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Was my father lying, or was I simply too stupid to understand him properly?

“Why would we even need to think as much as the men?” Lauren asked, her eyes wide. “It makes sense that we are naturally less intelligent.”

“Maybe to you,” Elena said. “But not to me. Now, you’re really not going to want to hear this next part, but I’m going to say it anyway, and I hope you’ll try to listen.”

She paused for a few breaths, then went on. “We are only allowed above ground a few times a year. Once for the weddings, four times for the bonfire festivals, and also whenever there is an execution. The weddings are during the day, but the rest of the events happen at night.”

“So? We know that, obviously.” The woman closest to Elena folded her arms, brows knitted with confusion.

“Sometimes I don’t like to look at the executions, so I turn my head away and look at the night sky. I saw something up there once,” Elena said crisply.

We all waited with bated breath for her to continue.

“It was a light far off in the distance. It was moving and flashing, and it was red, so it wasn’t a star. I think it was an airplane,” she declared. “The younger girls here might not remember those, but the rest of you should.”

“A plane?” I shook my head, my brows shooting upward. “That’s impossible.”

“Not if the Great Reckoning didn’t really happen,” Elena said, eyes flashing.

There was a collective gasp at this, and then an angry mutter.

“Just listen!” Elena said, lifting her hands in the air. “Don’t rush to judgment too quickly. Spend a few days thinking about it. There’s so much that doesn’t make sense about New Eden and the supposed apocalypse, if you really consider it.”

“Like what?” a girl asked tentatively.

“Like the fact that all our mothers and older siblings just happened to die in a terrorist attack right before the Reckoning. We were told those terrorists wanted to ensure the church could no longer multiply because they hated us for being the chosen ones, but if that was the case, why didn’t they kill all the girls? After all, they surely had to know we would grow up eventually and become capable of carrying and birthing children.”

“The terrorists must have known the Reckoning was coming, and they assumed the girls wouldn’t live long enough to have babies,” Lauren said slowly.

Elena sighed with exasperation. “If they knew it was coming, then why bother attacking the church at all? Why kill any of us, including our mothers, if they assumed we would all die in the Reckoning anyway?”

Silence reigned in the chapel for a long moment. She had a good point.

“Seems to me like there is more to the story,” Elena finally said. “And I just think we should all consider the fact that maybe things aren’t always as they seem. Maybe the things we’ve been taught are all wrong.”

Martha opened her mouth again. “But—”

Elena held up a hand, cutting her off. “Look, I am not saying our Prophet is lying… only that he might’ve misinterpreted the visions sent to him by our God.”

I expected the other women to be angry, but they all remained silent, their faces etched with confusion and worry.

“We shouldn’t tell anyone about this meeting,” I said, stepping up to Elena. I turned to face the crowd. “Elena might be wrong, but she might not be. If that is the case, we need to wait and think about it, like she said. Find some proof. Can we all agree on that?”

Surprisingly, every single woman in the room nodded. Even Martha. I saw Elena’s shoulders slump with relief at this. She must have been terrified that someone would disagree and run straight to the men to tell them what was going on here, but she’d dragged us all out and forced us to listen anyway.

I wished I could be brave and strong like her.

We trudged back down to the shelter and quietly returned to our rooms. My mind was buzzing from everything I’d just heard, but I finally drifted back to sleep after an hour or so.

My dreams were filled with bright colors and flying machines, and in one of them, I was married to Mason, the man who had proved his devotion by coming back for me despite the odds.

We lived on an island surrounded by clear, uncontaminated waters, and the air was alive with the sound of birds and other beautiful animals. We ate cake and lay on the beach all day, and no one else was there to tell us we could not talk or kiss or stare at each other. We did every single one of those things, and it was bliss.

When I woke in the morning, Lauren was leaning over my bed again, shaking my shoulders. Her face was stained with tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice husky with sleep.

“It’s Elena,” she choked out. “She’s dead.”

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