Escape from Bondage Read Online Free Page B

yolk. He’d done a good job on it,
but then she suspected Braden would do a good job on anything he
tried his hand at and gave an honest effort.
    She choked up for a second. Tears
threatened and she was tempted to just let them come, to drop her
fork and just cry. Maybe he would talk to her then.
    He turned on random impulse and looked
at her, and then turned back to the commentators as basketball
players spun and fell past the lens of the camera. Shots flashed
across the screen and it meant nothing to her, words were spoken
and it was like gibberish. She tried to understand.
    If she wanted to be a part of his
life, then she would have to get over herself. That thought came
very clearly, stark in its simplicity. Plenty of women, and men
too, had left the Church. She’d always assumed it was in disgrace.
Now she saw there could be other reasons, more important reasons
than she had ever believed. She’d never looked at it from the
secular point of view.
    Her own family thought her vocation
mad, simply mad. They didn’t understand it.
    The two of them would have a lot to
learn, especially her. The thought of making a mistake and doing
something stupid and irrevocable made her chest tighten and her
blood pressure rise.
    She wondered when he would
speak.
    Maybe it was her responsibility this
time.
    “ So.”
    He must have been waiting for
it.
    He looked over, having shoved his
plate away, and sat up a little straighter.
    His arm snaked over and wrapped around
her shoulder.
    “ So, what?”
    An involuntary smile crossed her face,
changing her outlook in spite of all her misgivings.
    “ So, what did you want to
do today?”
    He cocked his head and looked at her
with interest.
    “ Oh, I don’t know. What
did you want to
do today?”
    Her smile was broader this time, and
her tightly-knotted abdominal muscles began to relax.
    The shivery feeling of not quite being
warm enough began to go away.
     
    #
     
    They agreed on a walk in the park,
chilly as it was after the freakish warmth of the previous night.
The path took them up a hill and out of the town proper until they
arrived at a big open space. Strong sunlight beat down and the damp
trail of dark wood chips steamed.
    “ This used to be Churchill
Steel.” A hundred metres away lay a huddle of buildings, the
two-story block walls and flat metal roofs punctuated by the gaping
black holes of horizontal window openings up high.
    Scrub, trees and bushes, all naked now
in winter, provided a maze of cover. There was no snow, and
underfoot were visible the cracked and crazed patterns of an
asphalt surface, tilted every which way and missing in many places.
Piles of rubble and debris rounded out the picture of
post-apocalyptic decay.
    “ Let’s go look!” Heather’s
mood had lightened considerably once the shock of his proposal had
a bit of time to sink in.
    It wasn’t the end of the world. She
could always confess, repent, and make the act of contrition. Go on
with her life. Her choices were clear, much as she might resent
them.
    “ Sure. I’ll bet it’s all
covered in graffiti.” Even from where they stood, the signs of
previous vandals and trespassers were all too visible.
    The words were there all right. All
the kids knew them, and some of them had spray-bombs.
    She took his hand and led him
on.
    “ I’ll give you a kiss when
we get in there.” There was a larger promise in her eyes. “I’ve
never seen a set of ruins before. It’s very romantic, don’t you
think?”
    He laughed out loud and shrugged,
happy enough to be with her.
    Her face glowed with some resolve of
her own and Braden willingly went along, taking over the lead,
picking their way and checking the trail for holes and dead vines
and things that might trip her up. The possibility of kids fooling
around, or transients living in there came to mind.
    The pair stood in an opening. What had
once been a busy and thriving factory floor now held nothing but
desolation. The wind soughed through gaps in the