Covenant Child by Terri Blackstock

Author:Terri Blackstock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

A little while later, I heard Lizzie packing a few things into a Kroger bag. I lay still, pretending I didn’t hear, but then she slipped out of the room and I couldn’t pretend anymore. I got up and jerked on my jeans.

I heard her in the living room, talking on that telephone Amanda had given her. “Uh, Amanda? It’s Lizzie. I’ve decided to come.” Her voice was broken and hollow sounding, and I could tell she was crying. “But Kara won’t come with me. I don’t know how to convince her.”

There was a pause, and I listened, hoping Amanda would say that it was a package deal. That she wanted both of us or neither of us could come.

After all, it made sense if it was her intention to get us both out of her way. Whether it was just to keep us under her thumb where we couldn’t file lawsuits and take her money, or to kill us like she’d killed our parents, I didn’t know. But if that was her intention, I figured she would want us both. It wouldn’t work if only one of us came.

But she must have told Lizzie to come without me, because then Lizzie said, “I don’t want you to come here. Eloise and Deke could come home, and there’s no telling what they might do. There’s a gas station about a block down from the truck stop. It’s closed right now and doesn’t open until seven. I’ll be waiting there. It’ll only take me about fifteen minutes to get there.”

It was real. She was really going to go.

I stood there for a minute, feeling this awful sense of betrayal. I couldn’t believe my Lizzie, who had lived the same life I’d lived, who had dragged herself through all the muck of our pasts, who had always been there for me . . . would leave me now. I tried to imagine standing on my own, drudging through this life without her.

And at that moment I hated Amanda Holbrooke more than I’d ever hated anyone.

I heard Lizzie slip out the front door, and my chest grew tight as panic shivered over me. I couldn’t let her go the way we had left things. I stepped out into the night. I didn’t see her from the porch, but I knew that if she was going to that gas station, she would have to take our path through the woods. I went around the house and saw the faint glow of her flashlight moving through the trees.

It was a full moon that night, and everything had a faint blue glow. The autumn wind had the slightest bite to it, and I shivered as I followed her.

I started to cry as I ran toward her. She must have heard me coming, for she turned around. I saw the tear stains on her face, the mascara smeared under her eyes, her pink nose, her purple lips.

We stood there among the trees, staring at each other as the minutes ticked by.

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