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There’s a tiny tremor in the body above mine, and then he releases one arm and reaches for my pants again.

“Just hold still,” the voice grunts. “Please.”

I’d recognize that please anywhere. It’s Tommy above me, trying to pull down my pants.

“What the fuck?” I scream. I reach for the flashlight and swing it as hard as I can toward his head.

Clunk.

If I wasn’t so upset, I’d be very worried by that sound.

“Ow, Grace, stop! It’s me,” he says, but he rolls off me and onto the floor, clutching his head.

I scramble into a ball at the top of the bed and turn on the flashlight.

Under its glow, I find Tommy curled in fetal position, his face buried in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then he starts to cry. “They told me to do it.”

I blink down at him, trying to shake the sleep and panic from my brain. “Who told you to do what?”

“The church elders told me to...seduce you,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I begged them not to make me do it. I mean, it goes against everything we were taught.”

I’m so stunned that I forget to be scared as I lean toward him. “Why, though?”

He looks endlessly weary as he finally meets my eye. “They—your dad—wants us to get married.”

“I know, but...” I lean against the wall in shock, shivering and sweating and confused. “Tommy, that wasn’t seduction. I mean...what the hell?”

“I was supposed to be wooing you,” he says, running a hand through his hair, “ever since you arrived. But you didn’t seem interested. Louise knew you were up to something. She found the highlighter in water under your bed and we told the elders. They said that sometimes a woman’s hand must be forced.”

I stare at him. I’d like to believe he must have misunderstood, but I’m not sure how else a statement like that could be interpreted. “My father would never have allowed⁠—”

“Your father is the one who told me to do it. He said I was acting in your best interest, ultimately.”

My mouth opens to argue in my father’s defense. After everything he’s done, I still want to insist he would never go that far. But of course he would.

He assaulted a teacher. He was accused of assaulting Leila, and even if I didn’t want to believe it, I’d be naïve not to. He wasn’t home when he was supposed to be over spring break. He didn’t even seem to care about anything I suffered during my year at Penhallow. He saw the broken glasses and the fat lip. He heard about boys dragging me into a locker room.

And what mattered to him? His position. His reputation.

Of course he’d rather see me forced into marriage than rebelling, than shaming him by leaving Bright Covenant when I return from my mission.

“Why would you go along with it?” I demand of Tommy. “You grew up in the same church I did. You think they’d tell us we couldn’t hold hands if it’s okay to rape someone?”

“It was an order.”

“Is a group of men who’d order something like that worth following?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers, pressing his head to his knees. “It's not my place to question them.”

I climb out of bed and sit beside him. I didn’t know either, until this moment.

I spent most of last year worrying that I was being tricked, by Ford and by everyone else at Penhallow.

I was correct—I was being tricked—but it wasn’t by them. It was by people who’d spent so much of my life telling me they were good that I was unable to see them in any other way.

“Grace, I’ll be punished if I don’t do it,” Tommy whispers.

I jerk in shock. I’d thought we were on the same page about what he was going to do. He doesn't want to—I can tell—but we're not out of the woods yet.