Page 117 of Forged in Deception

He had a point there.

“I suppose.”

But instead of continuing to tease her, Asher’s face was serious again.

“I wanted you to see a miracle, Karlin.”

She couldn’t hide the surprise on her face. Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, that wasn’t it.

“This? Cora’s in an ICU bed after stabbing herself in the chest. All because she thought some snake alien would take her to a new planet. Not really seeing the miracle. Just a whole lot of crazy.”

Asher’s eyes were tender as he gazed into her own. “Exactly, and that’s the problem. You’re looking for these huge miraclesthat scream in your face, but you’re missing the ones that whisper. So many things had to go right for Cora to be alive. For all we know, had we been five minutes later, she and Lily could have completed their ritual killing properly.”

She felt a flicker of guilt rising in her chest.

Part of her wanted to argue, but she could see his point. Asher seemed to find God everywhere while she relegated Him to the shadowy moments of life, to be turned to only in extreme desperation.

Maybe she was just blind, so used to seeing things with the eyes of a scientist that she forgot her own bias.

“This isn’t the first time this kind of miracle happened to you, either,” Asher said, raising an eyebrow. “And I’m not just talking about narrowly escaping that flood.”

She pulled away from him a little, crossing her arms over her chest as the realization slammed into her. She knew where this was going.

Why had it taken so long for her to understand?

“John. When John almost died,” she said at last, her voice quiet.

“Yup.”

“I hadn’t told him I was coming to see him that day. I didn’t even really plan it. It just kind of happened. But if I hadn’t been there…”

She didn’t want to say the words, but Asher finished the sentence for her.

“If you hadn’t been there, exactly when you were there, Rome would have died. God was always in control, down to the very last millisecond, timing every minute of that day so that your brother would not only survive, but get a true second chance, with his mind intact.”

The thought made her feel strangely sick, but there was no way she could deny it.

The mathematical odds of it all being a coincidence were staggeringly low.

No, they were impossibly low when adding all of the factors together. He shouldn’t have lived through being unconscious that long, let alone without brain damage.

It was a miracle.

A miracle she’d never once thanked God for.

“And do you know why He did it?” Asher prompted.

She shook her head, not bothering to wipe away the tears that had begun to slide down her cheeks.

“He did it for the same reason He performs any miracle: He did it so that you would see Him, and that you would turn to Him. He wanted you to live, too.”

Asher’s words were gentle, but inside, she felt like every part of her was breaking.

God loved her so much, and she hadn’t accepted His love.

She hadn’t even noticed it.

“I–I rejected the miracle,” she stammered, struggling to get the words out through her shame and guilt. “And today I rejected another one.”

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