“Admitting fear is the first step to conquering it. You don’t strike me as someone who wants to live in fear, Miss Marion. You do strike me as someone who seeks control. Strength. Power over your own life.”

“I…” she sputtered, “I don’t know. A week ago I’d have told you God was in control of my life.” Sasha looked down at her lap, suddenly embarrassed. “It wasn’t very long ago but it feels like a lifetime. It was so peaceful, just handing over control.”

Jim nodded and leaned his head forward a few inches.

“That didn’t end well though, did it?”

Sasha shook her head.

“You traveled to the Heavenly Kingdom with a certain set of beliefs about the universe. Those beliefs met reality. Reality broke them into little pieces. There’s no shame in that. It happens to all of us. Now you’re a bit older and a few bits wiser.”

She looked up at him. His smile seemed somehow softer now. She felt like opening up, confiding in this stranger. Sasha wondered if that was another aspect of his modifications, some alteration of his body chemistry and physical appearance that allowed him to seem more familiar and trustworthy to her. She opened up anyway.

“I just don’t know what to do now. I guess I could go home but I don’t think I was wrong in leaving home. I don’t want a life in the American Federation. I know that. I just…”

“You don’t know what’s right,” Jim finished, in a voice that was gentler than she would of guessed he was capable of sounding.

She nodded as she struggled for her next words.

“I know I can’t go back. I don’t know where to go next. I don’t have any money, or really any useful skills, so I can’t go to California or Cascadia. I doubt this place will take me,” she gestured down at the rolling city below them, “and even if they would, I don’t really feel comfortable here either.”

“Mmmh,” Jim nodded, and leaned back. “Perhaps,” he said, “you should worry less about where you want to end up and more about what you want to end up doing.”

“I don’t have any options,” Sasha said, fighting down a rising panic that tickled the back of her throat. “I didn’t even finish high school. I’ve spent the last two years preparing to join the Kingdom. I don’t know how to do anything useful.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jim said in a firm voice. “You lied well enough to hide your intention from your parents and AmFed law enforcement. You did that for years.”

Sasha wanted to argue that she hadn’t lied, not according to Pastor Mike’s definition of the word. But she stayed silent while he spoke.