Page 232 of The Running Grave


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‘So I’m to merge myself with the collective by not thinking, and having sex with anyone who wants it, but I’m not allowed to be worried about a fellow church member, is that what you’re saying?’

‘You need to shut up,’ said Will furiously, ‘because I know things about you. You were in the woods at night, with a torch.’

‘No, I wasn’t,’ said Robin automatically.

‘Yeah, you were. I didn’t say anything, to protect Lin, but it can’t hurt her now.’

‘Why did you want to protect Lin? That’s materialist possession, caring about one person more than everyone else. Is it because she’s the mother of your child? Because Qing belongs to everyone in the church, not just—’

‘Shut up,’ said Will, and he raised his hand threateningly. ‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘No quotations for any of that?’ asked Robin, still angrier than she was scared. ‘You haven’t told anyone I had a torch in all the days since Lin’s been gone. Why didn’t you report me?’

‘Because they’ll say I should have done it sooner!’

‘Or did you secretly like thinking someone was wandering around with a torch at night?’

‘Why would I?’

‘You could have refused to come with me to the Retreat R—’

‘No, I couldn’t, you’ve got to go when you’re asked—’

‘I think you’re having doubts about the church.’

Will’s eyes narrowed. He let go of his penis and backed away several steps.

‘Did my father send you here?’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘He’s done it before. He sent a man to spy on me.’

‘I’m not a spy.’

Will snatched his pants and tracksuit bottoms off the floor and began to pull them on. Certain he was going to walk out and immediately reveal the conversation, Robin, now planning to make a break for the woods the moment she left the cabin, said,

‘What if I told you your family sent me?’

Will was now jumping on the spot as he pulled up his tracksuit bottoms.

‘I’m going to Papa J, right now,’ he said furiously. ‘I’m going to tell him—’

‘Will, your family loves you—’

‘They hate me,’ he spat at her. ‘Especially my father.’

‘That isn’t true!’

Will bent to grab his sweatshirt, his face suffused with angry colour.

‘My moth—Sally loves me. He doesn’t. He writes me lies, trying to force me to abandon the church.’

‘What lies does he write you?’

‘He pretended Mu—Sally was ill. I didn’t care, particularly,’ Will added savagely, pulling his top back on. ‘She’s no more to me now than you are. I’m not her flesh object. Anyway, she always sticks up for my—for Colin. But M—Sally wasn’t ill. She’s fine.’

‘How do you know that?’ said Robin.

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