Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

disillusioned. The movement was shattered.

But was it dead?

Only time would tell.

Slater found what he was looking for in a cabinet up the back of the basement. It was untouched by the dying flames. All around it, embers licked at melted computer towers. But when Slater opened the cabinet door he found two satellite phones intact, capable of contacting the outside world despite the lack of cell towers out here in Thunder Basin.

He took them back up the stairs and went out to the porch again.

The trio were still there.

Slater handed the sat phones to Alexis. ‘Do you know what to do?’

She stared at them, then it clicked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

110

Alexis sat across from Brandon and Addison in the empty mess hall.

Brother and sister had arms around each other’s shoulders.

They’d been through hell, and they still had a ways to go, but they’d soldier through it together.

Alexis said, ‘The four of us who arrived here a couple of days ago … we need to leave.’

Brandon said, ‘Obviously.’

‘In other circumstances we’d stay. We’d help out. We’d help coordinate. But my friends have past lives. Those past lives are ticking time bombs, and Maeve and Dane found out who they really were. Seems the Riordans had contacts in the government. On the off chance that some undesirable people swoop down on this place looking for us, we need to be elsewhere. Do you understand?’

Brandon said, ‘You don’t owe us anything.’

Alexis stared at him. ‘Do you understand what Maeve did to you?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

It hurt him.

He didn’t like saying it.

But he seemed to have made it a priority to tell the truth.

Alexis turned to Addison. ‘And you’ve always known, haven’t you?’

Addison said, ‘Yes.’

Alexis placed the two sat phones on the table and paused for a beat. ‘We’re not going to be here, so whatever choice you two make, it has to be made on your own.’

They didn’t respond.

Alexis said, ‘You can use these phones to call the authorities. You can explain everything that happened. You might go to jail, but probably not for long. That’s if you put the blame on the Riordans, which is where it damn well should be placed.’

Brandon stared with wide eyes.

Addison gulped.

Alexis said, ‘Some of the people here aren’t going to want that to happen. They’ll protest it. They’ll argue that you should pick up where Maeve and Dane left off, continue to grow Mother Libertas into a powerhouse, but it won’t work. To be frank, none of you in this commune have the qualities that the Riordans possessed. You’re not psychopaths, you’re not narcissists, you’re not sociopaths. You were lost and you listened to someone you shouldn’t have. You let them sink their hooks in and allowed them to command you.’

Neither of them replied.

Alexis said, ‘When you make it out of this mess and wind up back in a normal life, you’re going to feel guilty. That’s a good thing. You can’t grow unless you feel pain. I’m not going to ask you any questions about it, but I take it something happened with a woman named Karlie, and it’s going to tear you both up inside, because you’re not evil. You might even think about killing yourselves.’

Addison was a statue.

Brandon’s brow was furrowed, like he didn’t want to believe it but knew it was true.

Alexis stayed quiet.

Finally Addison said, ‘Are you going to tell us not to?’

Alexis stood up. ‘No. It sounds like you beat an innocent woman to death. If I were you, I’d think about suicide. I might even do it. But if you make it out the other side, and there’s no guarantee you will … then make up for it with the rest of your lives. Act charitably. Help other people. Try to repent for what you did.’

Again, Brandon fell back on the question he couldn’t get his head around. ‘Why don’t you just kill us? You know we’re murderers.’

‘Because it’s too grey,’ Alexis said. ‘It’s a mess morally. How much influence did Maeve have on your actions? How much of it was you, and how much of it was her? I can’t answer those questions, and I’ll never know the answers, so I’m not the one to pass judgment. That falls on your own shoulders.’

They bowed their heads.

Alexis said, ‘Ask yourself those questions. Then do the right thing, and use those phones for the right reasons.’

Brandon lifted his head and stared Alexis in the eyes even though it made him intensely uncomfortable. ‘I will. I promise.’

Alexis shuddered.

She wasn’t sure why.

Then it hit her.

He’ll do anything I say now.

If she stayed, she could be Maeve.

She could wield power over the gullible.

It made her stomach churn.

She nodded farewell to both of them and said, ‘Underneath all this, you two are strong. And you know it.’

They nodded back.

She left them to an uncertain future.

It was all she could do for them.

111

King sat drumming his calloused fingers on the sun-baked wheel of the pickup truck.

It was the same vehicle Maeve had used to bring them out here. It was in good enough condition to get them back to Gillette, and from there they could make their way back to Vegas before the government got wind of their presence in Wyoming.

Alexis and Violetta slipped silently into the rear seats.

Violetta said, ‘Creeps me out.’

King said, ‘What does?’

‘Them.’

King looked past them in the rear view mirror, out the back windshield of the pickup. He saw perhaps a dozen disciples milling around the end of the trail, staring vacantly at the truck, arms by their sides. Like walking zombies. They didn’t know what to do or where to go. Then again, they’d never known.

That’s what made them perfect victims in the first place.

King said, ‘They’ll figure it out.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Violetta said. ‘I don’t think they’ll reintegrate well with society.’

‘There’s millions of people who aren’t integrated,’ King said. ‘That’s how the world works. This commune’s just a tiny speck in comparison to the real problem.’

‘The world’s better off without the Riordans,’ Alexis said.

King nodded.

In a world of grey,