Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,2
pry a silent answer from beneath Evan’s skin. Aiden and Emma were gone, swept into the chapel with the wave of students around them. “I’m gonna go,” he mumbled, but as he tried to stand, Peter’s left arm slammed him back into the bench.
“I know what you’re doing, you little plebe,” Peter said. “She knows what you’re doing.”
“I—I’m not . . .” Evan tried to squirm around him but failed. His body went limp.
“I don’t know who you think you’re helping here, or why you’re following her, but knock it the fuck off, okay?” Peter let go of him and stood up. “My suggestion? Get a new hobby. Find your own thing.”
And he was gone, leaving Evan alone and out of breath on the bench. A few students nearby rolled their eyes in pity and continued into the chapel. One plebe girl tried to offer him a hand to stand but he ignored it. He didn’t need the help.
He didn’t care, either. It didn’t matter what Peter thought of him. Peter’s life wouldn’t matter anyway. Peter was a plebe. He’d graduate from Redemption and find a lifeless job. He’d make a few women miserable. He’d mow his lawn a million times and get back problems. He’d die. Peter would come and go from Earth without anyone ever acknowledging that he was actually there. Peter would never exist for a larger purpose, and he would never know true salvation.
But not Evan. He had a purpose. After stepping inside to confirm Emma was secured in the third row, Evan disappeared out the back door of the chapel.
Neesha.
TEN MINUTES BEFORE evening mass, at the stone well two hundred yards north of the wooden cross, wearing a dark-purple-and-yellow Adidas windbreaker. Those were the instructions.
Neesha waited with her hands balled into fists, leaning against the inner break of a tree. On the top of the Wah Wah Mountains, and every mountain in the southern Rockies, water condenses faster, so when the sun disappears and the wet heat of the day is left to night, it becomes a thick white fog, clinging to the top of the mountain. Redemption was built on the edge of the fog line, which meant most nights, it came rolling in slowly and suffocated the school until dawn. She liked being outside to watch as it was settling, slowly obscuring everything in the distance until you could only see twenty feet in any direction. It was like watching the world shrink in minutes. Souffle de dieu, the instructors called it. The breath of God.
Twelve minutes to mass. Her feet were soaking wet. She’d been in such a hurry to get out, she forgot her all-terrain shoes, and now her Skechers were sinking into the mud. She could feel the cold sneaking up the arms of her jacket and in the holes of her jeans, squeezing her skin and setting off ripples of vibrations. She stood stiff, soaking the drawstring of the jacket with saliva as she chewed it.
Nine minutes to mass. Something started to feel off; she could always tell when something was wrong. Her mother told the story of a night in Chandigarh, when she was eight. They’d been walking home from temple, and as soon as the sun had fully set, she stopped and started crying. Her father tried to carry her forward, but she collapsed to the ground, refusing to cross the Ghaggar River. She insisted they walk around it, an extra kilometer to get home. The next day, her mother ran to tapri to get a newspaper, expecting to see reports of a drowning, or a car driving into the Ghaggar, but there were no tragedies in Chandigarh. Or if there were, she didn’t get far enough past the front-page headline to find it: JAHAR DEVASTATED BY FLOODING. Rains in the nearby Patna region had destroyed entire villages. It was like an attack; the rainfall was so sudden and violent that survivors felt certain it had been sent as a punishment, starting with the first drop right at sunset.
It wasn’t scientific, but it was proof: she had a good sense for these things, even if she wasn’t always exact on the details.
Seven, six, five minutes to mass. Something was definitely off. Maybe she’d been given the wrong instructions, or maybe whoever she was supposed to meet had seen that it wasn’t Emma waiting and turned around. Either way, she wasn’t going to wait and miss mass to find out. She shoved both of her arms against the