“Please, Kate, you can’t stay mad at me. You have to understand that I thought I was doing the right thing. You know what it’s like. You have to. Don’t pretend you don’t understand what it’s like in the beginning. I would’ve done anything.” Her eyes pleaded with mine for understanding. “But things are different now. Everything’s changed.”

A twig snapped, making both of us jump. We quickly stepped in line back toward camp. Too much time away from camp was unacceptable. She held on to my arm as we walked. “I’m sorry, Kate—please forgive me. I’m so sorry I got you into this mess. I’m sorry I got everyone involved.” She was seconds away from crying.

“Stop it, okay. We’re fine. Just stop. We’re almost back to camp, and everyone’s back there waiting on the gathering,” I whispered. Margo straightened up immediately.

Abner had announced at breakfast that he wanted to have a midafternoon gathering. We rarely had middle-of-the-day meetings, since afternoons were reserved for chores, so whatever it was had to be important. We hurried underneath the tent, where everyone was waiting on him, and we took seats next to each other on one of the blankets.

It wasn’t long before Abner stepped out of his tent and made his way to us. He strutted to the center of the circle, wasting no time in getting started. “As the outsiders discover how broken their world is, they are going to come searching for ours. They are going to want to steal what we have and make it their own. We must be ready for that time.” He grew more and more paranoid each day about people finding out where we were before we had our army assembled. “And family, we are not ready. Not even close.”

Six children weren’t enough for an army. All our discussions lately had focused on procreating, but nobody had been successful. I didn’t know if I could stomach another lecture on how important it was to channel our sexual energy into a shared purpose, but I couldn’t tolerate much of anything lately, and I didn’t know how I’d manage to keep fooling everyone after Margo’s disclosure. I’d had dark periods of my soul, but this one wasn’t leaving.

Abner’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I forced myself to pay attention. “We’ve been living bound by the agreements we made while we lived in the fallen world. Marriage is a man-made construct and a tie binding us to our former identities. We haven’t been successful in procreation because we are still holding on to those ties. It’s time to break the chains and leave it all behind.”