Ted Dekker: The Bride Collector

But until she confronted the abuse that had crushed her head seven years ago, she could never be free to accept love or to love in return. And there was nothing in this world that Paradise wanted more than to love and be loved.

“I have to go back,” she said, dazed by her self-revelation.

“What?” He was appalled. “Absolutely not.” Angry even.

Paradise eased her arm away from him. “Don’t you see? I have to go back for my own sake. I have to confront and forgive-”

“No!” He gripped his right side in a way that made her wonder if he’d been hurt. “There’s no way I’m going to allow you to go back there. You’re wrong about this, he’s a monster.”

But Brad didn’t know how Paradise worked. She felt a strange resolve. This ditch was just another crack in the surface of her mind that would lead to another and another until the whole world was full of cracks. To reach the barn was to reach freedom.

“It’s not your choice,” she said. “If you…” She stopped, but then finished anyway. “You should allow me to do what I know is best for me.” He started to open his mouth, but then shut it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. But I have to live with me,” she said, standing.

Brad grabbed her hand, on one knee, trying to hold her back. “Please, Paradise. You’re not thinking! He’s a ruthless killer. He abducts women like you and drills holes in their feet and bleeds them dry! Please, get down.”

“You’re right, he’s all those things,” she said. “And I know it makes no sense to you, but you’re going to find that lots of things in my world won’t make immediate sense to you. I’ve lived with the fear of this monster for seven years and it’s debilitated me. Now I’m out and I’m staring the monster in the face and I have to kill him.”

“Kill him? With what?”

“With what I do and say. With me.”

He looked over her shoulder at the point where Quinton would appear if he followed their tracks. “Sit down. Please just sit down and listen to me for a second, Paradise.”

She squatted in the ditch.

“Okay, look, you’ve been through hell. Your mind isn’t seeing the picture-”

“My mind has never seen the picture clearer,” she said. Her tone was stiff, but his concern for her was making her feel weak in the knees. So she said something about it. “What you don’t realize, Brad, is that the more heroic you are, the more I have to go. You’re only making my case.”

What she said was true: Quinton was a monster. But so was she. And as she saw it now, clearheaded or not, the only way to defeat the one monster was to defeat the other. She stood again, desperate and hopeless at once.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Brad said. “You feel you have to go in there to somehow prove your worth to me?”

Tears flooded her eyes and she looked away. He was only making things worse by being even more understanding. Didn’t he see that?

“Stop it,” she said.

“Stop what? Saying the truth?”

“Trying to save me. You’ve saved me enough.” She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from under her eyes. “I have to do this, Brad. It’s for him, but it’s for my sake. You understand?”

“No, I don’t understand. I really don’t understand. You don’t have to overcome the monster in you for me to see your beauty.”

He couldn’t really mean that. No man could really feel that way about her.

“Listen to us!” he whispered. “We’ve both just escaped this freak and we’re a few hundred yards from his barn arguing about whether you should go back. This is crazy.”

“Yes, I am.”

They remained silent. He was right, of course. Going back was crazy. But then so was she, and she knew somehow, some way, this would end in the barn tonight. A fresh batch of tears flooded her eyes. She couldn’t even stand next to him without falling apart.

Where was she? What was she doing out here? A sudden darkness crept over her horizon and she felt the familiar tendrils of fog curling into her mind. She couldn’t do this! She had to get back to the center!

The world was closing in on her and it took all of her strength to stand still. Brad was right, everything she’d said was hogwash! Even now, she was only saying things that proved she wasn’t sane, that she wasn’t worth anything out here, that she could never, never be loved that way.

Brad’s arm slowly settled on her shoulder. He pulled her close and she put her forehead against his chest, trying hard not to fall apart. But it was almost impossible.

He kissed the top of her head. “I can’t lose you, Paradise. You have to understand that. I just can’t lose you again. We can find another way for you to face and defeat your fears tomorrow when this is all over, but I just can’t bear the thought of letting you go back to that barn.”

She lost it.

She threw her arms around his stomach and she held him as tight as she dared and she wept long bitter tears into his shirt. She knew she didn’t deserve this kind of love, but it felt like heaven to her. She would repeat everything that had happened to her over the past seven years for this feeling. To be loved, even for one minute, the way she imagined that Brad was loving her now.

The way she knew he was loving her now.

She couldn’t tell him this because a knot had stopped her throat and she couldn’t speak. She could only sob as he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

If God was love, as they said, she never could have guessed that she would find God in the bottom of a ditch three hundred yards from the man who’d tried to rape her seven years ago.

The night seemed to end, or at least to stall. She rested in his arms for a long time and she didn’t ever want to let go.

But then it occurred to her that he had gone very still. And his breathing seemed heavier. She calmed herself.

“There is one thing, though,” Brad said. She looked up and saw his steeled stare back in the direction of the barn. “This has to end tonight.”

Now it was her turn to ask. “What do you mean?”

But there was no mistaking the look of rage and resolve on his face, the flexing of his jaw, his glare in the moonlight, his flat lips. They sent a shiver down her spine.

Brad kissed her forehead again, then gently took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Listen to me, Paradise. I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense to you, but I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I need you to wait here for me. Wait fifteen minutes, and if I’m not back, I want you to run west, down this ditch, as fast and as far as you can. They’ll see you from the air, he won’t-”

“No!” she cried, pulling back in disbelief. The thought of his leaving her was like a mule kick to her head. “No, I can’t.”

“Sh, now listen. Yes you can. He won’t catch you.”

“You can’t leave me!”

He paused. “I know I can’t. And I won’t. I won’t because I’m going to go back and put an end to this tonight.”

“You can’t leave me!” she said again. “Not now. You’ve just found me, you’ve just said you love me, you’ve just…” The words came out in a rush, but all the while her mind was saying, He must, he loves you, he has to go back and kill the monster, he has to because he loves you…

“You can’t leave me…”

And you have to let him go.

He stared at her. “He’s going to get away if I don’t, Paradise. He’ll disappear and then come back for you, and I can’t allow that. He’s obsessed with you. He won’t stop until he kills you. You understand? I can’t let you live with that threat over you. I have to end this tonight.”

You have to let him go because you love him and you have to trust him to be who he is for you…