Series: The Un Series by Izzy Sweet
Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Because that’s not what the Order believes.
My next question weighs so heavily on me, I have to take several deep breaths before I can work up the nerve to ask it. “Do you… do you think I’m good?”
We’re running for our lives, quite literally. Now is not the time for theological debates. But the seed has been planted in my brain and I need to know. I need to know what I’ve always secretly believed is true.
I need to know there’s still hope for me.
Father McCall nudges me to a gentle stop and takes his own deep breath before he answers. “Yes, lass, I believe you are good.”
“Truly?” I press.
I trust him. Trust him with my life.
Yet the scared little girl inside me, the scared little girl who has always been me, fears his first answer was a cruel trick and now he’ll yank it away to put me in my place.
My heart races and my head becomes so light I fear it might float away as I await his answer.
“Yes, I believe you are good,” he says.
I should be relieved. It’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
“But you don’t know me,” I counter.
He doesn’t know about all the horrible thoughts I’ve been having lately. Doesn’t know that just the other day I was imagining myself hurting priests like him.
Imagining it for no reason I can fantom.
Simply thinking about it all causes sweat to drip down my forehead. The sweat soaks into the sleeve pressing against my eyes, making me feel even more miserable in this blasted sunlight.
“I know enough,” he insists.
I shake my head in disbelief and immediately regret it. The world around me spins. A white, blurry world I can’t see.
Grabbing my other arm, he helps steady me. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes,” I snap. “It’s just this… heat.”
I yank my arms away, something about his touch now irritating me.
“Heat?” he says in confusion.
“Do you not feel it? It must be at least a hundred and twenty degrees out here.”
“No, lass, it’s a cool day today. Nice and breezy,” he says, and I honestly don’t know if he’s telling the truth or lying to me. “We should keep moving.”
He grabs my hand again, and I feel how cool his skin is compared to mine. Cool and dry.
“Do you feel anything besides being warm?” he asks as he quickly guides me through the maze of cars.
Why are there even so many cars? How many people could possibly be in the cathedral at this hour?
“Like what?” I grit out between my teeth.
“I’m not entirely sure…” he grumbles.
My first instinct is to bite off his head by demanding to know why he even asked the question if he doesn’t know the answer. My sudden irritation with him increasing by the second.
But a loud bang sounds out. A bang that sounds like a door slamming into a wall.
“Father McCall! Stop where you are!” Father Dominic calls out. “You do not have permission to leave the grounds with our property!”
I instantly want to freeze in fear, but Father McCall keeps tugging me along only to suddenly stop.
He slides his hand out of mine, and for a moment I feel lost and abandoned. Left alone to face a strange, foreign world that has become entirely too hostile toward me.
Is he taking Father Dominic’s order seriously? After everything he’s already done?
A car beeps twice before I hear Father McCall saying, “Hurry, get in, lass. We’re out of time.”
Placing his palm against my back, he helps me get in the car then slams the door shut.
The heat inside the car is surprisingly not as bad as it was on the outside, which makes absolutely no sense.
Sliding my arm down, I dare a peek through the windshield and see Father McCall jogging around the front of the car.
When he opens his door, I hear Father Dominic rage, “Don’t think you’ll get away with this, McCall! We’ll find you! And when we do, we’ll make you pay for this sin in flesh!”
Father McCall slams his door shut and starts the car up, ignoring Father Dominic’s threat.
But it worries me.
I squint my eyes and peer out the windshield again, expecting to see an army of the Order’s young warriors bearing down on us.
As Father McCall puts the car in reverse, I ask, “Where is everybody?”
This all seems too easy. Shouldn’t Jeffrey at least be trying to come for me?
Shifting the car into drive, Father McCall declares almost happily, “God smiles on us today.”
And that explains exactly nothing.
Glancing over and seeing my frown, Father McCall grins. “Today is the Grand Induction.”
“Grand Induction?” I repeat, having no idea what he’s talking about.
Father McCall sighs and his grin wilts into a sad frown. “Ah, lass, they truly kept you in the dark, didn’t they? The Grand Induction is when all the young men in the Order are given their holy brands and formally inducted into service. With the Prophet overseeing the ceremony, no one will dare interrupt it.”