“Don’t bow,” is how Karolina greets him when he steps between the trees to stand in front of her, the bodyguards standing behind. “Just tell me how things are going. With you, too.”
He gives a sad smile that is creepier than Karolina quite realized before. “How things are going with me and how things are going with the Church are now completely the same thing, m’am. I think I’ve pretty much been accepted as in charge, especially since a lot of the congregation is new. A lot of people who over a month after their loved ones died are still looking for an answer.” That makes sense, too. From what Karolina’s heard, attendances at places of worship are up all around town. “But while I’ve promoted up a crew of people I trust, we don’t have nearly enough people to run everything; and with the situation with the money, we’re going to have to make cuts to Church activities.”
“Then I have orders to give.” That’s why she’s come here, after all, to try to help fix things, because she can-if she can, anyway. “Will you be willing to obey them? If we need to, will you be willing to take me into the Church and give them to everyone directly?” She hopes it won’t come to that, but if it does, she’s willing to do that.
“Yes,” he says, without hesitation.
Until she says, “Shut down the Crater. Everyone in it is allowed to walk free, or come back to the congregation if they want, unless you *really* think they’ll try to kill you, and I know my dad turned to dust. Yes,” she adds, seeing his face, “I know it’s going to wreck havoc with our image, I know there may be lawsuits despite all the paperwork. But we have to do this. Vaughn, this Church has done wrongs, maybe beyond what either of us know, and we’ll likely never pay for all of them, but we need to make right what we still can.”
She feels guilty when he nods, clearly fooled completely into thinking she’s still in favor of the Church’s survival. But when it’s now clear they can’t shut the Church of Gibborim down overnight, Karolina has listened to her mother speculate on how it might die on its own, and if she can increase the chances of that, she’s ready to do so.
Which is why she also says, “Also, the runaways program. I understand you’ve taken in a lot of orphans and things are getting overloaded right now. I don’t think we need to get rid of it, necessarily, but we don’t want everyone to stay with the Church anymore. I want you to start working with local organizations who can take over the work we do with these children, maybe get more of them self-sufficient by the time they turn eighteen. And we don’t need to proselytize to them anymore. Those of them that come to Gibborim can do so on their own. I’m sure plenty of them still will.” Hopefully a lot less.
“As for the rest of it, I’m leaving that to your discretion right now. But I really want the Church of Gibborim to favor serving the community over itself. So keep that in mind.” That’s very true. If this Church is going to continue to exist, even if just for the time being, it should at least provide the world with some good. Not killing any more of the kids it takes in is a start, she supposes, but she wants more.
Vaughn’s nodding somberly. “I think I won’t need to bring you in with me, then, at least not to get this started. Though once we start feeling the backlash from this…”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Also, at that point…my mom might get involved.” She holds her breath; he could go either way on this.
Thankfully his loyalty has already won out there; his eyes genuinely light up as he says, “I’d be happy to have her back.”
Happy to take back the snake whose main purpose will be sabotage. Karolina has to remind herself again they’ll be doing the right thing. It’ll be her mother’s penance, now that between one thing and another, and most of her accomplices dead, it’s pretty much impossible to bring her to justice.
“Karolina, before you go, can I hug you?” Vaughn asks, and Karolina just nods and lets him. He’ll never leave Gibborim, she knows, and he’ll probably spend the rest of his life trying to preserve the Church. Someday he may even realize how she’s betraying him right now, and she’ll understand if he hates her then.