Struck (29 page)

It doesn’t matter anymore. This is a safe place. You don’t have to hide what you are here
.

“Where am I?” I asked Prophet.

“I brought you to my house,” he said.

“Oh … why?”

“Because you’re special. Unique. And I have need of you.”

“What about my mom?” I asked, remembering how
Prophet’s lips had touched hers and how he had held her and kept her by his side. “Where is she?”
And Jeremy
, I wondered,
where had he gone?

Prophet smiled, showing milk-white teeth. “I brought your mother here. I thought you’d want to see her when you woke up. She’s a wonderful woman, Mia. I grew very fond of her while you were sleeping. She told me about you. It turns out we have something in common, you and me.”

He uncrossed his legs and began unbuttoning his shirt cuffs. I watched him with my brow wrinkled. Prophet pushed his sleeves to his elbows. Then he held up his arms, palms facing me. Lightning scars bloomed on his palms like fireworks, tendrils descending over his wrists.

“You have them, too,” I said, breathless.

“They are a gift from God. A mark that we are meant to do His good work here on earth, and of the power He has bestowed upon us.”

I thought of the lightning scars stretching to cover my whole skin, and felt a warm glow in my chest.

“How many times have you been struck?” I asked, excited now.

Prophet’s smile faltered, and I knew I’d said something wrong. “Three times,” he said.

“Oh.”

He brought back the smile, though now it stayed below his eyes. “But you, Mia … you’ve been struck countless times. That’s what your mother tells me.”

I nodded, lowering my eyes. I wanted to be humble. So what if I had been struck more times than Prophet. He was
Prophet
. He was God’s mouthpiece.

“You have great power, Mia,” Prophet said. “That is not something to be ashamed of. Not unless you use that power for the wrong purposes.”

I drew in a deep breath and let it out and raised my eyes to meet Prophet’s. “I’ve hurt people,” I said.

“Yes, your mother told me that, too. And I saw it.”

“You … you saw what happened … on the bridge?”

“I can see inside you, Mia. Inside your mind. Your mother didn’t need to tell me anything about you. I know it all. But you didn’t mean to do what you did. You didn’t know how to control the power God had given you. It is, perhaps, too great for you to control. That’s why you need someone like me … to harness that power. To put it to good use.”

I nodded. It was true. I needed to be controlled. I needed Prophet.

“How do you know so much?” I lowered my eyes in shame. “Are you like Mr. Kale?” I figured he knew who Mr. Kale was if he really did know everything about me.

Prophet grimaced in distaste, but nodded slightly. “Our power is similar, yes.”

Thinking of Mr. Kale, I remembered what he told me about his sister. Katrina’s mother. Had Prophet really murdered her? No, I decided. Mr. Kale must have lied. Prophet was good, and I felt safe with him.

Another twinge of anxiety. If Mr. Kale was a liar, and Parker had become a Seeker … then my brother was on the wrong side.

Prophet watched me, and I felt that nagging, buzzing pressure in my mind.

When you see your brother again, things will be different between you
, Prophet’s voice informed me.
He is no longer your brother. You have a new family, now. A family of people just like you
.

I shook my head. Shook it because old Mia was inside me still, and she was trying to wake up, to assert control, and she was giving me a not good feeling in my stomach.

“You know I’m right, don’t you, Mia?” Prophet said. “Your brother has gone against God’s will. Against His plan. The world must be cleansed and remade in goodness and light, and your brother and the Seekers would try to prevent that.” Prophet paused and cocked his head, seeming to listen to a voice only he could hear.

God speaks to him
, I thought.

Prophet shook his head sadly. “Your brother is now the enemy. He is lost to you.”

My breath caught in my throat. “No …” I shook my head. “No! No, no, no.”

“Yes,” Prophet said.
Yes. He betrayed you, abandoned you. He rejected you because of who you are, what you are
.

Old Mia stirred inside me. She didn’t like what was happening, didn’t like what Prophet was saying about Parker. She didn’t like it at all.

The peaceful feeling I’d had upon waking was getting chopped up. Old Mia was ruining it. She was coming back, and she was angry. The warm light of God in my heart was now burning with fury.

“You’re upset,” Prophet said.

“You think?” I snarled.

Prophet stood and leaned over me in the bed.

“Parker didn’t betray me. He was only doing what he thought was right.” I shrank from Prophet, but there was
nowhere to hide. He placed his hands on my head, and I felt him like the light of God shining down on me. Immediately I calmed.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I gave you a blessing.”

“Thank you. I feel better now.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “It’s time for breakfast, and I’d like you to meet your new family.” He stood. “I will leave you to freshen up. Come downstairs to the dining room when you’re ready. Take as much time as you need. But not too much.” He smiled. “There really isn’t much time left.”

When I was alone again, I climbed out of bed and opened the sliding glass door to go out onto the balcony. The air was cool and smelled of brine and salt and all things ocean. My skin prickled painfully with warning. I could feel the storm beginning to take shape now, to condense as it gathered strength. I felt I should be concerned, but … I wasn’t.

If it is God’s will that a storm should come to Los Angeles, then so be it
.

I leaned against the balcony railing and stared out at the beach. I knew where I was now: in one of the luxurious Santa Monica beach houses that stood on the sand along the Pacific Coast Highway. Peering down over the iron railing, I counted three stories below me and whistled through my teeth. A four-story beach house … that was one pricey piece of real estate, probably worth millions. Then again, property values had decreased since the quake, and beach houses were probably going for less these days,
considering Tentville now stood between them and the ocean.

In the fuzzy morning light, figures scurried among the tents on the beach, tending fires and cooking breakfast in skillets over hot coals. To the south I could see the Santa Monica Pier, shrouded in mist. And I could see the White Tent where Prophet’s revival had taken place. When had that been? Last night? It seemed like ages ago. Time was different after a full night’s sleep. I felt like I had missed something important, slept through a vital scene in the movie. But that was okay. Prophet’s blessing had set me right, made me a new person.

There was an unopened toothbrush and a fresh tube of toothpaste waiting for me in the bathroom, along with shampoo and conditioner, and a stack of fluffy white towels.

I brushed my teeth, and then stripped off my clothes for a quick shower. I cranked the cold water and let it run icy, examining myself in the mirror. In the white bathroom, the lightning scars appeared redder than ever, red as blood, but that was okay. Prophet had them, too, although not as many. He didn’t like that I’d been struck more times than he had. I didn’t like that I’d made him envious. If being struck was a gift from God, that meant God had favored me more than Prophet … that didn’t make sense.

Don’t think about it
.

Fifteen minutes later, I was showered and dressed in Followers’ white once again. I wished I had a change of clothes. There were smudgy dark fingerprints on my sleeves from where that man on the beach had held me, telling me … what had he said? Something about love?

Don’t think about it
.

Yes, it was better that way. Thoughts could be dangerous if you thought the wrong ones, and I had been thinking the wrong ones for a lifetime. But Prophet helped me think the right thoughts. He was like Mr. Kale, only better in every way, because Prophet knew God’s plan, and he could guide me.

Now I felt calm … the kind of calm that came after a storm.

Or was it before?

I left the fourth-floor bedroom and headed down several flights of stairs until I got to the first floor, where I heard classical music and voices.

The smell of food was like walking into a bakery first thing in the morning. My stomach made its presence known with loud rumbles. I followed the music and the voices and the food smells until I came to a room with a soaring, thirty-foot ceiling and glass walls that looked out on a view of water and more water, like we were on a boat at sea. All I could see of Tentville was hazy columns of smoke rising into the air.

There was an enormous fireplace with a crackling fire burning, and a notched wooden table that extended nearly the entire length of the room. Like the Last Supper table, I thought, complete with Apostles. Twelve of them. I recognized them from TV, and from the Rove and the revival, although now the sight of them did not fill me with trepidation. The twins with their pale hair and bald eyes sat shoulder to shoulder. The boy smiled. The girl did not.

Prophet sat at the head of the table, but he was turned toward a woman with dark blond hair that fell forward to conceal her face. Not an Apostle. Prophet’s hand lay over hers, stroking softly. When I entered, the woman turned her head to look at me. She smiled when she saw me, and even with the scars that lashed her face she looked strangely beautiful, like a wounded angel in her loose white linen dress.

“Mia,” she said, and stood, and came to me. She took my hands. For a long moment we only looked into each other’s eyes. Then she pulled me into a tight embrace.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Mom said. “I’m so
happy
. I never thought I could feel like this. So … at peace.”

“Me, too,” I said. Over Mom’s shoulder I could see Prophet and his Apostles watching us. There was one Apostle in particular who caught my attention. He had dark hair, neatly parted and held behind his ears; dark-lashed blue eyes. It took me a moment to recognize him without his Clark Kent glasses, but once I did I inhaled sharply, as though a fist had rammed into my stomach.

The missing twelfth Apostle.

Jeremy. The Judas. The Betrayer.

But who had he betrayed, Prophet or me?

“Mia, is something wrong?” Mom asked, feeling me tense. She released me and held me back.

“Jeremy,” I said. “What are you doing here?” That question again, the one I was forever asking him.

“I brought you here,” he answered. “Father wanted you, and I brought you to him.”

Prophet put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “You never disappoint me, son.”

“Thank you, Father.”

Prophet stood. “Children,” he said, “let us welcome Mia into our fold. God has chosen her, as He chose you, and has gifted her with His power … a power we need to carry out the plan God imparted to me. Mia Price will complete our circle as our thirteenth Apostle.”

The she-twin twisted toward Prophet. “But, Father … thirteen! It’s an unholy number! And she …” The girl’s eyes cut toward me. “She is not yet proven. How do you know she can be trusted?”

Prophet smiled kindly at the girl, but his white eyes had narrowed slightly. “Iris,” he said, “when did I lose your faith?”

The she-twin, Iris, went stiff in her chair, as though overcome by sudden paralysis. “You have my faith, Father,” she murmured.

Prophet looked over the rest of the Apostles. “We do not fear a number, even the number thirteen. A number has no power. The power is in our hands.”

He held up his hands, showing the bursts of lightning scars on his palms.

“The power is in our hands,” the Apostles agreed in unison. Each Apostle touched his or her right hand to a different place on the body. Iris placed her right hand on top of her head. Her twin pressed his to his left shoulder. Jeremy touched his heart. I caught him looking at me again, but this time his gaze narrowed a sliver as he searched my face.

“The power is in our hands, and with our hands we do the work of God,” Prophet said.

“The power is in our hands, and with our hands we do the work of God,” the Apostles parroted.

Iris, still with her hand resting on top of her head, looked at me. “Where did God’s Light enter you?” she asked, her tone still laced with a hint of bitterness, a drop of poison.

I shook my head, confused. “God’s Light?” I asked.

“Lightning.”

My eyes went wide. “You’ve all been struck?”

“We’ve been
chosen
,” Iris said. “Chosen by God.”

The he-twin nodded. “God sent His holy Light to endow us with His power, so that we could carry out His plan. He gave each of us a gift.”

“You mean the Spark?” I ventured.

The Apostles glanced at one another, frowning and furrowing brows, shaking their heads, muttering. I had said something wrong again. I tried not to acknowledge my growing frustration, but it was there. These Apostles were ruining my peace.

“Hush, children,” Prophet said. “Mia is new to our fold. She will learn.” He looked at me. “Mia, sit with us. I will explain.”

I did as I was told, taking the open seat at his left, while Mom returned to the seat on his right. Prophet turned toward me. As with Jeremy, I could feel Prophet’s Spark—or whatever they called it—without touching him, like standing near a fire.

A holy fire.

“Mia,” Prophet said, “you have had encounters with the Seekers. I know this.”

I lowered my eyes. There was no sense denying it. Prophet had seen inside my mind … he must know. “Yes,” I admitted.

More muttering from the Apostles, but Prophet silenced them with the slightest raising of his hand.

“So you know their aim,” Prophet said. “To defy God’s will, that the earth be torn asunder and then made anew in peace and beauty. To destroy our hope for a New Eden.”

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“The Seekers would see the world continue to rot, until there is nothing left of it but a black, moldering cancer. A disease without cure. But we have the cure, Mia, and it must be applied now, before it’s too late.”