A barking voice wakes me from my sleep. “Noah, get up!” Someone’s shaking me vigorously, and I blink a couple of times in response.
It’s Lawrence. The president.
I lift my head as he says, “She’s gone. She did it again.”
“What? Who?” I mutter, still sleep drunk as I lean up.
“Marsha!”
My eyes widen, and I immediately get out of bed and put on my bathrobe. “Where?”
“I don’t know, okay? She disappeared on me. Again.” He runs his fingers through his hair and digs his fingers into his skin. “Only God knows where she went.”
“Calm down. It’ll be fine,” I say.
“Fine? Fine?” he spits. “This is anything but fine! She is my wife, I demand her respect, and this is what she gives me? Insolence!” He paces around the room like a bear. “She has been nothing but problematic since day one. I should’ve never taken her.”
“I understand that, President, but please—”
“No. No more excuses. Find her. Now,” he barks, pointing at me, and he turns around and marches off.
Marsha has run off again. Typical.
Yet I know why.
Natalie
Everywhere I look, I see her.
I picture her. Imagine her … My mother.
I don’t know what’s real anymore. Was she really there at the dining hut? What if it wasn’t a fantasy my brain conjured up? Could I see her again?
I don’t know anything other than the orphanage I grew up in, with only the scarf and a few fragmented memories to keep me company. And then I get taken to this community and find her here, out of all places.
It can’t be a coincidence. I won’t allow it to be.
As we walk out from the dining hut, we hand the scarves that were around our mouths back to the elder standing next to the door. We go back across the path through the grass, but when the moment arrives that the girls are distracted by a few children playing in the sand, I duck out and slip off. I don’t run because that would catch the guard’s attention. Instead, I pace my footsteps and carefully plan where I’m going, as though I was always meant to go in that direction, as though an elder’s wife herself instructed me to do so.
But it is all a lie. I’m headed straight in the direction I last saw that woman with the long auburn hair walk. Out from the dining hut and into a hut across from another concrete building.
And I’m right … fucking … there.
I briefly look around before opening the door and slipping inside. I go inside and close the door behind me. All the curtains are closed, and no lights are on. It’s almost too dark to see, so I search around for a light switch, feeling my way across the wall until I find one.
I turn it on and look around. There’s no one here. It’s just a regular hut from some regular family who aren’t even here right now. I pick up the cloth lying on the counter. It carries the same symbol as my scarf, which is currently hidden underneath my bed. But this one smells familiar too. Like … someone I know.
Suddenly, the door creaks, and I scramble away, hiding behind a bunk bed. If someone catches me here, I’m dead.
The door opens. Light breaks into the hut. My breathing practically stops while my heart practically pounds out of my chest. The door closes again. I’m tempted to look up and see if they’re gone, but then I’d give myself away.
A few steps follow … and a voice. “I know you’re there.”
It’s him; Noah.
“You can come out now,” he says. I hesitate and wait a few more seconds. “No one is going to punish you, I promise.”
He probably won’t go away if I just stay here. After all, he found me here. How did he know? He must’ve asked people if they saw me, or maybe he followed me here. Dammit. I should’ve been more careful.
I slowly rise to my feet and stare at him. He sits down in a chair near the fireplace and taps his fingers against one another, almost as if he was expecting me to come here.
He beckons me to come closer. “C’mon. I won’t bite.”
I swallow away the lump in my throat and approach him, while also glancing at the door, wondering if I can make an escape. If I try, would the guards notice? Would Noah attempt to get me thrown back in that concrete cell again?
I shiver. Anything but that place.
“How did you …?” I mutter. I don’t even know what I want to ask. All I know is that I’m thoroughly dumbfounded.
“Find you?” he fills in for me. “Let’s just say I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Why do I get the sense he’s not telling me the truth?
What if that woman noticed I was following her and warned Noah?
“Relax. I’m not a magician. I asked your fellow hut sisters. One of them saw you go in here.”
Well, shit. And here I was thinking my ducking out went unnoticed. I wonder which one of them spilled the beans. Emmy? Holly? Maybe even April? Who knows, they’d all tell if it meant avoiding punishment. That’s what this place does; it turns people against each other.
“What were you doing here?” he asks, his forehead creasing. “Looking for something?”
He knows. Of course he knows. Why wouldn’t he? He knows everything. They all know everything. It’s their place in this community to know, and for everyone else to tell them everything there is to know. Patriarchs serve to keep the rest under their thumb.
He’s just testing me.
“Where is that woman who entered this hut?” I ask.
He smiles. “I asked her to leave through the back door.”
Shit.
“That woman was just doing her job, and it’s none of your concern right now.”
Does that mean she wasn’t my mother? Did I imagine it all? Maybe I followed someone who doesn’t even know me.
“Come,” he says, beckoning me again.
I don’t know what compels me—the fear of what happens when I don’t, or the need to know more about him … and why he seems to know so much about me.
I step forward until I’m right in front of him, and he lifts his hand to make me stop. He inspects me from his chair in a way that makes me think of a buyer examining his purchase.
If he’s trying to intimidate me, it’s working.
He stands up and towers over me. With a single gaze hidden underneath thick lashes, he manages to make me tremble in place.
It’s not only because the power he holds, or because I might get information if I listen to him. It’s the way he presents himself … his rigid posture in that tight-fitting suit and his penetrating gaze that stares almost straight into my soul. All of it captures my attention and never lets it go. He has the kind of eyes that command submission, the kind you lose yourself in. And with a single touch to my cheek, he makes me bend to his will.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his voice sultry, dark, and full of unspoken desire.
He caresses my cheek in a way that makes me forget about all the pain this community has given me. Like a drug, he poisons me with a craving I’ve never felt before.
He leans in, placing his lips against my ears. “I can’t wait to have you all to myself.”
A spark ignites in my soul. “Like all those other women?”
Our fiery eyes connect, seconds feeling like minutes.
“The ritual, you mean?” he muses. “It’s what the people want.”
“You wanted me to see it,” I say. “You wanted me to know that you patriarchs fuck the girls who just got married by fucking with another man.” Saying it out loud makes it even more fucked up.
A wicked smile spreads on his lips, and he grabs my hand and presses a kiss on top. “Such a smart girl to figure all that out.”
I jerk free. “It’s disgusting.”
He cocks his head, wearing a playful smile on his face. “Do I hear a hint of jealousy?”
Fuck no. Definitely not. “You wish.”
He laughs, but I don’t think it’s funny.
I push myself away from him and head straight for the door, but the handle refuses to budge. Of course, he locked it. Dammit.
“If you want to know, the other door is closed as well. In case you were going to try that one too.”
Why do I feel as though he can see straight through me? He knows what I’m thinking before even I do, and he always seems one step ahead.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” He’s right behind me. “Tell me what you feel. The truth.”
“I hate this place and all your customs. It’s unnatural,” I say.
It’s the first time in ages that I’ve let out what I truly think … and I’m scared and horrified all at the same time. Will he punish me for it?
“I’m so confused,” I mutter.
His finger slips behind the shawl that covers my hair, and he slides it away. “It’s what we do. How we do it,” he whispers into my ear. “Our conversions never fail.”
My lips quiver, and I close my eyes, hoping I don’t succumb to his seduction. “Why me? Why did you choose me?”
“Ask me what you really want to ask, Natalie,” he says, his voice thick and dark, like honey, sugar-coating the harshness.
“The scarf … the symbol … what does it mean?” I ask.
“It’s our symbol, the symbol of our community, the Family,” he says. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to think. The implications are just too much to bear. I lean my head against the wood, pushing back the tears.
“You can run from the truth, but it’ll always catch up with you,” he says, and he places his hand right beside my head against the wooden door. Another one slithers around my waist, fingers curling around the fabric of my virginal white dress.
“One day, you will belong to me,” he whispers.
His lips touch the back of my neck only briefly as if to tempt me, and I place my hands on the door, my nails scratching the wood. It’s hard, so hard not to just give in and let him carry me off toward a better life. But that would mean betraying my sense of justice, my sense of self.
“You’ve seen what happens here. You know what it means to belong to the Family. And you know you want so much more than just this …” His grip around my waist tightens, right around the edge of my scar, and I suck in a breath in response. “You want the power. Because power means freedom,” he says, and he leans in. “My power.”
I shake my head. I can’t let him snake his way inside. It’s not right.
“Give in, Natalie. Let me own you, and you’ll have everything you desire,” he murmurs.
I brace myself against the wood, and growl, “Never.”
And I twist around in his arms and glare at him with every bit of hatred I’ve felt for this place, blaming it all on him.
“You twist the truth with lies and try to wrap me around your finger, but it won’t work. You brought me into this prison, and I won’t ever forget that.”
“You brought yourself here the moment you went looking for me,” he says. Grabbing a loose strand of my hair that peeks out from under the shawl, he curls it around his finger, almost as if to taunt me with my own words. “You didn’t have to, but you did it anyway. Curiosity is what drives you. And I have all the answers you seek.” His eyes bore into my soul, catching me off guard.
“My mother …” I mutter.
He doesn’t have to say it out loud. I know what he was hinting at.
A smirk forms on his lips. “The truth comes at a hefty price, Natalie. But I think you already know that.”
“Get out,” I say, overwhelmed by emotions.
“I am a patriarch. This community is my home. Any hut is mine for the taking at any second of the day. Don’t you understand? The people here worship us.”
“I am not one of them,” I say. “Get. Out.”
“No, I think I have a better idea,” he says, approaching me again, but I step aside.
He leans toward the door and unlocks it.
Just like that.
And I contemplate rushing toward it and slamming it in his face, but that would probably make the guards come for me, and he knows.
This is just another form of temptation. A way to manipulate me.
“You want to leave? Go ahead,” he says. “But know that your initiation will end and that you will become a wife, whether you like it or not.”
“Never,” I say, shaking my head. I can’t even think about that ceremony without feeling queasy.
He folds his arms. “The ceremony and its rituals will happen. That’s a fact.”
I make a face. “Or what?”
“The community does not change its course.” His face is stark and unmoving. “The people will bend to the rules, not the other way around.”
So I’m forced to marry a man I’ve never met who randomly picks me to fuck in front of everyone. Got it.
“This is insane,” I say.
“No, it’s inevitable,” he replies.
I shake my head and barge past him. I open the door and march out without saying another word.
But his voice still rings in my head long after I’ve gone, even when he’s out of view … but never out of my mind. “It’s your choice, Natalie. Submit … or be conquered.”
