“What are you doing out here?”

I looked up to find Bastian standing at the edge of the woods, the moon at his back. His face was shadowed so I could barely see him. But I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was worried.

I had left Pastor Carter’s house and headed straight for the woods. I had skipped dinner. And now I was missing scripture reading in The Sun Sanctuary.

I was cold. My slippered feet were wet from the dew. Yet I remained. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself resume my routine.

I was way past doing what was expected of me.

Something had shattered inside me. And I didn’t think it would ever be put back together.

My faith was fractured. My devotion had been chiseled away until there was nothing left. I fought to hang onto some piece of it. Some semblance of the girl I had been.

I didn’t know who I was without my belief in The Gathering’s message. Without my fate. Without my calling.

I was scared that if I let that girl disappear there would be nothing left.

“I couldn’t be there. Around people. I just needed…” I trailed off. Not really able to put into words what I needed.

Because I didn’t know.

Not anymore.

“Time alone? Room to breathe?” Bastian filled in.

I sighed. “Yes. All of those things.”

He stood there silently, not saying anything. Respectfully keeping his distance.

I wished he wouldn’t. I wanted him to hug me tighter than Pastor Carter ever could. I wanted him to hold me and convince me that my doubts were founded. That I wouldn’t lose myself.

Then I became angry.

I had to stop leaning on others. I had to find the strength in myself.

I had spent my entire life following a path someone else set for me. I had grown tired of closing my eyes and hoping I wouldn’t fall.

Maybe it was time to keep them open.

I stood up. “I’m supposed to be in The Sun Sanctuary. We both are. You should go.” I wouldn’t be going back to The Retreat. Not yet.

How could I?

The memory of Pastor Carter’s smile when he told me he had chosen me pulsed through my brain. It was tattooed on my consciousness. I couldn’t get rid of it.

“You were made to join me. To walk the path by my side. It’s what God wants. It’s his plan. I’ve heard his words. You must listen to them.”

I wobbled on unsteady feet, hardly able to stand upright.

“I can’t marry you, Pastor. You’re like my father.”

I clenched my hands into fists, wishing I could hit something.

Or someone.

I had never been aggressive. Violence was abhorred. Yet, right then, it would have been very easy to make someone bleed.

Then the rage dissipated. And it became something else instead. Something so much worse.

Despair.

“Sara, what is it?” Bastian was by my side in an instant. He didn’t touch me. As if he knew that I couldn’t deal with that right now.

I put up my hand, stopping the flow of questions before they fell from his mouth. “Please, don’t.” I wasn’t sure what I was asking him not to do.

Bastian took a step back. I felt the space around us as though it were miles instead of feet.

“And like Lot, I will lie with my daughter…”

I was going to be sick. I braced my hands on my knees and gulped in air.

“I won’t marry you, Pastor! It’s wrong! God wouldn’t want that!”

“Then you will burn in hell and I will shove you into the pit myself.”

Pastor had threatened me. He had used the love I had for my family against me. He threatened Bastian.

That had been the worst thing of all.

How he used the pure love I’d discovered with Bastian against me.

“You aren’t destined for that boy. He is worthless. He will be left behind. He has led you down a dangerous path. If you continue to follow him, I won’t help you. No one will. You will be turning your back on your family. On the people who love you.”

What he wanted from me wasn’t right. It wasn’t good.

And it certainly wasn’t holy.

There was something disturbed inside The Gathering. It had been there all along and I had never seen it.

But now my eyes were open.

I didn’t know what to do.

I felt imprisoned.

Panic rose up in my chest. We were missing Pastor Carter’s sermon. I was supposed to be sitting with the children.

Mom would be looking for me.

Pastor Carter too.

I shivered at the thought of his mean, mean eyes. Not caring or kind. Only hateful and selfish. How had I been so blind?

Perhaps because his sins were simply hidden better.

I wouldn’t marry him. I knew I couldn’t.

Even if I was expected to comply. To do my duty.

But did that mean I was condemning my soul?

I had been conditioned for years to believe that Pastor’s word was God’s wish. God was unmerciful, yet forgiving of those who followed his path. I was meant to be perfect for him. Devout and obedient.

I realized I couldn’t be that person. Not anymore.

Not after Bastian.

“Sara?” I heard his voice as if through a fog.

Pastor Carter expected me to marry him.

He wanted me to be his wife. In every single way.

My teeth clattered together, I couldn’t stop myself. I pulled on my hand, taking a step back.

I undressed. Pastor Carter laid me down on the blanket.

“We only do what pleases the Lord, Sara. My hands are his hands. Let me fill you with divinity.” Pastor Carter pulled my hair from my neck and kissed my shoulder.

I trembled.

This was holy. Pastor Carter would save my soul.

Then why did it feel so wrong? Why did I want to cry? Why did I have to swallow my screams?

“Do you feel God’s love?” Pastor whispered in my ear. His hands were smooth.

“Yes.” I imagined my body filled with light. And I prayed. Even if deep down I knew this was wrong…

Pastor Carter wasn’t a holy man. He wasn’t even a good man.

I hate him.

The thought came quickly. Brutally. I shook with the force of it.

Then the shame took over. There were two sides at war within me. I wasn’t sure which would win.

But I did know they were tearing me apart.

“Sara, what’s wrong?” Bastian’s gripped my shoulders anxiously.

“I—can’t—breathe,” I gasped, trying to inhale and exhale.

“You’re having a panic attack. Sit down.” Bastian gently led me to an overturned log, rubbing my back the whole time. “Focus on your breathing. One breath in. One breath out. Slowly.” He repeated his instructions over and over until I was finally able to calm down.

I felt lightheaded. Fuzzy. Like after you’ve been sick.

I was supposed to be at prayer.

Pastor Carter said I was to marry him. He read my defiance immediately. What would happen now?

I had never felt the instinct to flee like this before. The Retreat had always made me feel safe. Now it was cold. And empty.

Except for the man in front of me.

Pastor Carter had every intention of getting rid of Bastian. Of making him leave. The thought of not seeing him again, on top of everything else, was my total undoing.

I reached for Bastian before I realized what I was doing. My fingers grasped at his shirt, holding on as if my life depended on it.

Maybe it did.

“I just can’t—” I started to say. Then I was crying. Sobbing in a way I hadn’t done since I was eight years old.

“I just can’t do it,” I finally got out as tears soaked my cheeks.

“Sara, it’s okay. I promise you, it will all be okay,” Bastian murmured, cupping my face in his hand, wiping away my tears with his thumb.

I couldn’t respond. Years of pent up emotion flooded out of me. I couldn’t stop it.

I didn’t want to.

I let it all out.

Every angry, horrible, negative thing I had forced myself to push away. Clearly it had always been there. Just below the surface.

“Let it out. Just let it out,” Bastian coaxed, pulling me to his chest. I buried my face in his shirt and cried and cried. Not silently. Noisily. From the pit of my soul. The pain overwhelmed me.

“I’ll make this better for you. I will,” Bastian pledged over and over again. I barely heard him. I could only focus on all the emotions I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in so long.

It was too much.

All of it.

It was like seeing color for the first time. It was beautiful and terrifying.

The tears began to subside. I felt wrung out. Depleted.

Yet for the first time, I felt…complete.

I pulled away slightly, a little embarrassed. “I got your shirt all wet.” I tried to laugh. It got caught in my throat.

“Sara—” He was about to say something. Something important. Something I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear. Questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

I kissed him.

I needed to forget.

I needed to remember…

He froze for a fraction of a second before he responded. His lips parted and I kissed him harder. Frenzied. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him as close as I possibly could.

Because Bastian wasn’t wrong.

He was the only thing in my world that was right.

We clung to each other. Holding onto the only thing that kept us grounded.

I hadn’t realized until that very moment that with Bastian Scott I had come to believe in something else. Something greater.

Something more.

“I don’t need a higher power to guide me, Sara,” he murmured against my mouth. “I know what I feel for you. And it’s the surest, realist thing I’ve ever known.” He kissed me with a faith that was only in me.

Only in this.

His fingers buried in my hair. His chest was hard and solid against mine. I feared his words. I craved them. I knew that he had become my truth.

Maybe…just maybe…loving him was the only purpose I needed.

“I’m scared,” I whispered.

Bastian looked at me. His gaze intense and deep. He didn’t shy away from looking at me. He never had.

“I am too, Sara.” His eyes were bright. So bright. I found myself in them.

And then lost myself all over again.

This was the end.

This was the beginning.

“What are we going to do?” I asked him, not sure he could give me the answers I sought.

I felt the weight of my life bearing down on me. It wouldn’t let me up.

I was a prisoner.

I knew that now.

I had been held captive for a long time.

The anger incinerated everything.

And the love…

That was almost too much to handle.

Bastian smiled and it was beautiful. My heart felt full. He wouldn’t let it break.

“We start living our lives. On our terms,” he responded with a firmness at odds with the tenderness in his expression.

“On our terms,” I repeated, feeling the words. Owning them.

Bastian brushed his nose against mine, kissing me softly. “The world is ours. We can make exactly what we want of it.”

And then we were kissing again. And it was deeper than before. Less frantic, yet more passionate.

I would never marry Pastor Carter.

I knew that with an absolute certainty.

My heart, my body, my soul belonged only to me.

I chose who to give it to.

And I chose to give it to Bastian Scott.

The man who had changed me.

“I want to be with you, Bastian,” I said, hoping he understood what I was offering. Only to him.

Bastian’s eyes were brimming. Overflowing. I felt humbled by what I saw there. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice shaking.

I nodded.

This was my choice. My decision.

The first one in my entire life that I made only for me.

Bastian kissed me one more time before standing up and taking my hand. Silently we made our way back to The Retreat. This quiet seemed louder. Fuller.

We said so much without uttering a single word. His fingers laced with mine sang a hundred songs. Our heartbeats vowed a thousand promises.

Our breaths spoke in a language only the other could understand.

Yet, the raging guilt still consumed. It mauled me alive, threatening this newfound identity I had only so recently discovered.

My fate was meant to be something else.

I had been groomed for a different path.

I was going to hell. My soul would be lost.

But what about my heart?

Bastian squeezed my hand and the negative thoughts flittered away. Being with him was enough to dispel the demons that clawed at me.

Demons that I now saw were created by the one man who I had been told would defeat them.

We saw no one. The Retreat was quiet. Everyone was at The Sun Sanctuary.

For a brief time, we were all alone.

Bastian opened the door to his house, hesitating before stepping inside. I didn’t follow him right away.

I knew that if I took that final step, nothing would be the same.

But everything was already different. My life was spiraling. I felt as though my entire world had dropped out from underneath me.

I was drowning in lies.

I was suffocating in truth.

Yet there was a glow in front of me. Glowing like the first rays of a sunrise. It warmed me. It gave me something to cling to.

Bastian…

He chewed on his bottom lip. I could tell he was worried. His beautiful blue eyes were troubled.

“Sara. I’m not expecting anything. I would never…”

Decisively, I stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind me. It was dark. The moonlight gave everything an almost ethereal quality.

“I can light the lamp.” Bastian started to fumble around, banging into the table beside one of the two small beds. “Fuck. Shit, I’m sorry—”

I reached out for him. Taking his hands. Pulling him close. “It’s perfect,” I said softly, scared to speak any louder.

Bastian slowly brought my hand to his mouth. He kissed my knuckles. The underside of my wrist—the scars I hid there. Even in the shadow, his face was clear. I feasted on the sight of him. It erased all my misgivings. My fear.

There was only him.

Only me.

Only this.

We may only have this brief moment in time. It could all come crashing down around us at any second. But I knew, that at the end of the world, his face was the only thing I wanted to see.

“Something happened to you, Sara. What was it?” he asked. I wished he hadn’t. It brought it all back. Every soul crushing minute.

I squeezed his hands tight enough that he winced. “Don’t, Bastian,” I warned. Low and serious.

“You can tell me anything.” He kissed my hand again.

“I don’t want to talk.” I pressed my body against his. We fit perfectly. As though we were meant to be like this.

Maybe we were.

Or maybe we weren’t.

It didn’t matter. Because on this small piece of the earth, it was only us.

And that’s all either of us needed.

Bastian, however, was like a dog with a bone. Even though I knew he wanted me, he wanted this—he wanted the truth more.

I sighed, my entire body drooping. “I never thought my future was mine to decide,” I said. I couldn’t look at him. Not when I was feeling so raw and vulnerable. I wanted to curl into a ball and hide away.

“I never questioned what they told me. I did what they wanted me to—”

“Because you’ve been brainwashed,” Bastian interrupted. “Because you’ve been systematically programmed to believe every twisted, horrible thing that man preaches. And it’s all lies. Every single thing. He’s dangerous, Sara.”

I nodded, the tears sliding down my nose. “I know, Baz. I know.” It was all I could say. I couldn’t put into words everything else. If I started talking about my dismantled faith, I would completely fall apart.

And I needed to keep some tiny part of me unbroken.

He lifted my chin. The set of his mouth was resolute. But his eyes…dear God his eyes…

They were the light I was looking for.

“Save me,” I whispered, my breathing ragged. My words shredded and frayed.

Bastian kissed me. Softly. Slowly.

“I won’t save you, Sara.” I blinked in confusion. An ache thudding in my chest at his seeming harsh statement.

He kissed me again. Warm lips to my cold ones.

He wiped my tears away. One at a time. Gone. Forever.

“I won’t save you. But I’ll help you save yourself.”

He was giving me control.

He knew how much that would mean to me.

A girl who had never had control over anything.

I let out a choked sob and then his mouth was on mine. His arms around me.

It all fell into place. One ruined, discarded piece at a time.

He walked us to his bed. He pulled me down with him, his fingers tangled in my hair. His lips trailing down my neck, to the bare skin of my shoulder. We attempted to squeeze onto his small, single bed. We were a heap of limbs as we tried to get comfortable.

“I wish I had somewhere nicer to take you. You deserve so much more than a tiny, hard mattress in this depressing room. You deserve to be made love to in a palace. Or at least a really nice hotel room.” Bastian tried to lie beside me and almost fell to the floor. I held onto him until he regained his balance.

We sat up; it was easier than trying to lie down together. “I don’t need a palace or a hotel room. I just need to be with you,” I told him honestly.

He closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. “You’re too good for this place, Sara.” He opened his eyes again, this time they were wet. Seeing his tears nearly undid me. “You’re too good for me,” he rasped.

I hated his self-deprecation. I hated that sad, sad look in his eyes.

“Don’t put me on a pedestal, Baz. It’s a long way to fall.” I pulled him towards me by his shirt, more aggressively than I had ever been before.

We were all panting breaths and shaky hands.

With clumsy fingers, I tried to unbutton his shirt. It took forever. I felt as though I were moving through quicksand. Bastian chuckled. “Let me do that.” His voice was deep and gruff. It made my insides flutter.

He quickly took off his shirt and I touched his skin with my fingertips. He shivered and I felt a sense of power at having that effect on him.

He was lovely. All smooth flesh and hard muscle. I pressed my palm over his heart. I could feel it beating wildly under my hand.

“You do that to me,” he smiled. “I can hardly breathe when you touch me.”

I pulled my hand away. “I can stop—”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it to his chest again. “No. Please don’t stop. No matter what, don’t stop.” It came out as a plea. A little desperate.

As if the need in him equaled the craving in me.

Yet I was nervous. Unbearably so. I was a quivering, aching mess. Bastian, sensing my trepidation, pushed the hair back from my face and dropped his forehead to mine. “What is it? Tell me, Sara.”

I closed my eyes, self-conscious. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never—I’ve never done this.” I felt so immature. Naïve. Ridiculous. Bastian had lived a life with normal experiences. He must have been with other girls. Done things I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do.

I felt a flare of jealousy at the thought of him with anyone else.

I hadn’t realized I felt so possessive. Proprietary.

Somewhere along this crooked, jagged path, Bastian became mine. I wouldn’t relinquish him for anything.

“Look at me,” Bastian murmured and I opened my eyes. And the way he stared at me left me shaking.

“This is all new to me too,” he admitted, his fingers trembling as they touched me. “I’ve never…” He swallowed. Then he took a deep breath. “I’ve never loved anyone before. Not like this. Not where I feel like I’m waking up and falling off a cliff all at the same time.” His gaze was hot. His caress careful. “I feel as though I’ve waited my whole life to love you, Sara Bishop. My path—my journey— was finding my way to you.”

Pastor Carter was wrong. Happiness shouldn’t hurt.

It should feel exactly like this.

“Bastian,” I whispered just before he kissed me again.

And this time we didn’t stop.

We moved in tandem. Clothes fell to the floor. Skin on skin. I touched him. He touched me.

I gasped, arching up off the bed when his fingers found my core. I cried out. I couldn’t help it.

I wouldn’t be silent.

Not anymore.

He fitted himself between my thighs. I was scared but I knew he would take care of me. He would never let me fall.

“I love you,” he rasped as he pushed his way into my body.

I wanted to say it back but the pain stole my words. I hadn’t been expecting that. In truth, I knew very little about what happened between a man and a woman. I knew the basics obviously, but no one had warned about it hurting. My mother never gave me the “talk.” Everything I had gleaned about intimacy came from talking to Anne and the others. And they weren’t exactly fonts of knowledge when it came to sex.

I had no experience except for…

My mind recoiled. My body stilled.

The memories of Pastor Carter. His hands. His hot breath on my neck. His insistence that he acted on the will of God.

No!

I wouldn’t think about that.

Not here. Not with Bastian.

I focused on the man above me. The alien fullness between my legs. The low burn in my belly. The soreness deep inside.

It kept me in the here and now. Not in that dark, ugly place my mind wanted to go.

“Are you okay?” Bastian asked and I could only nod.

I was more than okay. I was the most okay I had ever been in my entire life.

All because of him.

Because of this glorious, amazing feeling he had unleashed inside of me.

Because of the thousand ways he had changed me. Changed my life.

Even if it terrified me. Even if I had no idea what came next.

I knew that the person I was becoming was so much more than the person I had been.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Are you in pain?” His brow furrowed, his eyes worried.

I pulled his face down to mine. I kissed him, not so gently. “It hurts. But it will hurt more if you stop.”

He reached between us to touch me. I moaned loudly.

“Is that better?” he murmured, sucking on my earlobe.

“Yes,” I breathed. “Keep doing that.”

He grinned against my skin and did as he was told.

When he started to move, I found that my body answered in kind. His fingers did magical things. And while it still pinched and pulled, the discomfort was secondary to this other thing happening inside me.

As if ruled by instinct, I began to move with him. I rode the wave. Cresting high before crashing.

Through it all, Bastian was gentle. Tender. He held me close. He kissed me as if I were the most important thing in his entire world. And I felt how much he loved me. It bled out of him, coating every part of me.

The pain didn’t matter. Nothing did.

Only this man. This moment. This new life.

“I love you.”

He whispered it over and over again.

“I love you.”

I opened my mouth.

The words never came.

He took my silence. Never demanding. Never wanting more. He took what I offered, knowing that for now, that’s all he could have.

It was the most I had ever given to another person.

Was it enough?

He ran his fingers along the rigid scar on my wrist. He lifted my arm, kissing it. Accepting it. Accepting me.

When it was over, we lay wrapped around each other, my ear against his wild, beating heart.

He kissed the top of my head, his hand stroking the sensitive skin of my lower back. Neither of us spoke.

I knew that this feeling of contentedness couldn’t last.

Reality waited just beyond the door. Demanding we acknowledge it.

But not yet.

I wasn’t ready.

For now, I wanted to have this tiny slice of perfect.

I rolled onto my stomach, propping my chin on his chest, looking up the man who I knew I loved.

“I liked that thing you did,” I said shyly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Bastian raised his eyebrow. “That thing I did? Can you explain in more detail?” He was teasing me. I could hear his amusement.

I poked him in the side and he laughed. “You know…that thing.”

I hid my face in mortification, wishing I had kept quiet.

“I need to know more about this thing you enjoyed.” Bastian pulled me up onto his chest, my legs straddling him. I was forced to look at him, my hair in crazy tangles around us as I leaned over him.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I harrumphed, hating how silly I sounded. How inexperienced.

“Baby, don’t look like that,” he said softly.

Baby…

I felt warm at the endearment.

“Like what?” I ducked my head.

He sat up so that we were pressed chest to chest, my legs around his waist. We were fitted together again and I could feel him getting hard beneath me.

He kissed my chin. The tip of my nose. “Like you’re ashamed. Embarrassed. You don’t ever have to feel that way with me. We’ve done nothing wrong. This—” He kissed the hollow of my throat. “Makes all the horrible stuff worth it. I feel like I’ve found that one person who makes living possible.”

“I just feel so young compared to you. Even though I’m eighteen, I don’t know anything…”

Bastian wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight against him. “You know that I love you. You know that I wouldn’t change a thing about who you are. Those are the only things you need to know.”

Thank you, God, for giving me this man…

I melted completely.

Then we were kissing once more. And I wanted him inside me again. I wriggled, not caring that I was sore. Ignoring the twinge of pain as he rubbed against me. He groaned.

“Sara…”

When he entered me a second time it still hurt but it was a pleasant sort of pain.

“Bastian,” I sighed, tightening around him. He shuddered, holding onto me as if scared I’d disappear. I had to tell him.

He had to know.

“Bastian…I lo—”

“Sara! Bastian! Are you in there?” Anne’s hysterical voice came from the other side of the door, followed by the pounding of her fist against wood.

Bastian and I looked at each other in alarm. I winced as he slowly pulled out of me. We became two separate individuals once more.

It was difficult to do. I felt cold and alone without his skin touching mine. The admission I had been about to make floated off into nothing.

“Sara!” Anne’s shrill cry had me quickly getting dressed. Bastian already had his pants on and was buttoning up his shirt. He opened the door and Anne rushed inside.

She didn’t ask what we were doing or where we had been. The look on her face filled me with dread. Her skin was ashen white. Her eyes so puffy from crying they appeared swollen.

She was gasping for breath. I took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Anne, what is it?”

My best friend began to sob. She covered her face with her hands. “It’s David. My god, it’s David.”

Bastian was there in an instant.

“What happened to my brother?” Bastian demanded. I looked at the man who only a few minutes before had been inside me. Now his face was hard. His eyes flashing fiercely.

Anne began wailing. It was the most awful noise I had ever heard. Like some wild animal caught in a trap. Her eyes were wide and feral as she looked at me. “Pastor Carter said The Awakening has begun.”

I felt a chill, cold as ice, creep down my spine. “The Awakening?”

Anne lunged for Bastian’s hand. “You have to go get him, Bastian. Now!”

“Baz—!” I screamed as he took off running.

Anne continued to sob beside me. I grabbed her arm. “What’s happening, Anne? Tell me!”

“David was so down. Depressed. Pastor Carter said it was time for him to go home. That David would only find peace once he was with God. He called everyone together. Your mother said we were going to witness something incredible. Something divine.” Anne shuddered. “I knew something was wrong when I walked into The Sun Sanctuary and David was there already. With Pastor.”

Tears dripped down her face. “Pastor said God was calling David home. That we were all there to watch him ascend,” she whispered before collapsing onto the floor.

I knew then what was happening.

This was my fault. This was because I had defied Pastor.

And then I was running.

After Bastian.

Towards the end of the world as we knew it.