Right. This meant that Enzo would have a new item to add to his to-do list when he got back to Kansas City. Get an annulment. And the next time the officers got together at the Christmas party and told stories about their cases, he would have one that topped all of theirs.
Reverend Russell signed the document, folded it, and slid it into his pocket. “This will make it to the recorder’s office eventually.”
Charity’s mother had teared up during the ceremony. Sad tears? Enzo couldn’t imagine they were happy ones. She drew in several breaths, and her too-bright voice wavered, “I guess we’ll be dropping the honeymooners off at the cabin for two weeks.”
Charity shut her eyes as though the words caused her pain. But relief washed over Enzo. The cabin would be a prison, he had no doubt of that, still, the announcement meant they planned on keeping him alive for at least two weeks.
He had that long to figure out how to escape.
21
Charity had imagined feeling a lot of different emotions on her wedding day. She’d never supposed numb would be on that list. Although, numb was better than enraged and devastated, which was how she’d felt the entire time they’d packed up.
The government would hunt her family now. No place but the breakaway states would be safe for them anymore. Milo, Zia, and Gregor were making preparations to head to New Salem.
Her parents hadn’t come right out and said they would join them. Instead, while they packed, her father said, “We’ll evaluate our position after your honeymoon. We can’t take Enzo to New Salem. It would be too dangerous.”
“Unless,” her mother said, “he has a change of heart about the government.” Her mother was clearly an optimist. “It might happen.”
Her father said, “He’d have to prove he had a change of heart. Don’t give him any information about New Salem.”
Charity had thrown clothes into her suitcase, hardly paying attention to what she took. “What’s the point of marrying him? He threatened to shoot me.”
“But he didn’t,” her mother said. “I’m clinging to that fact. Most officers chasing down an Empowered wouldn’t have warned you. They would’ve just shot. There’s good somewhere in him.”
“Or a new determination to act more decisively next time.” Charity rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the pounding in her head. “Marrying him can’t be the right thing to do. Why would the visions tell me to go to the cabin with him for two weeks?” The vision had shown them the length of time they needed to stay there. It had to be an important detail.
Her father left his suitcase, walked over to Charity, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know why you need to be with him, and it scares me more than I can say to send you off alone with him.” His hands trembled on her shoulders. “You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”
Charity wanted so badly to say she couldn’t stay with Enzo for two weeks. He was a special ops officer, and dangerous, and he’d used her.
But it was her fault that Enzo knew about her father. And the visions came for the family’s safety. How would she live with herself if she refused to go with Enzo and then someone in her family ended up hurt or killed because of it? She had no choice.
“I’ll do it.”
That was when the numbness set in.
Now she sat in the back of the van, staring out the window so she didn’t have to look at him. The morning sun lightened the silhouettes of the trees, turning them from dark reaching shadows into a towering, thick forest.
No one spoke after Reverend Russell performed the wedding. Her mother sniffled, trying not to cry, her father concentrated on the road, and Charity felt too miserable to attempt conversation.
Finally, her mother put a blindfold on Enzo, a sign they were nearing the cabin. Half an hour later, they stopped on the dirt road. The spot looked unassuming—just another place in the Ozarks. Trees, rocks, bushes. A few patches of broken concrete in the far distance showed a spot where a cabin had once stood before being gutted in one conflict or another.
A cave in the middle of a rock outcropping served as the landmark that told them they’d arrived. The door to the underground cabin was tucked in the back of the cave, carefully camouflaged to look like part of the rock. Even with a flashlight, finding it proved difficult. The man they’d bought the cabin from had taken his bomb shelters seriously.
All the other times they’d come up here, her parents hid their van in an underground storage area off to the right that was covered by fake rocks. This time they left the van on the road. They wouldn’t be here long.
Charity’s mother got out first, checking to make sure they were alone. There was no sign of people, no smell of a campfire, no sound other than birds arguing over trees. People didn’t generally venture this deep into the woods, but the Arkansas-Oklahoma border conflict was only twenty miles away which meant things could change depending on how the war went.
Her father untied Enzo’s legs and marched him, still handcuffed and blindfolded, into the cave. Enzo didn’t say anything, although his tone from earlier made it clear he thought she and her family were delusional.
Charity slipped her backpack onto her shoulders and followed after them. Her mother and the reverend went to the back of the van and hefted out boxes of produce and milk, along with a backpack filled with some of her brothers’ clothes for Enzo. They’d left all his things at the farm.
Her father hadn’t told anyone that they were going. When the government came looking for Enzo—which had probablyalready happened—the other harvesters could say, even under the power of truth serum, that they didn’t know where Enzo or the family had gone.
The government would search for their vehicles. Her parents would have to sell the van quickly, travel somewhere else, and buy a new vehicle. And all the while, government officials would be combing the area for them. Taking this trip to the cabin had cost them precious time, had seemed to put them in more danger, not less, but her parents wouldn’t vary from the vision’s directions.
Charity’s mother shifted the box in her arms to better see the uneven ground. “You should have enough fresh and canned food to last you two weeks, but if not, open some of the freeze-dried food.”