Page 63 of Now Until Forever
Eliana ducked her head and ran down the hall. Whatever train this was, there would be time on board to talk to Luci and convince her to come home. But only if she couldn’t get there before her friend got on the train.
At the end of the hall, she spilled out onto the platform with everyone else. A train was already there with its doors open. Eliana heard the telltale beeps and rushed over, hopping on just before the doors slid shut.
Eliana made her way down the aisle, scanning the seats for Luci. She didn’t want to think she’d missed her friend, but had to face the fact that Luci might not have gotten on. She took a moment to scan the platform as the train pulled out, and didn’t see her.
Thank You. Luci had to be on this train.
Eliana moved to the next car, searching still. Looking at every person with brown hair and a trenchcoat for the nightgown underneath. A shock of pure white in this gray, dirty world.
The elect, clothed in white.
But it was the allure of something that sounded so close to being right that made a group like the Reverence Sisters seductive. No one was immune to being sucked in or persuaded. That was obvious when people, en masse, started to believe the fake stuff that was AI-generated and put online. It was only when those insidious things were revealed as false that people began to question the narrative they’d been fed. No one who used the internet knew whether what they were seeing was real or a fabrication.
Would there be a moment like that for Luci?
Show her the truth, Lord.
Because without it, Luci wouldn’t know how badly she’d been deceived.
There.
“Luci!” Eliana’s cry startled a couple of people, drawing some suspicious looks. A couple of guys stepped away from her as she passed, like she was dangerous or something. She stopped in front of the woman, more relieved than she’d imagined. “Luci.”
The woman looked up, and that dark hair shifted on her shoulders. But the face didn’t belong to Carlos’s sister.
“Oh…” Eliana cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“You said a name,” the woman said quietly. No makeup. Pale features and flat eyes, as if the energy of being alive had been drained out of her. But there wasn’t the telltale sheen of Elysium in her gaze. “What did you say?”
“Luci.”
The young woman gasped. “I know that name.”
Eliana crouched in front of her. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah.” She swallowed. “My name is Sarah.”
“Do you know Luci? I’m trying to find her.”
This woman had to be part of the Sisters group, because she wore the same gown they’d found in that meeting room. Eliana had a million questions, but bombarding Sarah with all of them at once wasn’t going to get the young woman to trust her.
She had to be twenty, maybe twenty-one. Not more than that. What had she given up falling for a lie? What had she sacrificed to get free?
Sarah looked to the side, fear in her gaze. “I can’t talk to you here. People can hear us.”
Eliana nodded. “I understand. Can we go somewhere and talk, maybe somewhere private? Or a coffee shop.”
“That’s too public.” She gasped. “I don’t have any money.”
“It’s okay.”
The train slowed at the next station.
Eliana didn’t know the area, but they could figure it out. “Let’s get off the train. We can find somewhere warm and safe to talk. What do you say?”
Sarah nodded. “Okay.”
She stood, and Eliana glanced back as she stepped off the train. This young woman really did seem scared. More scared than Eliana had ever been in her life—even in the nightmare she kept having.
