Chapter 4

4

LIBBY

“ O h gosh.” I drop the tablet control thing when I realize I’m squeezing it to death. I know he said that it wouldn’t work for me, but this thingy is crazy. This is all so surreal. Could I still be sleeping? If I am, I don't want to wake up.

“It won’t hurt you.” He shoots me a smile, but it never reaches his eyes.

I can tell he’s angry. My father had the same reaction around the prophet when he didn’t agree with what he might be doing. He’d paste a smile on, but it was fake and for show. That wasn’t often, but my father wasn’t keen on being bossed around. He took pleasure in controlling everyone else.

I hate him so much. I can still see him on the ground, so helpless. I’ll never forget that. All my life, he’s been so powerful. This one time I got to see that he isn’t. He just picked on people he was bigger than. People he knew he could win against.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a drone.”

“A drone,” I repeat. I have never heard the word before. “You called it Short.”

"The technology within it is called Short Circuit. He’s in a lot of my gadgets. He only responds to my brother and me." The mention of him having a brother makes me think of Winter.

“My sister?” How had I forgotten her for even a second?

I guess I could cut myself some slack; the world has been blowing up around me. I bet people back at the compound think it's the Second Coming. They'll make up some nonsense like that to scare everyone into submission. Fear is their most used weapon.

“She's fine. We have her,” he tells me again. “I’ll send my brother a message so they know I have you. We’ll wait till we’re back at my place before we call them.”

His place? I guess I thought I'd be going straight to my sister. He suddenly turns off the road going up a small hill and back down it. We’re almost to the tree line when he stops.

“We’re switching vehicles.” He takes the drone control back from me and clicks it a few times. “Stay put.” He hops out of the truck before I can ask anything. I watch him come around. He moves through the thick snow like it’s nothing. I would have tripped a million times. It would have been rough if he'd done as I suggested earlier, but he has a plan of his own. One that is working out well.

He opens the door for me. I stiffen when he lifts me into his arms. “Won’t hurt you, Libby.” His voice softens. I just nod and wrap my arms around him. He takes off on a run like he’s not carrying a whole person. I never believed in the whole prophet thing that they taught us in Heaven’s Temple, but I might have if they were like this man. He came in saving the day like a true avenging angel.

“Come on, babe. You can cling to me later. I need to get you out of the cold.” Lost in my thoughts, I lift my head.

It’s something I do often, and it drives my parents crazy. Not Winter, though. She’s always wondering what I'm thinking or dreaming about. Often, while we were lying in bed, I would conjure up entire stories. They were our own books, but all inside my head.

I see a big black truck with a layer of snow over it. He puts me down in the seat before shutting the door and going around to the other side. He gets in, starting it up. The heat blasts out rather quickly. He messes with the drone control before putting it in the center console between us and pulling out a phone next.

“My sister?”

"Yeah.” He taps away on the screen before putting it up too. “Seat belt.” I start to reach for it, but he beats me to it. His arm brushes against my chest as he fastens it. I suck in a breath. “Sorry,” he mutters. “We’re almost out of here.”

This time, when he floors it, the truck really takes off. It’s not shocking. I’m not sure I could have climbed into it without his help.

When he pulls back on the road, I feel a sense of relief. We really made it out of there. I turn to look back in the direction we came, but there's nothing. A huge sense of relief fills me that there is no one trailing us. The snow is still falling so heavily that it is impossible to see far.

"Promise, Libby, you’ll never go back.” He reaches over and puts his hand on my thigh, giving it a squeeze. I tense up. “Shit, sorry.” He jerks his hand back. I want to tell him it’s okay. That my reaction wasn't because of his touch. It's primarily about how I react to men. They always make me tense. I can’t help it. But I hate that I did it to him. The man saved me.

“I’m sorry, I can be jumpy. It’s not you.” I felt the need to clarify that.

“You don’t have to apologize. You did nothing wrong.” I nod, knowing he’s right, but I still feel bad that I might have hurt his feelings.

“I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Ace.”

“Ace,” I repeat. I’ve never heard that one before.

“And you know that I’m Libby.”

“Your sister told me.”

“You talked to her?”

“Well, my twin brother told me. She told him.”

“Will you tell me how your brother found my sister?”

“Think she more found him,” he says with a soft chuckle. “My brother tends to stick to his cabin. He doesn’t venture out. Winter seems to have ended up on his doorstep.”

“Oh wow.” That must have been so scary for her. It doesn’t surprise me that she had the courage to knock on a stranger's door. And if it’s Ace’s twin, I’m guessing they’re built the same. That would have been double-scary. Winter always does what needs to be done. She is brave in a way I wish I could be.

“Will you tell me more? I’ve been so worried about her. She went to get help.” I smile. “She did it.”

“She did,” Ace agrees. He gives me a bit more of the story or the parts he knows. I guess his brother hasn’t filled him in on everything.

“Wait, you think they’re like a couple?” Whoa. “She was engaged a few days ago.”

“Do not say that to my brother.” Ace shakes his head. “He is rather possessive of her. Protective too. He didn’t even want to show me a picture of her.”

That makes me smile bigger. I really hope this is all true. It sounds kind of sweet, but I know I’m likely being na?ve. I’ll feel better when I can speak to her.

“I didn’t mean it like it’s bad because she was just engaged. It was more of a wow because we’ve been plotting to get her out of that engagement. She was supposed to be getting married like right now. It’s why she had to take off when the storm started. I think she would have rather died in the woods than marry Joseph.”

I would have felt the same.

“They just hand you off to random men? How old are you?” He glances over at me.

“Eighteen.”

Ace lets out another string of curses. I don’t know why it’s hot when he does that. Is it because it's so different than I'm used to? He doesn't worry that something or someone might smite him. He says whatever he wants whenever he wants.

“You have to be at least eighteen to get married. Not to mention if they touched you girls, what that would mean.”

“Yeah, that’s not a rule there. We’re taught a different set to abide by.”

"It doesn't matter what their rules are. It’s against the law. Those fuckers belong in prison.” I can see that Ace is trying to keep it together. He probably doesn’t want to scare me, but little does he know, his reactions do the exact opposite.

“You know, that’s what they always tell us. That the outsiders"—I motion to him—"you guys just want to live in sin and rip our families apart. It’s why we shouldn’t speak to you. Trust any of you.”

“Of course that’s what they would fucking say.”

“You say the F word a lot.”

“You can say it too, babe.”

"Maybe." I shrug.

“They tell you all that bullshit to control you.”

“I know. They use fear, but even knowing that, it is still kind of real. Isn’t it? People out here can hurt you too.”

Ace lets out a long breath. “Yeah, there are a lot of fucked-up people in the world, but you don’t have to live trapped on a compound where all of them are predators.”

“Not all of them. I think some don’t know better, and some of the boys have it bad too. They often get kicked out. They just toss them away.” I’m guessing they don’t want the older men to have to compete when it comes to the women. I think about the last two boys who were only seventeen when they’d been kicked out. Noah and John had been nice. “I always had mixed feelings when it would happen. Happy that they might be free but sad because I wasn’t sure what they might be facing. Alone.”

“Heaven’s Temple's days are now numbered.”

I snort a laugh. “Oh my gosh. I didn’t mean to laugh at that.”

“It needs to come to an end.”

“It does. It’s just kind of funny they are always talking about the rapture and end of days. The date is always changing. To see that day really come, but not in the way they’re thinking—” I shake my head and can’t help but smile.

"They'll be praying for the rapture by the time I finish with them." Ace’s words linger in the air. I believe every one of them.