Word has reached us that Hallam Wakefield has been located in Shiloh, GA. We have strong reasons to believe that Jason is with him, not least the email message which your team brought to our attention. The stage is set. We must not fail.
Yours in the pursuit of the Purpose,
Alfred
“She was crazy,” I finally said.
Jason was sitting in one of the pews. He almost looked catatonic. He hadn’t spoken. He’d barely moved. I was pacing in front of the altar, glancing over at him every once and a while to see if there was any change. We were alone in the church. When I wasn’t looking at Jason, I was glancing around, my eyes resting on the statue of the Virgin Mary at the front of the church, the ornate stained glass windows, the polished dark wood of the pews.
I didn’t know what Jason was thinking. He just looked blank. I wanted him to say something, do something, anything. He was starting to freak me out.
“She was just crazy,” I repeated. “All that stuff she said. The visions and stuff. She admitted that the Sons forced her to take drugs. After a while, too much of that stuff can just unhinge someone’s brain.”
But Jason wasn’t talking. He was staring blankly into space, his eyes glassy. He was really freaking me out.
“Jason!” I said.
“She knew things,” Jason said quietly. “How did she know those things?”
I stopped pacing. Shook my head violently. “She didn’t know anything. Not really. She said things, but we attached significance to them. It’s the way TV psychics work. They say something and wait for someone to acknowledge what they’ve said. We just read into it.”
Jason stared straight ahead. “No,” he said. “It was specific. She knew I’d shot people in the head. And she knew about the... the time in the hotel room. She knew . How did she know that?”
“She didn’t. She knew that the Sons raised you. She assumed you’d shot people. She saw us hold hands when we walked in. She knew we were a couple. She assumed that there could have been an incident. It’s nothing.” And I turned away from him, because I was trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince him.
There were other things that Michaela Weem had said. Things I couldn’t explain. How had my mother, who’d been told by doctors she’d never have a child, gotten pregnant? And why had it happened just after Michaela had a vision of me? And if there wasn’t a connection between Jason and I, why had he run out of the woods into my life? Why that moment, that spot, just in time for me to see him? Toby and I had been ready to leave. A moment or two later, and he would have missed me. Were Jason and I connected in some unexplainable way? And if we were, was there something sinister about that connection?
“Do you really think that?” Jason asked.
I turned back to him. “Yes,” I said. “I really do.” I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t want to think that what Michaela Weem had said was true, but she had frightened me with her strange accuracy and with her disturbing images. I didn’t think there was anything dark or evil in Jason. I really didn’t. I loved Jason.
But there was the nonchalance with which I’d seen him shoot people. Certainly, he felt deeply guilty for the men he killed, but what about the men in Bramford who he’d shot, but not killed? He’d never seemed to feel a shred of remorse over that. In some ways, Jason was casually violent.
And I still remembered the urgency in his hands the night in the hotel room. No restraint. No concern for me.
No. Jason was perfect. Jason was wonderful. Jason didn’t want to hurt me. Jason didn’t want to hurt anybody. I refused to let that awful, bitter woman poison me against him. Jason was the most important part of my life. No one could say anything that would make me turn against him. No one.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Jason.
Good. If I’d convinced Jason, half the battle was won. I just needed to convince myself.
“The rest of it, though,” said Jason. “I didn’t need to know that. I wouldn’t have minded never finding out about my parents.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was my fault. I’d pushed us to go there.
“That’s where I come from? My father was insane? He forced my mother to do horrible things? I come from rituals and rape and drugs?” Jason covered his eyes with his hand.
“Hey,” I said. “My parents conceived me in order to kill you. Neither of us have exactly stellar parents.”
He didn’t uncover his eyes.
I went to him. I sat down beside him on the pew. I rubbed his back. I kissed his neck. I laid my head on his shoulder.
He didn’t look at me.
“Jason,” I said. “Look at me.”
He didn’t at first, but finally he swung his eyes up to meet mine.
“My parents were total whack-jobs,” I said. “But they didn’t always act like whack-jobs. And they taught me that my life isn’t controlled by anyone except me. They taught me that my choices make my life. My life is made up of the consequences of those choices. So I’m going to make a choice right now. I’m going to chose not to listen to anything of the awful things that awful woman said to us. I’m going to chose to trust what I know about you, what I know about us. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re strong and moral and kind and wonderful. And nothing that some crazy woman said could ever diminish what you mean to me.”
Jason pulled me into his lap. Kissed me. He whispered to me, “This is why I need you,” he said. “You can always do that for me. Put things in perspective. Make me see the world the right way. Without you, I’d just wallow and drive myself crazy. You make me see things clearly. You make me better.”
I cupped his beautiful face in my palms. Stared into his big, deep eyes. And I knew at that moment that I’d meant everything I’d just said. All the questions I’d just asked myself faded into the background, seeped out the stained glass windows into the evening air, and there was nothing but Jason. Jason was my reality. I trusted Jason more than anything else. Together we could do anything.
That was when the doors to the church burst open, and twelve members of the Sons of the Rising Sun stalked in.