Read Online Dominion by Randy Alcorn - Free Book Online

day was a failure. It didn’t matter how many times you succeeded. If you failed even once, everything could be lost.
His mind replayed sharp images of specific sacks he allowed twenty years ago, one at Alcorn State, a couple more at OSU. He could still see the enemy coming at him, feel himself getting knocked off balance, leaving his quarterback defenseless, vulnerable for the hit. He didn’t remember those hundreds of times he’d done his job, hardly any of them. But he did remember every time he hadn’t.
Spike, their English bulldog, marched into the bedroom, swaying side to side like an overstuffed sausage, walking like Charlie Chaplin. Spike looked up with his soulful eyes and tried to console his master. Dogs were so loyal, their lives so wrapped up in their masters, they could go days without eating until they were in his company again. Cats could take people or leave them, Clarence thought. It would be easier to be a cat than a dog.
After lying quietly in bed and having no idea what he’d spent fifteen minutes reading, he turned off the light. He rehearsed his last conversation with Dani.
“It’s bad in here, Antsy. Children are dying, and they’re killing each other. You’ve got to come help. We need men like you. You said you’d always be there for me, and you always have been, big brother. But we need you here.”
“My dream is the same as it’s always been. A house in the country. Peace and safety for my children. And for you too, if you’ll only come join us. That’s not such a bad dream, is it Sis?”
The dream was gone, replaced by this nightmare. Even the hope of moving soon to that country house five miles farther out wasn’t enough to lift his spirits for more than a fleeting moment. How far from the city would a person have to move to escape the realities of sin and death?
Night covered the open bedroom windows like a grainy cloth. Clarence Abernathy became part of the impenetrable darkness that surrounded him. He felt like a bird shot from the sky, dying in the reeds below, no longer able to see the horizon.
In a moment’s time, seemingly without warning, his grief began to transmutate, taking on a more powerful identity—rage.
Who killed my sister? And why? What makes him think he can get away with it?
For over an hour as he lay in the darkness, his mind filled with dozens of imaginary scenarios in which he tracked down and came face to face with the killer. Teeth clenched, he rehearsed in detail what he would do to him.

It was late Thursday afternoon, two days after the funeral. The temperature had dropped from the eighties to the sixties. Clarence returned from a hard bike ride and took an extra long shower. When he got out, Geneva joined him in their bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
“Dr. Newman called,” Geneva said meekly.
“The shrink? What’d he have to say?”
“The psychologist felt it wouldn’t be good for the kids to stay out here in the suburbs, at least not now.”
“That’s what he felt , huh? Why?”
“Too much change, too much stress. He said loss of a loved one was worth so many points of stress, and more for Celeste since she was in the room where it all happened. He said when you add moving and a new kindergarten and isolation from friends, it’s too much, the stress goes over the top.”
“So he knows how many points everything’s worth? Smart guy. No wonder he costs a hundred twenty bucks an hour.”
“Plus there’s the racial pressure.”
“Of transferring to a white school? How many points is that worth?”
“The kindergartens out here are decent, and Barlow’s a good high school. But we’re talking what, a dozen black kids out of sixteen hundred? Celeste would withdraw, and Ty would…Who knows what Ty would do? It would be hard to adjust.”
“Our kids have adjusted,” Clarence said.
“They’ve lived here since they were born. They’ve made friends. It still hasn’t been easy. But Ty and Celeste would have to start from scratch, move