12. Res
12
Res
I look in the mirror once more before I have to go down to wait for Jaxson’s father’s arrival. It’s chilly outside, so even with the heat running, there’s a distinctive chill in the house that won’t go away. So, with no direction from anyone about what to wear, I choose a high-necked burnt red sweater dress with black leggings. I wear my hair pulled up in a neat but messy bun, the purple streak in the front just curled to fall in my face. All the holes along the top of my ear have studs inserted, while I wear large hoops in the main holes. This morning, I had my nails filled in and painted red.
There’s nothing particularly wrong at first glance to anyone who doesn’t know any better, like I’m not supposed to. But I’m knowingly breaking a bunch of dress code rules given the conservatism of the Sovereignty. The multiple piercings and purple hair streak for certain—both of which Jaxson tried to get me to forgo the first time I met his father. As for my dress, if my suspicion is right, the color is against dress requirements. Red. The color of adulterers. Harlots. Promiscuous women. Loving Eden forbade us from wearing it despite my arguments that it made no sense that God would create a color and then forbid His creation from wearing it. I suspect the Sovereignty has similar rules since I’ve never seen them wear it in the many pictures and archives I’ve been through over the past few weeks in my research.
It’s a bold choice to wear in front of a controlling cult leader. But it’s likely an act of rebellion that, in the grand scheme of all their rules, they’ll find harmless. At the very least, they’ll find it harmless for a woman new among their ranks who doesn’t know their rules. It’s also a signal. That Jaxson’s father might have claimed me, but that I will never willingly belong to him. That, like an adulterer or harlot, I will never be faithful to him.
Satisfied with my appearance, I make my way downstairs to wait in the foyer. Jaxson’s already waiting. I feel his gaze slide over to me. It’s impossible for me to know exactly what he’s thinking, but his gaze remains heavy. Unyielding.
My heart lifts from where it’s been residing in my stomach since last night when I overheard him talking to Samson about me. When I heard him say that I’m just another woman. A woman that he won’t let get in the way of his plans, and that if his father wants me, it doesn’t matter because he has more important concerns.
I know that’s not true. Jaxson warned me that he’d be forced to say things, that I would hear things, and that I shouldn’t believe them. Because at the end of the day, I mattered more than the Sovereignty. Hell, he refused to consider Magdalene’s backup plan.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not wary of the things I hear him say when he thinks I’m not around. Because while Jaxson might not believe in the scam that is the Sovereignty, his strategy is right out of the charismatic cult leader playbook. Tell everyone what they want and need to hear to keep them loyal so that, eventually, they don’t see the leader’s actual actions for what they are. Then people will just project their own agendas and beliefs onto the leader, with all factions under the leader believing the other is wrong instead of realizing they’re all being played.
Jaxson told me to have faith in him. He told me that no matter what I hear, I should believe that I’m his top priority. But the part of me that knows better, the part of me that’s been betrayed and knows that men will betray a woman the first time her existence is inconvenient to him—that part is telling me that I’m stupid. That I know all the tricks and am allowing myself to fall for said tricks hook, line, and sinker.
There are too many eyes watching and ears listening to confront him about it, though. It’s going to have to wait until after his father and all his team leave…and after Jaxson does a personal sweep of his entire home to make sure no listening or recording devices have been left behind.
The door opening snaps me out of my thoughts as the first of his father’s entourage arrives.
First, Mason and Landon arrive, which I expected. Mason is his father’s traveling companion. Landon is the High Priest, in charge of all security and men in the Sovereignty. Officially, anyway. Samson, his official assistant, is the one who takes charge of the security part. On the other hand, Caleb, Landon’s best friend, roommate, and bodyguard according to Jaxson, is the unofficial assistant who does most of the grunt work of the High Priest position in Chicago and likely deserves the official title. However, the son of the Oracle apparently has to have some kind of official capacity.
Landon immediately pulls me into a hug.
“That’s improper,” Mason points out.
“She’s about to be family. Practically our stepmother. Nothing improper about it,” Landon insists. He lets go of me and pats Jaxson on the shoulder. “How’s life been treating you, big bro?”
“Infinitely better before you walked through the door,” Jaxson replies.
Mason shakes his head and says, “How you grew up to be such an asshole, I’ll never understand.”
“Well, you know what they say. The apple doesn’t roll far from the tree,” Jaxson says.
It’s such a blatant reference to his father that I can’t help but glance at him in shock before bringing myself under control. But, to my surprise, Mason and Landon just laugh.
A second later, Landon inadvertently explains why when he says, “Yeah. Nancy was a bit of a… well… you know, when she was alive,” he says with a dismissive gesture.
“Hey,” Mason says in a warning tone. “Watch it. That’s still his mother. He can talk about her. You can’t.”
Landon shrugs, Mason sighs, and Jaxson stands between them looking severe and neutral as ever to a normal onlooker, but I can tell he’d rather be anywhere else right now.
Looking at all three of them standing next to each other, it’s easy to see how they’re brothers. They all look incredibly alike. Nearly identical. If I didn’t know them—or at least know Jaxson—I’d have a hard time telling them apart. But even standing next to them, I can pick out the features that clearly belong to their respective mothers. Landon has his mother’s lips and nose. Mason’s skin is just a couple of shades darker, and his hair is curlier than the other two, which I can only imagine is a result of his mother. He's also clearly a decade or more older than his younger brothers. Jaxson's eyes, a steely dark gray, are a stark contrast to his father’s brown, and I can only imagine he got them from his mother.
A tall man with reddish-brown hair and bags in his hand turns to Landon and says, “Where do I take our stuff, Lan?”
Landon turns to Jaxson for direction.
Jaxson calls one of his own staff over. “Direct Caleb to the room he and Landon will be sharing.”
I frown. “Sharing…”
“He’s my personal bodyguard. Where I go, he goes. He’d go to the toilet with me if I hadn’t drawn the line,” Landon says dryly.
“What can I say?” Caleb says as he follows the staff member. “I take my job very seriously.”
Before I can ask more questions about that, a large group of men fills the foyer. I assume it’s all security until the door closes and the three at the front of the entourage part ways to reveal Jaxson’s father.
“Oracle,” I say.
“Dad,” Jaxson says.
Jaxson’s father completely ignores him in favor of coming up to me and saying, “Lauressa. I was told by Magdalene that you’d already held the funeral for your family. I wish I had known. I would have attended. ”
Whether he would have or wouldn’t have, I’m glad he didn’t know so that he couldn’t. His presence is the last thing I would have needed that day.
“Jaxson and Magdalene were there on your behalf,” I say, not sure what else I’m supposed to say.
Thankfully, Jaxson saves me by pointing out that they have refreshments served in one of the sitting rooms, much to the delight of everyone involved. It seems that while the Mormons shun the drinking of caffeine in the form of coffee, the Sovereignty loves their caffeine fix. I suspect it has something to do with their dietary rules of all adults eating once a day in the evening, though I highly suspect many aren’t following that rule. Regardless, it was one of the things I noticed about Jaxson early on in our relationship and noticed more intimately in the last few weeks.
First thing in the morning, he has a large cup of coffee. In the afternoon, he’ll have another, usually something like a cappuccino, macchiato, or even a latte. In the evening, he likes frappes or cold coffees, frequently being seen with a glass cup with a bamboo top filled with some kind of iced coffee, filled with zero-sugar syrups and creams and sometimes protein. I thought it was just a him thing until my research in the last few weeks revealed it was a Sovereignty thing.
There’s an assortment of coffee options for everyone in the sitting room, and for a good fifteen minutes or so, I’m spared the awkwardness of all this as everyone makes their preferred drink. Mason and Jaxson’s father choose decaf because their doctors told them to cut back on caffeine. Jaxson, as he usually does this time of day, has one of his mixed hot coffees, which today is a butter-scotched cappuccino from the home cappuccino machine I wasn’t even aware he had.
Finally, everyone sits in silence with their respective coffees. I chance a glance at Jaxson, who has strategically made sure not to sit near me but in my line of sight. He looks at his father, signaling that his father arranged this so he gets to dictate what happens here today.
“Jaxson,” his father suddenly says, looking out the window.
“Yes,” he replies.
“I saw a walking trail coming in. Does it belong to this property?”
“Yes,” Jaxson says.
Suddenly, his father looks at me and says, “How about you and I go on a walk to get to know each other better?”
He says it like it’s an option, but it’s clearly not something I have a choice in.
“Of course,” I agree, clutching my own hot coffee in my hands, a salted vanilla caramel macchiato.
I’d wrongly assumed that when he suggested a walk, everyone was going. Instead, it ends up being me and Jaxson’s father, with two of his security walking a few yards behind us on the trail. It feels like some strange courtship ritual from a Regency England romance, where we promenade in the park together to get to know each other. Hell, maybe that’s what Jaxson’s father thinks this is.
“Tell me about yourself,” the man says.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, clutching my coffee tighter because this feels like trying to start a conversation on one of those dating sites or at one of those speed-dating events. I always hated those. How do you start a conversation with a random stranger? What do you even talk about? How do you know what you have in common?
It’s even more of a conundrum when said person is a seventy-four-year-old man who I have nothing in common with except his son.
Maybe I can start there in a roundabout way.
“Jaxson told me that the Sovereignty does a lot of community outreach,” I say.
Community outreach is a stretch, to say the least. If they think it can benefit the Sovereignty, they participate, but rarely do they team up with actual organizations dedicated to the cause they’re trying to assist. And when they do team up with them, they have a bad habit of needing to be the center of all attention. Jaxson only does community outreach for his own selfish purposes too. But at least when he does, he lets people who know what they’re doing take the lead—though part of that is because he wants to interact with people for the least amount of time possible to accomplish his goals. The same can’t be said of his father’s efforts.
The Sovereignty’s efforts under Jaxson’s father are just a bunch of using their platform to draw attention to “crises” in the world and taking credit for being the first to address them when really he’s just repeating experts his research team has compiled for him while adding in his own delusions and conspiracies. Then, like a toddler, when something new and shinier catches their eye, the Sovereignty moves on to the next thing with no follow-through on the previous initiative, hoping no one notices that any money collected for said initiative disappeared.
But as ineffective and trivial as most of their community outreach is, that’s something I can at least pretend I have in common with the cult leader in front of me.
“We do,” the man says. “Is that something you’re interested in?”
I laugh and say, “Interested in?” before going on to talk about my work with One Humanity. I don’t know that Jaxson’s father actually cares about any of it, and he doesn’t engage with me like Jaxson will. But he at the very least listens intently, and I could talk about my non-profit and mutual aid work to a brick wall if I had to.
“One Humanity is probably gearing up for their Spring and Easter events. I wish I could be part of it, but I haven’t had time dealing with everything with my parents,” I admit because it’s safe to admit.
“Perhaps you can transfer your talents to the service of the Sovereignty,” he says.
Without thinking, I say, “Jaxson told me he’d help me start my own non-profit in Chicago. I haven’t come up with a name for it yet, but I’ve got some ideas for what I want to do and who I want to help and organizations I want to team up with…” I trail off, finally noticing the curious furrow of the man’s eyebrows and the frown on his lips.
Belatedly, I realize that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned Jaxson’s promise to help me. If it weren’t Jaxson, it would probably be fine. The Sovereignty has some of the same weird rules when it comes to men and women interacting that all high demand religions and cults do, but they’re comparatively much more lax. Having another man assist in a business venture doesn’t break their rules. Having said man be the man who I’ve clearly been involved with and who said father has stolen me from is probably more of a problem.
Finally, he says, “There’s no need to start your own. The Sovereignty has many initiatives that you could be a part of.”
I bite my lip. If Jaxson were here, he’d be subtly shaking his head to let me know not to argue. But I can’t stay quiet. Not about this.
“I’m… aware,” I finally settle on.
“Do you find something about them to be lacking?”
Yes. More than lacking. But I’m not supposed to tell that to Jaxson’s father. I’m supposed to kiss the ring. Supposed to act like this man and everything attached to him and the Sovereignty is pure gold rather than the gilded worthless river stone that it is.
I’ve never been good at doing what I’m supposed to do.
“I just don’t like some of the conditions required to help those in need,” I say.
“And what requirements are those?”
I could make something up here instead of saying what I really think. But again, I’ve never been good at keeping my true thoughts to myself.
“The shelters you all own,” I begin, “you require those living there to be completely sober and subject themselves to random drug tests, or else you put them out on the street. And in your family units, you only allow heterosexual married couples. Otherwise, you separate them or force them to find somewhere else to go, even when there’s nowhere else.”
“And who told you that? ”
“The news,” I say vaguely, not wanting to mention that it was in one of the many cult-watcher groups I’m part of that brought up the fact that the Sovereignty and other religious-based shelters were turning people away during a record freeze in Chicago a couple of winters ago.
He gives me an obviously patronizing smile as he says kindly, “You can’t always believe what you hear on the news.”
I’m clearly supposed to project onto that statement that what the news said was wrong. Most people would. But I’m not most people; I have a particular special experience dealing with old men that won’t give you a straight answer when you ask them a question or accuse them of something. Even still, I should leave it at that. I shouldn’t challenge him.
Looks like I’m going three for three today.
“So the Sovereignty didn’t turn people in need out onto the streets on the basis of sexuality and failed drug tests when they’d harmed no one?” I ask, not completely able to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice.
The man laughs and says, “You make it sound worse than it is. But we can only help those willing to help themselves. And we can’t help those who subject themselves to degenerate behavior, or else their behavior spreads like a cancer to those who do actually want help.”
His words spit in the face of hundreds of years of breakthroughs in actual science, psychology, and sociology while relying on pseudoscience that has long since been debunked. This is part of the reason I left Loving Eden. Not just because of what they did to me, but also because I realized their insistence on believing old, debunked, and harmful science mixed with their biblical fairytales of doom and salvation was going to get people killed.
“I thought the goal of the Sovereignty was to save humanity,” I say, not caring if I sound scornful.
“It is,” Jaxson’s father says simply. “But saving humanity doesn’t mean saving all individuals. If some insist on continuing their degenerate behavior, they have to be culled for the good of the whole, lest the Supreme Force punishes us all and begins the world anew with a new man that might correctly glorify him…. If he begins it anew with man at all. Maybe a new creation if we don’t fight.”
I resist the urge to twist my lips in disgust.
A few months ago, I thought a man like Jaxson was more dangerous than a man like his father. I thought a man who knew he was evil but didn’t care was more dangerous because the only lines he draws are based on whether crossing them will stop him from getting what he wants. But faced with the type of evil that is delusionally convinced he is doing the right thing, I realize that I’m wrong. Jaxson’s father doesn’t just think he’s doing the right thing. He thinks he’s doing the moral thing. And the moral thing is not always synonymous with the right thing. A man who thinks he’s doing the moral thing will see the world burned to the ground in order to stand by his morals and principles.
There is no line Jaxson’s father won’t cross in the name of sticking to his morals, even at the cost of his own interests. It suddenly makes sense why people like Jaxson and Magdalene believe he needs to be removed from power, albeit with wildly different motives.
Finally, I say, “I never thought of it that way. ”
“And now, you do,” Jaxson’s father says to me.
I fight the urge to scowl. He could at least pretend to humor me. He could at least pretend to consider my point of view.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about today. We should head back to the house,” I decide and don’t wait for him to agree before turning back on the trail. I’m supposed to let him dictate all this. I’m supposed to let him be in control. But right now, I just want to piss him off.
When we get back inside, where Jaxson is with his brothers, Samson, and some of the S-Team, I don’t even pretend to try to hide my annoyance. I stomp into the room and sit in my vacant chair with my arms crossed. No one notices except Jaxson, who raises an eyebrow at me. But I’ll talk to him about it later.
In the next hour or two, they discuss the city and Jaxson’s plans for an Altar. Plans I forgot about since I’ve known from the beginning that they were all a pretense for him to stalk and torment me in my hometown. Plans that no one asks for the input of the girl who was raised both in said city and in a religious cult and could probably best tell them how to recruit people in the area. But since they don’t ask, I don’t give any input, nor am I in the mood to.
I feel like I’m a teenager again, sitting in a big meeting with the Deacon Board and the church Mothers as they talk circles around a problem that I’ve already been making a fuss about and have the solution to. But no one will listen because my ideas are too out of the box or skirt the lines of righteousness or some bullshit.
When dinner arrives, I eat in silence. Not that anyone notices my silence, as it goes much like the last dinner I had with the Oracle. Him at the head giving a delusional lecture and more bullshit solutions that won’t actually help anyone.
Then, suddenly, just when dinner has winded down and we’re all about to get up and leave for our rooms, Jaxson’s father turns directly to me. “Lauressa. You’ve been quiet all evening.”
“I apologize. I’ve just been taking everything in. It’s a lot. There’s so much I don’t know,” I say. It’s a lie but also not altogether untrue.
“You don’t,” the old man agrees. “That’s why I want you to come back to Chicago with me.”
I open and close my mouth before repeating dumbly, “Chicago?” Then, remembering the most important part of that statement, I ask, “With you?”
“Yes. Tomorrow. That way I can deliver you over to Magdalene and my conduits to train you into a proper young woman of the Sovereignty.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’ve finished up all your business with your family, yes?”
I haven’t. Not technically. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with my parents' house. I’m waiting for the insurance payout to come in, though not for me, but so I can give it to Abigail since my brother's death was both by suicide and as a result of committing a crime, voiding his life insurance policy. But neither of those tasks are anything that have to be done in Macon.
I could lie, but if he has any of the resources his son does, it’s not hard to look those things up .
“Yes,” I finally answer. “I just… don’t see the rush or necessity. I’m learning more and more every day from right here, helping with starting the Altar.”
“You are. But there’s only so much you can learn without another woman of the Sovereignty to assist you.”
I start to argue that Shelly is still here. Any supposed training I need I can get from her. But then I realize that my training isn’t the only motivation, if it’s the motivation at all. The old man’s real motivation is getting me away from Jaxson. Jaxson, who is still ostensibly dedicated to his mission of starting an Altar here. A glance at Jaxson—because who gives a damn at this point when everyone in the room knows—confirms my suspicion.
Finally, I say, “I need more time to pack.”
“Some of my cook staff can help with that,” he says. “And I’ll have my staff ship it ahead.”
His cooking staff of all women—something I’d noticed yesterday when they arrived. Makes me wonder if all his cooking staff are women or if this was deliberate.
I could tell him no. But telling him no wouldn’t stop him. Like I’ve learned with Jaxson, his father, too, isn’t a man you just say no to. You could, but there would be consequences, no doubt. Beginning with something like disowning his son to stalking me and starting a smear campaign against me if I were to speak out and resist.
When Jaxson did it, it was because he saw right through all my protective masks to what I really wanted and desired and forced me to admit .
Jaxson’s father, on the other hand, wants to invade my life with no consideration of my wants, needs, desires, or even my fears. Like his son, he only cares about one thing right now: that he wants me. And he only knows one thing for certain: that I’m attached to and have some level of care for his son and have no care for him. So he has to get me away from him, using the guise of some noble test of loyalty and control—of both me and his son. The cost of entry and acceptance into the Sovereignty for me. The cost of staying and potentially being named the next Oracle for Jaxson.
If I say no, not only will I not be accepted into the Sovereignty, but he’ll forbid Jaxson from having anything to do with me. If Jaxson retaliates by killing or even denouncing his father and decides to be with me anyway, it’ll only make his father a martyr, or his father will twist what happened to his benefit, and we’ll never be free from the Sovereignty’s harassment. That’s how these kinds of groups work.
Our only way out of this is our plan. My plan. But in order for this plan to have a chance of working, I’m going to have to cede the control that I so covet.
There’s only one choice I can make here.
I must take too long to answer for Jaxson’s father. Because before I can open my mouth to very hesitantly and reluctantly agree to his request, he speaks again.
“I won’t force you, but I must warn you that when you go against the will of the Supreme Force’s messenger, the Supreme Force allows forces to attack you that you would normally be protected from. Maybe not directly. But through friends and family until you submit to it,” he chides .
Not forcing me, my ass.
What he’s saying is nothing new. All religious cults and cult-adjacent religions rely on the manipulation tactic of God or some force that transcends them raining punishment on them for abandoning their faith. A fear tactic that only works as long as the member is more afraid of an invisible being’s wrath than they are tired of struggling with bullshit. Once you hate all the bullshit more than you fear a god, it’s easy. And then nothing happens—at least when said cult is relying on some supreme being that there’s no evidence really exists.
But even though Jaxson’s father said the Supreme Force, what he really means is sending out members of the Sovereignty’s paramilitary—men and women specially trained to take care of the Sovereignty’s opposition and force them into silence or submission. I’d heard rumors of it before, but not enough to think it was real. The intel Jaxson’s given me and the interviews of Raphael’s supporters have proven that the rumors are very true. They include the Sentry, the all-women force, the S-Team, the Oracle's personal enforcers and security, and the Vindicators, who are the most secret and shrouded in mystery and not even a rumor to most Sovereigns.
Even though Jaxson operates outside of whatever structure this paramilitary has as the Oracle’s son, I suspect he has the same training as a Vindicator. I suspect that the reason Jaxson and I met in the first place was that he was assessing me as a threat to neutralize before deciding he wanted me. I haven’t outright asked because it doesn’t matter anymore .
What does matter is that if the individuals in this paramilitary are even a quarter as dangerous as Jaxson is, the few people left in my life are in terrible danger.
Lyssa. Abigail and her baby. Mara, even though she’s been terribly silent in the last few weeks, and I’m starting to worry about her for reasons that have nothing to do with the Sovereignty. J, though he’s safer than most with Jaxson looking after him nowadays.
If before there was only one logical choice to make, now even that is an illusion. Jaxson’s father will get what he wants.
“Good thing I don’t plan to displease the Supreme Force then,” I finally answer.