Washington, D.C.

Justin Pratt sat on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, pretending to rest his feet. Yeah, his feet were sore, but that wasn’t why he wanted to escape. For hours they had been walking between the monuments, handing out pamphlets to touring groups of giggling and shouting high school kids. They had hit the city at the right time—fall field trips. There must have been more than fifty groups from across the country. And they were all a fucking pain in the ass. It was hard to believe he was only about a year or two older than some of these idiots.

No, the real reason Justin had excused himself involved much more sinister thoughts than sore feet; illicit thoughts, according to the gospel of Reverend Joseph Everett and his followers. Jesus, would he ever get used to calling himself one of those followers, one of the chosen few? Probably not as long as he took breaks from handing out the word of God, only to sit back and admire Alice Hamlin’s breasts.

She looked up and waved at him as if she had read his thoughts. He fidgeted. Maybe he should take off his shoes to play up the sore-feet thing. Or had she already figured him out? She certainly couldn’t mind. Why else would she have worn such a tight pink sweater? Especially on a bus trip where they were to spend the day handing out godly propaganda. And then later, in about an hour, they’d be at the fucking prayer rally.

Jesus! He needed to watch his language.

He looked around, checking to see if any of Father’s little messengers could hear his thoughts. After all, Father sure as hell made it appear that he could. The man seemed to be telepathic or whatever that term was for reading people’s minds. It was downright spooky.

He grabbed one of the pamphlets so Alice would think he took their job seriously and maybe not notice that breast thing. The slick four-color pamphlets were pretty impressive with the word freedom in raised letters. What did Alice call it? Embossing? Very professional. It even included a color photograph of Reverend Everett and listed on the back the entire schedule of future prayer rallies, city by city. From the looks of the brochure, you’d think they could afford to eat something better than beans and rice seven days a week.

When he looked back at Alice, a new group of potential recruits had surrounded her. They listened and watched intently as her face and gestures became animated. She was three years older than Justin, an older woman. Just the idea gave him a hard-on. She didn’t have much street smarts, but she knew stuff about so many different things. She amazed him. Like all the quotes of Jefferson’s she had memorized. She recited them before they got up all the steps to read them off the walls. She kicked ass when it came to that history crap. And she knew that one-two-three thing about Jefferson. That he was the first secretary of something or another, second vice president and third president. How could she even remember that fucking shit?

It was one of the many things Justin admired about her. That had to be a good sign, that he didn’t care only about her great pair of tits, which had usually been the case with him and girls in the past. In fact, there was a whole list of things he liked about Alice. For one thing, she could make religion sound almost as exciting as if it were some fucking NASCAR race to heaven. And he liked the way she looked into her listeners’ eyes as though they were the only souls on earth for that moment. Alice Hamlin could make a suicidal maniac feel special and forget why he was out teetering on a ledge. Or at least, that’s how she made Justin feel. After all, he had been that suicidal maniac just a couple months ago.

Sometimes he still felt it, that restlessness, that urge to just forget about everything and stop trying so hard to make it look like he had his shit together. Especially now that Eric had left him and was off on some mission.

In fact, he had felt the urge as recently as this morning when he found himself wondering how he might take the blades out of his plastic disposable razor. He knew if the veins at the wrists were cut vertically instead of horizontally that a person bled to death much quicker. Most people fucked it up and did the horizontal thing. Cutting himself didn’t bother him. Getting his tattoo probably hurt a hell of a lot more than slitting your wrists.

Alice was bringing a group of girls up the stairs toward him. She’d want to introduce him. Earlier she had told him he was cute enough to convince any girl to attend Father’s rally. Words didn’t usually mean a fucking thing to Justin. Not after a lifetime of people telling him stuff. But when Alice said stuff, it was hard not to believe her. So he didn’t mind. Besides, he enjoyed watching girls walk up steps. Of course, he’d much rather be watching from behind, but this view wasn’t bad.

It was a chilly day and yet all three wore short-sleeved blouses. One even had on a tight knit top, cut short to show her flat stomach. It was a false indicator of a wanna-be wild side, since even from this distance, Justin could see the belly button was pierce-free. But it was still nice to look at.

Now, if they’d just shut up. Did all high school girls have that same high-pitched giggle? Where the fuck did they learn that squeal? It grated on his nerves, but he smiled, anyway, and offered a cute little tip of his baseball cap that only seemed to set them off again, but an octave higher. Dogs had to be pitching their ears for miles.

“Justin, I want you to meet some of my new friends.”

Alice and the three girls stopped in front of him, right at crotch level, and suddenly he forgot about sore feet or even Alice’s perfectly shaped tits—for a few minutes, anyway. The tall blonde and her shorter counterpart shielded their eyes from a momentary and rare appearance of the sun. The third one, a short girl with dark eyes, looked older up close. She wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes like the blonde and her bookend.

“This is Emma, Lisa and Ginny. Emma and Lisa are best friends from Reston, Virginia. Ginny lives here in the District. They never met each other before today, and see, we’re already good friends.”

The two blondes giggled and the tall one said, “Actually, her name is Alesha, but she hates that, so we shortened it to Lisa.”

“Well, my name is really Virginia,” the dark-eyed girl told them, only it came out as though it was a competition, and she needed to outdo her new friends.

“No way,” the blondes said in practiced unison.

“My dad thought it would be cute since we’re from Virginia. Which, by the way, my dad would kill me if he knew I was attending this sort of thing tonight. He hates this kind of stuff.” This she said to Alice, and like the name thing, she made it sound like a challenge instead of a simple statement.

Justin watched for Alice’s reaction. This girl wasn’t exactly a prize recruit, and Justin wondered why Alice had even invited her to stay for the prayer rally. Already Ms. Ginny-my-name-is-really-Virginia was showing signs of doubt. That was supposed to be a big red flag. Next there would be questions. Father hated questions.

“We can’t always rely on our parents to guide us in the correct direction,” Alice told her with a smile, sounding like a mother herself, and the girl nodded, pretending to know exactly what Alice meant, because Alice was too cool to disagree with or contradict.

Justin crossed his arms over his chest. It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes.

A scuffle at the bottom of the steps made them all jerk around, the girls rocking on ridiculous platform shoes while trying not to fall down the steps. Justin got to his feet, climbing a few more steps to get a better look. Down below, a James Dean look-alike was shoving at an older guy while he tried to yank the man’s camera out of his hands.

“Wow! He’s really cute,” the one called Ginny managed to say without a squeal.

Justin sat back down with a sigh of frustration that no one noticed. Leave it to fuckin’ Brandon to steal all the attention.