Both men go inside. They don’t even knock.
Candace follows them, and the words stick in my throat. The warnings. The rice. I don’t want it to happen to her. But I doubt it will happen, not with those two men. They might punish her themselves, but they won’t let Leader Allen touch her.
I pretend to close the door, but I keep it open a crack. He’d make me kneel for an hour if he found me spying, but this feels too important. The man with the green eyes might not be my prince, but he might be my escape.
“I suppose you know who I am,” one man says in a businesslike tone. “If Rosalie Toussaint’s lawyer knew where to find her daughter, then you do too. And you know who she works for.”
Leader Allen may know who they are, but I don’t. The only thing I recognize is the name Rosalie Toussaint. That’s Candace’s mother. She had been in personal service to Leader Allen, which meant she attended his private prayer sessions. That’s why everyone assumed Candace would follow suit, until she ran away.
And I was the one chosen to substitute.
True believers have to give all their worldly goods to the community. The fact that Rosalie Toussaint had a lawyer means she might have held something back.
Leader Allen’s gravelly voice rings out. “I always knew you had the devil in you, girl.”
He’s talking to Candace. She’s the one who tempts men to sin. She probably tempted the man in the dark gray suit to sin. That’s why he came here on her behalf. Maybe there are benefits to sin. Protection.
The men drop their voices, and even with the crack in the door I can’t make out their words. All I can hear is the menace between them, the threats in the air.
One of the men says, “Maybe you don’t care about your own life, but I’m sure you care about your flock.”
If I needed any assurance that these men aren’t here to save me, this is it. We’re not people to protect. Not women to sin with, like Candace. We’re collateral.
Leader Allen laughs. “Take them then. Kill them. Fuck them.”
I gasp, stepping back from the door. These men are here to hurt us.
And Leader Allen doesn’t care.
Even while I hoped and wished for a prince, I knew he wasn’t real. So I listened very carefully whenever the men discussed guns. I watched behind the wheat shed while they taught the boys to shoot.
And when no one was looking I hid a rifle away.
It only takes me a second to retrieve it from under the floorboard in the pantry. Then I’m back in front of the office, nudging the door open with the butt of the gun. It takes both my arms to hold it up, but my aim is steady. Right behind the desk.
I pull back the hammer.
Candace whirls to face me, her pretty blue eyes widening. “You don’t want to do this,” she says. “He’s not your enemy.”
Who does she mean, Leader Allen? Or the man with dark green eyes? Either way she’s wrong. They’re all my enemies. My prince isn’t coming. I need to do this myself.
> “I have to. This is my only chance. Move out of the way.”
I step sideways so I can hit Leader Allen without hurting anyone else. I take my aim—
“Sarah Elizabeth. Don’t.” Candace pushes the rifle toward the wall. Why does she want to protect him? Doesn’t she know what he did to me?
My gaze meets hers, and I see the worry. She knows. And she’s trying to—what? Protect me? To keep me from becoming a murderer? In a flash of morbid humor I realize that she might be my prince, after all. Kind and good. Blonde and beautiful.
“That’s right, girl,” Leader Allen says to Candace. “You wouldn’t kill your father, would you?”
Her father? She looks as shocked as me. As sickened.
Leader Allen groomed her to take her mother’s place—and all the while he knew he was her father? I’m not sure how it’s possible, because Rosalie Toussaint already had a little girl when she came to live in Harmony Hills. Anything could have happened before that. And it doesn’t really matter, because whether or not he’s her father—he deserves to die. For hurting her.
For hurting me.
I raise the rifle, almost toppling over at its weight. Then someone touches me—the man with green eyes. He puts his hand on my shoulder, turning me around. And every time I’ve ever been held down on the prayer mat, every time I’ve ever knelt on dry rice comes back to me. My finger closes on the trigger in dark reflex.