Page 27 of The Cult

Then again, if he wasn’t doing that job, I don’t know what the hell he’d be here for.

“I want to talk to you,” he barks as he stops a few feet away.

Well, I don’t want to talk to you.

If I could say that and not get into trouble, I would, but I know better. Micah may never have said the actual words telling me to get along with Adam, but he’s insinuated it enough times that I know I have to at least make the effort.

“What do we have to talk about?” I ask, instantly wishing I had chosen a better way to say that.

He gives me a look of utter disgust, as if I’m supposed to know what the hell his problem is now. Does he think I’m a mind reader?

“You should have backed me up on that Maren bullshit, Nash. You know as well as I do that she wasn’t right in the head. Even if we got her into the car, she probably would have tried to drive us all off the fucking road at some point!”

God, he’s such a whiner. Like some tiny woman was going to be able to do anything safely secured in the back seat of the car. It’s like this guy lives his life in some ridiculous fantasy story where women who weigh nearly a hundred pounds less than us can’t be handled easily.

I’ve got news for him. As much as I wanted her to get back here safe and sound, I would have done whatever I had to in order to make that happen, and that includes knocking her unconscious if I had to.

Staring at him, I say, “I told the truth. Nothing more. You went over the line, man. She wasn’t going to outrun me. I’ve got at least a foot on her, for God’s sake. Add to that the temperature outside that day, and it wouldn’t have taken long to catch her. You just got overzealous, something you need to get in check before the next time we have to work together.”

Adam seethes, unsurprisingly, and then takes a giant step closer to me so our noses are nearly touching. Rage fills his eyes as he says, “I don’t need to change a damn thing about how I do my job, Nash. Maybe you need to remember what we were trained to do and fucking do it once in a while!”

Spittle flies from his mouth as he tries to intimidate me, and it takes every ounce of willpower I posses to not roll my eyes and push him away. I want to more than he even realizes, but I know he’ll just go running back to Micah and cry about how I disrespected him.

What a baby.

So instead, I take a deep breath in and slowly let it out through my nose to calm myself down. There’s no need to do anything stupid with this guy. He takes care of that all on his own.

“I remember full well what I was trained to do, and it’s not shooting down scared women in cold blood. You fucked that up. Own it. I’d think you would have had time to figure that out while you were in the box last night. I guess not. But don’t come up in my face with your bullshit.”

His eyes grow wide, and I know he’s about to try to push me over the edge to do something I shouldn’t. “Oh, I had time to think about things in the box. A lot of things. Like how some of us guards can’t be trusted. I’d watch my back if I were you, Nash. You might be one of his favorites now, but we all know how quickly that can change. And when it does, I’ll be there to give you a taste of your new reality.”

Adam storms away before I can say another word, but that’s probably for the better. There’s no point in arguing with him. He just wants to fight. It doesn’t matter that he’s in the wrong for what he did to Maren out at that farm. Like always, he’s a crybaby who can’t accept any responsibility for his actions and wants to blame everyone but himself.

I know my status with Micah is only temporary. I don’t need the likes of Adam to inform me about that. I’ve seen how people rise and fall around this place. Other than Nadine, nobody who’s ever been a favorite of the leader is still enjoying that position with him. Some have fallen only a little in his favor, while others have tumbled so low that they aren’t part of The Golden Light anymore.

That fact never leaves my mind. The worst part is no matter what I do, it can’t change the reality that when it’s my time to suddenly be out of favor, it will have little to do with my behavior and mostly to do with how Micah feels that day.

Such is the reality of this place.

Before I head back to see how his meeting went with Lara, I take one last look at the women in the gardens and silently hope the ones responsible for making sure they get enough water are doing their jobs today. We can’t handle another death around here so soon after Maren and that new recruit last night.

As I standat the door wondering if I should knock or just wait until Micah summons me, I hear him call out, “Come in, Nash!”

Then I remember the cameras. Looking up, I smile as I silently wonder how I could have forgotten everything around here is seen. Stupid. You’d think I’m new here.

I open the door and quickly scan the room to see him sitting alone on his chair. Relief washes over me, and I step inside happy to only have to deal with him. I don’t know why I feel that way, though. I’ve never experienced anything like this before with one of the women he’s chosen to show interest in, so why is it happening now?

“Come, come,” Micah says as he waves me toward him.

Stopping before him, I bow and wait for him to speak. Unlike other times, he remains silent for so long that I lift my gaze to see if something’s wrong. He looks like he always does. He’s smiling and looking at me with no hint of anger or unhappiness in his eyes, so what’s going on?

Before my mind can start racing with possibilities, Micah laughs and says, “You know why you’re one of my best guards, Nash? Because you never make the wrong move. Rise and talk to me about what’s happening in our world today.”

I do as he commands and say, “The women who tend to the gardens are hard at work. It’s quite hot out there today, so I hope the ones whose job it is to bring them water are just as hard at work.”

Before I can continue with what I’ve seen since I was last here in his rooms, he holds up his hand to stop me. “Are you worried about them?”

The memory of a time when another guard mentioned something about a group of workers here on the farm and Micah lost his mind on him for making it seem like he’s not caring for his followers flashes through my brain. The Golden Light can be incredibly capricious, and at this moment, I can’t tell by the blank expression he wears if he’s about to explode on me for doing the same thing.

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