Page 13 of Abducting Sarah

Deacon turned to her and said, “Your captor is Jacaranda Cozz, my oldest friend and favorite employee.” Then he looked at me. “And if you wouldn’t mind de-mogging?”

I rolled my eyes and hit the button on my belt. I had thought Sarah would be more at ease with another human in the room, so I had changed back into the man who had taken her before Wave delivered her. Once I had transmogrified into my native form, her mouth dropped open as she stared up at me with huge, round eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Sarah.”

She gulped. “Oh. Okay.” She sounded like she wasn’t sure what to believe.

But it didn’t matter what she thought. There was no point to any of this. “Can’t I just take her back to South Carolina? She does not belong here.”

“No,” Deacon said firmly. “Sarah Hollinger will help keep my sibling safe—”

“She can’t even keep herself safe!” I argued.

“—and we will enter into a union to keephersafe on Halla.”

My inner self raged, but I didn’t want to scare her any more than I already had. “Please tell me you’re just trying to get my goat.”

“What’s a goat?” Deacon asked.

Sarah frowned. “Huh?”

“He doesn’t know what a goat is,” I said to her, then told him, “It’s a figure of speech. What I meant to say is, please tell me you’re lying.” Sometimes navigating the intricacies of multiple languages tripped me up, and I lost track of who would understand what.

Deacon was quite serious as he said, “I would never lie about a union, Jac. Who would lie about a union? They are sacred.”

I groaned in frustration. “This is madness, and you know it. She has no idea what this means—”

“It’s like a human marriage,” he explained to her.

Sarah’s eyes went wide with apprehension. “You want to marry me?”

“Yes, but only to protect you from the ghosts.”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

I ran my fingers through my hair and fell back onto Deacon’s bed near the window. “Tell her. She needs to know everything.”

Deacon said, “The ghosts of Halla can possess living tissue. It’s been many years since it has happened, but our historians tell us of the times they’ve inhabited a human. Being possessed is violent and painful—they can do anything with your body, use it as they see fit, or torment you—it merely depends on the ghost. But they cannot possess someone who is united with another. Union is the only bond they cannot break to enter a person’s body, and thus, it is very sacred to us. I do not enter this bond lightly, Sarah Hollinger, but I do it to protect you.”

She covered her mouth and shook her head. “I can’t marry you.”

“You must. It is the only way to protect you—are you having a side effect from your drugs? I did not think I would have to explain this more than once.”

I almost laughed at his confusion. “Deacon, she’s not asking for you to explain it again. She’s telling you she doesn’t want to do it.”

He frowned. “What she wants does not matter. It will protect her.”

“It matters to me!” she snapped and began to cry.

I saw an opportunity. “This is your savior? The woman who can’t refuse a union without crying? You think she’s strong enough to protect your sibling? She’s hardly strong enough to stand on her own two feet!” I walked over to her and expected her to cringe, but she didn’t. She just watched me and sobbed. “Look at her tiny body and this soft hair. She’s like a cina. Head to toe weakness, that is. I bet she can’t even push me away. Go ahead and try, little cina.” I carefully nudged her shoulder.

“I’m not playing your—”

“Push me!” I barked in her face.

She shoved me with all her might. I stepped back to stop from falling, but landed against Deacon, who laughed.

Suddenly, Sarah slapped my face and screamed, “Leave me alone!” before she realized what she had done. Then she folded her arms against herself, like a shield. Her eyes were glued to me, and her lip quivered, as if I was about to attack her.

---