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Back Surrender Your Sons Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Author’s Note with Content Warnings
  2. CHAPTER ONE
  3. CHAPTER TWO
  4. CHAPTER THREE
  5. CHAPTER FOUR
  6. CHAPTER FIVE
  7. CHAPTER SIX
  8. CHAPTER SEVEN
  9. CHAPTER EIGHT
  10. CHAPTER NINE
  11. CHAPTER TEN
  12. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  13. CHAPTER TWELVE
  14. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  15. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  16. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  17. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  18. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  19. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  20. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  21. CHAPTER TWENTY
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  31. CHAPTER THIRTY
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  41. CHAPTER FORTY
  42. EPILOGUE
  43. Acknowledgments

While the rest of us avert our eyes from Briggs’s futile efforts, Archie and the other gray-shirts surround the Reverend and Bill in a quiet, businesslike huddle. They whisper among themselves for another moment until the huddle breaks and four gray-shirts swoop down on Drew. The Reverend approaches Briggs grimly as Briggs, my once-intimidating kidnapper, frantically pushes the gray-shirts away from the dead boy.

“Ben, he’s dead,” the Reverend says as gently as he knows how. But Briggs writhes under his touch and pumps Drew’s chest with heavier and heavier thrusts. “Stop it, you’re upsetting everyone!”

Briggs whips his head to the crowd like an animal caught mid-feast: red-eyed, teeth bared, and dripping saliva. Like a homing beacon, his gaze falls immediately on me. “You…” he snarls and launches toward me before I can process the danger on its way. Luckily, Marcos and Darcy are a step ahead. Marcos’s strong hands pull me defensively backward as Darcy throws herself between me and the grieving monster. “YOU DID THIS!”

But Briggs never reaches us. The Reverend, taller than his staff member, wraps bearish arms around Briggs’s chest and hurtles him backward as if he weighs little more than a Chihuahua. Briggs’s musculature may be showier, but the Reverend’s mass is functional as hell. Briggs can only squeal desperately and claw at his boss’s unshakable grip.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME,” Briggs wails as the crowd backs away slowly. It’s only after his tears come that I realize Briggs is speaking to the Reverend, not me. “GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME! YOU DID THIS!”

The Reverend releases Briggs, only to spin him violently around to find his eyes. “What do you mean, I did this?”

Like air flying out of a balloon, Briggs’s rage empties, leaving the Reverend face-to-face with nothing but a husk. “We’re going to leave you,” Briggs says, defeated. “We’re gonna get away from here.”

Present tense.

It pulverizes my heart, but nothing will loosen the director’s grip. “Yes, I know,” he says. “I heard a rumor you were thinking of leaving us. Your home. Me. Everything I’ve done for you. To run off with a child—”

“Drew’s an Over, an adult—”

“SHUT UP.” The Reverend’s fist arrives at Briggs’s stomach like a wrecking ball. Marcos and I gasp as the body-built man is laid low with a single strike. Whimpering and clutching his aching belly, Briggs crawls over the gravel bed to Drew but collapses in agony after a few inches.