Bobbie: “Don’t be ridiculous, of course you can! Have you forgotten what lies beyond the perimeter? Can you be threatened? He threatens you!”

Me: “What if he’s right and I am what he says?”

Bobbie: “What if he’s wrong? You’ll lose everything. Are you willing to risk that?”

Me: “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Bobbie: “That’s how deception works. He’s defying everything your teachers have taught you from the Holy Book.”

Me: “What if those teachers are wrong?”

Bobbie: “What if they’re right? The devil is playing games with you. Use your logic, Grace. Use wisdom!”

Me: “So this is deception.”

Bobbie: “You have to stay away from him.”

Me: “You’re right.”

And then after a while, we’d start all over again to the point of Bobbie’s incredulous exhaustion. Eventually, she’d given me one last warning and left me alone.

When I first heard the commotion downstairs, I nearly ignored it. But then I thought I recognized Rose’s voice and sat up. There was no mistaking it. Rose was downstairs!

I rushed to my door and pressed my ear against the wooden surface. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I recognized my brother’s voice as well. And then my mother’s softer tone. I took a deep breath and eased the door open a sliver.

“We have reason to believe you know more than you’re letting on,” Rose said.

“I swear I’ve told you everything I know,” my mother insisted.

Then Jamie: “Mother, if you confess, amends can be made. If they force you, it will go badly. Please, for the love of God, tell them!”

Confess? Confess to what? I opened my bedroom door wider and stepped out into the hallway, listening intently.

“I have nothing to confess. I don’t even know what you’re accusing me of.”

“We have evidence, Julianna!” Rose snapped. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors by hiding the truth.”

“What evidence?”

A long beat.

“We found signs of someone hiding in one of the old train cars north of the perimeter,” Rose said.

“This,” Jamie said.

The room fell quiet, and two thoughts dropped into my head—like two hand grenades. One, Eli and I must have left something behind. Two, it wouldn’t take my mother long to realize that it was my doing.

My sins had caught up with me!

I considered rushing back into my room, locking the door, and scrambling back out my window to hide away with Eli. But how long could we actually survive? They would find us. They would find him. What had I been thinking?

“Do you have another explanation for how my old shirt ended up out there?” Jamie asked.

Panic lapped at my mind. I’d taken some of Jamie’s old things to Eli. How stupid! And how could we have been so careless to leave something behind?