Exile (The Oneness Cycle) Read Online Free PDF

hoping to clear it, and listened. A trickle of water somewhere. The rocky surface beneath her was dry, thankfully, but the air was cold. It was dark. This was a cave, she decided. She had been tied up and dumped in a cave.
    She tried to pull her wrists apart, but they were bound securely with something broad and inflexible that would hardly let her move her hands. Duct tape. A sound not far away caught her attention and she jerked her head up, regretting it immediately as flashes of light ignited in front of her eyes and pain took up a dance in her head. She bit her lip to keep from making a sound.
    No other noises followed, and no one appeared in the darkness around her. But when the lights stopped flashing in her eyes, she realized that it wasn’t completely dark in the cave—her senses were adjusting, and she could make out a crisscrossing pattern in the murk ahead of her. It was a door, she realized, a barred metal gate. This place wasn’t just a cave; it was a prison.
    Moving her head very slowly to avoid a repeat of the fantastic headache that waited to pounce, she figured out where the nearest cave wall was and scooted backwards until she could lean against it. The more awake she became, the more acutely she realized that she was alone. She swallowed a lump in her throat and said a prayer for grace.
    April shivered. The air in here was cool, and her tank top and track pants offered little warmth. What was she doing here? She tried to remember the men’s faces, but she had barely had a look at them. She was sure she had never seen them before. Were they just human? Was this all just some man-made plot—was she being trafficked or held for ransom or targeted for some serial crime?
    She seriously doubted it.
    The months leading up to this day had been strange, full of the sense that something was coming. A foreboding felt in the spirit long before the mind could catch up. Often it was April who could make sense of such feelings, who could name the threats and see how to combat them. But not this time. When she tried, she could only find murk—confusion and darkness. And it wasn’t just her. Letters had come from other Oneness cells, speaking of trouble but unable to offer specifics. Mary’s dreams had been nightmarish, all of them warning, warning, warning … but the warnings remained indistinct, so without clarity that no one could act on them. Richard, faithful Richard, had been staking himself out in prayer three times a day, late at night and early in the morning, but to no avail. There was nothing. Only the sense that something was coming.
    April could only assume this was the first strike.
    She pushed down a growing sense of dread. She knew the enemy, the cruelty and hatred associated with everything they did. She refused to imagine what they might be planning to do with her. Imaginations like that bred fear; and fear was central to their power. She flexed her hand as much as possible within the tape, feeling for the latent presence of a sword.
    The Oneness lived always at war. The enemy was real and persistently active; others could live with the illusion of peace and harmony in the world, but the Oneness could not. And yet, attacks were not common in the fishing village. The little cell was so tiny, so inconsequential, that it attracted scant attention. April, Richard, Mary: just three individuals serving in a tiny town on the edge of the bay. There was nothing remarkable about any of them.
    So what am I doing here? April wondered.
    Gingerly she leaned her head against the rock wall and closed her eyes.
    She could hear waves, some distance away. The bay. She wasn’t far from home, then.
    She smiled faintly.
     
    * * *
     
    When Reese awoke on Friday morning, it was to the smell of bacon and eggs and coffee. These boys were surprisingly domestic, she thought; or maybe they were just bothering to be that way because she was here. The thought made her feel welcomed and cared for, and that sensation lingered