Ruthless Page 14

  I ignored the accusation in her voice and thought about the heart of her question. “She was strangely calm, it’s true. In fact, she never seemed worried, from the moment we took her in. It was like she had her escape plan ready.”

  “She knew she had a mole,” Layla said pointedly.

  Dawn’s voice carried a note of caution. “There’s no reason to think these events are connected.”

  “But just in case, we should be careful about sharing information from now on,” Zack added. “The whole group doesn’t need to know everything anyway.” His words felt pointed at me, whether he’d intended them to be or not.

  I knew I was innocent, but if I’d been in anyone else’s shoes, I’d have been just as suspicious of me. I tried to think how I could defend myself and came up short. Finally, I stood. “I don’t need to be here. This isn’t my area of expertise anyway. Just let me know if I can prophesize anything useful to the cause.”

  As I stepped out of the room, Jude trailed after me. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  I shook my head, resolute. “If we do have a mole, I want to prove it isn’t me. Eliminate one suspect at a time, so we can find out who it really is.”

  Jude’s forehead scrunched up, deep in thought. “There must be some other explanation.” I knew he didn’t want to imagine that our mole might be me, or Layla. Once again, looking into his empathetic eyes, I felt an undeniable ache. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, it was true: I still missed him. Though I was happy with someone else, and wanted Jude to be happy with Layla, I couldn’t help but feel a tug toward him, a reminder of who we’d once been. Maybe I’d always be a little bit in love with him. It was simple, in a way: no one could ever measure up to my first love. And the way he looked back at me, I hoped . . . maybe he felt the same way.

  Before I could say anything else, the door to the meeting room opened, and everyone slowly filed out, casting suspicious glances at one another. I’d never seen our group quite so gloomy or silent. As Layla passed us, I felt her eyes boring into me, and Jude stepped away, following her to their room.

  Zack was the last to exit, hanging behind in the doorframe. “You okay?” he asked.

  My frustration at his recent behavior boiled over into quippy resentment. “So you’ve decided I’m not the mole?” I said lightly.

  His gruff tone eased for a moment. “I know you’re not the mole. But since I don’t know who is, until then, Dawn and I decided to limit who knows what.” I was struck by the way he said “Dawn and I”—like the two of them together shared some position of authority. I wanted to remind him that he hadn’t even joined us until recently, that despite his CIA training he had far less experience with the resistance than most of the people here. A brief thought flashed through my mind . . . the existence of a mole might actually help Zack climb higher within our ranks. A new enemy to fight, a threat that gave him license to push others out, to place himself in a position of trust and authority. Might it be worth it to Zack to fabricate this mole, to further his own interests? It was the kind of strategy my mother, the woman who trained him, might have employed. The moment I thought it, I dismissed it. Zack would never let someone die, would never let my mother go, for such petty, selfish reasons.

  I stepped toward him, trying to lighten the mood, to bring us back to a happy place. “Maybe we can go out tonight?” I remembered the first few nights we’d spent here, the ones Dawn had told me to enjoy. I wished I could get a little bit of that joyful feeling back right now.

  I saw the hint of a smile playing at his lips. “We could go out.”

  For a moment, all the stresses of the past few days began to slip away. “I’ll go get ready.”

  It felt like playing dress-up—putting on a fancy outfit, stepping out onto the street with Zack, politely greeting all the Outcasts coming up to adore me. I’d always been playing a part, but now, especially, I felt the farce of it all. Trying to pretend like things were normal, while everything was falling apart.

  As we walked up to Felipe’s club, I tried to put all these concerns aside . . . but once we entered, the club seemed strangely morose. The music had gone silent, and the worried murmurs of the other clubgoers gave me pause. I found Felipe, pulled him aside. “What’s happening?”

  “You don’t know?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Let me help.”

  His voice quavered. “We’re under attack.”

  7

  Felipe’s words conjured images of missiles and bombers, but his phone conjured the truth. Our citadel of Redenção was just fine. My followers, his fellow Outcasts: they were in trouble.

  He let me borrow his phone to read the disturbing headlines: “Clashes on the Streets of Redenção.” A local Outcast pilgrim had been attacked only hours ago by true believers of the global, mainstream faith, left beaten and bloody. Then another in Spain, another in Japan. The incidents seemed to be increasing in number as more copycats popped up, committing more and more heinous crimes against Outcasts. The perpetrators were streaming their violence live on social media, receiving no Punishments for the assaults they were committing: visual confirmation of their “correctness” that inspired more and more others.

  After a moment, Zack grew grim and pulled me into a cab—driverless, thankfully, so we could talk freely. “Your mother’s work?” he guessed.

  “Maybe?” It would make sense. My mother could have sent instigators to accost Outcasts, to undermine my supposed power as a prophet. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure Zack was right, and those first assailants must have been CIA plants. But I doubted all the hundreds of copycats around the world could possibly be her doing. As long as ordinary people believed their violent actions were “righteous” in the eyes of Great Spirit, they would be just as safe as CIA agents taking pills—because they wouldn’t feel guilty for hurting others in the name of their god. My guess was that most of these viral videos were simply normal people, who had seen the CIA instigators on the news and decided that this was what Great Spirit wanted them to do.

  We were in the middle of a full-fledged holy war, the inevitable result of having two warring faiths. My mother had warned me as much—I just didn’t expect her to kick off the violence. “I have to say something. I have to stop this.”

  “You could tell people to come to Redenção,” Zack suggested.

  “Millions of Outcasts all over the world? Even if they could get here, how am I going to protect them?” I pointed out, feeling helpless. Since it had gone public that we were staying here, Redenção’s borders had been inundated enough. The flocks of pilgrims at the edges of town had now formed elaborate tent cities—poorly defended dwellings that left them vulnerable to exactly these kinds of attacks. “I’ll tell them to defend themselves, I can do that much,” I said.

  “What if they go too far?” Zack warned. “Do you want a bunch of your followers committing murder, even in self-defense?”

  My heart broke as I scrolled through images of people who’d been injured just for swearing an allegiance to me, and a seething anger burned inside of me. “I’d rather they live than their attackers.”

  Concern rose in Zack’s voice. “You don’t know what kind of people are following you. Maybe they’ll start attacking in retaliation. You’d be giving them cover for who knows what kind of terrible crimes . . .”

  “I’ll tell them not to kill,” I interrupted him.

  “You can’t control everything, and everyone,” Zack insisted. “Whatever unintended effects your words might have, you’re still responsible. You can only say so many things, people can only remember so many Proclamations. You need to be careful, make them count, make sure they help our cause.”

  I was incredulous. “You want me to just abandon the people who follow me? Only say the things that are helpful to the resistance, and screw any idiot who buys into what I say?”

  “You’re not a real prophet!” Zack said, a little louder than he intended to. “You’re acting
like this is a real religion you’ve created.”

  “It’s real to them,” I retorted. “I’m real to them. I have a responsibility . . .”

  “And the moment you reveal the truth, they’ll hate you. Your responsibility is to fix the world they live in, to give them freedom.”

  “And what if we can’t? What if we don’t?” I asked, finally voicing the fear that had been nagging at me for all these months. “We’re not doing so well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed. What’s left of the resistance is living in a few thousand square feet of real estate. We’ve got no resources. The best thing we have going is this city, this military protecting us, and it’s built on this religion I made up. And maybe that religion is fake, maybe I’m fake, but those people who believe in me are all we’ve got. And I’m going to protect them.” As the passion in my voice rose, so did my conviction.

  “So what, ten years from now, you’re still going to be Prophet Grace?” His words reminded me of my mother’s warning.

  “It’s better than being dead,” I said definitively. “Than all of us being dead, than the prophets winning.”

  “You say ‘the prophets’ like you wouldn’t be one of them. Like you wouldn’t be the very thing we’re fighting,” he said with disgust.

  My breath caught in my throat. “If you can’t see the difference between me and them, I don’t know why you’re here.”

  “Some days, I’m not sure either,” Zack said quietly.

  His words filled me with a sadness and a rage I was sure would destroy him, if I let one word of it out. As tears welled in my eyes, I opened the door of the cab, which had stopped at a red light.

  “Grace . . .” Zack said, a hint of apology in his voice, but I wasn’t willing to listen. I hopped out, and I ran. Ran and ran until I found myself somewhere that felt safe. Somewhere that felt right.

  I was at the gates of Redenção, guarded by my loyal soldiers. If I couldn’t speak my truth to my boyfriend, at least I could speak it to the rest of the world.

  “Tell General Feliciano to call the press,” I told the nearest soldier, my voice sure and clear. “I have something I need to say.”

  8

  As I approached the podium that General Feliciano had arranged for me, I trembled. Though Dawn had joined me to help write this speech, I was still nervous about actually saying any of it. Swarms of Outcast tents littered the expanse of land at the edges of the city, stretching as far as I could see in every direction. These were all followers of “Prophet Grace,” strangers who had come from around the world to be close to me.

  A whole makeshift economy had emerged out here—vendors selling goods, buskers playing music. The locals had jokingly begun referring to it as “New Redenção,” a nickname I feared would turn into a postal designation if the pilgrims didn’t find a more permanent place to stay soon.

  As the crowd of unshowered devotees moved closer, their stench filled my nostrils, their voices muddling into a low hum. I was grateful for every single one of those soldiers, whose sheer muscle was all that protected me from the onslaught of adoration that made its way toward me.

  True to her word, the general had called the press. A dozen reporters from in and outside of Redenção clustered near the podium, waiting for me to speak. I tried to put the massive crowd out of my mind as I stepped up to the microphone, hands crinkling the paper on which I’d written my speech. But though I was dying to, I didn’t look at it. I couldn’t seem like I was some stooge reading a prepared statement. I had to be strong, powerful, godlike.

  So I tried, staring the reporters in the eye with a fiery vengeance. “Like you, I’ve seen the recent reports of violence against good people, attacked solely because they’ve chosen to follow me.” So far my voice felt good, clear, confident. “I condemn these attacks, and I hope my fellow prophets will do the same. This is never what Great Spirit would have wanted.

  “But I have one more thing to say. I want to ask my followers not to respond in kind. I want you to prove to the world that we are better. If not a single one of you lifts a finger in violence, the message will be heard loud and clear, around the world. We have moved past the Universal Theology to something better. This is the next step in religious evolution, and in time, the whole world will join us. The world will see the beauty in Outcasts, the power of your devotion. You’ll be trailblazers—the ones who show the world the truth. Be patient, be kind, and keep the faith. Thank you.”

  As I finished, I saw a couple soldiers murmuring to each other. One finally turned to me, asking hesitantly in Portuguese, “So you want us to proselytize?”

  I was confused. I hadn’t said anything about proselytizing, but upon reflection, I could see how one might read that into my speech. “Not exactly,” I responded nervously. “Hopefully you won’t need to. Hopefully your actions will speak for themselves, to those who don’t yet believe.” But as he nodded, I realized that once again, my words had been heard differently than I’d intended. Rather than passively waiting for others to see the “truth” of our cause, my followers might actively try to convince their friends and family to join us. And I had a sinking feeling that their efforts might not go as smoothly as I’d hoped.

  I looked to the mass of pilgrims, trying to glean information from the cacophonous sounds all around me. Would they heed my words? And then a familiar voice cut through the cheers, stinging and rich and terrifying. “Grace Luther. The Chosen One, never saw that coming.”

  I turned, trying to find the speaker, as the cadence of those words sent chills through me. Among the cavalcade of arms thrusting at me, I saw his face. The boy who was my first kiss, the one who’d nearly killed me. The sociopath I’d thought I’d seen murdered, only to discover him alive, incarcerated in West Virginia. The last person I expected to see among a throng of worshippers all the way in South America.

  Ciaran. My skin crawled, and all of me shrank away from him, as he smiled wickedly. “I’ve missed you, Grace.”

  Book Five

  1

  My mind swam. Ciaran. Visceral images shot through my mind: him pinning me down on our stargazing trip. Me just barely getting away. Zack emerging through the woods to incapacitate him. I’d survived Ciaran once, and I’d thought he was safely behind bars. What was he doing here? Last I knew, he’d been incarcerated by the prophets. How had he escaped from that Appalachian prison?

  Ciaran moved toward me, slowly but confidently, like we were old friends. His sick grin made me feel like my insides had come loose. “You know why I’m here. Give this all up, and we can go our separate ways.”

  Throat dry, I choked out to the nearest soldier, “Him. Take him, capture him.”

  The soldier followed my gesturing finger with confusion. Why would I want to arrest this random, pious-looking young man? By the time she raised her weapon on Ciaran, he’d retreated into the crowd with a smirk. I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see where he’d gone, but he was concealed by the throng of worshippers.

  “Find him,” I choked out, and the soldier dutifully pressed herself into the crowd. Though I knew it was futile, I had to try to capture him. My body vibrated with rage, wanted to tear him limb from limb. I remembered the last time I’d felt this way—the time I’d watched a crowd devour Prophet Joshua, the man I’d urged them to hate. My rage could destroy people now, if I wanted it to. This time, would I let it?

  The soldier returned a few minutes later, shaking her head regretfully. “I can’t find him. I’m so sorry, Prophet.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her, eyes still scanning the crowd. I noticed two other faces watching me, with normal, non-Outcast features and strangely cool expressions. They both looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them. Could I also have seen them in that prison in West Virginia? “Let’s head back in,” I said, trying to project a confidence and authority I no longer felt.

  As soon as we were within the city limits, I retreated to our apartment, where Zack was the first person I encountered. He flew toward me in
a quiet rage. “I can’t believe you went out there and spoke without talking to me.”

  “I talked to Dawn,” I said, dismissive. I didn’t have time for Zack’s admonishments right now.

  “So my opinion doesn’t matter?” Zack asked.

  I found anger spilling out of me. “Your opinion mainly seems to be that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Because you don’t!” he blurted out.

  “I don’t?” I asked, incredulous.

  He backed into a defensive stance. “You’re eighteen, you remember that, right? You have no life experience, you don’t even have a college degree . . .”

  “Oh, and with your extra few years of wisdom, you should be the boss of me?” I shot back.

  “At least you should be asking for my help. You should have let me come to the compound in Turkey . . .”

  “That rescue mission was a success . . .” I reminded him.

  “People died!” he retorted in a way that cut a little too deep. “You really don’t see how you’re in over your head? It’s infuriating, watching you make all these novice mistakes . . .”

  “Everybody makes mistakes,” I insisted, my resentment growing with each word. “You think you wouldn’t make plenty if you were in my shoes? You’ve made plenty . . . Working for my mother?”

  He didn’t even flinch. “You’re right, that was a mistake, one I learned from. You haven’t had any time to learn from your mistakes . . .”

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” I said quietly, and I felt those few simple words shattering everything.

  Zack seemed stunned. “Us. You think that was a mistake?”

  Now that it was out in the open, everything came tumbling out of me. “Things have changed. You’ve noticed that, right?”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.