The Forsaken (The Chosen Series Book 2), Patricia Bell [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

“You drive.” She scrambled from the car.

“What’s wrong?” Jonathan exited the passenger seat and came around.

“I don’t know. I just have this feeling.” She glanced around.

Luna had encountered the same feeling before. It was a cold unexplainable feeling. “Someone is watching us.”

Jonathan took the keys and slipped into the driver’s seat. “Are you sure?”

Luna nodded. Glancing around the area, she saw nothing out of place. She walked around the car and slipped into the passenger seat.

Jonathan pulled out of the driveway, and Luna stared at her surroundings. No one seemed to be there, but something was not right. She felt it.

Chapter 8 ― Daniel

The curiosity was killing him. It was late, and Daniel had been itching to get back to that corridor that held the secret door. It was all he could do to not keep walking down that hall to be sure the mark he’d made earlier in the day was still there.

He’d been so antsy the entire evening that he hadn’t even sat down to watch even one episode of the action movie marathon he’d waited all week to see.

His mother had come by a half an hour before and wished him a good night. His father would not come by his room. The man kept late hours, besides, that was not the way. Mothers were nurturers, fathers were not. Plain and simple. The only time his father had ever come to his bedroom was to reprimand him. So, it was a good thing when his father did not show up.

Daniel peeked out into the hallway to be sure no one was around. At night, the workers went to their own homes outside the community so there would be no one there to see him.

He’d always wondered why his father did not hire people from within the community, but he never asked. One day he would know all. But for now, he was just happy to be alone to check out that secret door.

With no one around, Daniel crept out into the hallway and down to the spot he’d stood only hours before. He looked for the small mark he’d made and found it right away. He pushed on it, but nothing happened. He stared at the wall in confusion.

How had he opened it the first time? He felt the wall for a seam of some kind but the hallway light was too dark to see by.

Frustrated, Daniel leaned against the wall.

Click.

When he glanced over, there it was. The secret door stuck out only a fraction from the wall. This time, without wasting another minute, he opened it and slipped inside. He fully expected to be transported into another world, but if that had happened, he couldn’t tell. He could see nothing but darkness.

“Eve!”

Daniel flinched at the sound of his father’s voice. It was as if he was right there with him in the wall. He swung around but saw no one.

“Eve! Where are you?”

He searched with his hands in the darkness. No sooner had he found the wall did he touch a switch. He flipped it up and a dim light illuminated the area.

“I am here,” the gentle voice of his mother answered.

Daniel glanced down the narrow passage. Was he inside the wall of his house? It did not look like as he imagined. There was plenty of room, and the walls were finished on the inside just as they were in the rest of the house. He followed the corridor to search for where his father’s voice was coming from.

Only a little further down, he found the source. A vent at the bottom of the wall. Daniel bent down to look through it. It led right into the office. His father sat in his chair behind his desk. His mother stood, her back to the wall in which Daniel watched.

“I have a visitor coming through the back entrance. Keep a watch out and open the gate when he arrives.”

Young Daniel shook his head and kept moving. He didn’t want to hear any more of what his father was planning. Instead, he headed down the narrow pathway to do some more exploring. Once he’d made it through a maze of twists and turns, it ended at a set of stairs.

He stood at the end of the passage and stared down into the darkness. It was so completely dark that he could not see past the fifth stair.

Where does it go? What is down there?

Not ready to brave the unknown, Daniel headed back in the direction he’d come from.

Sitting on the ground next to the vent inside the wall, Daniel looked into his father’s office. A man stood, facing his father, who once again was seated at his desk. From behind, the man looked tall and bulky. His brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung down his back just past his shoulders. But what was most disturbing, was the man’s voice. It was deep and dark. Almost sinister sounding.

“What is it you want me to do?” the man asked.

“I want you to find the three runaways and get rid of them,” the High Prophet said.

“How old?”

“They are of different ages. Rachel is thirteen, Jonathan eighteen and the other girl, Luna, is either seventeen or eighteen. I am not sure.”

His father reached down into his desk and pulled something out. When he raised it to the man, it was clearly a large yellow envelope.

“What is this?” the man asked.

“There are pictures of each of them. They are not close-ups, as our people do not believe in photography, but they will suffice.”

Daniel shook his head. He’d been taught that photographs were forbidden to the community and yet his father had people who took pictures from afar? Daniel had seen the files in his father’s cabinet. They contained thousands of photos. Each separated by family and stored in his father’s office. Daniel just couldn’t figure out why his father had taken them. What use did he have for them? Now he knew.

“And how do you suggest