35. Noah

"Noah, why don"t you go for a walk?" My dad says, aiming a glare at my knee that won"t stop bouncing.

"No, I need to be here. What if he needs me?"

"It"s been four hours, and it could be another four. You might as well get some air." Hannah"s deposition took almost five hours, and we were warned when we got here that Lane's was likely to be closer to eight hours, given the importance of his testimony and the likelihood that the defense team would try to shake him. "Ms. Clarke"s assistant said she"d have an update when they'll take a break for lunch. I"ll text you if I see the doorknob move," he says with a teasing grin. I've spent the last four hours staring at the door handle, thinking the door was about to open. Every time, I shot out of my seat, making everyone think something was happening. After the third time, Dad and Hannah made me sit facing away from the door. But now I"m driving them nuts fidgeting, and other people here don"t seem to appreciate me pacing in the minuscule lobby outside the conference room.

"I"m not going anywhere," I say firmly, and Dad sighs.

Hannah reaches for my hand and squeezes it. She"s been on edge, too, except she manages it silently, the way Lane does.

Finally, the door behind us opens, and a younger man in a fitted blue suit approaches us. The three of us shoot to our feet, causing a commotion in the office and we run over to him. I think he is the lawyer's assistant. I hadn't paid him any attention before since all of mine was focused on Lane.

"We"re not quite finished yet," he warns us first. "Mr. Blakely has completed the cross-examination portion of the interview. He was given the option to take a break before he gave his sworn statement, but he's choosing to push through. He's requested to have his support system in the room. If you wish, you may join us now. We ask that you take a seat and remain silent during the testimony, which is being recorded."

"How did he do?" Hannah asks the guy, whom she calls Jamison, and he nods to indicate he did well.

My heart thuds so hard in my chest, I"m worried the recording equipment will pick up on it. Jamison leads us down a hallway and through some double doors. Inside, there"s a large, oval conference table. It"s so polished I can see the reflection of the overhead lights on it. There are three older looking gentlemen with sour looks on their faces on one side of the table. A younger woman with bleach blonde hair and a purple dress sits next to them with folders and a laptop open in front of her. At the head of the table is an older woman with chin length graying brown hair, manning a video camera and keyboard in front of her. On the other side of the table is Shonda Clarke, whom I met earlier. Between her straight posture, no-nonsense demeanor, and the tight bun holding her dark hair back from her face, I have a hard time imagining her not being in charge wherever she goes. No wonder those men look like they"re shrinking in on themselves.

My eyes go straight to Lane, relief smoothing out the harsh edges of my tension. His eyes meet mine and I witness him take a breath, his muscular chest inflating. Jamison directs us to sit in some chairs along the back edge of the room, where Lane has a direct view of us. Once Jamison takes his seat next to Ms. Clarke, they nod to the woman at the end of the table, who says some things that I"m assuming are for the recording. She gives the date, time, and court case details, then gives an account of who is present for both the defendants, who are not present, and the witness giving testimony. She mentions that the official deposition and questioning are completed, and that this is the sworn testimony that may be used in court, should the case go to trial. She then reminds Lane that he is under oath before she says he can begin.

For a few moments, Lane is frozen, mouth gaping. I try not to notice the smirk on one of the old guys, because I"m liable to jump over the table and beat his ass. Ms. Clarke begins asking Lane specific questions about some of the answers he gave during his deposition, asking him to give a more detailed accounting of what he witnessed regarding what happened in the basement of the Deliverance Summit Church. He nods, thanking her quietly. He looks up at the three of us. Hannah blows him a kiss. Scott nods encouragingly. I mouth, I love you.

Dropping his eyes to the ground, he takes a deep breath and begins.

"When I was eight years old, my grandfather, Pastor Nathanael Warren, started giving me more responsibilities around the church. He said I needed to pull my weight and work hard to overcome the hardships of the circumstances of my birth. My first job was easy. I was supposed to befriend whatever camper was assigned to me. It was my job to be kind to them, get to know them, and help them feel comfortable. I liked that job."

"As I got older, I was given more responsibilities. One of the responsibilities involved praying over the boys that came to Deliverance Camp. They were coming to us to be cured of an affliction, and one of the first steps in the process was round-the-clock prayer. It was my job to read specific Bible passages out loud, repeatedly, until my shift was up and other people took my place. Shifts were anywhere from five to eight hours long, but sometimes longer depending on how much Grandfather felt I needed to atone for my own sins. I wasn"t supposed to talk to them or allow them food or drink or the bathroom. We weren"t supposed to acknowledge them at all. Only pray and read scripture over their bodies. It was terrible, but it wasn"t the worst job by far."

"What was the worst job, Lane?" Ms. Clarke asks, encouraging him to keep going.

His eyes squeeze shut. "Cleaning. The treatment rooms and the showers. The drains would get clogged, and—" He shivers, looking sick to his stomach.

Ms. Clarke clicks something in her hand, and a television screen I didn"t notice before lights up. On the screen are pictures of rooms I saw in the documentary, but these are more detailed and marked off with cones and police tape.

"Are these the rooms you"re speaking about, Lane?"

"Yes ma"am. They"re the rooms that the really bad stuff happened in."

"Like what?"

The movement of his throat bobbing is apparent from here. His voice is shaky, but he answers. "The treatments that I witnessed personally involved giving them medicine. I don"t know what they were giving them exactly, but the elders that ran the camp were always coming up with different concoctions. I do know they used syrup of ipecac a lot, to make them vomit."

"Can you clarify for us who you"re referring to when you say "them"?"

"We were supposed to call the boys in the program campers or sinners, depending on what part of the process they were in. I"m not comfortable calling them either of those words."

"And, just to be clear, you are refraining from using the word "victims" because the defense objected to it during your deposition, is that correct?"

"Yes, ma"am."

"Thank you, Lane. For the record, since this is your personal testimony, you may refer to anyone you personally witnessed being abused as a victim." Lane nods his understanding and thanks her quietly. "You may continue. What else did you personally see or experience in these so-called treatment rooms?"

"The, uh, victims were drugged and?—"

"Objection!" One of the older men shouts. "How would he know that the alleged victims were drugged? For all we know, they were being given placebos or something completely safe."

"Because I was drugged when it was my turn."

Hannah sucks in a breath and grips my dad"s hand. Even in my periphery, I can see how badly she"s shaking. My eyes stay on Lane.

"I don"t know what drugs I was given. They made me dizzy and sick to my stomach, and caused hallucinations. I"d seen it done to only one other victim. It was something the church saved for their "worst cases." When I saw it done to the other victim, they strapped him to that chair," he says, pointing to the chair in the picture. "Those belts were secured around the face, and there were straps for the arms and legs as well. While the drugs started to kick in they surrounded the victim and shouted things. In this case it was the elders, my grandfather, Pastor Nathanael Warren, along with Pastor Gideon Larsen, Dr. James Andrews, and Pastor Floyd West."

"Can you remember anything specific that they shouted?"

Lane"s eyes close for a moment, then flick to mine. I hold his gaze for as long as he"ll look at me, which isn"t long. "They yelled that he was a sinner and an abomination. That he was sick, and they were going to purge the demons from his body. They used a lot of homophobic slurs."

"What slurs, specifically?"

Lane looks at her like he"d rather pull his own tongue out, but he tells her, looking more uncomfortable by the second.

"Once the drugs kicked in completely, they performed an exorcism."

"That"s preposterous!" One of the defense lawyers says.

"Mr. Parsons, your outbursts are entirely inappropriate. Just because there isn"t a judge here, doesn"t mean you have free rein to abuse my witness. I can and will have you removed if you cannot respect due process." The look Ms. Clarke gives the defense lawyer that keeps opening his saggy jowls could wither a person if subjected to it too long. "Please add to the record that this is the third time the defense has needed to be warned about badgering and attempting to intimidate the witness." The woman typing, who I"m sure is meant to be an entirely neutral party, gives Ms. Clarke a quick, approving nod.

"Lane. Can you describe to us what the alleged exorcism looked like."

"Yes ma"am. Uh, the pastors put on black cloaks. Extra heaters were brought inside the room to make the victim feel like they were burning in hell. Pastor Warren sat close and whispered in my, I mean his, ear, while some of them chanted and used tongues. Then Pastor Gideon read from the Bible. He splashed scalding hot water on the victim while shouting scripture to exorcize the demons out of him."

"And you both saw and experienced this personally."

"Yes ma"am. Although I think I had it a little easier than him."

"How so?"

"I didn"t have someone that was supposed to be my friend watching, not doing anything to save me," he says, barely loud enough to hear. " And I at least had seen it all before, although it didn"t make it feel any less real. When they gave me the drugs, it really felt like they were pulling something out of me. I thought it was my demons. I hoped it was."

"Were you watching this take place on your own free will?"

"No ma"am. They forced me to watch."

"And why is it that you were forced to watch this take place?"

"Because I defended him. I pleaded with my grandfather not to hurt him anymore."

"He was your friend?"

"Yes. He was my assignment, but he liked to talk more than the others did. He was older, and seemed so smart and… alive. I idolized him, and used to imagine that he was my big brother. He was enthusiastic about everything. He showed me how to play soccer, and sang me songs from his favorite band. Most of all, he told me what it was like outside the fence of the compound, about this whole other world where people looked and acted and thought differently. He made me think about what it would be like to leave someday."

Lane clears his throat, and a tear slips over one cheek. "One day, we were laying in the grass while the rest of the kids were swimming, because I had a stomach ache and didn"t want to go in. I didn"t really have a stomach ache, I just wanted to talk to him. He"d been in the basement for a couple days, and, like all the kids that went down there, he wasn"t quite the same when he came back up. For once, he didn"t have so much to say. So I asked him questions."

"What kind of questions?" Ms. Clarke asks him after a long pause. Her voice is soft and sad, and I find it jarring.

"I asked him where he would go if he could close his eyes and disappear." Lane's eyes squeeze closed. "I asked him if he was afraid of who he was on the inside, because I was." Lane chokes out a sob, and the room is quiet while he composes himself. "My grandfather saw him comfort me. All he did was place his hand on top of mine, and tell me that someday I"d get out of there and be whoever I wanted to be. Because no matter what they did to us, they"d never change who we were on the inside."

"Did your grandfather punish you?"

Lane nods. "I was put through the intensive program."

"Can you describe that process from your perspective as a victim?"

His gaze falls on me again, and it stays with me as he describes, in brutal detail, the torture he went through. The days of starvation and mental games, being drugged and forced to watch pornography, being force fed various bitter concoctions to purify him from the inside out. He was forced to strip in front of congregation members and subjected to cleansing, where they scrubbed his skin until it was raw and bleeding, and sprayed with a high power hose.

"The worst of it was being forced to witness my friend being punished for being kind to me. Watching the light fade from his eyes haunts me as much as anything else."

"Do you have any documented diagnosis or health issues as a direct result of the trauma you experienced at Deliverance Church and the conversion therapy camp?"

"I have been diagnosed and am in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder."

"How would you say that these conditions affect your quality of life?"

"I have panic attacks that can be triggered at any time. The nightmares exacerbate that, because I"m exhausted a lot. It"s a struggle to maintain friendships and relationships, even with my family and the few people I"ve come to trust." He looks up at me, Hannah, and my dad almost apologetically.

"Lane, I just have one last question for you, and then, unless you"d like to add anything else, I think we can wrap this up."

"Okay."

"What is the name of your friend, the one that you personally witnessed being abused by the leaders of Deliverance Camp."

"Christian Blakely."