His sister shot him a withering look, embarrassed by his insinuation that she needed a babysitter.
“We have no idea how long the tests will take,” Cain explained, and Dane resented that a stranger had more information than him about his grandmother’s situation. “Your grandmother wants you to come with me for the time being.” He playfully yanked on Cybil’s blonde ponytail. “Have you ever been on a farm?”
She looked up at him with big eyes and smiled as she shook her head. Dane rolled his eyes at such blind adoration.
“You’re going to love it. There are all kinds of animals and plenty of other kids your age.”
Her grin stretched and Dane scoffed. Why was everyone simply accepting this guy’s presence? And the other one, Jonas, was even weirder. “We have to bring Colby, you know.”
“That’s fine. Colby will love the farm.”
Dane packed in silence and seethed at his lack of control over the situation. He might just be a kid but he suspected something wasn’t right.
Cain carried Cybil’s bag to the door and she followed him like a stray. Dane looked around the bedroom, fearful he might never see it again. It wasn’t even his room, yet it held the only keepsakes they had left from his parents.
He paused from zipping his bag and went to the pile of cardboard boxes stacked in the corner. Digging through worthless baseball cards and forgotten video games, he fished around the bottom, his fingers sifting through loose LEGO pieces until his hand closed around the smooth photo album.
The first page opened with the creak of dry, rotted plastic. There, in a faded picture, was his mother in a hospital gown holding him the day he was born. He ran his finger over the vellum covering.
She looked like she just battled on the front lines of a war, but her smile was victorious. He always loved this picture. His mother was strong, and he could see it in the way she slouched with exhaustion but still held him protectively in her arms. He could also see her softness in her eyes.
He flipped the next few pages and found pictures of himself blowing out candles on his first birthday cake, his first day of kindergarten, him smiling proudly with his missing tooth. He continued to turn pages until he reached the empty ones. There was so much space left to fill, but hardly any family left.
Emptiness occupied him in a familiar ache that might never leave. He shut the book and stashed it securely in his backpack before zipping it tight.
He suffered the same intuitive nausea he’d experienced the day his father died and again on the night they searched the woods for his mom. His grandmother’s health was in rapid decline. No matter what tests they ran, there wasn’t much hope. They assumed they had months, but now he wondered if they even had days.
“Dane?”
He faced the man with a distrustful glare but found himself at the stranger’s mercy. “She’s going to die, isn’t she?”
Cain sighed. “No one knows how this night will end or what tomorrow will bring. We can only hope that things work out for the best.”
Resentment weighed heavily on his shoulders as he lifted his backpack and shut out the light. He didn’t want to go to some farm and he didn’t want to stay with people he didn’t know. He wanted his mother back and to hear his sister’s voice again, but those dreams would never be answered. So, he did the only thing he could and, holding his sister’s hand, followed the strange man.
Chapter 38
Larissa’s heart raced as Silus’s rough hand covered her mouth with crushing force and silenced her scream.
“You must be pretty satisfied with yourself. Vainly parading about as if you’ve been given your due. Well, what about me, Larissa? Where is my due? What do I get for the time I wasted on you?”
Her mind screamed for Eleazar, but all thoughts scattered as Silus smashed her against the wall, pressing his body hard against hers and hissing in her ear. “Do you know the shame you’ve brought to my family name?”
The frantic breath pumping from her nose beat against his clenched fingers and her jaw throbbed beneath his punishing grip. His arm banded around her waist, cinching painfully against her ribs and causing the bone to splinter against her lungs. She gurgled and struggled to break free as he tried to suffocate her—his strength had always been greater.
His fury exploded as he slammed her head into the wall. “You’re an abomination, no better than the Whore of Babylon. Tell me, Larissa, is it as Ezekiel says in the Bible? Did the bishop touch you with the flesh lengthened to that of a mule? Were his emissions like those of a horse as he rutted into you, a married woman who vowed her life to another male?”