Struck

  So I would wait.

  “Thank you, Father,” I murmured.

  He smiled. “Go try on the dress. I do hope it fits.”

  * * *

  It fit perfectly, the long white satin dress with high collar and matching satin gloves, and—oh, God, who knew it was possible?—white satin ankle boots. I hated it, but once I had it on I didn’t take it off. I lay down on my bed and watched the light shift on the ceiling as the sun plunged toward the horizon.

  Jeremy came for me shortly before sunset.

  I held out my arms. “I suppose this is what happens when a blind man picks out a dress for you.”

  I wanted him to laugh. I’d never heard Jeremy laugh. Maybe he’d lost that ability.

  Instead, he brushed the backs of his knuckles along the satin sleeve of the dress. “Mia, whatever happens tonight, the only thing that matters is that you get as far away from Prophet as you can. When the time comes, don’t hesitate, even if it means leaving me or … or your mom behind.”

  I shook my head. “It’s all of us or none of us.”

  Jeremy gritted his teeth, as though in pain. His neck muscles clenched. “That might not be an option. Remember what’s at stake. Promise me you’ll leave us behind if you have to.”

  “Jeremy—”

  “Promise me!” He was shaking, his eyes slightly rolled back in his head, lashes twitching.

  “I promise,” I said, realizing suddenly what was happening. He was mid-vision, and whatever he saw hinged on my decision to leave without him and my mom if it came to that.

  I moved closer to Jeremy, so my mouth was nearly on his. “I promise,” I said again, and instantly he stopped shaking.

  He looked at me, his eyes haunted. “It’s time,” he said.

  * * *

  The sun was setting fire to the horizon by the time our wedding procession started across the beach, through Tentville. Bonfires and cookfires were being lit, and the smells of oily smoke and charring meat hung heavy in the air. Everyone watched us, Followers and Displaced alike, as though we were royalty taking a shortcut through their pathetic little village.

  I wondered how many of these Followers had the Spark. How many had Prophet recruited during his revivals? More than the Seekers found in their two hundred years of seeking? Had Parker managed to recruit anyone in the single night he’d had to do it?

  As the sky faded from pink to lavender to blue, fog began to roll in off the ocean. It settled around the shoulders of the Followers like wreaths. There were thousands of them on the beach. Tens of thousands, maybe. There was no way they would fit in the tent. They hardly fit on the sand.

  Prophet, in a white suit and white silk tie, strode across the beach with my mom on his arm, her dress swishing around her feet. In the blazing light of the setting sun, her skin glowed red-gold, and the scars on her face were almost invisible. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against Prophet’s shoulder and let him lead their way.

  Jeremy and I followed behind Mom and Prophet. The rest of the Apostles trailed behind us, two by two, Iris and Ivan right behind Jeremy and me. I could feel Iris’s glare on my back, like laser beams trying to sear holes in me.

  Ahead of us, Prophet’s White Tent was already filling with his Followers. He’d done his final broadcast of The Hour of Light, and announced his wedding plans. Every Follower in Los Angeles would be here tonight. All part of Prophet’s plan.

  I thought of what Parker had told me about religious mysticism, and African rituals that brought rain during a drought, and how if you get enough people together who believe the same thing, miracles can happen. That it was about energy and focus and creating a collective consciousness. What if you packed thousands of people together in one place who’d been psychically brainwashed to believe a storm was coming and the world was going to end? And what if a bunch of those people possessed a sort of mystical power of their own that was all about energy? What then? Would a miracle happen? Would they, through thought and energy and intent, create the future they believed in?

  I was about to find out.

  Although there were thousands of eyes on me, I felt the prickling sensation of being watched by one pair in particular. I searched the crowd and spotted a boy’s face peering out at me from one of the tents. A face framed by a fall of heavy blond hair.

  The boy nodded at me.

  I turned my eyes away before anyone saw where I was looking.

  I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. Parker wouldn’t miss our mom’s wedding. Not for the world.

  38

  THE WHITE TENT was already at capacity by the time we entered. A hush settled over the crowd when they saw us, and the Followers parted, opening a clear path to the raised platform at the center of the tent.

  Tonight the media had not been allowed inside, but the piano player was present and the music had already started. I found myself falling into step with the song, doing the traditional bridesmaid walk. I pasted a serene expression on my face as I gazed around at the Followers, smiled and nodded at them, playing the part of an Apostle chosen by God. My eyes landed on Rachel and her Follower gang from Skyline. Rachel’s hair was pulled back especially tight for the occasion, making her already buggy eyes protrude like a pug’s. But when she saw me in the wedding party, her eyes went even wider. I showed her lots of teeth, but I wasn’t smiling.

  “Congratulations to you and your mother,” a high-pitched voice whispered close to my ear. My head snapped toward it and I found the Dealer’s face so close to mine I could taste his breath.

  I recoiled, my heart hammering. Jeremy took my elbow to lead me along, watching the Dealer like he was a snake whose fangs had been removed but who still found ways of delivering poison.

  We ascended the steps onto the platform. Prophet whispered something to Mom, and she nodded and led him to the microphone. Like a flock of birds falling into formation, the Apostles made a half circle behind Prophet and Mom, boys on one side, girls on the other, and Jeremy and I were forced to separate so he could stand right at Prophet’s side, and I at Mom’s. The best man and the maid of honor. I realized I was still connected to the Apostles in the same way the Seekers were, bonded as conductors of one another’s energy. When we were together, we moved as one. Whatever Prophet had done to us had linked us, and that link had not been severed at the same moment as his brainwashing had. I wondered if the bond was permanent. I didn’t like that idea, not at all.

  Prophet made a cutting motion with his hand, and the music ceased. A heavy silence followed. The crowd was utterly still, thousands of faces staring up at us. I searched those faces for the Seekers, Katrina and Mr. Kale, Schiz and Quentin, and my brother. Were they out there right now, dressed in white so as not to call attention to themselves until the right moment?

  The silence stretched. I could hear the ocean beyond the tent, wave after wave crashing against the shore. Outside, a wind had picked up and begun to howl, beating at the White Tent, making the walls flap. I could see the flames of bonfires against those white walls, orange flowers of monstrous size, flickering behind the canvas, throwing their light against it.

  Come on, Seekers … what are you waiting for, a priest to ask if anyone objects? There was no priest that I could see, but I supposed Prophet being Prophet could handle the ceremony himself.

  “Brothers and sisters,” Prophet finally spoke into the mic, his resonant voice filling the vast tent. “I welcome you tonight with my whole heart. There are no people in the world I would rather share my joy with than you, God’s truest Followers. On this, the last night of earth as we know it, I ask you to join hands, each and every one of you, and share your light with us. Let light blaze from your hearts and hands until it becomes a fire. A holy fire of God!”

  I expected cheering, but there was only the shush of feet moving in the sand, of fabric brushing against fabric and skin brushing against skin as thousands of Followers joined hands, their expressions a mixture of reverence and eagerness. Their eyes
were animated with feverish intensity.

  “Tonight,” Prophet called out. “On my wedding night, the Church of Light becomes the Church of Fire! Give me your light, good people! Give me your fire! So long as you hold to one another, your fire will burn, and you will be protected as the storm rages!”

  I tried not to show alarm, but I was certain my mask of serenity was crumbling. It was bad enough that the tent was so packed people had to stand shoulder to shoulder, but now everyone had linked hands, forming layer upon layer of human fencing around the platform.

  Stay calm, I instructed myself. Jeremy saw the Seekers rescue you. They’ll be here. They are here.

  But the things Jeremy saw didn’t always happen. They were constantly changing.

  I’d seen Parker, so I knew the Seekers were nearby, but that didn’t mean they’d be able to get to us through the linked Followers.

  Prophet went on. “God has blessed me with the love of this good woman, Sarah Price, whose hand I will take in marriage this night …” He took Mom’s hand and drew her close to him. “But God has also blessed me with her daughter … Mia.” His milky eyes located me, and I felt the attention in the room shift in my direction. I wanted to shrink to the size of nothing, disappear and leave the horrible bridesmaid dress standing in my place on the platform.

  “I ask now that Mia join hands in a circle with the rest of my children as Sarah and I exchange our vows.”

  I blinked in slow motion. I looked at Jeremy and saw his eyes widening in shock, and then in realization, and then in dread. He shook his head slightly, as though to negate what he was thinking. What we were both thinking.

  In the last vision he’d shown me, there’d been a circle of Apostles atop the roof of the Tower, our hands linked, power vibrating from us until the air thickened. Then the storm had burst into being over our heads. But it wasn’t supposed to happen here, at the beach. It was supposed to happen at the Tower!

  The Apostles joined hands, their half circle growing around us.

  Mom smiled at me. “Go on,” she said softly. “Join the circle, Mia.”

  Prophet’s eyes lit on me.

  Join the circle, Mia, his voice spoke in my mind. I need your Light. I need your Fire.

  Oh, no. Oh, God, if you exist, no. Don’t do this to me.

  Join them! This time Prophet barked his order in my mind. Do it, or I will take your mother’s life and send her soul back into darkness. Do not doubt me.

  My eyes flew wildly, searching the crowd for help, for the Seekers I should have listened to when I had the chance. But if they were present, they weren’t standing up to say they objected.

  “Mia?” Mom’s smile wilted. “Go on. Take their hands.”

  My gaze fell on Jeremy next, and I saw he had closed his eyes, the muscles of his neck taut, lashes flickering, eyes moving beneath his lids.

  Then his eyes flashed wide and found mine and in them I saw that we had made a mistake.

  There had been a change of plan.

  I didn’t move. The crowd began to murmur.

  Close the circle, Prophet demanded. Or you will watch your mother die tonight, and you will know that it happened because of you. Because you refused to play your part.

  I was the missing ingredient needed to make the storm. If I refused to comply, there would be no storm. No beginning of the end. The world would go on.

  Mom’s face had fallen. She stared at me, her eyes filling with tears. “Please, Mia,” she begged in a whisper. “Do as your father says.”

  I shook my head. “He’ll never be my father.”

  Prophet’s lips peeled back from his whiter than white teeth, but before he could say a word, something outside exploded and orange light blasted the side of the tent. Screams went up from the crowd as hungry flames began to consume the canvas.

  “It begins!” Prophet boomed into the microphone. “Stay where you are, brothers and sisters! Do not run from the fire of our enemies, for their fire is weak and temporal! Do not let go of your neighbor’s hand! We must stand together now as a united front against those who would challenge God’s will!”

  More explosions, on all sides now. It was the bonfires, I realized. The bonfires growing in huge bursts and then receding. Growing and receding, like people were throwing gallons of gasoline onto the flames. I didn’t know if that was actually what was happening outside, but I did know one thing for sure.

  The Seekers had come for me.

  I grabbed Mom’s hand and yanked her away from Prophet, darting toward the edge of the platform. My eyes flew to Jeremy to make sure he was coming, but he stayed where he was. It took me a moment to realize why.

  The Apostles had closed their circle around us. I could feel their combined power stirring the air until it condensed like fog … like clouds. The pressure in the air had dropped, the way it did before a storm, and I could feel every hair on my body rising to attention. My eardrums needed to pop. The Apostles had started without me. But they were missing an element. I was the final ingredient. I was the lightning.

  I thought of the game I used to play as a kid … Red Rover.

  Red Rover, Red Rover, send Mia on over.

  Could we break through those linked hands?

  Red Rover, Red Rover, send Jeremy on over.

  And even if we could, would we be able to make it past the Followers? Their faces were determined, their hands grasped tighter than ever.

  We were trapped.

  More explosions of fire and light from outside. The walls of the tent were burning slowly. They must have been treated with fire retardant, the opposite of the Dealer’s tent, but that didn’t mean the tent was fireproof. Still, most of the Followers did not look worried. They seemed at peace with the idea that they might burn to death inside the White Tent … meet their end before the world got a chance to be destroyed by their angry, pessimist God.

  The only Follower who looked less than content to fry with his comrades was the Dealer. His lips and lids were peeled back, so he was all teeth and eyes. But he couldn’t bolt if he wanted to. He was fenced in with the rest of us.

  Gray masses of cloud were forming inside the tent. Anyone who didn’t know better might think it was smoke from the burning walls, but it wasn’t. It was the moisture in the air condensing into clouds.

  There was a commotion near the entrance to the White Tent. I saw the bald-headed Cro-Magnon-looking Follower from the night before, shoving at someone, yelling. But he was one of the only Followers not linked hand in hand with the rest, and none of the others would disobey their Prophet and break the circle to come to Cro-Magnon’s aid. Cro-Magnon was thrust aside and newcomers began to pour into the tent. Not Followers.

  In they came, dozens of Seekers in their red cloaks and emotionless black masks, gliding over the sand. They were an intimidating sight, but the Followers did not release one another, and there were so many more in white than in red. But the Seekers kept coming, until they formed their own red circle around the mass of white.

  Where was Parker? I hoped he was safe outside the flaming walls of the White Tent, if there was such a thing as safe anymore.

  One of the Seekers spoke then, shouting to be heard above the crackling of flames. I recognized the hard-boiled growl instantly, despite the black mask concealing his face.

  “Release your Followers, false prophet,” Mr. Kale called. “Their part in this is over.”

  Prophet only smiled. “Their faith cannot be shaken. They know I am a true prophet of God.”

  In answer, Mr. Kale stepped from the circle of Seekers, and the two Seekers to either side of him placed their hands on his shoulders. I felt the energy in the room vibrating my skin. The Seekers seemed to shine with an eerie reddish glow, something I could only see if I didn’t look for it. But out of the corner of my eye, it was there.

  A nervous murmur rippled through the crowd of Followers.

  Mr. Kale placed his hands, one on each of two Followers’ heads. Prophet must have sensed something happening
that was not part of his plan. His smile was now made of gritted teeth.

  “Call this a test of their faith,” Mr. Kale called, and his hands clamped tight on the Followers’ heads. They bucked, and tried to jerk away, but Mr. Kale held tight. The glow of red light coming from the Seekers intensified for a heartbeat, and suddenly the same red light pulsed from beneath Mr. Kale’s hands. The whole outer ring of Followers, not just the two whose heads Mr. Kale had palmed, writhed and cried out. A few screamed in agony so piercing I wanted to cover my ears to shut out the sound.

  Then the outer ring of Followers dropped hands. They looked at one another, dazed, saw the flames devouring the tent walls.

  And they ran.

  “Their faith is not as strong as you think,” Mr. Kale called to Prophet. “I’m coming for you.”

  Mr. Kale grabbed another set of heads and did the same thing, releasing another layer of Follower fencing. Only about fifty more to go. I didn’t know if Mr. Kale was breaking Prophet’s hold on these people, or simply commanding them to do what a part of them must want to, which was get out of this flaming death trap. I didn’t really care, so long as he worked quickly. Fire was rising up the walls, and the air was black with combined smoke and the clouds still condensing in the air. I could barely see the Seekers anymore. But while the clouds were rising, permeating the ceiling of the tent to ascend into the sky, the smoke was trapped inside. The ceiling was high, but it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes for the smoke to spread down to us. Already my eyes were burning, my lungs starting to reject the air I breathed.

  The Dealer craned his head to see what was happening near the entrance. I saw a look of relief cross his face when he realized what Mr. Kale was doing. But Mr. Kale was still far away, and the Dealer was linked in one of the circles closest to the platform. The smoke was descending, the inside of the tent heating like an oven.

  A sudden, wild cry escaped the Dealer’s lips. His brainwashing must have been tenuous, because he wrenched his hands from those of the Followers on either side of him and broke for the exit.