Blood of the Earth by Faith Hunter

“I want a contract, signed by your superiors, in my hand before I start work.”
    The couple exchanged glances, saying nothing, but it felt as if they reached some kind of decision. “Where is the booth so we can be in place?” Rick said.
    Rick had said something similar before, before the attack on my home, when a visit to the market was just hypothetical, and not a reality. “Why do
you
need to be there?” I asked.
    “We’re your backup, Nell,” Rick said in that gentle way of his. “You don’t go in alone. Never.”
    And that sent a curious shaft of emotion through me, of something unknown and precious and impossibly seductive. A sense of safety. It was so elusive that I didn’t know how to reply.
You don’t go in alone. Never.
The words broke me in ways I hadn’t known I could break.
    To hide my reaction, I swiveled away and stepped slowly into the dark of the shelving behind the kitchen, where I kept preserves and seeds and dried foodstuffs, dishes and pots and serving bowls and crockery. I stood in the unlit space and dried my tears, a cold breeze on my damp face and hair. I followed the breeze and discovered the first of the damage from Brother Ephraim’s shotgun. I hadn’t looked for damage. Hadn’t wanted to until they were gone and I was alone. My teary eyes went flinty and dry with fury as I took in the broken dishes on the floor, and the broken back window, which was spiderwebbed with cracks. If I hadn’t already agreed to be a consultant, this would have decided me.
    I walked through the house, noting that Brother Ephraim had shot out four of my back windows, top and bottom panes both, damaging the frames and the walls, inside and out, and some wood trim inside Leah’s and John’s old bedroom. But the pellets had only pierced the screening and so critters and bugs couldn’t get in tonight, even without window glass.
    Back in the kitchen, I pulled a magnifying glass out of the tool drawer and went over the stove and its water heater. “Nell?” Rick asked.
    I held up my hand like a traffic cop telling him to stop. “I need a minute,” I said, verifying that the stove system was undamaged. Repairing it would have been a time-consuming and expensive fix, but it was fine. When I was done, I stood over the stove and looked around my house, my blanket forgotten, my body heated by anger.
    Women were expected to simply take whatever the churchmen dished out. Take it and cry and grieve and then accept whatever they did. No more. Not for me.
    The churchmen would stay away for a bit, what with a special agent involved, but eventually they would be back. I had always assumed that they would burn me out and make me wish I was dead, and there was no help for it. I could get a restraining order, a piece of paper to wave in their faces and burn in their fire. I could move, or try to. I could ask for protective custody. But that wouldn’t last. Eventually the churchmen would find me.
    But maybe being part of PsyLED would give me protection from the church. One of my attackers, Brother Ephraim, was dead and gone. And the cop, who was part cat, sitting in my front room, had told me I wouldn’t be alone.
    Not alone
. That was temptation.
    I went back to the great room and opened the wooden box where I kept all my records. I removed two business cards. I used a local company for roofing, the solar panels, and the windows, and they would be right out when called, but if I didn’t involve my insurance company, it was going to cost me. I didn’t want to contact my agent for this, but I knew that the replacement would be a lot more expensive than I could afford. I had to bite that bullet.
    I said to Rick, “The men shot up my house. I could call the cops but I think it would be wiser to just call it vandalism.” I handed him the first card. “This is my insurance company.” For the first time ever, I blessed John’s foresight in getting insurance. God’s Cloud was anti-insurance, but John had worried