I recalled the young couple at the temple yesterday. In front of more than a hundred followers, Father Gabriel had ordered their deaths. Then today he’d ordered mine. Not literal death, but the death of Sara Adams. He’d said the loss of my memories of the last nine months was necessary for reassignment.
Were women so worthless in his mind that he could manipulate their lives as if they were toys he could take from one man and give to another?
As my memories of life in the dark and in The Light continued to blend, I recalled a prayer Jacob had said on one of my first days as Sara. At the time I hadn’t understood the full impact. I hadn’t been able to comprehend. Now I did. Jacob had said the prayer as I was about to eat for the first time. He’d said, “Let this food be a reminder that privileges given can be taken away.” That’s what Father Gabriel had done today. The life Jacob and I’d built, no matter how perverse our circumstances, had been a privilege, and in a simple declaration Father Gabriel had taken it away.
Perhaps I was suffering from dissociative identity disorder. As I lay motionless, I had the unreal ability to see everything from two different perspectives—Sara’s and Stella’s. I recognized how well The Light had conditioned me. If it hadn’t, I would have fought the descent into this cold dungeon. Most normal people would. However, from this dual perspective I could assess that as Sara I was no longer normal. I’d been conditioned to accept that the men knew best and to never question.
Though there was a sense of peace in that mentality. I would fight heaven and hell to stop them from doing it to me again. I wasn’t in the circumpolar North. I was in an upscale community in Michigan. All I had to do was get out of this compound and get to the FBI. Though that seemed a difficult goal, considering the obstacles I’d already survived, it wasn’t impossible.
As both mind-sets settled into my psyche, I took Sara’s peace and put my trust in the man who’d kept me safe for the last nine months. I also took Stella’s fear and let it come to life. Fear had a purpose. It kept people safe. It was that little voice that said not to go down the dark alleyway, or the rapid pulse that occurred when things weren’t as they appeared. Fear happened for a reason, and I needed to embrace it.
To survive this, I needed both, the peace and the panic. I needed out of this basement.
Muffled voices continued to waft from the other side of my locked door. Though some were louder than others, I couldn’t make out the words; however, I recognized both voices. I also heard the emotion in both. I had difficulty comprehending that Jacob and Dylan were even talking to each other, but recognized that the absurdity was more than coincidence.
I tried to recall all I’d heard in Father Gabriel’s office. I didn’t have enough understanding for any of it to make sense. We had been prepared for the test. When I’d called Dylan Brother, it hadn’t been a Herculean effort. Though I’d known him in what seemed like another life, he hadn’t been introduced to me. Until Father Gabriel gave his permission, I hadn’t been told I could even speak to him. Therefore, once I was granted permission, the title came without thought. After all, as Sara, I knew that all men deserved a title.
Definitely dissociative identity disorder.
I’d hoped that after announcing my pregnancy I’d be allowed to stay with my husband. Since that’d been my goal, I’d failed. However, the announcement may have helped me avoid the drug Brother Elijah had planned to inject. Though Jacob was the one who initially stopped Brother Elijah, we both knew Jacob’s power was limited. He and Brother Elijah were both Assemblymen. Father Gabriel’s decrees were the final word. Then again, it wasn’t any of them who’d stopped the injection. It was Dylan.
How did Dylan have that much power? Had he always, even when we’d been dating? How could I have dated someone involved in The Light and not known?
I remembered my boss, Bernard Cooper, his concern about Dylan, and how he’d had Foster, my coinvestigator, look into his private life. I’d been the one to tell him to stop. I also realized that I’d discovered all the information I had about The Light while Dylan was right there. He’d gone with me to the morgue. He’d seen my pictures of the white building in Highland Heights. I’d given him a key to my apartment. Suddenly I wondered if my research had ever been found. I wondered if Bernard or Foster had gone through all I’d uncovered.
Of course they hadn’t.
My inner turmoil turned to anger as I thought that like my memory, more than likely, my research had been cleared away. Then again, Dylan had been the one to stop the medicine—the medicine that would allow my reassignment. What Brother Elijah had been about to inject wasn’t like the pills that Jacob had wanted me to restart. Father Gabriel had called it the high-dose memory suppressor.