Shattered Justice (34 page)

“Avidan Timothy Justice, you’re being an idiot.”

And vanished as quickly as it came.

He squared off with Kyla. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you’re being an idiot. To say something like that to Annie … to even
dare
suggest we’ve forgotten about Shannon and Aaron.” Now her voice matched Annie’s body, trembling so she had to speak through clenched teeth. She clamped her mouth shut, a muscle working in her jaw. Dan flinched as one lone tear escaped Kyla’s eye, drifting down her cheek.

Kyla never cried. Not even when they were kids.

“Yes,” she finally managed. “I think
idiot
pretty well sums it up.”

He couldn’t argue with her. After all, he’d just managed to hurt his sisters so profoundly, they’d both cried in the space of two minutes. And all they’d been doing was trying to help.

Oh yeah.
Idiot
worked.

Words swirled through him, a vortex of confusion and anguish. He longed to tell them, to try and explain all that was trapped inside him. To spew out the unbearable tangle of emotions, then beg them to help him sort it all out.

Help it make sense.

But how did he voice things he didn’t even begin to understand? Things he felt but couldn’t describe?

How did he explain what he knew but couldn’t believe?

That he was in hell.

A powerful need to scream, to strike out and hurt as he’d been hurt, took hold of him, making him shake so bad inside that he wondered if he’d break into a million pieces.

Spinning on his heel, he pushed the sliding doors open and strode past Kodi, whose watchful gaze followed his every step. Grabbing his jacket off the coatrack, he pulled the front door open. He had to get out of here.

“Where are you going?”

He paused, hand on the door, unable to look at his sisters. “Out. I need …” What? What did he need? He let his hand fall,
forced himself to turn and face the two women he knew loved him deeply. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Either of you. But this thing with Jayce—”

Emotions crowded his words out, shoving them to the back of his throat. It took a couple of deep breaths before he could continue. “You’re both convinced God is calling me to this. To help Jayce. Fine. Whatever. But it’s not
your
place to make me believe it.” He slipped his coat on, his tone turning hard. “That’s God’s job. So here’s the deal. If He wants me in this, let Him tell me Himself.”

He jerked the front door open, then paused. “If He has the nerve, after what He’s taken from me.”

Dan could tell, from the silence behind him, that the low words had shocked his sisters. So be it. It felt good to finally speak what he hadn’t allowed himself even to think over the last several months.

His wife was dead. His children were dead.

God had a lot to answer for.

Silence.

That’s what met Dan’s exit.

Pure, stunned silence.

Then, as though she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, Annot started for the door. But Kyla reached it before she did, barring her sister’s way.

“I’m going after him, Kylie.”

The desperate edge to her words tugged at Kyla’s heart. At the place that wanted to join Annot, to run after Avidan, throw her arms around him, and weep. “No.”

“No?” Annot’s word rang with astonished frustration. “
No
?”

“No.”

“Do you really think you can stop me?”

Kyla started at that. “Probably not. You are, after all, a runner,
and you have a runner’s muscles and strength.”

“Exactly.” Determination filled Annot’s words and features. “So move, before I move you.”

“If you do that, you’ll be making a serious mistake.”

Her sister’s laugh showed she was unamused. “Oh, really? Well, let me tell you something, big sister—”

“Shut
up
!”

Annot’s mouth fell open, and she stared at Kyla like she’d suddenly grown fangs. Kyla grabbed her sister’s arm and tugged her to the window. Together, they caught a last glimpse of Avidan walking with quick, hard steps into the engulfing night.

Annot sagged beside her, and drawing a calming breath, Kyla encircled her sister’s shoulders. “Don’t you see? He’s got to do this alone. Just him and God. They have to wrestle this through, or it will never be settled.”

Annot lifted a hand, laid it against the cold glass, as though she could reach through it, touch Avidan’s heart and spirit. “Are you sure?”

At the soft, pleading question, Kyla nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t know why, but I’m sure.”

Annot gave one, tremulous sigh, then turned to bury her face in her sister’s shoulder. Kyla held her as she wept, whispering gentle assurances to her little sister.

And to herself.

SHELBY COULDN’T SLEEP
.

She tossed and turned, punching the pillows into submission. But nothing worked. Finally, she threw the covers back and got out of bed. Shoving her feet into her slippers, she padded to the kitchen.

Maybe some chamomile tea would help.

She’d just put the pot on the burner when it started. The gnawing sense that something was happening. And without thought, her mind flew to the one person she’d been thinking of almost nonstop for the past five months.

Dan.

Forget it! Haven’t you spent enough time thinking about him, praying about him? Haven’t you given enough of your time, your heart, to him?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

Five months. Twenty-one weeks. Roughly 150 days. 3,600 hours. 216,000 minutes …

Well, a lot of time. Time she’d had to accept Dan was out of her life. To move on.

Instead, she spent all those months, weeks, and days, doing pretty much one thing.

Thinking about Dan.

Oh, she was
pathetic
!

Why couldn’t she get over him? After the way he hurt her, she should be able to write him off in a heartbeat. But those pesky heartbeats just kept whispering his name. Even though the way he looked at her now—when he looked at her at all—tore her apart. All tenderness, all connection was gone.

She might as well have been a total stranger. In fact, he’d probably treat a stranger with more care.

So why waste your time thinking about him?

Shelby pulled the tea bag out of the box. Why, indeed?

Well, there was Jayce. He’d been so lost, sitting in that jail cell. It had taken all of Shelby’s control not to grab him and run for the nearest exit. But then, she’d be little help to him if she was in a cell of her own. When it came down to it, there was only one person right now who could help Jayce.

Mr. Personality. Dan Justice.

She dunked her tea bag. There was, of course, that one other reason to think about Dan.

She was in love with the jerk.

Pulling the tea bag up by the string, she grabbed it, ready to toss it in the disposal. Then she yelped when it burned her hand. Quick tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh,
darn
you, Dan! Now look what you’ve done!”

Flipping on the faucet, Shelby held her hand under the cold water. As she did so, the urging came back. And this time, it was stronger. And clearer.

Something was happening. With Dan. He needed her.

Not in person, but in prayer.

She rummaged in the drawer and pulled out a washcloth, which she soaked in the cold water. Pulling some ice from the freezer, she wrapped it in the washcloth, then used that as a compress for the burn on her hand.

Thus patched up, she went into the living room and plopped down in her oversized chair, pulling her knees close to her chest.

“Okay, God. I’ll pray for him. Because You’re asking me to.”

But as she bowed her head, she knew that wasn’t the only reason. No matter how often she got burned because of Dan Justice, she’d always be drawn to thinking of him, praying for him.

It was like that when you loved someone with all your heart.

Whether you wanted to or not.

The dam broke.

Beneath a black sky, where any light was muffled by low-hanging clouds, Dan’s hardened heart melted, and words flowed.

“I spent my
life
serving You! Serving others! And
this
is my reward? My wife dies in my arms. My children are murdered. Their killer gets away scot-free. What kind of reward is
that
for living a life devoted to God? To
almighty God
?”

He spewed the bitter words. “Tell, me, Jehovah Jireh, where’s the
justice
in that?”

Curse God
.

He wanted to. His lips itched to throw God’s failure in His face.

“Suffer the little children, You said. They’re precious to You, You said!”

Curse God
.

Bile rose in his throat, and he raised his fists to the sky. “
Why
? Why Aaron? Why my boy, when he was so close to
being a man? A man after Your heart. That’s what You wanted, wasn’t it? And God …
God
! Why Shannon? When she loved life so much? Loved
You
so much?”

He wanted to weep. And to laugh. To punch God in the face. And throw himself on God’s mercy. He wanted answers. And sweet, comforting silence.

The conflicting emotions writhed within him, and he stopped walking, pressed his hands to his temples. Was this what it felt like to go crazy?

Curse God! Curse God and die!

He wanted to die. To join his love, his sweet children beneath the ground. To dwell with them in silence. Away from this pain.

Dan opened his mouth, willed the curses to come. But his mouth would not move. And what filled his mind wasn’t curses, but his mother’s voice.

Singing.

He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for his mother’s voice, for the love and comfort it embodied—even if he had to endure lyrics he no longer believed. Dan listened, but instead of comfort, the words of this once-beloved song took the sharp blade of conviction and plunged it deep.

As the echo of his mother’s voice faded, Dan longed to believe, to rest in the song his mother sang to him all through his childhood. But how could he?

How can you not? How can you doubt what you know is true?

How can you think for a moment it’s true when your wife, your
children
lie beneath the ground? How could a loving God let that happen?

Dan pressed his hands to his ears, the questions so heavy they drove him to his knees. As he hit the ground, one last plea broke free. He didn’t know if he spoke it, thought it, or prayed it. He just felt it push through the cordon of confusion, scattering the last of his defenses like twigs before a surging flood.

Help me!

In that moment, it came—a rushing, sweeping stillness. All sound, all light, all awareness … everything was cloaked, enveloped. And though silence reigned in the night around him, a cacophony of words poured through him. Words he’d read all his life.

Words he now admitted he hadn’t even begun to understand.

“I Am.”

Trembling overtook Dan. He couldn’t bear the intensity of those words, of the voice that seemed to speak them. Terror, wonder, shame, relief—one emotion after another coursed through him.

“The Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

Death and Hades. The companions Dan had embraced, taken within himself. Nurtured with bitterness. Sheltered with anger.

Companions that settled around his heart and spirit, forming the shell he thought protected him. Now he saw it for what it was.

Deception. Destruction. His death, even as he lived.

Spiritual death.

He could no longer abide these things, and yet he couldn’t
release them. He wasn’t strong enough to let them go. Not by himself. So he lifted his face to the heavens and stretched his arms out at his sides.

He was ready.

For death.

For life.

Whatever God chose.

Because he had nothing left. Nothing within to anchor him. Nothing around to hold him fast. He was shaken and cast atop ocean swells, carried away from all he’d ever known.

“Take me. Please … set me free.”