved the file cabinet out of spite. I found the tunnel, followed it down, and I realized what was happening. I saw the canisters. I saw the blasting caps. I saw you,” she says, pointing at Ennis. “I saw you bringing all those canisters down in the tunnels. I saw the wires. You’re not here to save us. You’re here to eradicate our way of life.”

I’m such an idiot. Ennis was wiring the entire compound right underneath my nose, and I never saw it. I was too preoccupied with Blondie. All this time, she was worried about getting distracted by me, when I was the one not keeping an eye on my loose cannon of a little brother.

“Ma’am, you don’t understand, I’m not trying to kill anybody,” Ennis says.

I don’t say it out loud, but I’m pretty interested in finding out exactly what my brother’s motivation for all of this is, too.

Ennis does a good job of staying calm as he explains, “I was waiting until everyone was safe. Men, women, children, and animals. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I wanted the men responsible for this church to have nothing to come back to. Yeah, I want justice for all of you. But if the justice system fails us, I don’t want those elders to crawl back here like roaches and start all over again. I want there to be nothing left. But I haven’t cleared all the buildings first. I have to make absolutely sure no one’s left. This isn’t part of the plan…”

Floydene waves the remote in the air, and I feel like I might vomit at her carelessness. “Well, this is my life. You’re not just going to blow it all to pieces because you don’t like it.”

“Please give that back, and let’s talk about this,” Nelly says.

“I’m not going to do that. Do you know what they’ll do to me? I killed for them!”

“You what?” Nelly asks.

“It’s all falling apart. Their little plan to take out their rivals and their detractors. Once the feds start putting the pieces together, they’ll figure out that Orlyn may have been calling the shots, and the elders might have been cleaning up the crime scenes and paying off local law enforcement to look the other way, but I was the one pulling the trigger.”

Nelly’s reaction tells me this is not breaking news to her.

“Floydene,” Nelly says calmly, inching toward her. “I know you were coerced. You were brainwashed to do these things. I promise you, if you tell them everything that was done to you, you won’t go to prison. You can have a normal life, away from those men.”

Floydene laughs coldly. “I don’t know any other life!”

Her words echo down the tunnel.

No one moves. No one breathes.

We wait for her to calm down.

I consider jumping her and knocking the remote out of her hand. I could shoot her, but there’s no way to get a good aim in here. And firing a gun near explosives is a very, very bad idea.

We all watch in horror as Floydene rushes back into the entrance to the mine, clutching the remote in her hand.