Blood Sins by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online

got anybody out, Brooke. We aren't supposed to know she was here to snoop around."
    "I didn't tell anybody. I wouldn't have."
    Cody muttered, "Just because you don't tell doesn't mean somebody doesn't know ."
    "I was careful. I'm always careful. But it's getting harder and harder. I can't stay here anymore, I just can't. My aunt Judy lives in Texas, and she doesn't like the church. I know she'd let me live with her."
    "What about your mom and dad?" Hunter asked.
    "What about them?" Brooke fixed her gaze on the crayons she was gathering into a plastic container. "They believe in the church. They believe in Father. They're never going to leave here."
    After a moment, Cody said, "My mom isn't so sure anymore. She's beginning to be afraid."
    "Does she know you feel that?" Ruby asked him.
    "No. She pretends everything is just the same."
    "Don't tell her," Hunter warned. "We can't tell any of our parents. Not what we know, and not what we feel. We have to keep hiding it. Because we all know what'll happen if we don't."
    "Then what do we do?" Cody spoke more quickly, his gaze on the two adult church members coming toward them.
    "We keep our mouths shut."
    "Until?"
    "Until we figure out something better."
    "Like what?"
    "I don't know, Cody. But I do know we're safer doing nothing until we figure out what to do."
    Ruby said, "That's easy for you. You two aren't girls."
    "No," Brooke agreed, also aware of the approach of two of their . . . keepers. "It's different for us. Once the Ceremonies begin. Once Father notices we're growing up." Her last few words were whispered, "Once Father starts watching us. . . ."
    T essa hadn't known Sarah very well; Haven was a growing organization whose members were spread out all over the country, most living quiet, seemingly normal lives--at least until they were called into service--and many of them had never even met one another. But not knowing a fallen comrade, she had discovered, did nothing to lessen the feeling of loss.
    One of their own was gone.
    That knowledge was too painful to think about unless Tessa could make something meaningful of it. And right now that was all but impossible for her, especially when she was going into the same situation that had cost Sarah her life.
    Hollis said, "Your shield is stronger than Sarah's."
    "You're a telepath now?"
    "No. You wouldn't be human if you weren't thinking about it."
    Tessa didn't want to think about it. Instead, she thought about the young church member Bambi's expression of adoration, and that of others she had met. She said slowly, "They don't seem to be afraid of him. His followers."
    Hollis didn't push it. "Well, not the ones he sends out in public, anyway." She shook her head. "Given the typical profile of a cult leader, there's often some kind of sexual domination and control, but we aren't sure about that with Samuel. For one thing, the church has existed long enough that I would have expected him to have offspring by more than one woman if he was using sex. But as far as we can determine, he's childless."
    "Sterile, maybe?"
    "Maybe. Or maybe he genuinely sees himself as a more traditional prophet in the sense of being a holy man, above the needs of the flesh. He's a bit older, somewhere in his midforties, and they do call him Father, after all."
    A cold memory stirred in Tessa. "Didn't Jim Jones's followers call him Father?"
    "Yes, as I recall. It's the rule rather than an exception for a cult leader to portray himself as a patriarchal or messianic head of his church. An absolute power structure with a single figure at the top."
    "I think some of the younger church members I've talked to so far would respond strongly to that idea of a protective father image. But the older ones? The ones closer to his own age? How does he hold them? How does he convince them to follow him?"
    "More questions we don't have answers for. And we need them. If we have any hope of stopping Samuel, we need information."
    "I know." Tessa drew a breath and let it