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“How did you get Ahnah to comply?”
She huffed. “She remembered Garrick and didn’t want to go back or see Josiah get sucked into the Family. It wasn’t that hard.”
Garrick had been untouchable.
Touch not thy Lord’s anointed.
He’d done things like block her path and not let her get to the head mistress’s house for school. Sometimes he pinned her against trees and told her things a twelve-year-old girl should never know, but he was “training her to be a good wife” for some man someday.
Ty wasn’t sure what else Garrick did that Ahnah never confessed, but the last straw had been one afternoon when she’d been in the woods with friends and Garrick had found her. He’d forced her to kneel in front of him with all the other girls watching and commanded she lick the mud off his boots.
All of it.
Slowly.
She had no other choice but to drop down and do it. Garrick was God’s future prophet and to question Rand or his heir—or any man for that matter in the Family—was complaining against God Himself. Questioning, rebuking or refusing was strictly forbidden. One could be disfellowshipped for it, and that meant eternity burning alone and miserable in outer darkness.
Ty had taken a chance anyway.
“The best I can offer,” he said, “is two weeks. I hope she’s found by then. But I’m not leaving here without him knowing.”
She nodded once.
“I guess what’s done is done, Bexley. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for robbing me of being a father. But what happens from here on out, I’m involved in, and that begins with why you’re keeping him from one cult but forcing him into another. Christian church? Really? Let’s count how many pastors and leaders abuse women and molest children. Immorality abounds. I can’t believe you were duped twice!”
Bexley sat up straight. Resolute. “I am not duped. And you’re right, there are a few bad apples in the bunch. That doesn’t make the rest of the apples bad. They’re what apples should be. As far as Josiah, he’s never been forced to believe anything. He has to make his own decision.”
He rolled his eyes. “You make him get baptized or handle snakes or something?”
Bexley snorted. “Tiberius, don’t be an idiot. We don’t handle snakes.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Noted.”
A server asked if they needed anything else. Her way of letting them know she wanted to turn the table. “No, thanks. Just the check.” A crowd gathered at the front, taking up the benches and standing around.
Suddenly, an alarm blared, and people began to chatter and hop up from their tables.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
Ty stood to assess the situation. Had a fire started in the kitchen? A manager came running, calling out that it was a false alarm. A kid pulled it. Panicked people ignored him while many others sat idly by as if nothing had transpired.
“Tiberius, what’s going on?” Bexley stood and grabbed her purse.
“Stay put, Bexley. The manager says it’s a false alarm.”
Hardly anyone showed Southern charm now; it was every man and woman for themselves.
“It’s a false alarm!” the manager hollered again. “You have to pay your bills!”
Ty stepped into the aisle, and a man bumped into him. “Oh, my apologies, sir,” the man said.
“Yeah, no worries,” Ty muttered, but the man had already disappeared into the crowd.
“Tiberius,” Bex said. “What’s this?”
She held up a white letter-sized envelope.
