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“Don’t,” he says, his hand on my shoulder. “Just text them that you’ll be back. They’ll try to stop you from going. Don’t you want to get away from their worry for a bit? Isn’t it stifling?”
Talk about the devil on my shoulder. Or…in the driver’s seat.
I don’t have to say anything. This man can read me well; fuck, he can probably still read my mind. If everything wasn’t so exhausting and difficult right now, I would probably have more feelings about it.
“We’ll be back soon,” he says again.
I nod, looking at the house we’re staying at. It’s one of those mid-century houses with a wall wraparound over the front yard and a keycard entry on the replacement wooden door. There’s no way for me to escape their looks if I go back into the house. Mal is right about that.
“Fine,” I say.
His smile widens into a grin. He pulls away from the house, out of the nice little suburb we’re in. We’re not in the city, we’re just outside, and I don’t actually know where we’re going.
I watch the houses become blurry from the window as Malon speeds up. The radio is on but I’m not listening. He taps his fingers against the wheel rhythmically, humming to himself every now and then. The further away we got from the house, the more worried I get. Not because I think he’s going to hurt me, because I’m concerned about what the exorcists will think when they realize I’ve left.
I left my phone in the house, on the nightstand next to my bed.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I ask Malon.
“What for?”
“I don’t want them to come after us,” I say. “And they’re going to worry about me if I just disappear on them.”
He doesn’t seem impressed by that, but he shrugs. “Yeah, okay,” he says. He fishes it out of his pocket and tosses it on my lap. “It’s unlocked. I don’t have their numbers, though.”
“It’s okay. I’ll text myself. If they miss me, the first thing they’ll do is look for my phone. Hopefully they’ll see my text then.”
He nods. “Makes sense,” he says, merging into the left lane. “But we might not be gone for that long. We’re here.”
After I send a quick text message, I pick my head up and look at the parking lot Malon has just pulled into. He parks close to a large, modern building with a shiny black roof. It’s a hot, sunny day and the light bounces from the roof right into my eyes.
“What is this?” I ask. The signage isn’t helping much. All I see is a sign in big block letters that says BLESSING over the door. This could be anything.
“A church,” he says. “A megachurch, specifically. Started in Texas, just expanded to Florida.”
“I’ve never heard of this place.”
He shrugs then takes the car out of gear. “You will,” he says. “Maybe not for a little while, but you’ll see them on the news eventually. They have plenty of money and they attract a younger crowd. Megachurches don’t like ceremony, they know how to use social media, and honestly, just the sheer size of them makes them impressive to people. They’re like a vortex, sucking the vulnerable in. They’re nondenominational, so…”
“Okay. I get that they’re popular. Why are we here?”
“Because this place is terrible and I want to show you exactly how bad it is.”
I laugh. I think he’s making a joke, but he doesn’t laugh with me. “Wait, why would you care about this church being bad?”
“I don’t,” he says. “Not really. I care about you seeing the truth, which is why we’ve come here.”
“We’re not going to a sermon, are we?”
He snickers at that. “Absolutely not,” he says. “We have our own priest at home if we need a sermon. No, I wanted to bring you here so that you can see how advanced this is.”
“How advanced…”
“Just get out of the car,” he says. “Walk with me. I’ll show you.”
We get out of the car. The church parking lot is relatively empty, and there’s a small coffee shop inside with college-aged students greeting us with friendly smiles. There are people sitting around with expensive computers in front of them, one or two bibles scattered around in the room. This doesn’t look like any church I’ve ever seen.
This looks like a luxury apartment clubhouse with a bougie coffee shop in it.
