The minute they made their exit to return to their home, the rest of the community is escorted out of the cathedral. There was no lingering to pay their respects to their past leader. Not when Samuel was there to take his place so quickly.
I would have waited to call Marcus and Hunter until I got back to the house, but I couldn’t wait a second longer. Elliott couldn’t wait. I connect my phone to the Bluetooth of my car. It never rings more than once when I’m contacting them on an assignment.
“What’s up?” Marcus says, answering Hunter’s phone for him.
What fuck is going on with them?
“I’m going to assume Hunter is there with you, and I’m on speaker. So, I will get right into it. Samuel claimedElliott,” I blurt as fast as my heart pounds. I try to keep my car at the speed limit, making my way back to the house. “I need to stop it.”
“Slow down. Slow down,” they both say together.
Hunter speaks up first.
“What happened? How did he do that? I thought you are at the funeral today?”
“I was. That’s where it happened. He did the service and then, out of nowhere, he made a big speech about how Elliott was brought to Everton for a sole purpose that was beyond just serving the Divine as a community member. He told her it was to be a wife to the Divine Vessel. To him.” I bang my fist against the steering wheel. I need them to know the plan is going to have to change. I need to get her out sooner than I can get the rest of the people in this community out. “Look, she needs to be picked up. I don’t care how, but it has to be soon. He is planning to marry her in two fucking days.”
“Two days? Kam, we can’t do that kind of turnaround. Not without major changes and risking the whole damn operation,” Marcus replied.
“Yeah, I get that. We need to change it.”
“Whoa, whoa, guys. Kam, you know what you are asking us to do, right?”
Hunter is taking a different approach, talking to me softer. It only further annoys me. I need him to understand the seriousness of the fucking situation.
“No shit,” I bark at him, putting the car into park as I come to a halt in the driveway. I slam my head against the seat’s headrest. Closing my eyes, I run my hands down my face with a huff. “Change the plan,” I growl into the phone.
“‘Just change the plans’ he says. Just change the fucking plan?” Marcus says, fainter this time around. He is probably pacing the room as he speaks. “What, because your dick got wet for this girl, you need us to jeopardize the whole assignment?”
His voice is clearer now.
“I won’t let it fuck up the assignment, Marcus.”
“You already have,” he hisses.
I stare at the fabric of the headliner above me, a scowl plastered on my face.
“Stop pouting, Kam,” Marcus adds, like he can actually make me.
“I need this done.”
“We will talk,” Hunter says after a long pause. Marcus groans through the phone. “And we will get back to you.”
“Two days, Hunter.”
“We get it. Two days,” Marcus says, and the line clicks.
I sit there, thinking about how this is all going to work out, how I’m going to get her far away from here.
A thought pops into my mind, and I have to let it marinate for a second.
What if she doesn’t want out?
36
Eden
Idon’t remember much after feeling the wetness of Samuel’s tongue sliding across my lips on stage for everyone to witness. My body went on complete autopilot.
