It wasn’t really a lie. Pastor Mike had said that every deed done in support of the Heavenly Kingdom was an act of prayer.

Gwendolyn Marion frowned back at her daughter. She was a stern woman, with a broad Germanic face and dirty blond hair pulled back into a severe bun. Faint crow’s feet trickled out from her eyes, but those were from choice rather than time’s formerly inevitable march. Gwendolyn was the chief of surgery at Annapolis General Hospital. She’d been taking JuvEn treatments since she was twenty. She’d only decided to let the crow’s feet through once Sasha had turned seventeen.

“You can pray as much as you want, honey. But right now it’s dinner time and this is something we do as a family.”

Sasha thought JuvEn was unnatural. Heretical. God had created each human to age a certain way. Using science to disrupt that natural process was an act of blasphemy. She yearned to say something cutting, hurtful in response, but she fought it down.

“You don’t have to obey your father and mother, if they try to keep you out of the Kingdom of Heaven,” words from one of Paster Mike’s weekly ’casts rang in her ears, “but the Lord God still calls on us to respect our parents.” He’d added that well-behaved kids were the ones who caused the least suspicion, and had the best chance of successful escape.

“Yes, ma’am,” was all she said as the family settled into their chairs.

Her brother Ian was just five and unusually quiet for his age. He smiled at her as their father doled him out an enchilada.

“Sash’, who’s Alexander?” he asked, and Sasha felt the blood run out of her face.

Their father, Tony, smiled wryly at the remark as he spooned a proportionally larger serving onto his own plate.

“Alexander, huh? Maybe this means another boyfriend. It’s been, what, four years?”

Tony had opted for fewer cosmetic JuvEn treatments than his wife. Sasha loved her father’s receding hairline, his slight jowls, his graying hair. He was still a heretic, but at least he wasn’t a vain one.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Dad. Just a boy I talk with sometimes. We pray together.”

Gwendolyn rolled her eyes a little.

“Such an exciting adolescence you’re having,” she said. Sarcasm swelled every word. Sasha didn’t rise to the bait. Her self-control was iron now. She wouldn’t give them any cause to worry or call the authorities. It was better, even, for them to think Alexander was some boy from school. If they thought her principles were thawing, they’d be less likely to suspect what she had planned.

The Marion family ate companionably for several minutes. Tony talked about some “cockeyed nut” who’d come into his office at ­Deutsche Bank looking for a loan.