Even his name, Sir John Strong, evokedpower, which he certainly had. Just this one house located high atopsea bluffs in an old Spanish section of Puer...o Rico was massive. Thenight before more than a dozen people slept here. I knew of at leastone other of his houses, a chateau in the south of France.Mummy and my stepfather had taken me here for my spring break fromboarding school. On our first night down here, my mother had firsttricked me into wearing far too tight trousers and then confronted. I spun around, her impact sending me off-balanced.“No!” she hissed as we crashed onto my back.Air wheezed out of my mouth. Her weight crushed my chest. My head cracked into the hard-packed ground and... My brain rattled. Fog spilled over my thought as... As...Claws touched my throat.Fear banished the fog as sharp pain tore into my throat. The lamia's golden eyes filled my vision as she purred in pleasure. Blood spurted around her finger. My life spilled out of. It’s one thing to call out theological error or point out that a practice isn’t helpful; it’s a very different thing to condemn a ‘sinner’ when you have plenty of your own sins to worry about.”“I don’t recall you ever saying Reverend Saddler was a sinner.”I chuckled, “If I had, it would have been a true statement. I never called out specific sins, at least not in the sense of calling them sins. I pointed out erroneous theology and what I felt were ineffective methods, which is far different. Nor was I particularly surprised to hear that after only a week Jimmy’s mother had kicked Amanda out of the house. Poor Jimmy. I would bet that was the closest he had ever come to losing his virginity. Harsh as it may sound, it would probably have been better if the poor man just ended his misery with a fistful of painkillers.Once again, Amanda had nowhere to go. Fortunately for her, the owner of the rehab, Ronald, allowed her to sleep on a couch in the facility and eat with the other guests..