The Forsaken (The Chosen Series Book 2) Page 2

  “You know.” He took a sip of coffee. “Dreams can seem incredibly real. And they’re fueled by our imagination. After you were born, I had nightmares about you chasing after me like a Chucky doll. Bloody knife and all.” He put his hands in the air zombie-like. “Blake, how could you leave me? I’m gonna kill you,” he said spookily.

  “That wasn’t a dream. That was for real.” Luna laughed. “Only not until I was a teenager. I didn’t know you, but you weren’t exactly my favorite person.”

  “You hated me, didn’t you?” He shifted in his wheelchair. “It’s okay. You can say it. I deserve it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.” She looked away.

  “It’s okay.” He put a hand on hers. “I messed up. With you and your mother.”

  She didn’t know what to say. The un-comfortability level had shot through the roof.

  “Hey, CeeCee-Bear. Wanna cup of coffee?” Blake said, glancing in the direction of the doorway.

  “Stop it, Daddy.” CeeCee giggled as she toddled over in her pink nightie and fluffy slippers to her daddy and crawled onto his lap.

  “I can’t drink coffee. It’ll make me a misfit.”

  “That’s midget, baby.” Blake laughed. “And I was just teasing you. It won’t really stunt your growth.”

  Luna’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her back pocket and checked the screen. It was Jonathan.

  “I better take this.” She ruffled CeeCee’s hair and then headed to the make-shift guest room, formally CeeCee’s bedroom. CeeCee had been excited to be able to share a room with her older sister, Bella. Only Bella hadn’t shown the same enthusiasm.

  “Hey, Jon, what’s up?” she answered.

  “I was just wondering if you changed your mind and decided to come home this weekend?” He sounded lonely.

  “You miss me, don’t you?” She missed him, too.

  “Yeah. I am sorry, I took my stress out on you. I shouldn’t have—"

  “Jonathan, you have told me that a million times. I get it. I understand that this is all so strange for you. Believe me, I do. When I was with... your people, I was completely lost. It will just take time.”

  “Will you come home then?”

  Luna smiled. She was ready to go back. She just wasn’t sure how she was going to tell her father - Blake. “How’s the job search going?” she asked.

  “I have a second interview on Monday with Two Cousin’s Moving Company. They seem interested.”

  “That’s great, Jonathan. Things are looking up already.”

  “Will you come home? I really want you to.”

  “Okay, I will.” She’d already been thinking about it, but it was good to hear him say it. “Just give me a couple of days to break it to my dad. He kinda planned for me to stay the entire summer.”

  “You want me to talk to him?”

  “No! Please!” The thought of Jonathan telling her father she'd rather be with him was creepy at best. “I’ll talk to him myself. I promise I will be on a flight this weekend.”

  “I love you, Luna.”

  Luna’s heart swelled at the words. Just five months prior, he had been about to say it, or at least she’d thought, but she’d interrupted him. After the accident that took their friend's life, and almost theirs as well, Luna learned to never take life for granted. She’d been lucky to have a second chance after almost becoming the fourth wife to a forty-five-year-old man.

  “I love you, too, Jonathan. I’ll see you this weekend.”

  Chapter 3 ―Daniel

  Bored out of his skull, young Daniel Ross snuck up to his father’s office door, lifted the long red robe that fell at his feet, and sat in the hallway outside his father’s office to listen in.

  At eleven-years-old, he was bored out of his mind. After his lessons were over, he spent hours upon hours of nothing but watching television and building Lego castles and it became tiring. A person could only watch so many Star Trek movie marathons before going completely insane. Not that he didn’t like watching television. He did. It was the one thing that transported him away from his boring life as the son of the High Prophet.

  Since he was forbidden to leave the house with the exception of the enclosed back yard, he had resorted to sneaking around and eavesdropping on his father. That was where he’d learned about the goings-on in the community he was allowed no contact with. Not for two more years. On his thirteenth birthday, he would be ‘announced’ to the community at The Ceremony of Rites. Until then, he was to be hidden away. To an eleven-year-old boy, two years was a lifetime away.

  “You must find them!” his father boomed, startling Daniel.

  Daniel jumped to his feet and glanced around the hallway. No one was around. He moved closer to the door.

  “I have looked. I cannot find them, High Prophet.” the man answered with a tremor in his voice. “Jacob is dead. That I have confirmed. But Jonathan and the girl, they have disappeared.”

  Daniel couldn’t see who his father was speaking to. The door was open, but from the angle he stood, it blocked his view. He crept closer. As he peeked around the side of the door, he got a glimpse of the other man. Unlike him and his father, who wore only robes, the man wore the same attire he’d seen Elder Aaron wear when he reported to his father about the goings-on of the community.

  The man’s left eye twitched as he spoke to the High Prophet. Just like Elder Aaron, the man wore a long, fuzzy beard, yet his hair was cut short and neat. Daniel pulled at his own long lock of hair tied neatly into a braid down his back. For centuries, not one of the men in his family had gotten a single hair cut since birth. It was their birthright. What good it was, Daniel did not know.

  “This is your doing, Naaman! You are the one who brought that demon in to wreak havoc on our community! God is not pleased with you!” His father boomed. “You must fix this.”

  “High Prophet, if I may speak freely?"

  "Speak!"

  "Sir, if you hadn't insisted I take the girl as a wife, I dare say none of this would have happened."

  "As I told you before, it was the only way to keep her from running back to the police. Once she conceived-"

  "I agreed to the marriage after you showed me the proof of her mother's death, but I did not know your plans of deception, and that her mother still lives. Why would you have me participate in such a -"

  "Are you questioning your God, brother Naaman?" The High Prophet stood and leaned in on his desk.

  "I do not believe God would ask His people to partake in a lie." Naaman stood his ground. Daniel had never seen anyone stand up so boldly to his father. "And although I agreed to wed her, I would have never consummated such a marriage."

  "You dare speak to me in such a way? Shall you be the first grown man in five generations of Chosen to be fleshed-out? Is one girl worth losing your family over?" He sat back into his chair. "Elder Aaron would be happy for the addition to his own family."

  Naaman's shoulders slumped. He had given in. "No, High Prophet. That is not my wish."

  “Then Naaman!” The High Prophet slapped his hand loudly on the desk. “Find them!”

  “Yes, High Prophet. I shall find them.” As the man bowed before the High Prophet, Daniel could feel the fear and tension that radiated from him. He was right to be fearful. The High Prophet would not hesitate to throw Naaman or anyone else out of the community. Even his own family members were not safe from his wrath.

  “Now!” his father shouted, and Daniel jumped about as high as Naaman did.

  Naaman’s body shook as he turned and rushed to the door. Daniel backed away quickly and ran around the corner to hide. It would not do for the man to see him.

  As he passed by, Daniel thought about the incident that happened only half a year before. Another man was brought in to see his father. No, he was more like a boy. Jacob was his name. Daniel had snuck in that day as well and watched as his father spoke to him. Daniel hadn’t understood most of the conversation, but the look in the boy’s eyes when he passed by had h
aunted Daniel. Had he been the same boy they were discussing? Was Jacob dead? Surely there was more than one Jacob in a community of over a thousand. Still, he could not shake the look he’d seen in the boy’s eyes. The same look of terror that every person had when standing before the High Prophet. Daniel rushed down the hall back to his bedroom.

  “Come, son. It is time for our noon meal,” Daniel’s mother, Eve, said from behind, startling him.

  “Yes, Mother.” He followed, relieved she hadn’t witnessed him spying on his father again. She’d already reprimanded him several times for the act, but Daniel knew she would not tell his father.

  “Josephine has fixed your favorite. Grilled cheese and homemade chicken noodle soup.”

  After what he’d just witnessed, Daniel wasn’t hungry, but he smiled anyway and followed his mother to the dining room.

  As they sat down at the grand table, Daniel stared at the chandelier above them in deep thought. Dare he ask his mother about the conversation he’d overheard? It hadn’t really been a conversation, but more like a reprimand. But that was how it always went with his father.

  As Josephine brought in the noon meal, she bowed to him and his mother. He hated that she was so formal around his parents. He’d known her from birth, and many times she had been like a mother to him, making his favorite meals, telling him stories of her own life and her three children in the outside world, baking sweet desserts. But around the adults, she was different. Stiff. Almost fearful.

  “Thank you, Josephine. You may be excused,” his mother said.

  The woman bowed and left the room.

  “Mother,” Daniel posed as he picked up his spoon. “Remember those kids who ran away. You know, the ones who died in the accident.”

  She picked up her own spoon and stirred her soup as steam rolled out. “I have no idea who you could be speaking about,” she said, refusing to look at him. Instead, she steadily stirred her soup.

  “You know, Mother. The ones who stole the vehicle and broke through the front gate. Whatever happened to them?” He wasn’t going to let her off easy. She knew exactly who he was talking about.

  “Oh, those ones?” Still, she did not raise her head. “The High Prophet proclaimed them dead, remember?”

  High Prophet was always what she called him. They did not have pet names like the mothers and fathers on the television shows he watched. He’d never really found it strange before now. It was just how they were. But that day, something about the distant term bothered him.

  He evaluated her words carefully. The High Prophet had proclaimed them dead. What exactly did that mean? The mere fact that his mother refused to look at him when she spoke of it, made him wonder what she was hiding. She’d never been able to easily hide her emotions.

  “Why was there no ceremony?” He casually took a sip of his soup as if it was an everyday conversation. “There is always a ceremony to honor the dead.”

  Daniel had been to each ceremony, honoring the dead, for as long as he could remember. To say it was the joy of his life would be wrong, but it was the only time he was allowed out of his confines. Even then, he was shrouded in veils so no one would see him. He was to remain a mystery until his unveiling in two years. He had no idea why. It was just how things were done. How they had always been done. The one time he’d question it, his father had reprimanded him, saying he was the first to ever question the traditions of the High Prophet in centuries. Properly scolded, Daniel never asked again.

  “Eat your soup, Daniel.” She glanced up at him, and her eyes revealed a sadness he’d seen many times before. “Before it gets cold.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  The conversation was over. She would speak of it no more. Daniel could have pressed the issue, but it would do no good. His mother would not speak of anything that would look bad on his father. Daniel finished his noon meal in silence.

  Just after lunch, Daniel went to the small schoolroom where he would continue his study in Prophets of the Old Testament. His instructor would be there shortly to test him on his knowledge.

  As he sat down at the desk, he opened his notebook. Inside, he had written down the entire lineage from the Old Testament Prophet Daniel to his grandfather and then down to him. He was in the direct ancestry of Daniel, the one who was thrown into captivity by Babylon in 605 B.C. when he was only a boy, himself. The most courageous. He stood up to King Nebuchadnezzar and did not falter. Even when they pitched him into the lion’s pit, he remained faithful.

  His teacher, a wiry old man named Luke Gates, entered the room. “Blessed morning, Young Prophet Daniel.”

  It was already after noon, but Daniel did not argue. The man was very old. He’d been the very one to train his father. And his father had trained Daniel’s grandfather. Luke was the only one to ever give him the premature title of prophet.

  “Blessed morning, Luke.” Although titles were important, from the time he was able to speak, Daniel had called the man by his first name.

  “Are you ready for your lessons?” he asked as he sat across from Daniel.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where were we, then?”

  The lesson, though different each time, always began the same.

  “Babylon,” Daniel said.

  “The English, they are Babylon,” the old man chanted in a gruff voice. “If you do not keep the whole word of God . . .”

  “Babylon shall overtake you,” Daniel finished. The words were drilled into his brain.

  “And why is that?”

  “The Israelites were disobedient. That was why God allowed them to be overtaken.”

  “You must not falter in the word of God,” the old man started.

  “Therefore, be diligent in keeping His laws.” Daniel finished.

  “Let us begin our lesson.”

  DANIEL FLIPPED THROUGH the stations of his television. Out of over a hundred cable network channels, there was not a single thing worth watching.

  How to reduce wrinkles and Three steps to a healthier you did not interest him. Infomercials. He’d seen them all.

  Daniel got up from his beanbag chair on the floor and flipped off the television. Maybe there was something better going on in his father’s office.

  He crept quietly back to the room. The sound of his father’s voice echoed down the long corridor. “. . . and I have the English police coming right in and questioning the members of my community.”

  “There is nothing to be done about that. Just keep a low profile, and they will eventually go away.”

  As soon as Daniel heard the response, he knew the familiar voice of the man his father was speaking to. One who looked nothing like the people of the community but one Daniel had seen often. Even from behind, his dark wayward hair and his creased button-down shirt tucked neatly into his dress pants was proof of who he was. Marcus Commons was another permanent fixture in Daniel’s life. He was a cool guy who often snuck candy and other goodies to Daniel while his parents weren’t looking. Although he would never say so, Daniel got the idea Marcus felt sorry for him.

  “What will it take to find them, Marcus?” his father asked. “Naaman will not do the job properly. He is weak. I am in need of someone who is not afraid to do the job right.

  “What exactly do you want me to do? You want them brought back here? To you?”

  “I want them gone. Done away with. Dead.”

  At his father’s words, Daniel crept closer. Dead? He would have them murdered?

  “I will see what I can find on them,” Marcus said.

  “Yes, you do that,” the High Prophet huffed. “And what about Rachel? What have you found out about her?”

  “She is alive. She was apparently picked up on the side of the road and taken into a woman's home. Her name is Shelly. Shelly Newton.”

  “How did this happen? She was supposed to die in the desert.”

  “Maybe your god had other plans,” Marcus mocked.

  “Do not start with me, Marcus. Find her and get rid of
her as well.”

  “Daniel, do you not understand how dangerous this is? You risk placing your entire community in danger.”

  The man never spoke to Daniel’s father with the respect others did. He was an outsider. Daniel was not sure what his purpose there was, but he was certainly not Chosen.

  “Marcus!” The High Prophet roared as he slammed a hand on his desk. His face turned several hues before finishing off with a dark shade of candy-apple red. Daniel took a step back. “Do I need to find someone else? Someone who will do the job without question?”

  “I’m just saying, if this comes back to you, the entire—”

  “Marcus!”

  “Fine. But I won’t go down for this.”

  “If you do it right, you won’t have to.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Daniel. I'm not one of your servants, and I'm not your henchman either. I do not believe that killing a bunch of wayward teenagers has ever been in my job description. I will not be—”

  “Take care of it, or I will find someone else to do it. End of conversation.”

  Young Daniel peeked around the door to get another look at his father. The High Prophet’s eyes were like fire. His mouth was so pursed together that his bottom lip had completely disappeared. He’d been pushed to his limit.

  “Find someone else.” Marcus threw up his hands. “I have done your dirty deeds long enough. Murder was never in the contract.” As the man turned, Daniel scooted back. “Hire a contract killer. I won’t be a part of it.”

  Yes! Daniel punched a quiet fist in the air. Finally, someone brave enough to stand up to his father.

  The man rushed out the door so quickly that Daniel had to scurry backward so as not to be seen.

  Daniel sprinted down the hall and into the corridor leading to the dining room. Shaking and out of breath, he peeked back around the corner. Marcus stormed off in the opposite direction. Daniel stopped and leaned against the wall. Shocked and completely out of breath, it took him a moment to notice the click sound in the wall next to him.