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“Leo,” Myles scolded. “You’re not helping.” He pressed his fingers to his temple. “You’re making a mistake, Sydney. You’ve got a brilliant future ahead of you and you’re willing to throw it all away over what? Some manufactured moral code? That’s not how this world works. You’re a scientist. You of all people should know that everything boils down to survival of the fittest. This human rights nonsense is nothing more than a way to make weak people feel self-important. The universe is an inanimate object, Sydney. It doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t work in mysterious ways to improve your life. If you want anything out of life, you have to take it.”
She kept her face a neutral mask. “I will not change my mind.”
“I suppose you think you’re being brave?”
“I don’t care what you call it.”
Myles leaned back in his chair, trying to read her. “Can I ask why? I’ve gotta know where this is coming from. I thought you were an intelligent woman.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Jesus.”
Leo’s eyes widened and he went white.
“Leo?” Aleksander said.
Leo stood and backed away from the table. “I knew it. I knew you were a witch.”
Myles tsked. “Leo, sit down.”
“She is. She sent that Jesus to me in my dreams. He was there at her lab too. When I went to get her.”
“Wait,” Myles said. “You didn’t bring her back with you because you were seeing things? That’s not what you told me.”
“He was there,” Leo said. “It was real.”
“You saw Jesus?” Sydney said.
“Don’t deny it. I wasn’t about to let you get away, but thenhewas there.”
“Jesus threatened you?”
“No — yes. He … It was the light. It was going to tear me apart.”
“And that’s why you finally left me alone?” Sydney sat up straighter. She’d never heard of anything like that, but she knew God had protected her from her dad sometimes in strange ways. “Why’d you get involved in all of this, then? If he’d told you to leave me alone back in college?”
“I thought I was crazy, but I wasn’t, was I? You sent him.”
“I didn’t send him. If he visited you, it was his idea, not mine.”
A courage sealed in her chest and she stood, pressing her fingers into the table. “I’ve had enough of this. You’ve wasted enough of my time. Either kill me or let me go.”
Leo pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. His hands were shaking. “If he’s really real — if Jesus is really real — then he’ll keep me from shooting you now, right?”
Sydney’s courage faltered for a moment as she stared at the gun.Don’t let me screw this up now.An image of Peter walking on water came to mind. A vision of him sinking in the water clouded her eyes.
“I’m not sinking. Not today,” she said, focusing in on Leo. “I don’t know what Jesus wants to do today. But whatever happens is up to him, not you.”
Myles stood. “This is an interesting turn of events. Sydney, you believe in a fairy tale, and it appears that Leo does as well.”
“What do you believe?” Sydney asked.
“I’ve considered myself to be an atheist all my life.”
“You think you serve only yourself, but you don’t.”
“No?”
“No.”
