Page 13 of The Preachers' Promise
I nod, and some of the worry settles. We’re going to get her tonight. I understand what Cain is saying, but I won’t be leaving without Ophelia.
6
OPHELIA
I’munsure how many hours have passed, as I’ve slipped in and out of a drugged sleep.
Deep down, I know I should be angry that my own parents had me sedated, but I can’t seem to find the energy. The only thing that really matters right now is that, in this drugged state, I can’t hear the Prophet’s voice.
Is this how I’m spending the rest of my life? Either screaming and pounding at the sides of my own head, or barely conscious?
There was another way…I could have stayed with the Preachers, but now I’m too dosed up to fight my parents, and I don’t even have enough control of my limbs to find a phone and contact the college.
Outside of my window, I’m aware of the grumble of an engine as a vehicle pulls up. Doors slam and murmured voices drift over me. I can’t hear or understand what they’re saying, but they’re low and concerned. I have no doubt they’re talking about me, but I can’t do anything to intervene. It’s as though they’ve stripped me of all my bodily autonomy. I have no control anymore.
I drift back into sleep, but then blink open my eyes as my bedroom door opens. Two strangers walk in—a man and a woman, both dressed in white medical uniforms like I’d expectto see in a hospital. Close behind them are my parents, both with pinched expressions. The strange man is pushing a chair with wheels.
The sight sparks something inside me, and I suddenly feel more awake. I push myself to sitting and frown as I force my mouth to form words. “What is this?”
My mom is by my side in an instant. “You need help, sweetheart. More than we can give you.”
It takes my muddled brain a moment to figure out what she means. Then the presence of the wheelchair and the two strangers slot into place like missing pieces from a jigsaw puzzle.
I jerk away from her. “No, please, you can’t.” My words come out slurred, my tongue too thick to speak around.
She tries to smooth my hair away from my face, but I flinch at the touch. “We’ve tried everything we can. We don’t have any choice. This is a last resort, Ophelia. They’ll help you to get better, and no one else will know where you are.”
Two birds, one stone,I think bitterly.
I alreadyhadbeen getting better, and I hadn’t needed to be locked up in some facility to make that happen. I’d just neededthem. My Preachers.
“Come on, Ophelia. Don’t make a scene.” My father steps in. “This is for the best. It’s a private facility with additional security. I’ve made sure of it. No one will be able to hurt you there, especially not this prophet you keep speaking of.”
I become rigid at the mention of the Prophet.
Because there’s one thing everyone is forgetting about while they’re all so focused on me. A young woman—a girl, really—wrote that letter to me because she was in need of help. The same man who is haunting me has turned his attention to her. While all this is happening, he might be making her his wife, and then he’ll take her to bed, and he’ll… I can’t even bear to think about it. It could have been me, if I hadn’t gotten away.
Worse, in many ways, the only reason Daisy is in this position now is because I left. If I’d stayed, I’d have been the one who’d have become the Prophet’s seventh wife, and Daisy would have been left alone.
This is my fault.
But in this state, I’m helpless and hopeless. I have no control over my own fate, so how can I possibly help someone I can’t even reach?
The two strangers gather round the bed.
“Come along, dear,” the woman says—she’s older and matronly, and though she smiles at me, I see no warmth in her brown eyes. “Let’s get you somewhere you can rest.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I can rest here. I don’t want to go.”
The man steps in. “It won’t help to get agitated. Everyone here wants what’s best for you.”
“So why aren’t you listening to me?” It sounds like I’m drunk. “Just take me back to the college. I need to go back to the Preachers.”
My mom’s brow furrows. “This obsession with prophets and preachers isn’t good, sweetheart. It’ll help you to be away from it all.”
She has no idea what she’s talking about. I know she loves me, and I’m grateful she cares, but she must understand that having me locked up in a psych ward is not going to make me better.
“You’re wrong.”
