Page 9 of The Godhead Complex
“No.” Cowan stood up taller. “Everyone will overreact. I’m fine.”
“You can’t hide vomiting from the rest of the group. You remember how bad it was on the boat. Especially with Dominic.” He was trying to break the ice, reminding her of the Dominic-Vomit-Domino-Effect that ensued every time Jackie got seasick. Jackie barfed, and then if Dominic were close enough to hear it or see it, he’d throw up. And he barfed with such gusto that it usually made someone else in the vicinity throw up too.
Cowan gave a pathetic smile. “Good times, for sure. It’ll be okay. I’ll figure this out, alright?” She cleared her throat, like a crack of thunder, and the sound of it made Isaac shudder. The smell of her vomit made him shiver. “And please, don’t say anything to anyone. Please.”
Isaac could only nod.
CHAPTERFOUR
Safety & Divinity in Numbers
“You really think we’ll run into Cranks out here?” Orange asked as they walked through the spotty forest. She eyed Minho’s hold on his weapon as she dangled her own gun by her side. The trunks of the trees creaked as they swayed in the wind; the branches and leaves sang a haunting, whooshing tune.
“Maybe,” Minho answered. Whether Cranks or something else, he’d be ready. Especially when the rest of the group took bathroom breaks in and out of the woods. Even wild dogs protected each other when one of them had to do their business. Orange seemed to be letting the islanders rub off on her, but Minho couldn’t let his guard down so easily. “You don’t?”
“I think the worst of what we could possibly run into . . . is back in Nebraska.” Orange grimaced, and Minho silently agreed. Even before meeting people like Roxy and Ms. Cowan, he knew that the way of the Grief Bearers, not to mention their priests and priestesses, wasn’t right. The constant guards. The rigid schedules. Training and watch duty for hours, being forced to kill anyone that approached the fortress walls. “And call me crazy, but I think the Remnant Nation must’ve collected all the Cranks in the world for their sick Crank Army and that’s why we haven’t seen much of any out here.” She waved her weapon in front of the coastline as if to prove her point.
Minho looked at Orange to see if she was kidding. “I thought only the lowest level of soldiers believed in that rumor.”
Orange frowned and raised her eyebrows. “I thought only the dumbest of soldiers didn’t.”
“Cranks can’t be trained. And they can’t be taught how to shoot.” He tried to reason with her. “The rumor about an Army of Cranks is just something the older officers threatened to send off the younger soldiers to in order to scare them straight. To make them think that if they ever disobeyed they’d be turned into brainless slugs fighting the same war whether they wanted to or not.”
“Sometimes rumors turn out to be true.” Orange said.
“Name one.”
“I don’t know, maybe the rumor about Grief Bearers throwing Orphans off cliffs when they turn eighteen.” She gave him a knowing look. Meh. She was only half right; sometimes they threw Orphans over the cliff before they turned eighteen—like Minho.
“Everything’s always exaggerated.” He understood the ritual and why the Grief Bearers sent away their strongest soldiers for a forty-day pilgrimage. It was obvious—to weed them out and find the ones strong enough to become Grief Bearers, help train the next generation.
“They still threw you off a cliff.”
The sound of swift rustling in the brush returned Minho to the present moment. Roxy, Trish, and Miyoko stepped out from the thicker woods and back on the trail with Old Man Frypan.
“Did I hear that right? They threw you off a cliff?” Frypan asked and everyone’s eyes swerved to Minho.
Roxy looked the saddest. “They what . . . ?”
“It wasn’t that high of a cliff.” Minho didn’t know why he felt the need to defend the Grief Bearers. It was more about him not being viewed as vulnerable to the others. “Everyone goes through it. It’s a rite of passage.”
“Sounds like they weren’t very nice,” Frypan said with a massive roll of the eyes. “Much less trustworthy.”
Minho shrugged. He was still learning what real trust meant, and hearing that Orange believed in such a thing as the Crank Army rumor made him realize he couldn’t ever tell her his real reason for going to Alaska was to join the Godhead. Because if Orange believed in childhood rumors then she surely still held on tight to her training. She’d been taught to kill the Godhead, and Minho wanted tojointhe Godhead. He didn’t know how he’d separate from the group when they arrived in Alaska, but there was something in his blood that screamed at him:You are one with the Godhead.
And he believed it.
The Orphan named Minho was one with the Godhead.
He’d prove it in time to everyone else but for now it’d be his guarded secret. He was still learning about life outside the walls of the Remnant Nation, but he knew one thing for sure: Gods could not trust men.
One’s tolerance of the cold depended on genetics, and Alexandra always knew she had good, adaptable DNA because of her ability to withstand frigid temperatures. Or maybe it was mind over matter that she’d developed from strengthening her principles with the precepts and the Flaring discipline. Whatever the cause, others around her had bundled up in their mustard-yellow cloaks while she was comfortable with only a thin veil of cloth wrapped around her shoulders. It made her strength visible, which helped her to stand out even further from the crowd. It told the Pilgrims that she was their fearless leader.
She was their God among men.
As she moved closer to the eager crowd before her, the sheer cloak gently moved and folded with each step, like the Aurora Borealis in the sky. She pointed to the heavens above and spoke, throwing all the eloquence she could at the words.
“The sun shines on us now with a new energy. The Alaskan lights have returned to the night sky with all the colors and all the glory of the Universe.” Only two Pilgrims clapped at this; the rest gawked at her in confusion. She couldn’t blame them. “Were you not blessed to behold the colors of the sky last night?” Alexandra worked daily on strengthening her mind and controlling her thoughts and emotions, but times like this when it felt as though she were speaking to children, only the digits helped.
