Cold Ennaline by RJ Astruc

back into the bedroom, my hair still wound up in a towel, the twins are waiting for me.
     
     
    “W E HAD to leave without you. We wanted you to come, of course. But if you didn’t, we’d already decided we’d go anyway.”
    “We didn’t know what our parents were planning for us. We didn’t want to wait around to find out.”
    “We’re sorry, though,” says Ray, taking my hand in his. “And we did come back. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah, um.” It’s hard for me to focus on their apologies. I’m still struggling to come to terms with the fact they’re here , with me , and we’re all (as far as I know) safe. “What happened?”
    “We got Theo to drive back. We picked you up about three miles from home. From our parents’ home, I mean. You were looking pretty bad, your clothes were in rags, and you were covered in this disgusting dirt that smelled like… ugh, like the world’s stinkiest fertilizer. We almost didn’t recognize you. When you got into the car you sort of collapsed.”
    “Where am I?”
    “Billingtown. It’s like, a highway town. Couple of shops and this motel. About twenty miles away from faith full country. We’ve been staying here since we found you. Which was two days ago.”
    “Two days?”
    “Well, one and a half days. You seemed like you needed your sleep. Theo said we shouldn’t wake you.” Ray squeezes my hand. “He said we should watch you carefully, too. Make sure you didn’t have nightmares.”
    “How does he—how did he know about this?”
    “We told you. It’s happened before.”
    “What happened to everyone else? All the faith full? There were hundreds out there at the ranch. Maybe thousands, by the end. All the faith full I’ve ever met. All the faith full in the state, I’d bet.”
    Ro and Ray exchange looks. “We don’t know,” Ro says, in a tone that suggests they’re expecting the worst possible outcome.
    I think about the bud that grew from Father Nerve’s head. My stomach churns, even though I haven’t eaten anything for ages. “How did I survive it?” I ask.
    “We don’t know. We didn’t see anyone else running away. Just you. But… but Theo says that the pull the god has on people… it’s sort of, you know, a passion thing.” Ray blushes and takes his hand away. “It’s a desire. Deep down. It makes people crazy in their hormones. And last night we were talking—”
    “To each other, not to Theo,” says Ro quickly.
    “—last night we were talking, and we thought it might have something to do with… with the reason you wouldn’t marry us. You know, the thing….”
    “My coldness,” I say.
    “That’s the one.”
    My greatest source of angst, and it might have saved my life. The god either didn’t want me, or couldn’t have me. I don’t know how to feel about that. Obviously I’m happy to be alive, but at the same time it makes me feel like even more of an anomaly than before. I curl up on the bed and hug my knees to my chest.
    “We’re so happy you’re alive,” says Ray quickly. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. It’s a miracle.”
    “No more miracles,” I say.
    “Fair enough.”
    I chew my thumbnail. I’m still trying to reorient myself, to reorganize my brain around a world that doesn’t include the god—or at least, doesn’t include love for the god. At school I’ve heard people talk about losing faith in their god, but I doubt somehow that their revelation came after a horrifying face-to-face encounter with him. “What are we going to do now? How do we even live without…?” I have to swallow hard before I can bring myself to say it. “Without faith?”
    “I don’t know,” says Ro. “Like everyone else, I guess.”
    “We’ve got each other,” says Ray. “That’s all we really need, isn’t it?”
    “Father Nerve is dead. I think… I think I saw him die.”
    The twins shift instinctively toward each other for comfort.
    “What about our parents?” Ro asks