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

“It’s okay.” He put a hand on hers. “I messed up. With you and your mother.”

She didn’t know what to say. The un-comfortability level had shot through the roof.

“Hey, CeeCee-Bear. Wanna cup of coffee?” Blake said, glancing in the direction of the doorway.

“Stop it, Daddy.” CeeCee giggled as she toddled over in her pink nightie and fluffy slippers to her daddy and crawled onto his lap.

“I can’t drink coffee. It’ll make me a misfit.”

“That’s midget, baby.” Blake laughed. “And I was just teasing you. It won’t really stunt your growth.”

Luna’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her back pocket and checked the screen. It was Jonathan.

“I better take this.” She ruffled CeeCee’s hair and then headed to the make-shift guest room, formally CeeCee’s bedroom. CeeCee had been excited to be able to share a room with her older sister, Bella. Only Bella hadn’t shown the same enthusiasm.

“Hey, Jon, what’s up?” she answered.

“I was just wondering if you changed your mind and decided to come home this weekend?” He sounded lonely.

“You miss me, don’t you?” She missed him, too.

“Yeah. I am sorry, I took my stress out on you. I shouldn’t have—"

“Jonathan, you have told me that a million times. I get it. I understand that this is all so strange for you. Believe me, I do. When I was with... your people, I was completely lost. It will just take time.”

“Will you come home then?”

Luna smiled. She was ready to go back. She just wasn’t sure how she was going to tell her father - Blake. “How’s the job search going?” she asked.

“I have a second interview on Monday with Two Cousin’s Moving Company. They seem interested.”

“That’s great, Jonathan. Things are looking up already.”

“Will you come home? I really want you to.”

“Okay, I will.” She’d already been thinking about it, but it was good to hear him say it. “Just give me a couple of days to break it to my dad. He kinda planned for me to stay the entire summer.”

“You want me to talk to him?”

“No! Please!” The thought of Jonathan telling her father she'd rather be with him was creepy at best. “I’ll talk to him myself. I promise I will be on a flight this weekend.”

“I love you, Luna.”

Luna’s heart swelled at the words. Just five months prior, he had been about to say it, or at least she’d thought, but she’d interrupted him. After the accident that took their friend's life, and almost theirs as well, Luna learned to never take life for granted. She’d been lucky to have a second chance after almost becoming the fourth wife to a forty-five-year-old man.

“I love you, too, Jonathan. I’ll see you this weekend.”

Chapter 3 ―Daniel

Bored out of his skull, young Daniel Ross snuck up to his father’s office door, lifted the long red robe that fell at his feet, and sat in the hallway outside his father’s office to listen in.

At eleven-years-old, he was bored out of his mind. After his lessons were over, he spent hours upon hours of nothing but watching television and building Lego castles and it became tiring. A person could only watch so many Star Trek movie marathons before going completely insane. Not that he didn’t like watching television. He did. It was the one thing that transported him away from his boring life as the son of the High Prophet.

Since he was forbidden to leave the house with the exception of the enclosed back yard, he had resorted to sneaking around and eavesdropping on his father. That was where he’d learned about the goings-on in the community he was allowed no contact with. Not for two more years. On his thirteenth birthday, he would be ‘announced’ to the community at The Ceremony of Rites. Until then, he was to be hidden away. To an eleven-year-old boy, two years was a lifetime away.

“You must find them!” his father boomed, startling Daniel.

Daniel jumped to his feet and glanced around the hallway. No one was around. He moved closer to the door.

“I have looked. I cannot find them, High Prophet.” the man answered with a tremor in his voice. “Jacob is dead. That I have confirmed. But Jonathan and the girl, they have disappeared.”

Daniel couldn’t see who his father was speaking to. The door was open, but from the angle he stood, it blocked his view. He crept closer. As he peeked around the side of the door, he got a glimpse of the other man. Unlike him and his father, who wore only robes, the man wore the same attire he’d seen Elder Aaron wear when he reported to his father about the goings-on of the community.

The man’s left eye twitched as he spoke to the High Prophet. Just like Elder Aaron, the man wore a long, fuzzy beard, yet his hair was cut short and neat. Daniel pulled at his own long lock of hair tied neatly into a braid down his back. For centuries, not one of the men in his family had gotten a single hair cut since birth. It was their birthright. What good it was, Daniel did not know.

“This is your doing, Naaman! You are the one who brought that demon in to wreak havoc on our community! God is not pleased with you!” His father boomed. “You must fix this.”

“High Prophet, if I may speak freely?"

"Speak!"

"Sir, if you hadn't insisted I take the girl as a wife, I dare say none of this would have happened."

"As I told you before, it was the only way to keep her from running back to the police. Once she conceived-"

"I agreed to the marriage after you showed me the proof of her mother's death, but I did not know your plans of deception, and that her mother still lives. Why would you have me participate in such a -"

"Are you questioning your God, brother Naaman?" The High Prophet stood and leaned in on his desk.

"I do not believe God would ask His people to