Please, Graham. Please. Be careful. Be successful.

Her heart sank when there was a furor out in the common area. She could hear Joshua’s voice. And Graham’s. Neither sounded happy.

The curtain ripped back. Joshua had Graham by the collar and was shaking him. Bruises were forming on Graham’s face and Hayley wanted to kill Joshua, too.

But all she could do was watch helplessly.

“Take him away,” Rebecca cried, waving her hands. “He reeks.”

“On purpose,” Joshua growled. “He was up there, in the rocks . . . I’m still not sure what he was doing. He had a computer. He somehow smuggled a computer into the compound.”

Rebecca’s shock was genuine. “What? How?”

“It’s not mine,” Graham shouted. “I keep telling you. It’s the healer’s. It’s Pastor’s.” Graham’s voice was carrying and already the membership was gathering beyond the curtain. Which, Hayley figured, was Graham’s intent, because Joshua was shaking him again, snarling at him to be quiet.

Graham was having none of it. There was desperation in his expression, in his voice, in the way he held his body rigid, fists clenched at his sides. He knew he was no physical match.

He was hoping for someone in the community to have the courage to stand with him.

“They hid this technology from you!” Graham continued to yell.

Joshua clamped a big hand over Graham’s nose and mouth, and Hayley struggled to get up. The bastard wasn’t trying to quiet Graham. He was trying to smother him.

“Get your fucking hands off him!” Hayley yelled. “He’s telling the truth. I saw the computer in the healer’s office at the last site. Stop! You’re going to kill him!”

“Brother Joshua.” It was Isaac, their mother’s husband. “You cannot kill this boy. If he has erred, it’s Pastor’s responsibility to decide his sentence.”

Sentence? The hope that had speared Hayley’s heart died. Isaac wasn’t going to help them. Why would he? She was sure their mother had told him all kinds of lies about them.

“Pastor left me in charge,” Joshua said in an ominous tone.

“Not to pass judgment.” Isaac stepped up to Joshua and forcibly removed his hand from Graham’s face. Then stared at him.

In challenge, Hayley realized. Isaac wasn’t doing the right thing. He was vying for control.

Still, it was an intervention, and none too soon, because Graham was wheezing and coughing. Joshua would have killed him while she watched. The rage that had been on a constant simmer since they’d been dragged to this hell erupted.

“Do none of you care that your Pastor had a computer?” Hayley yelled. “Like you’re pretending not to care that he went to a hospital when he let your loved ones die?”

The gathering crowd went silent for several long beats before the murmurs resumed. But this time they seemed to be agreeing. With that last statement, anyway.

“My baby died,” one woman said loudly, even though her husband tried to shut her up.

“My wife died,” a man said. “She was thirty-five. She might have lived if Pastor had allowed me to take her to a hospital, but he refused, no matter how I begged.”