Page 122 of Prodigal Son

Cain scowled. She had just said she was staying.

Destiny turned away and walked back to the van.

His heart beat wildly at the sense that he was losing her again. “Wait!”

She stilled and glanced at him. The man who stopped him leaned close to her ear and whispered, “He must be a fan. Give him an autograph and let’s go.”

She frowned. “The Amish don’t have televisions.” Her stare met Cain’s and smiled, a thousand broken shards of his heart forming back into one as she looked at him with such familiarity.

“What’s your name?”

His heart plummeted. It was all a lie. Her fake smiles and her news reporter façade. This wasn’t his Destiny at all.

She withdrew a pen from the pocket of her dress. “Did you want an autograph?” She truly didn’t know him.

Swallowing back his disappointment, he spoke without thinking. “That was my home that burnt down.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her hand touched his arm and he stared at the familiar sight of her fingers then her touch was gone. “Thankfully, it looks like no one was hurt.”

She was a terrible reporter. There was literally a dead witch buried under the destruction not fifty feet from where they stood.

“What’s your name?” She uncapped the pen.

There had never been a more painful question. She spoke to him like a stranger. Somehow her indifference burned more than the fire.

“Cain,” he said thickly, no longer wanting to speak to her.

“Is there something you’d like me to sign, Cain?”

He looked at her, trying to see past the makeup and flashy clothes. Even her eye lashes weren’t real. Gone was the natural beauty he held through the night.

He resented the artificial woman in front of him. Blamed her for taking the real Destiny away. “Are you happy?”

“W-wh…” She laughed nervously, pressing another plastic smile into place. “Excuse me?”

“Are you happy? It’s a simple question.”

Her brows tightened but then something shifted and her smile reached her eyes. “I have no complaints. How about you? Are you happy?”

He wanted to tell her he wasn’t. He wanted to confess how broken and miserable he’d been, but he only said, “If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

She cocked her head and flinched when the camera man yelled, “Destiny, let’s go! There’s a backup on twenty-two. We gotta get movin’.”

She glanced back at him and left without another word. Gone. Everything Adam said about her recognizing the feelings he stirred was a lie. He’d been erased and she didn’t recognize him at all. Better to find out now than later.

CHAPTER 34

Moriah Abilene King was born in the heat of summer. With a thatch of black hair and diamond eyes, she was the spitting image of both her parents, Larissa and Eleazar King.

The Hartzlers were displaced since the fire, and scattered about the farm. Cain had the joy of staying in the private living quarters of the safe house with his sister and the bishop. It wasn’t too terrible, being that parenthood preoccupied his hosts most hours of the day.

Grace had gone to stay with Adam and Anna, which provided Anna with extra help and Adam with edible food for a change. Abilene, however, had not left Ezekiel and Faith’s home since the fire when they transported Jonas.

There had been no change in his father’s condition. Each day, Jonas spent hours awake, apparently suffering from some unknown enemy, without speaking a single word. Sometimes his eyes would widen then squint as if he were in excruciating pain, but paralysis kept him silent.

When the witch cast the spell, the fire distracted everyone from listening to her words spoken in a foreign tongue. Grace had been the only one able to glean input based on their thought patterns, which was how she’d known the witches were attempting to kill their father in an act of retribution.

While Gracie didn’t remember the spell, she gathered enough to recall three components. First, Jonas would not be able to speak. Second, he would get his request for immortality. And third, the witches would not slow his body from decomposing. He was dying on the inside while surviving on the outside, his body a prison cell for an eternal sentence.

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