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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MERCY

I slam awake in the middle of the night, gasping for breath. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. My room feels too dark. The bed feels too hard. And then I remember.

I reach over and switch on the bedside lamp, which illuminates a patch of the bed and floods the rest of the suite with shadows. Then I sit and listen, my heart pounding fast. Did something wake me up? Some killers’ knife scraping on my window?

The suite is silent, though, and I think what actually woke me was a dream. It’s fading, the sense memories lingering longer than anything else. A blinding, paralyzing terror. Rough hands on my skin. A blade flashing like lightning.

“Jesus, you are good and wise,” I mutter, one of the first prayers I ever learned. “You will be there when I rise.” Madelyn taught it to me when I first came to live at the church. I got nightmares then, too.

And despite everything, whispering that prayer does help calm me down, just like Ambrose’s prayers do—his actual prayers. Ever since I became Reverend Gunner’s helpmeet, God has felt farther and farther away, but I still like to pray sometimes. Even if I’m not sure it does anything.

I curl back up in the bed, listening to the AC unit rattling in the window. I’m wide awake, though. My nightmare, whatever it was about, spiked my adrenaline, and now every noise in the suite makes my heart jump and my skin crawl.

I throw the blankets aside, roll on my back, and stare at the ceiling. Would I sleep better if I was in my cabin? Probably, but as much as I don’t want to be in the suite, I don’t actually want to go walking through the compound alone at night, either.

Maybe that’s what my dream was about. Seeing Burl strung across the fence, his face slack and his body drenched in blood.

“No,” I whisper, sitting up. No, I won’t think about that. No, I won’t let myself sit here in trembling terror. The door is deadbolted. And neither Raul nor Burl were killed in their homes.

Still, sleep feels a million miles away, so I crawl out of bed and pace around, trying to calm my body down. It helps a little. It would help more if Ambrose were here.

No, I can’t think about him, either. It’s not like that can— go anywhere.

Although I wish it could. And as I pace around the small room, I let myself think about him anyway, because it’s better than thinking about the murders. What if he did ask me to leave with him? Would I go? He’s not married—there’s no ring on his finger. And legally, I’m not either. But I do know how to perform wifely duties. Not just the sexual ones, either. I can cook and clean and organize a household. I can take care of finances. I like kids…

My thoughts unwind from there, vivid and bright in my imagination. Ambrose down on one knee, proposing. I imagine it by the Concho River, the sun sinking into the horizon and turning everything pink and golden. A beautiful memory to wash away the terrible one .

I imagine a wedding, something I haven’t let myself fantasize about since I became Reverend Gunner’s helpmeet. Me in a lacy white gown, Ambrose taking my hand above the well in the chapel, the sunlight streaming around us.

I know Reverend Gunner would never let us marry there—he and I exchanged vows in front of God, even if we didn’t do it in front of a judge. But it’s my fantasy, and I let it unspool. It’s so different from what I imagined when I was touching myself. It’s sweet. Me and Ambrose riding in his car with his dogs, going from church to church, spreading the word of God. My hair loose and long, streaming in the wind blowing through the open windows. The two of us laughing. Country music on the radio.

I stop in front of the suite’s door. It’s a stupid dream, I know. I can’t leave the Church of the Well. I made a promise to God and to Reverend Gunner. I’m his wife, his helpmeet.

So why does the thought of my actual future make me sick to my stomach when the thought of a future with Ambrose doesn’t?

My chest feels tight, but it’s not with fear, not anymore. I’m not worried about the killer. I’m worried about my life. What if I could show Ambrose that I might be worth fighting for?

The bunker codes.

The thought comes to me like a lightning bolt. I told him I had no way of getting them, which is mostly true. They certainly aren’t stored anywhere in the administration building.

But I know Reverend Gunner. He’s a prophet of God, but he’s also forgetful and absent-minded. When I was eighteen and he explained what I was to become, he said that was why God granted him permission to take two wives. It’s not that he’s greedy. He just needs more help than other men.

He’s supposed to have memorized the bunker code. But I have no doubt they’re written down somewhere in his home office .

I press against the door, the wood cool against my face. Because I lived here for ten years, I know where the Gunners hide their spare key, in a little lock box hidden behind some shrubs. I know the code—0928, Madelyn’s birthday. I could slip in easily. If I get caught?—

If I get caught, I can tell them I thought I heard someone prowling in the yard. That I was afraid for my life.

It’s shocking, how quickly I settle on my decision. I don’t even give myself time to talk myself out of it. I just throw on one of the silky robes in the suite’s closet and slip on my shoes and step outside.

The night is hot and damp and very, very dark. It only takes a minute for me to dart across the backyard, but it feels like hours, knowing that there could be a killer out there, watching me. But there’s not. I make it to the back patio safely. Find the lockbox, open it, pull out the key. My heart’s beating quick, but my hands are surprisingly stable. It doesn’t feel like I’m doing something wrong, not even when I step in through the back door.

Since Reverend Gunner took me as a helpmeet, I haven’t spent much time in their home. But it’s still the home where I grew up, and I remember its layout well. The master bedroom is downstairs and the office is upstairs. I don’t want to linger down here in case one of them wakes up.

I slip through the dining room and into the living room, keeping my eye on the hallway leading to the master bedroom. Everything is still and quiet, and I let out a long breath when I make it to the steps. Those I climb quickly, my feet light. I don’t feel completely relieved until I’m in the office, though.

It’s neat and tidy, decorated with the same expensive, masculine wood furniture Mrs. Gunner picked out for the reverend’s main office. I gently shut the door behind me and tug open the curtains to let in the porch light, which gives me just enough light to see by .

Reverend Gunner, as a rule, doesn’t trust computers. He writes notes to himself down by hand, on whatever paper he has handy. I remember Madelyn would always gather them up and organize them every Saturday evening after prayer circle. “This man would lose his head if it weren’t attached to his body,” she always said, smiling down at me. She was kind before I turned eighteen.

I scan the bookshelves first but don’t see anything. The desk is tidy, more evidence of Madelyn’s presence here. I slide the drawers open one by one. They’re full of pens and paperclips and sticky notes and loose notecards, like Madelyn shoved his mess into the drawers and forgot about it. But there’s one drawer that’s essentially a filing cabinet, deep and heavy. The files are all personal, I realize, as I thumb through the tabs. One for IDs. One for property deeds. One for fertility documents.

I stop at that one, my chest heavy. The Gunners were never able to have children, something Reverend Gunner always blamed Madelyn for. But it’s been three years and I’m not pregnant yet, either.

I shove the thought aside. Maybe I can escape the threat entirely, if Ambrose takes me away.

I keep looking. I’m about to give up when I find a slim file shoved in the very back of the cabinet—one without a label. I ease it out and carefully fold it open on the desk. It’s full of Reverend Gunner’s notes. They’re loose and disorganized, but I recognize them immediately for what they are. I paw through them—phone numbers and addresses and computer passwords. Notes he didn’t want Madelyn to have access to, I think.

And then I find one, a folded-up piece of yellow legal paper, that simply says:

Revelation

I know this is it. God told Reverend Gunner to build a bunker, and so he did.

I unfold the paper and there’s nothing on it except for six numbers. Not a birthday—not even Reverend Gunner is that careless.

I scribble the code down on a blank sticky note, fold it up tight, and slide it into the waistband of my panties—I could still get caught, and if I get caught with that , there’ll be no talking my way out of it. But my waistband feels like a safe option.

I replace everything so that the office looks exactly as I found it.

Then I creep down the stairs and out into the backyard, replacing the key and the lockbox. Frogs and insects fill the night with their chirping, croaking songs. Somewhere in the distance, coyotes yelp at each other.

Those sounds were always my soundtrack whenever I would go down to the Concho River in the early mornings. The thought sends a sadness stabbing through my chest because I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it again without remembering the last time. Without remembering Raul.

But at least I have this gift for Ambrose.