“Not going anywhere, are you, bitch?” he said, jerking on the chain to make his point.
Without another word, he strode from the room. The door lock clicked. A few seconds later, the overhead bulb flickered off, and the room plunged into abject blackness. I sank down onto the cold cement floor. Leaning against the wall, I pulled my knees to my chest. Panic stirred in my belly, and my teeth began to chatter.
Cut it out. You’re not afraid of the dark anymore. You beat the phobia, remember?
I had. I’d faced my fear and marched out into the night, determined to find the medical supplies needed to save Miles and Kyle from the flu. No boogeymen had lurked in the dark. Nothing had reached out from the shadows to grab me. I’d finally defeated my childhood phobia. Killed it. Put it in the past. So, why was that old, familiar dread creeping through my veins?
Fear nibbled away at my hard-won bravado. If Pastor Bill showed him my goodbye letter, Ripper might go away, never suspecting that I was alive and being held prisoner. Hannah’s abortive escape was a complete bust. We’d never get another chance to scale the fence.
Crap. I’m alone in the dark, and I might never see Ripper again.
Gritting my teeth, I pressed my face against my knees, trying to hold back the flood.
Miles. Oh my God. Miles.
My cousin’s face materialized in front of my eyes, his face wreathed in that shy smile he wore during our last good night, when we ate the pizza he’d baked in the solar oven and played badminton.
The dam broke and unwelcome tears spilled down my cheeks and clogged my nostrils. The chain clanked when I lifted a hand to wipe at my face, reminding me that I was shackled to a wall like a prisoner in a medieval dungeon. I sniffed, then held my breath, willing the tears to stop.
Get a grip. Breaking down won’t help a damned thing.
Nope. It was too much. My sorrow and fear refused to be browbeaten into submission. I pulled Ripper’s dog tags and my necklace out of my blouse and pressed them against my lips. Sobbing, I rocked back and forth, finally giving vent to my misery. I don’t know how much time passed before I noticed the sound coming from the corner of the room, where my cell butted up against the one holding Pastor Derek.
Turning my face toward the sound, I stilled.
“Hey, you all right over there?” A disembodied voice floated out of the darkness.
My sobs had disturbed the imprisoned minister. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve, then scooted toward the corner. My fingers found the wide crack between the walls. Apparently, Pastor Bill’s men had slapped up sheet rock to divide a large room into small cells. They did a half-assed job, leaving almost an inch-wide gap where the old wall met the new, and they hadn’t taped the joints. No wonder Pastor Derek could hear me cry.
“Hello.” My voice quivered as I fought to regain my composure.
“What’s going on? Somebody hurt you?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Nobody hurt me. I’m just having a little pity party over here.”
“Ahh. Gotcha.” He hesitated. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” As soon as I said the word, I regretted my terse reply. The man was reaching out with kindness, and I didn’t want to rudely reject the overture. “Listen, it’s just that nowadays, if you’re alive, you’ve lost people. Everybody has lost people. To the flu, or from getting separated and not being able to find each other. It’s nothing special. I shouldn’t...I shouldn’t feel so sorry for myself.”
“We’re all the walking wounded,” he said. “You think that means you’re not entitled to grieve? Grieving is normal. When my wife and baby girl passed, I lay down on the bed and waited to die. After a couple of days I started to think about that verse from the book of Psalms. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. So I made myself get up and get moving. I had to have faith that someday I’d find new meaning and purpose, maybe even joy. Or at the very least, some peace of mind.”
I don’t want meaning or purpose or peace of mind. I want Ripper and Kyle and Sahdev and Hector. I want Miles.
How selfish was that? Especially compared to Pastor Derek’s grief. “I’m sorry you lost your family.”
“What’s your name?” he asked gently.
“Kenzie.”
“Kenzie, would you like to pray together?”
A sincere offer of consolation and help, but I’d feel like a hypocrite if I took him up on it.
“I’m not exactly religious,” I confessed.
“No? Well, then how about you tell me about the people you lost? Sometimes it helps to share memories.”
I shook my head in a frantic refusal, a ridiculous gesture, since we were sitting in total darkness in different rooms. Swallowing hard, I cleared my throat. “I’m not ready. It’s all too fresh.”
“Your call, but if you’re ever ready to talk about it...” He gave a low chuckle. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere anytime soon.”
“You’re Derek Heywood,” I said. “I saw your photos in the office that Pastor Bill took over.”
“That’s right. I was the pastor—actually one of the two pastors—at a church in Portland. The other pastor, Todd, was a close friend from seminary. Did you ever hear the quote from Martin Luther King that said that 11 a.m. Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America? Todd and I decided to do our part to breach that divide, to bring people together, so we set out to create a reconciliation church with an interracial congregation.”
“Was that hard to do?”
“Well, yeah. There will always be issues when people come from different traditions. Do you stand up when the spirit moves, or do you sit quietly during the service? What kind of music do you play in church? What do you do with kids who act up during the sermon? What do you call the pastor? Grandma Taylor had a fit when some of my white parishioners called me Derek. She said it wasn’t respectful. We compromised and everybody called me Pastor Derek. And politics...” He blew out a breath. “That’s where things can get really ugly. The past few years have been hard. We’ve lost members, but overall my church was full of good people.”
“How did you end up locked up in the basement?” I asked.
“This was our summer camp. After the flu burned through the city, I didn’t find a single survivor from my congregation. Todd died early, along with his family. It occurred to me that some of my parishioners might have fled Portland. You know, looking for an isolated, safe haven, away from the virus. Like the camp. So about two weeks ago, I drove out here to check things out. I found that Pastor Bill had installed himself and his people in our camp.”
“I bet he wasn’t happy when you showed up.”
Pastor Derek snorted. “He pretended to welcome me. Raised his hands and praised the lord that I’d been spared.” His voice took on a mock, warbling inflection. “As soon as I began to ask some hard questions, he called me to a meeting with his deacons. I sat down in my former office. Four men pulled out guns, then frogmarched me to the basement. I’ve been here ever since. They take us to the bathroom twice a day, in case you’re wondering. And Nicole brings food.”
“Nicole?” Good. “She’s started to see through Pastor Bill’s b.s.”