Part of me wants to make a break for it and escape down the empty balcony, but I have nowhere to go, nor do I know how long I could hide out within this compound before someone turned me in. I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few sycophants are willing and waiting to be of use to Shepherd.
David turns back to me with a steely gaze. “Shepherd wants to speak to you, Lola.”
“Um, okay,” I stutter. “Now?”
“Yes, now,” he says, glancing around my small space. I haven’t done much with it. I still have just the clothes on my back and my zombie weapon. I think wistfully of the gun I relinquished at the gate, wondering now if the reasoning behind the rule wasn’t more nefarious than they let on.
Madge hasn’t looked away from me since they entered the room, and when I meet her stare, goosebumps break out on my skin. The vacant expression combined with the eerie wide-eyed intensity is so fucking creepy I have to resist the urge to squirm. Instead, I force myself to smile because anything more and I’ll be escaping down the fucking hall whether it’s a good idea or not.
I don’t know what she’s trying to see, but I’m desperate to show her nothing, although at this point, with sweat beading on my brow, I fear I may be failing.
“Okay,” I reply after an extended pause.
David nods and glances around the room once more before grabbing my arm and leading me to the door. I try to pull away gently, testing the waters, but he just increases his grip. It’s not painful, but it is firm, and the message is received. I’m going whether I want to or not. I just wish I knew what was waiting for me on the other side.
Madge follows silently behind, her footfalls barely heard over the sound of my heavy breathing, and I try to project a calm I don’t feel as I ask, “So, um, what’s going on?”
“Had such high hopes for you,” Madge murmurs behind me, but I don’t turn to ask her what the fuck she means because I’m too fucking terrified that I’m about to be murdered in the middle of the night with no one to help me.
This is potentially do or die, and I’ve got to straighten up because I’m entirely alone in this with no white knight waiting in the wings, thoughts of which bring me around to Cole. And I smile bitterly. Will he even think of me when I’m gone? Mysteriously disappeared?
David says nothing, just grunts and pulls me along. We pass the hall where we gather for food and the sermons and the road where it curves and I entered not too long ago before reaching a modest ranch-style house situated off the main street.
I can’t see much more than the soft glow emanating from the windows as David pulls me through the door without knocking, and a slight screech announces our presence. It’s not hard to find Shepherd because he’s sitting in the room directly beyond the front door with his arms splayed across the back of the chair.
A glance down the hall reveals what must be the kitchen and doors leading off the hall, but this is as far as I can see. The sitting room has plush, white couches formed in an L shape around a television and adjacent coffee tables.
Shepherd is seated facing me in an armchair, with a contemplative look on his face, surrounded by the soft glow from the lamps, and I desperately search his expression for anything to provide comfort, but he’s like stone. His considering stare displays his only emotion, and it’s fucking terrifying because this man holds my fate in his hands, and I can’t get a read on him.
After a protracted silence probably designed to scare the shit out of me, he nods his head and says, “Sit down, Lola.”
David brings me around and drops me on a couch end, directly across from Shepherd, before stepping back and leaning against a wall with his arms crossed.
“Thank you, Madge, you may go,” Shepherd says without moving his eyes from me.
I hear the faint sound of the door clicking shut but maintain my gaze because I can’t help thinking I’m about to meet a grisly end, and I just don’t have it in me to appear cowed, even if it might save my life, and even if I am actually cowed.
His lips quirk up at the corners and he drops his gaze, surveying my body, starting with my breasts and ending at my toes. I feel slightly dirty at the perusal, but I don’t see sexual desire or interest on his face, making this all the more terrifying and confusing. I don’t know what he wants, and therefore how to crawl my way out of this mess.
Coming to some sort of decision, he leans forward in his chair and says, softly, “Do you know why you’re here, Lola?”
“No,” I whisper after clearing my throat.
“You’re here because I am building my flock, and I cannot build it without healthy men and women. Men and women who will fulfill my vision and rid this world of sin.”
I blink but don’t reply because I don’t know what I would say anyway, neato? Thanks for including me? You’re bat shit crazy? The responses are endless.
“You seemed like a good candidate, fresh and young, pretty,” he says. “However, I sense a problem with you.”
He stops and stares at me with an intensity that forces me to lower my gaze to my clenched fists resting in my lap. He knows he’s all-powerful in this little village of terror, and he enjoys making me squirm, but my fear is choking me all the same.
“You see,” he says, bringing his cupped hands to his mouth and gazing at me with a twinkle in his eye. “I need sheep, not wolves. I need followers, not leaders. And you, my dear, are a wolf. A leader. A lone wolf, perhaps, but a leader nonetheless.”
Sweat trickles down my aching spine, but I continue to sit ramrod straight. I’m barely breathing, and I tense at each word that leaves his mouth because I am so fucked right now.
“So, where does that leave us, pretty little Lola?” he asks, his voice still even and measured, which frankly scares me more than if he was angry or scared. “That leaves us with you gone. The question is, how to do it and still make you an example? We don’t want to scare our flock too severely, now do we? Just enough to keep the smarter sheep in line.”
I’d be offended for all the men and women that he is summarily dismissing as stupid followers, except in this moment, I’m not entirely sure most of them aren’t. After all, I’m about to disappear, and who’s going to do anything about it? Will Cole step up? Enzo?