I was too upset to correct my name again. “Bigger picture. Fuck you, Jacob, or Jacoby, or whoever the hell you are! I didn’t see a bigger picture. I don’t see it. Remember me? I’m the one who had the reminders on my ass!”
“We were being watched, continually. Every encounter was a test. If I failed, you failed. If you failed, I failed. The only time I corrected you was when your transgressions were witnessed. It was when it was expected of me. Only once did I do anything without someone to witness it.” Remorse filled his words. “It was at the clinic when I slapped you, but even that, like the other times, was for your success.”
My mind spun. I thought about all the times he’d corrected me. I tried to recall what had preceded or followed each instance. He was right. There were so many times I’d expected him to do it, and he hadn’t. Yet there were other times when I’d thought my transgression was minor, but he had. I sank back to the bed. Every instance had had witnesses.
“Why?” I asked. “Why not just let me fail?”
Jacob’s eyes grew as he dropped to his knees near my feet. “You said you researched The Light?” He turned my hand over and touched the tips of my fingers. “Do you know what happens when someone fails?”
I swallowed and nodded.
“From the first time I saw you at that festival, I knew failure wasn’t an option. I didn’t know for sure why you were chosen. Now I suspect it was because you were getting too close to them, but no matter why, I knew you needed to live. I wouldn’t let them banish you.”
I shook my head. “But we were banished.”
“That wasn’t real banishment. In all the time I’d been with The Light, I’d never heard of temporary banishment, not until us.” He ran his hand through his hair. “The night after service when Father Gabriel said that we were to be banished, my heart stopped beating. I was so fucking scared.”
I reached for his face and palmed his scruffy cheeks, seeing his pain. “That was the first night I went to service, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, his face still in my grasp.
“It was the night you were so quiet. I was afraid that I . . .”
Jacob stroked my cheek. “It was the night I almost claimed you as my wife, your body. Despite all that they’d done to you and all you’d been through, you were still so beautiful, so strong, and yet so scared. I wasn’t supposed to, but I wanted to make it better.” He shook his head. “But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
My eyes narrowed. “They? They did to me? You did it. I remember being hurt. I remember your voice. You were the one who hurt me! There wasn’t an accident. Father Gabriel banished us for something that never happened!”
“Oh, God, no! Yes, I was there, but I wasn’t the one who hurt you. They made me watch. I was supposed to be quiet and let God’s plan . . .” He stood again and paced. “Fuck that! It wasn’t God’s plan. It was Father Gabriel’s. I was supposed to stay quiet, but I couldn’t. I yelled at him. I told him to stop.
“If I hadn’t been on the Assembly, fuck, if I’d been a mere follower, I never would’ve gotten away with what I did. But I couldn’t watch him hurt you. When he wouldn’t stop, I finally stopped him. I was the one who carried you away.” He fell back to my feet and reached for my hands. “Of all the things I’ve done, please know, that wasn’t one of them.”
“Father Gabriel? He’s the one who hit me and kicked me?”
Jacob’s head moved back and forth. “No, hell no. He doesn’t do any of his own dirty work. He’s always a few steps removed.”
“Then who?”
Jacob closed his eyes. When he opened them, sadness and regret flowed through the swirling brown. “You know how you said you didn’t like Brother Abraham, that he made you feel uncomfortable?”
“Oh, God.” My stomach twisted.
“There’s a good reason for that.”
“Does Father Gabriel know?”
Jacob nodded.
My eyes narrowed. “You’re not defending him? I . . . I don’t understand.”
He leaned back on his toes, kneeling, as he’d told me not to do. With sadness in his eyes, he confessed, “Stella Montgomery, my name is Jacoby McAlister. I’ve been an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for over seven years. The last three have been spent embedded in a deep undercover investigation of The Light.”
I couldn’t move or speak. The pieces of the puzzle that I’d tried to arrange over the last year all slid into place. From the first time I’d seen the white building that housed The Light in Highland Heights, I’d tried unsuccessfully to make the pieces fit. Even the pieces I’d managed to maneuver as Sara now combined, fitting into place like a key in a lock . . . a lock that I slowly realized meant the loss of my past.
“That’s what you couldn’t say? That’s what you said would never allow me to go back to Detroit. Isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Then take it back. I don’t want to know!”
Jacob reached again for my hands. “I can’t take it back. Do you understand now? Do you understand how crucial your success was—is?”
“Because if I failed, you failed?”