“What do you intend to do with her?” Patriarch Patrick asks me while we oversee the transport of her limp body to the community.
“Let her go through the initiation process,” I reply, watching from my window.
“What? Why?” he asks.
I turn to look at him. “She’s a captured, isn’t she? All captured go through this process.”
“Yes, but … this one was chosen by you. For a reason, right?” He narrows his eyes.
He’s prying for information, but I’m not willing to dish any.
“She’s just someone who caught my eye, that’s all,” I say, waving it away as though it’s no big deal.
But it is. Even though I won’t say that out loud.
She’s the one. The one girl who’s going to change everything.
As long as she makes it through initiation, which I know will be rough on her.
“You normally never pick your own,” Patriarch Patrick adds.
“Well, this time, I did. Does it really matter who chooses, whether it’s a helper or an elder, or even a patriarch? What’s the point in being a patriarch if you can’t have a little fun?” I muse.
He nods, smiling wickedly. “True, true …” He clears his throat. “Maybe one of these days, I should pick one.”
Hmm … He may think that’s an option, but it’s not. Not for me.
“Plenty of willing women already live in the community who would drop at your feet at the chance of getting in your bed, Patrick,” I say.
He raises his glass. “Very much so.” He takes a sip and makes a loud ‘ah’ sound. “But still … I’d like to have some fun for myself too.”
I clutch my glass firmly and look him directly in the eyes. “No.”
He pauses and lowers his brows at me, questioning my authority in the matter.
But I have all the chess pieces in place, and there is no fucking way he is going to ruin this for me.
“This ‘fun’ for me is also an order.”
“From who?”
“The president himself,” I say.
He gulps, visibly shaken. “Oh.”
“Exactly. So don’t go do something against the rules.”
“But why would he let you and not me?” he asks.
I shrug. “You know why.”
He grinds his teeth. “Right.” He sighs, defeated. “It’s about time for prayers anyway. Are you coming?”
I gaze out the window at the girl being dragged toward the concrete hut right now. Even knowing what’s about to happen to her will break her, I’m not doing anything to stop it.
It’s as though I’m thrusting a dagger into my own heart.
That girl will be my undoing, I just know it.
But I’ve already made the choice, and now I must commit.
“Yes,” I reply. Getting up from my chair, I set my glass down and take my eyes off the window. The chess pieces are set in place, exactly as they should be.
Right on schedule … just in time for a real-life, literal checkmate.
Natalie
When I come to again, I feel dizzy and nauseous, and I instantly turn around to puke on the floor below me. I grunt in pain and curl up into a ball as my stomach feels like it did a somersault. My eyes crack open, but there’s no light in sight.
No.
The pure darkness surrounding me fuels the panic inside my veins.
Where am I?
Then I remember the man with the tattoo. His penetrating gaze … and the man who came to get me.
I immediately touch my face, but the bag is gone. My fingers slide across my skin, my lips, my eyes, my hair. Everything’s still intact. Except for my sanity.
My hands slide down farther, but they find no fabric, no clothes to cover my body. I’m naked. Completely naked.
Someone undressed me.
Who did this?
My whole body starts to shiver. Are they still here? “Hello?” I cry out.
My voice is hoarse, either from the drugs or from screaming out for help.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here … or how many times I tried calling out before.
All I know is that my way back to reality was long and hard, and that I might pass out again just from being in this darkness.
Am I alone? “Is anyone else in here?” I ask, but there’s no reply.
Why? Why did they put me here? Why did they pick me?
“Hello? Is anyone there?” I call out, hoping someone from the outside can hear me and will set me free from this dark prison. “Please. Let me out.”
My voice echoes against the walls surrounding me. No response.
Shivering, I get up from the floor and feel my way around. I’m in a small cell big enough for maybe two to three people. The shivers become worse and worse.
Then my hands stumble upon a different material. Softer. More giving. Warm.
I stop and tap three times. Definitely wood. A door maybe?
My hand slides down, touching every inch until I find a door handle. I jerk it hard, every tug a little harder than the one before. But no matter how hard I pull, it refuses to open.
Tears fill my eyes as I bang on the wood as hard as I can.
“Let me out!” I scream. “Let me out, goddammit!”
Tears stream down my face as I sink to the floor and bury my head in my hands.
My body is so cold, and it’s growing numb with fear.
Sickness overcomes me, but I swallow it down. I don’t know how long I’m going to be in here, or what they’re going to do with me, but if I’m going to survive … I have to focus.
Keep it together, Natalie.
You’ll get out.
In the darkness, there is no mindset that can save you from insanity except hope and pure fantasy. Hope that one day you’ll get out of here. And the fantasy to know that you’ll be okay.
Because deep down, I already know this is going to scar my soul.
Now
Water.
I never thought I could have a single wish. That I could want for nothing more than just water.
It’s all my brain can think about while I lie shivering on the cold, hard floor, wondering when this torture will end.
I don’t know how many hours have passed, but I know I’m thirsty as hell, and I’m almost to the point of contemplating drinking my own pee. The thought alone makes me want to puke.
Stop thinking about it, Natalie. Just stop.
But I can’t.
Whoever put me in here is beyond cruel.
Without any explanation, I’ve been put here in this hole like a goddamn criminal. I didn’t do anything to deserve this, yet I’m here anyway.
All because I looked at him.
That man was the devil himself.
I’m sure of it.
It’s because of him that I’m stuck here like a rat in a cage.
But when is he going to come and release me?
Only time will tell, and I have plenty.
So much that I’m counting down the seconds until I’m in the millions. I’m talking to myself, to the wall, to anything that surrounds me. My tears have dried up on my cheeks, my skin cracking underneath.
In the middle of the cell, I felt a set of clothes lying on the floor, but I don’t dare put them on.
Putting those on means conforming. It means listening to their demands. It means giving in.
And I am not done fighting yet.
Suddenly, the door opens, and my ears and eyes perk up like those of a dog whose master came back home. But I am no happy dog … I’m the one with sharp teeth and a killer bite.
The light peeks through the small opening, and a woman says, “Put on the clothes.”
I don’t reply. Instead, I get up from the floor slowly but surely.
And I run.
I run like hell, straight for the person standing in the doorway.
Without thinking, I charge at them headfirst. When we collide, I push them aside and run as fast as I can toward the light.
The fresh air hits my lungs like a truck, but I keep going. Through the grass that tickles under my feet, along the path with sharp edges, naked through the harrowing wind. I don’t care where I’m going or how; I just need to get away from that cell.
I don’t look back, don’t care where I’m running from, or where the hell I am.
All I can see in front of me is that fence, blocking my way to freedom.
The fence is all around me, no matter how many steps sideways I take, it seems unending.
I feel a prick on my back, and then a current causes me to spasm and collapse to the ground.
“Goddamn, you run fast.” It’s the same voice from before, the one who told me to put on the clothes. The pain makes me roll on my back, and an older, wrinkly faced woman wearing a white outfit that I can only describe as nun-like leans over to look at me.
“Aren’t you lovely,” she says with a smile so duplicitous it makes my heart shrink.
“Let me—”
She pushes a button on the Taser in her hand, and another current of electricity runs through my body, rendering me incapable of moving, let alone speaking.
“Now, now, settle down, settle down,” the woman says. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you continue like that.”
When she stops, the pin lodged in my back hurts like hell.
“Please …” I mutter.
Another shot of electricity has me delirious.
When it passes, I no longer have the energy to speak. All I can do is look as the woman signals to the two burly men standing behind her. They walk up to my limp body and pick me up as if I’m just a bag of heavy trash they need to clean up. I can’t do anything as they carry me back along the same path I ran. The fence gets farther and farther out of reach, just as my short grasp at freedom.
They bring me back to what looks like a glorified shed from the outside, my prison cell from the inside. But it’s worse. Much, much worse. With no light, no running water, no food, or a proper place to sleep, this is more like a torture chamber than anything else.
Still, I’m put down on the floor, my body still recuperating from the pain it endured.
“Please …” I mutter. “Don’t leave me here.” I’ve never begged any man to stay, let alone any man I don’t know.
But he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.
He just walks out and leaves me here naked on the cold, concrete floor.
A few seconds later, that same woman appears in the doorway again. I look up into her soulless light blue eyes.
“Put on the clothes,” she says again.
The door squeaks again.
I panic.
“No, wait!” I beg, lunging toward her. “Please! Tell me, where am I? Why?”
The door stops moving. She pauses and gives me that same devilish look that man with the tattoo did before. “You’re in the Family’s Holy Land.”
What? Holy Land?
Suddenly, she throws in a bottle of water, and I greedily snatch it off the floor and chug it down in one go.
When I’m done, she continues shutting the door, and I yell, “Why me? Why am I in here?”
But instead of getting a response, the door closes on me.
And I’m left to the horrors of the darkness and the isolation of my mind …
Again.
