Chapter 19
June
What had started out as a lovely day was quickly turning sour.
The lights, which we’d intentionally picked out warm golden bulbs for, now felt too bright. The potluck table was too quiet, like everyone thought maybe the Remnant had come in and poisoned all the food.
Yeah…it was bad.
And it seemed not a single one of my closest friends could handle it.
Delilah stood near the back wall, arms folded so tight her knuckles had gone white. Silas was beside me, still as stone, but I could feel the tension in him buzzing like static. Beau was trying to keep the peace, and Whit appeared to have vanished.
Plus…I kept seeing this strange figure—all in white with long brown hair, just watching me.
And every time I tried to fix my gaze on her, she disappeared.
Fuck.
I hadn’t wanted this—a showdown between me and Abel Trent, though I guess I should have figured it would happen.
For some reason, I’d assumed he would be too much of a coward to show his face in front of the town…
but men like him didn’t tend to care too much what people think when they had all that righteousness on their side.
“I don’t like this,” Silas said. “Fuckin’ asshole…tried to hurt you.”
“He tried to kill you, actually,” I said, “if what we think about that snake is correct. But…we need to show him we’re not afraid.”
“Can’t think of a better way to do that than kickin’ his ass,” Silas muttered. “We could do it—Whit and Beau and me—”
“No,” I said. “We’re showing this community that we’re different, okay?”
Silas growled under his breath, fists clenching. I reached out to take his hand.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get some food and break in the buffet.”
I tugged Silas toward the table—and to his credit, he came along with me, even if his jaw tightened with every step. Abel was posted near the back with his cohort, leaning against a card table and watching as if this whole thing was hilarious.
Fine.
Let him watch.
I’d been judged by worse than him.
“Birdie,” I called, injecting as much cheer as humanly possible into my voice, “I hope you didn’t let the deviled eggs sweat too long.”
Birdie, God bless her, gave a sharp little sniff. “They were goin’ fast until that circus act walked in.”
A few chuckles rippled across the room. Delilah raised her eyebrow in approval. Francine let out a wheezy cackle and joined us, reaching for a plate to serve herself some peach cobbler.
Right…yes. I hadn’t made a mistake letting them stay.
I was about to dress these fuckers down—with grace, of course.
I filled a plate—one biscuit, a scoop of macaroni, and Delilah’s green beans—and passed it to Silas. Then I made another for myself. A few more people joined us, seemingly willing now to ignore the massive, self-righteous elephant in the room, and voices picked up.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself quite the congregation, Reverend,” Abel called out, voice syrupy and smug. “Mind if I share a word with the flock?”
Silas tensed beside me, but I just set my cup down gently, folded my napkin in half, and wiped my hands.
Then I turned, smiling like a woman who had all the time in the world.
“We weren’t planning on doing any preaching today,” I said sweetly, “but if you really think your message is that important…Miss Evers, I’ll let you make the call—do you think he should have a word?”
Miss Evers didn’t miss a beat.
She stood straighter, set her cobbler down, and gave Abel the kind of look that could sand paint off a steeple. “He can have a word,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “but he better mind his tone.”
A few of the old women nodded, arms crossed and expressions stony. Delilah raised her paper cup in a mock toast and took a sip without breaking eye contact with Abel.
He grinned, real slick, like he thought I’d just handed him the mic.
“Much obliged,” Abel said, stepping forward like a man born to strut across pulpits. “Brothers and sisters, we’ve gathered in a house once sanctified and since defiled—”
“Nope,” I said brightly. “Let’s not start there.”
The room hushed. Even the children stopped fidgeting.
Abel blinked at me…as if he’d never once in his life been interrupted, let alone by a woman.
“Sorry,” I laughed, “but…this is one of the first things I want to establish. In this house, our relationship with faith is a conversation. We’re not just…receptacles for your ideology—or mine, or anyone else’s.”
Abel let out a laugh. “It ain’t ideology, Miss Fontenot. It’s God’s word.”
“Audacious of you to assume you get to speak directly for God,” I said.
That got a few hums from the crowd, some genuinely surprised. I didn’t look at Silas, but I felt his eyes on me—the way the air shifted.
Because this…? This was well within my wheelhouse.
I’d been taking on men like this my whole life, and I wasn’t about to let Abel Trent make anyone afraid or ashamed.
“It’s not assumption,” Abel said. “It’s Scripture. And Scripture says—”
“Scripture also says not to wear blended fabrics and that women should cover their heads in worship,” I said lightly. “And…correct me if I’m wrong, Abel, but I think that’s a polyester tie you’re wearing.”
A few people laughed outright at the tie comment—including Beau, whose laugh seemed to empower everyone else to lighten up a little too. Abel, on the other hand, looked furious.
“You’re makin’ jokes now?” he asked.
“I’m making a point,” I said. “You don’t get to cherry-pick Scripture to justify control. If you’re going to quote the Bible…well, I hope you’ve wrestled with all of it. Because I have. Every word.”
I let that land.
“I’ve studied Greek…and Hebrew, and context. Not just the kind you get from a commentary written in 1953 by a man who never washed a dish in his life.”
“Amen,” Francine muttered.
Abel’s smile vanished.
“Oh, so now you’re a scholar and a preacher?” he asked, voice loud, sharp, brittle. “What’d you do, take some classes at a fancy school and decide you were qualified to rewrite the Bible?”
He looked around as if daring someone to back him up.
No one did.
Delilah rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might tip over. Birdie looked like she was praying for a reason to swat him with her purse.
“I didn’t rewrite anything,” I said calmly. “I just read it. Closely. With humility.”
Abel scoffed. “Humility? You up there struttin’ like a rooster in a henhouse, quotin’ Greek like it makes you special.”
I felt Silas shift behind me—just a step. Just enough that I could sense the weight of him, the crackle of his anger under his skin. He was about to explode, but I needed him to stay calm…
…because I had this.
Because I’d never met Abel Trent, but I knew him like I knew my own family, and I knew exactly what would make him crack.
“I don’t think I’m special,” I said, meeting Abel’s eyes. “I just wanted to help people. And I think the people in this room deserve a faith that doesn’t require fear as a foundation.”
“Oh, is that what you call this?” Abel spat. “You gonna serve up mashed potatoes with sin and sodomy and call it grace?”
There it was.
A ripple of discomfort moved through the room. Beau’s face darkened. Delilah’s smile sharpened into something lethal.
But I didn’t flinch.
“Actually,” I said, “I call it lunch. I call it community. I call it presence. You know what Jesus called it? A table.”
The air shifted again—cool, tingling.
Familiar.
And when I looked toward the back of the sanctuary, she was there.
Clear as anything.
When I was twenty-one, when I’d tried to overdose…I’d seen her for the first time—the guardian angel who’d shown me I was called to ministry. She’d pulled me from perdition and then I’d woken up in a hospital bed.
I saw her the night the snake bit me too—the light Silas had mentioned. Not pulling me toward some great beyond, but back to him.
And now…she was watching.
I didn’t let it rattle me, lifting my chin and looking back at Abel—who, maybe for the first time ever, was speechless.
“My faith didn’t come easy,” I said. “It was earned. Dug out of the rubble. Wrestled for in the dark. And what I’ve learned—what I know—is that the God I believe in isn’t threatened by the living, breathing mess of us. He’s in it. All the way down.”
Behind me, the angel stood silent, hands still open. I felt her like wind at my back. Like a spine.
Abel stepped forward.
I saw it before anyone else did—the twitch in his jaw, the set of his shoulders. He was going to reach for me. Maybe to grab my arm, maybe just to reclaim his authority with proximity.
Didn’t matter.
Silas moved first.
One arm came around me fast, a protective pull that tucked me behind him as he stepped in front—shoulders squared, eyes cold.
“You’re not touching her,” he snarled.
Abel froze, mouth open.
The doors banged open behind him.
Everyone turned.
Whit strode in like judgment day with blood on his knuckles, a split lip, and a face that said he’d finally gotten the swing in he’d been craving. Dragging behind him by the collar was one of Abel’s cronies—scrawny, red-faced, and cussing under his breath.
“Sorry I missed the sermon,” Whit said, like he hadn’t just brawled in the church parking lot. “But this one was sneakin’ around back, and I figured June’s got enough snakes to deal with already.”
A few gasps. Someone laughed. Abel looked like he was about to combust.
“You wanna try again?” Whit asked Abel, all swagger and steel. “Because I’ll finish what I started.”
Abel turned to the room—wild-eyed now. “You’re really gonna stand here and let this...this woman turn your church into a circus? You’re all just gonna sit there and let her twist the word of God into somethin’ weak and perverse? Don’t you fear the wrath of God?”
He was shaking.
And that’s when Loretta Evers rose from her seat.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
“Son,” she said, “you’re the only one here who looks afraid.”
Abel blinked.
No one moved to help him.
And then Abel Trent turned around and walked out of that church.
The doors swung shut behind him with a final, echoing clunk.
For a second, no one moved.
Then Francine sniffed and said, “Well. Who wants pie?”
Laughter burst out, sharp and grateful. Delilah exhaled like she’d just come down from DEFCON 1 and made her way back to the dessert table. Birdie elbowed past her, muttering something about reclaiming the cobbler before it turned cold.
People started moving again.
Voices picked up. Chairs scraped. An record clicked on in the background—Whit, probably, trying to ease the tension.
And just like that…we were back to normal.
Or something better than normal.
For a while, I let it happen around me. Listened to the soft drone of gossip, the clatter of silverware on mismatched plates.
Let the hum of life fill in the space Abel had tried to poison.
The light through the windows was golden again—really golden, not just the artificial glow of bulbs. Like the church had exhaled too.
I didn’t see her anymore.
But I still felt her.
And it felt like grace…holy, a revelation—until my eyes found Silas.
He was staring at the doorway to the sanctuary, face pale. I took his hand and followed his gaze toward where the angel had stood, frowning.
“Silas,” I whispered, “is everything okay?”
He looked from the doorway to me as if he was worried he was losing his mind. His throat worked, his fingers squeezing mine even though they trembled.
Then he said something that nearly made my heart stop.
“Did you see her too?”