Gabi stifled a gasp. She was home! In her own room! How could she have missed the familiar warmth of her flannel sheets, the dusty, inky smell of her books? This was going to make everything so much easier.
Once the adult voices disappeared down the hall, she opened her eyes. It was her room, but it wasn’t. Every one of her books was gone. Where were they? Focus, Gabi reminded herself when she began to sink into a wallow of despair at the disappearance of her lifelong companions. Time was short. As she raised herself up to sit, she nearly bit through her tongue to keep from crying out. Her whole body throbbed. A bottle of aspirin and a glass of water were on her nightstand, and she gulped down three before draining the glass.
A quick look at the IVs on either side of her bed told her which of the hanging bags contained the evil medicine. She would leave the electrolyte drip in as long as possible to speed her recovery, but Gabi quickly ripped the medical tape from the gauze at her other elbow and slid the needle free. It was important that the bag continue to drain normally and the line still appear attached to her. Gabi folded the gauze around the needle point to absorb the medicine, then used more gauze from her bedside table to hold the needle away from her skin. A fresh strip of medical tape concealed her handiwork. She’d just managed to wriggle back down under her blankets when the doorknob turned and Sam entered her room.
Gabi’s first impulse was to feign sleep to give herself more time to strategize, but time was a luxury she didn’t have. Who knew how long she’d been out and what had happened in the meantime? Sam knew she hadn’t been taking her medicine, but what else did he know? There was only one way to find out. She turned her head toward him as he crossed the threshold of her room and opened her eyes.
“Gabi, you’re awake!” Sam cried, rushing forward and placing a hand on her forehead. “Are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need anything? Should I call Nurse Sutton back?” He looked terrible. His glasses were so smudged with fingerprints that she wondered how he could see out of them at all, his shirt was splotched with tea stains, and his hair lay in an irregular configuration of spikes and matted patches. Judging from the blanket and Unitas bulletin thrown across the overstuffed armchair in the corner of her room, he’d been keeping vigil by Gabi’s bedside since she’d been home.
“I don’t need a nurse,” she said, her voice a harsh rasp. “I’m just a little sore. Why am I here instead of the Care Center?”
Sam dragged the armchair over to Gabi’s bed and slumped into it with a sigh.
“There’s been a massive conflict in the Pacific Northwest. The Tribes have been stirring up trouble there, trying to destabilize the fellowship. They’ve trained a new fighting force more vicious than anything we’ve seen before. ‘Lilim,’ they’re calling them. There’s been terrible fighting. After seeing what the Lilim are capable of, a record number of refugees petitioned the Witness teams to bring them back to Alder for baptism. It’s an awful situation, but also a gift, I suppose. God’s flock is growing, and soon this kind of senseless violence will be behind us.”
“How long was I out?” Gabi asked.
Sam drank in her face as if she might vanish at any moment. “They called me yesterday at work after Trainer Foulkes found you on the trail. Fortunately, the testing center staff is trained in emergency medical care, so they were able to stabilize you before I got there. Thanks to Nurse Sutton, we got you set up here without too much trouble. We had to clear out your books to make room for the equipment, though. They’ve been donated to the Alder High library.” Gabi winced. “I’m sorry, Gabriela, but it was for the best. You’re getting too old to hide away in here with your books now that you’ve been called.”
“Where’s Mathew? Did he pass? Is he okay?”
“Mathew’s fine. He keeps calling from the training facility every chance he gets to see if you’re okay. He’ll be lucky if they don’t kick him out for sneaking off to use the phone. You really scared him, Gabi. He thinks this is his fault. He told me he knew you weren’t taking your pills before you went to camp, and he didn’t say anything about it. We need to talk about your deception and willful behavior.”
Gabi shook her head to clear the cobwebs from the medicine making it hard to keep up with Sam’s words.
“Wait, why is Mathew still out at the facility?”
“The situation on the Northwest coast is deteriorating rapidly, and all mission teams, including new Junior Witnesses, are being put through a training intensive before being deployed to the region. We have to take drastic measures to deal with this Lilim threat before more lives are lost. They are without mercy, Gab, without souls, and they will do whatever it takes to gain control.”
“So Mathew is going to fight? Like in a war?”
Sam sighed and kneaded the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. “It’s always been a war, honey. God’s Word alone used to be enough to win it, but now it’s not. The devil has found his stronghold in these Lilim, so our actions need to be strong too. Your brother ships out in a couple of days. You’ll get to see him before he goes, though. There’s a big send-off planned in the plaza before the convoys
