The Delusion by Laura Gallier

Author:Laura Gallier [Gallier, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Religious / Christian / Fantasy, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Religious / Christian / Social Issues
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2017-09-06T04:00:00+00:00

self-absorbed

defiant

Like Jess.

His mother pointed in my face. “Get away from my son!”

“Hey, your son kicked him in the butt.”

I have no idea why some soccer mom felt the need to stick up for me.

Ray Anne finally made it out of the dressing room, and I grabbed her arm. Too late now for her to run off the Creepers.

“We have to go.” I tugged her toward the exit, and she accidentally flung the prom dress to the floor.

“Why are we—”

“Trust me.”

Once we were locked inside Ray Anne’s silver Hyundai, we sat in the mall parking lot, blasting the AC. I talked so fast my words ran together. She was having a hard time following me and, as usual, shot questions at me, one after another so that I hardly had time to respond.

I’d been desperate to know how people got their shackles. Now that I’d witnessed it firsthand, I seriously despised the answer. “Think about it, Ray Anne. It’s only a matter of time before the light that children carry gets snatched, crushed by evil. Innocence gone.”

I drummed my fingers hard on the armrest. How was this right? All a person had to do was live long enough and dare to defy authority, and they’d be attacked and fitted with a shackle?

Deep breaths weren’t working. I popped my knuckles and nearly gnawed a hole in my lip. “Don’t talk to me about good defeating evil, Ray Anne. Not after what I just saw. That Watchman did nothing to protect that child. And whether he couldn’t or wouldn’t, either way, humanity is doomed.”

She put her delicate hand on my shoulder and waited for me to calm down. “I believe everyone does get shackled at some point,” she said. “But there’s obviously a way to get free. You know that, even if you aren’t open to my explanations.”

“I’m open, I’m just not willing to put my faith in failure.”

“Humanity fails, Owen. Not God.”

“How can you defend him?” I turned in my seat and yelled like she was much farther away. “What kind of cruel, pathetic, narcissistic being creates life, then sits back and watches his creation get pulverized by evil—enemies that by design outmatch us? Why weren’t everyone’s eyes created to see them? Why don’t we have the physical strength to kick their—”

“So God made that child talk back to his mother? It’s God’s fault the kid acted out?” Ray Anne’s passion matched mine.

“What kid doesn’t talk back to his mother, Ray Anne? Haven’t you done that?”

“Of course, but all that proves is that we’re all rebellious. Our innocence isn’t stolen, Owen. We give it up. We act selfish by our own choice, over and over without being sorry, and darkness rushes in. How can you blame that on God?”

Ridiculous argument. “If he exists at all, he made us this way. He set the rules.”

Ray Anne got quiet, and about the time I was reveling in the idea that there was no way for her to counter, she jabbed back. “What if God

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