Unmask

Chapter 18

Do not be deceived for
God is not mocked,
For whatsoever a man soweth,
that he also shall reap.

Galatians 6:7

In time the mysteries of life unfold in ways we could have not guessed. Everything falls into place, each piece like a link to a chain, as if our lives were planned before we could actually live them. Everything happens for a reason, a reason sometimes known to us, and others not know, but we are molded and shaped by our own experiences but most importantly we are not defined by them.

Two weeks later.

It was three in the morning and no one was asleep in the Ballington house, Father, Mother and Max in the master bedroom and the rest of the family in their own chosen areas. The past days felt like years, each person carrying their own load and trying to to sink. But it was Father who sat on the expensive red chair in his bedroom, besides his wife, who was dejected and lost of all hope. The time of harvest having sneaked upon him like a thief in the night.

Investigators had stood outside his gates demanding for Lunette and a girl he surely did not know, Suzanne. They had been following him for years, collecting each and every case file against him, watching his every move and analyzing each of his relationships. There was no going back. The had known the girls had run away, how? He did not know. And for some reason they knew where to find them again, in the walls of Ballington, another possible case against him, kidnapping. The evidence they had collected of him was lost during their escape, so had Lilith said, but he knew it was a lie, it was somewhere, definitely somewhere waiting to be exposed. Mr. Marks, the leader he had appointed in the Qwan branch did not waste time as soon as everything came out, he contacted the authorities, called on a religious show to expose him and his family. Drugs, trafficking, slavery and murders were being investigated and how far they would dig, he did not know. He got a call from his own spy, a relative of his in the law force department and they told him that it was out of their hands, the case was bigger that they could have imagined.

They took Lunette, asked her questions but they never got anything out, maybe she felt pity for him or maybe she was scared that she would never get to see the son she had left behind. Three attempts at over dosing on his injection, thoughts of committing suicide and his family was watching his every move, fighting him not to take his own life, he knew he was running out of time and they were going to get him. 'You should always look for an exit in every house you enter,' he had said, but it seems this one was one made of hard cement walls and a roof that was above the clouds, and no windows or a door, there was no way out. Lilith, for some reason, they did not know where exactly to find her, not knowing that she too was in the Ballington walls, which of course worked in his favor, one less person to interview.

It was out now, people were talking, doubt creeping in and once again his congregation and all his work was collapsing, and this time, it was collapsing with him in it.

Minutes passed as he tapped his foot impatiently on the red carpet floor. "I need to use the bathroom," he said not looking back, mother sitting on her chair, keeping her eyes on his retreating back and holding a tray with food while Max continued shaking his head at the mess that they were in and yet still trying to convince his Father that there is a way out.

1, 2, 3, 4..... the combination of the safe sounded in the quiet room followed by the clicking sound of a gun. Max stood from the chair so fast running towards his father while the tray of food fell from his mother's laps as she stood up and then her scream pierced the night.

"And then they dig and dig, these secrets we have fought to bury so much. They break the ground, their chains unbound, and drag us out of our graves too, for what has been done can never be undone."

This is just the beginning.