Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

lucky day, girls. You’ve got your own room.’

He pushed a door open and gestured for them to step inside. The bedroom was practically a closet, claustrophobic in design, with a twin bunk bed frame nailed to the opposite wall. There were thin cheap mattresses on each bed, and fitted sheets folded neatly on top of their pillows.

‘Thank you so much,’ Violetta said, and it seemed she genuinely meant it.

Brandon nodded. ‘No problem. I’ll leave you to settle in. Come find me if you need anything, yeah?’

‘Will do,’ Alexis said.

‘Anything at all,’ Brandon said. ‘I mean it.’

He gazed at them for a little too long.

Again, Alexis didn’t care.

Which was odd.

Brandon nodded to himself, stepped out and walked away. He left the door open — closing it might highlight how small the space truly was.

Alexis wouldn’t have cared either way. She didn’t think anything could ruin the mood she was in.

Violetta put her bag on the bed and said, ‘Let’s take a walk. Get some fresh air.’

Alexis said, ‘Really?’

‘The scenery’s stunning,’ Violetta said. ‘We might as well look at it.’

Because the room’s bugged, Alexis realised. She scolded herself for being so stupid, but she couldn’t stay frustrated. Instead she found it funny.

She masked a giggle and said, ‘Sure, why not?’

They went out through the same door they’d come in, leaving their phones in their bags. The devices were useless, anyway. There was no service this far from civilisation. Their building marked the very edge of the commune, and out back it surveyed the endless landscape, like an alien planet of grass and dirt.

Violetta walked a few dozen feet away from the building, until they were out of earshot of any eavesdroppers, at the tip of the vast emptiness.

She turned to Alexis and said, ‘Do you feel it?’

‘Feel what?’ Alexis said.

Violetta said, ‘Inside you.’

Alexis cocked her head, confused. ‘I feel good, I guess. Maybe we needed some fresh country air after all.’

Violetta said, ‘Are colours brighter?’

Alexis hesitated.

She looked all around.

The prairie was magnificent. It was so empty it practically glowed, a well-preserved frontier, a world away from the chaos of modern city living. It was how humans were supposed to live. It was glorious…

Violetta said, ‘Alexis.’

She snapped out of it. ‘Yeah. Colours are brighter. Do you think—?’

‘The tea.’

‘Oh.’

‘It was a tiny dose,’ Violetta said. ‘But holy shit, I feel good.’

Alexis fought through the dopamine spike and used an iota of common sense. She said, ‘This is how it works.’

‘What do you mean?’

Alexis stared into Violetta’s eyes. ‘Right now, my brain’s telling me to listen to whatever Maeve says. If life feels this good out here, why put on a cover? Why not actually live out here? That’s what’s going through my head right now…’

‘You don’t honestly—?’

Alexis said, ‘No. I can detach myself from it. But if I was any weaker … maybe all those months ago, before I met Will, maybe I would have fallen for something like this. I was still a smart woman back then. I had my head on my shoulders. I wasn’t gullible. But this — the setting, the chemicals, the words Maeve uses — it’s a different level of persuasion. It’s incredibly good.’

Violetta said, ‘I know.’

Alexis looked into her eyes.

They were twice as blue. She wasn’t sure whether it was her own perception, or the Bodhi in Violetta’s system.

Then something broke through the elation, and Violetta’s face went dark and she said, ‘Fuck.’

‘What?’

‘That’s how good this stuff is,’ Violetta said. ‘For an instant, I forgot I was pregnant. The baby…’

Alexis’ own joy fell away. ‘Oh, shit.’

Violetta shook her head. ‘It’s a microdose. Barely perceptible. Just a mood elevator. That’s not enough to harm the child.’

All went quiet.

Violetta looked out across the plains and said, ‘If Maeve slips me some again, I’ll cut her throat.’

Alexis listened to the determination in her voice.

She was telling the truth.

38

That afternoon, Dane rapped his knuckles lightly against the wood of the farmhouse’s office door.

Even though his wife had requested his presence it still didn’t feel right. These were her “deep focus” hours, early in the afternoon between congregations, when she locked herself in the office and let her grandest visions spill onto the page. He’d seen the aftermath of what had to be a hundred sessions by now. Every time, the result was pages and pages of handwritten scrawl, written in the loose style of her free-flowing train of thought. They were notes for her eyes only, and sometimes Dane’s. Plans for the future, broader aims and goals for the movement, and ideas for new nefarious methods of infecting the disciples with feverish hatred and devotion.

She’d been doing these isolated brainstorming sessions ever since she’d morphed into a destructive charismatic

“Destructive charismatic,” he thought. Giving your soulmate a label like that…

But it was true. He’d stumbled upon the definition online, sitting up late one night. A destructive charismatic bent followers to their will with a bombastic, unabashed personality. They were masters of persuasion, refusing to recognise their flaws and doubling down whenever anyone criticised them. It created an aura of achievement and accomplishment, like it was effortless, like the world fell into their lap the moment they opened their mouth and spewed their rhetoric.

That was Maeve Riordan, through and through.

That late night Googling session had been a rare moment of self-reflection, when Dane finally realised what his partner had become. In those moments he realised what they were, who they were. They didn’t come often, but when they did they hit him hard.

He’d always known he was a monster — his childhood had made that inevitable. Universal qualities of empathy and compassion come from the correct development of a baby’s brain. An infant needs love, care, nurturing. Dane had received exactly the opposite of those three things, and had identified himself as a psychopath in his early twenties after giving it a couple of minutes’ thought. He’d spent most of his life dangerously paranoid, but he figured it was unique that he was able to acknowledge it instead of vehemently ignoring it like