A week later
I haven’t left my room out of pure spite.
Even though there are no more guards at my door, which I assume is because they don’t think I’m an escape risk anymore, I still don’t want to leave.
I’d rather sit here than spend one second in the presence of these assholes who watched me fuck the man who is now … my husband.
My mind still can’t wrap itself around the fact that I’m married. According to the Family’s rules anyway. None of this would ever hold up in a real court of law.
But what can I do here in the temple? With no power, no weapons, no voice, nothing to defend myself with? Nothing. My only option is to stay here as a sign of protest.
To show them I don’t agree with how things go here.
But staying in my room, isolated from everyone else, puts a toll on my mental health. And I don’t think I can hold out for much longer.
I breathe out a sigh and gaze through the barred window at the people outside who are merrily going about their day as if there’s nothing to worry about. But at least they’re doing something useful, while I sit here and wish someone would do something about the injustice in this community.
Maybe I’m overthinking things.
It’s not like any of the patriarchs will suddenly stop going about their daily activities because I’m moping around in my room, waiting for one of them to actually care.
They never will.
There’s no point in waiting here.
Without thinking about it any longer, I turn around and march out of my room. I may not be allowed out of the temple without permission, but I can at least look around the house and see what else there is.
So I walk around aimlessly, looking at all the beautiful paintings while leaning against the banister. There’s more downstairs, rooms that I’ve never stepped foot in, so maybe I should have a peek.
“Hey.” A familiar voice makes me stop in my tracks.
Patrick.
He’s leaning against the banister right next to the main staircase that I was just about to descend on my way to the ground floor. “How do you feel?” he asks.
I glare at him for a second, wondering if he means it or if he’s just messing with me. why would he ask me this now? It’s not like he was ever interested. “Does it matter?”
A wicked smile spreads on his lips. “That depends who you ask.”
I frown. “Are all of you patriarchs so cryptic?”
He laughs. “Sounds like you’re getting to know us well.”
I wish. Or maybe not. I’m not sure right now which one would be better for me at this point. I shrug and place a foot on the stairs.
“Wait,” he says, making me stop. “Come here.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I’m asking you to,” he says, raising a brow.
I sigh. “Of course … it would be rude of me to deny the request of a patriarch.”
He grins as I walk toward him. “You’ve learned to adapt. I like that.”
I stand in front of him, but for some reason I find it hard to look into his eyes. Maybe it’s the fact that he watched me get fucked.
His hand reaches for my face, and he gently nudges it from side to side.
“He doesn’t hurt you, does he?” he asks. “Noah.”
“What?” My eyes widen, but I still won’t look at him. “No.”
But that’s a lie. Noah was the one who put me in that suffering hut after all. And somehow, the thought of that place, brings tears to my eyes.
Patrick cocks his head and with just a thumb he brushes away the tear rolling down my cheek. “Lying won’t do you any good in this house. But you already know that … Since you belong to Noah,” he muses, and he tips up my chin with a finger, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “You know how he is.”
“He’s … my …. husband,” I say, but I almost choke on the words.
“Exactly. And husbands should treat their wives well. They should be looked after, cared for, and loved. As God told us to,” Patrick says. “Have you read our rules?”
I shake my head. “The elder wives didn’t allow us to read anything when I still lived in the hut. And there are only four fiction books in my room here in the temple.”
“Ah, right … I forgot. They don’t like to give the women too much to do,” he muses, turning around. “C’mon. Let me show you something.”
He beckons me to follow him into a room with two giant doors on the first floor. When he opens the door, my jaw drops. Behind it are bookcases from the floor to the ceiling all around, filled with books from top to bottom.
“Wow …”
“I know, right?” he says. “Most of them are books filled with scriptures, rules, and doctrine, but there are a few bookcases dedicated to fiction.” He points to one in the back. “There.”
I walk in and let my eyes gorge on the beauty that’s so fragile and scarce in a place like this. My eyes immediately home in on a copy of The Beauty and The Beast sitting on the shelves. I grab it with glee, touching the hard cover with every finger I can just as a reminder that I’m still alive and that this place exists in the same world as my own reality.
“You can keep it if you like.”
I jolt up and down from the sudden voice whispering in my ear.
Patrick’s right behind me, and when I glance over my shoulder, he’s smiling at me so gently it makes me clutch the book even closer to my chest.
“Thanks,” I say.
“No need to thank me. Besides, it’s not as if these frumpy old men read actual literature.”
I giggle and cover my mouth to prevent more from spilling out. It’s a sin to ridicule the patriarchs, let alone laugh out loud at them.
I immediately look around to see if any cameras are watching us, but I can’t find any.
“There are no cameras in here. The library is all about privacy. Amazing, right?” Patrick says. “You can laugh. I won’t tattle,” he adds. “What’s life without a little fun, right?”
I sigh and gaze at the shelf filled with the same books I cherished back at home. “You seem to be the only man here who thinks that.”
“Nah … They just pretend they’re stuck-up. Makes them feel better.”
“Why?” I ask, spinning on my heels. “Why are they like this?”
“To remain consistent and keep the value of the patriarchs alive.” Patrick glances at the window in the back. “The people in this community need someone to lead them. Without authority, there’s only chaos.”
“Did they choose this? Did they all choose you to lead them?” I ask.
He glances at me from the corner of his eyes. “This community, the Family, is much older than you or I. It spans several decades, and it has several lineages of power.”
My brows furrow. “Like a family tree?”
He nods and walks toward a painting hanging from the wall. “This here is my great-great-grandma. Married to one of the most powerful presidents this community has ever known.” He points at the framed document next to it. “And this here is the patriarchal line. See? This is me, and this is Noah.” He points at both their names, but my eyes can’t help but travel up the lines. The man above Noah, named Edward, is a patriarch, who is married to a woman named Catheryn apparently, but I haven’t seen any women yet.
“Where are all the wives?” I ask.
“Here,” Patrick says, pointing at the president’s wife … Marsha. Their line seems to have ended, or rather … burned. Because the name underneath those two has been made illegible due to a burn, probably from a cigarette. Strange …
“But where are they in this house?” I ask.
“Oh, well they usually stay in their rooms until they’re needed to attend ceremonies and prayers or they gather in the common wives’ room,” he explains.
The common wives’ room? Why did I not know that exists? Maybe I should pay them a visit. See how they think.
Patrick leans in more. “I don’t know what they do there, and I don’t think I want to know.”
I snort to myself, and he winks at me.
“You’ll probably be expected to join them soon,” he says, sighing. “Which is a shame if you ask me, because that means I won’t get to hang out with you as much as I’d like to. Since the common wives’ room is forbidden to all men.”
“Hang out?” I mutter, stuffing the “forbidden to all men” part in the back of my mind for later. I’ve never heard a patriarch talk about ‘hanging out’ as if he’s regular guy at a library rather than someone who rules a whole community of people ready to fall at his feet and beg for God’s favor.
He tucks his hands into his pockets. “Yeah … I like you.”
For some reason, a blush spreads on my face, and I can’t will it away. He steps closer and places a hand on my cheek. It feels wrong, but at the same time, I don’t even care that it is. I want it to be wrong. I want to be defiant. To resist Noah’s rule, for once. And this … this gives me power. By giving in to another man, I take away his.
“I wish you weren’t his,” he mutters. “I would’ve treated you so much better.”
I lean into his palm and close my eyes. “What if Noah finds out?”
“He already knows how I am,” he says. “And you should too by now …”
When my eyes open again he’s so close I can feel his breath on my skin. “You should know better than to taunt me. Tempt me … and you get in trouble real quickly,” he muses, stepping so close that he forces me to step back until I’m backed into the bookshelves with no way out. “But you like that, don’t you? You’re a mischievous little girl who enjoys getting into trouble.” He places his hands on the shelves behind me, trapping me. “But why? It can’t be because you like me. You know what this place is. You know who brought you here. You don’t belong here, and you want to go back.”
I suck in a breath and hold it as he’s right up in my face … discovering all my dirty secrets that I wished I could’ve kept secret, but it’s as if he’s pulled them out of me with just a single look.
“I know what you’re doing, and you’re doing it so well, I’d almost fall for the trap,” he muses.
Is he talking about the … Ceremony?
When I couldn’t stop looking at him?
Patrick pushes himself off me, allowing me to breathe again. “But I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know you never said that. You don’t need to. But I saw the way you looked at me in that room …” His hand balls into a fist as he stands with his back toward me, all tensed up. “You don’t know what you’ve unleashed.”
I shudder in place as the silence is deafening.
“I can’t give you what you want,” he says. “Neither can Noah. We are bound by the rules. This community is all we have.”
“You’re patriarchs. You make the rules.”
“We bow to the rules, just like anyone else here … as should you.” He looks at me over his shoulder, the judging look in his eyes making me gulp.
“The Family is everything I have. Everything we’ve ever loved. You, an outsider, don’t get to decide what’s good and what is not,” he says.
“Have you ever seen the outside world?” I ask.
He walks to the window, ignoring me completely. I follow suit and look outside at the people like he does.
“It’s a good thing men and women are separated here.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“No one gets hurt,” he replies. “Even here, at the temple, separation keeps us from lashing out. Women do their job; men do their job. Just like down there in the huts. Everyone works hard to keep the community going. No one takes what they don’t earn, and no one is owed anything but love from their significant other. No greed. No crimes. Lust is taken care of by the ceremony that takes place each week.”
Each week.
That means I’ve already missed one.
“Men get to fuck to their heart’s desire, and women find a home to belong to. It’s perfect,” he continues.
“Perfect … except I didn’t choose this,” I say through gritted teeth.
He blinks a couple of times. “Perfection comes at a price that not everyone’s willing to pay.”
“You want me to be an incubator, just like the rest of them,” I say, gazing at the people down there, wishing I could scream out at them and beg them to come get me, but the windows are sealed tight.
“No,” he says, and he turns to me and places a hand on my shoulder. “I want you to be a wife. A loving mother. Someone our community can look up to,” he says, clearing his throat. “And it seems Noah chose well when he picked you.” I can’t help but sense a hint of jealousy in that last statement, but he immediately turns around and walks off without saying another word, and it’s hurtful.
I wanted him to be the savior, the one who would fight for me, the one who would take me away from here. But it seems the longer I’m here, the more I’m beginning to realize there are no such men in this community. The people in this Family only care about themselves.
“He didn’t pick me,” I call out after him. “I went looking for him myself, after I saw the tattoo on a picture.”
He pauses in his tracks.
“I have a scarf with that same symbol on it.”
His body tenses up. He hasn’t moved since I spoke up.
“It wasn’t a coincidence. And neither is us meeting when he first claimed me,” I say. “You have to help me. I only wanted information. I never wanted to be taken to this place. I never wanted to be here … Please …”
His shoulders slump. He sighs.
And then he walks off, leaving me alone, stripped of all my personal feelings, worries, and wishes. It’s almost as if he had it all planned.
