The Principle (Legacy Book 2)

by Rain Carrington

  “The prophet’s not here.”

  He was in the gate and there was Rachel, his lovely sister, waiting with his mother and some of his younger siblings. He was surrounded, first hugged and cried over, leaving the goons to back off as he was lost in the crowd of them.

  His mother, looking worn and tired, held both of his hands, clucking her tongue over his fading bruises that hadn’t left his face yet. “What happened to you, honey? Your daddy said you been messing with bad women.”

  “I know what he said, Mama, but it’s just not true. I’ll tell you all everything, but I need everyone in the church hall. I have some things to tell everyone, and it’s not going to be easy.”

  Rachel backed him up as everyone started throwing questions at him. “It’s true! He needs to see us all right now! Get in the church hall and we’ll hear what he has to say.”

  It was Rachel who got to those who were gathered. His mother looked to her, finally giving her the nod he’d expected.

  Aaron went around the compound, knocking on doors, gathering those who weren’t already in the compound center. Matt stood back with him, watching all the women, kids, and the angry men file into the basement of the church.

  “They might not believe you.”

  “That’s why I brought help.”

  Aaron gazed around them, then set his eyes on the gate. “Someone’s coming?”

  “Yeah. Someone’s coming.”

  Aaron slapped him on the back and commended, “You’re ending it. I can’t believe it’s ending.”

  “Maybe not everything. Go in and tell them I’m coming.”

  When Aaron jogged off to the church, Matt stood where he was a moment, looking around his former home. It hadn’t changed a bit and he doubted it had in the last forty years or more. The same drab shacks, rooms added on as wives and kids were added to the separate families. The long dining hall, where the faithful gathered on long tables each Sunday and Wednesday, after his grandfather and then father preached their big sermons.

  Then he looked to his home, which was a big farm house, three stories high, twelve bedrooms, three bathrooms, white picket fence that got a painting once a spring. Two rose bushes were planted there by his great grandmother, the fourth wife of his grandfather. She was twenty-seven years younger than he was, and died in childbirth when she was eighteen years old. His father was raised by his father’s first wife, who took over the motherly duties seamlessly.

  The history, the legacy of that home, he couldn’t shake it if he tried. Generations of his family lived there, some even happily, and the nights gathered around the fire in the big living room, listening to their mothers tell bible stories and passing around cookies, if the majority of the kids had been behaved that day.

  The smells, they came to him. Baking bread, at least twenty loaves a day. Bacon frying for the older men in the home, chunks of spam for the kids. A mountain of scrambled eggs served in that ceramic bowl with the chips around the rim. His heart had a longing that he couldn’t shake, to go back to those times, when he was ignorant of the world except for that which he’d been exposed.

  He went to the house, knowing his grandfather was there, and walked straight to the back of the house, to the bedroom off the kitchen. The sound of the oxygen concentrator, the smell of oncoming death were what hit him as soon as he got close.

  Inside were two of his grandmothers, and the old man, in the bed. The women rushed to him, at first happy to see him, then they started trying to shoo him from the room.

  “You can’t be here! Your father banished you!”

  “Get out. My business is with him.”

  His grandfather’s clouded blue eyes glared hatefully at him, and his question was answered, the one wondering if his father had told the old man everything. He had.

  After shoving the women from the room, he turned, locking eyes with him, baring his teeth in a grin that had no love or humor involved. Standing at the end of the hospital bed, he started with a greeting. “Hello, Grandpa.”

  “Git out,” he wheezed, coughing some after.

  “I’m going to. I’m going to tell the others about you and my Daddy, and what you’ve been doing all these years. All those girls. Girls that looked up to you, believed in you, and you sold them to bad men, men that used their bodies in unholy ways. All for money in your pockets.

  “Now look at you. Was that money worth it? You’re going to see your maker soon. What will you tell Him?”

  “I’m a prophet of Our Heavenly Father. You’re a witch, a turncoat. You’ve lost your way. It’s all lies you’re about to tell, and you’ll burn for them.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  He left the room, surprised his heart wasn’t breaking. He’d expected the conversation to go the way it did, and he expected to have pain when it was over, the loss of his grandfather. It didn’t hurt and he knew why. Truth always felt better than lies, even when the truth hurt some.

  In the basement of the church was where all meetings of the compound occurred that weren’t religious. It was also to be used as a bunker in times of war. That was why he insisted on everyone going there, because they were about to be invaded.

  There were scattered voices when he entered, a lot of hateful eyes following him as he made his way to the little rise in the front that was a stage for the holiday pageants. He held up his hand to try to quiet everyone, and it worked, for a moment, anyway.

  “Thank you all for coming. I am here to tell you where some of the men are.” That made a stir and he was shouted at for a few seconds before Aaron stood to quiet them all.

  “I know I’m not welcome here anymore. I know what my father has been saying about me, and I can tell you it’s not true, but you’re likely to believe him over me. That’s fine. I know you’re true believers, and I won’t try to change your minds. If you stay with me a little while, though, I’ll tell you why I’m here now, where the men are, and more importantly, that the girls that were taken last night are safe and cared for.”

  One of the fathers of the girls from the night before stood, yelling, “Where’s Kelly? Where’s my daughter? Prophet said she was going off to be married!”

  There were more shouts from the other parents, and again, Aaron stood to yell at them to be quiet so Matt could speak.

  “Thanks, Aaron. Now, all of you who have given their daughters over to the prophet to be married off the compound have been lied to! They weren’t married to men on other compounds. They were sold as slaves to bad, evil men. My daddy, and my grandfather before him, knew what they were doing and did it anyway. They made money from it, a lot of money.”

  He knew his words were going to be incendiary, but he didn’t care. Some charged the stage, but others sat back in their chairs, the words creeping in to them, making them pale and drawn, some breaking down in tears.

  A few of the goons let the barrels of their rifles fall as the truth set in.

  Matt hurried to open the computer and set it on the video setting like Steve had shown him to do.

  On the screen, the man’s daughter herself, Kelly Daubson, was there, eyes red from her all-night crying. “Daddy?”

  “Kelly! Where are you, honey?”

  Matt shushed him a second and asked her, “Can you do it, Kelly? Tell them?”

  “Yeah. I can.”

  Matt held the computer up so all could see the girl and she started rambling off the story from the night before, telling how scared they were, how some of them had been drugged, how the men were groping at them the minute they got into the other van.

  Women were bawling, men were furious, but they were all listening.

  Aaron stood tall beside Matt as they told the people what they’d learned and how Dean had known it too and had died because of it.

  A few of the goons, likely the ones in on it, sneaked out while Aaron and Matt spoke, but Matt didn’t worry. Pat and the others were out in the woods, waiting for them. Some of the others, however, set their weapons on the flo
or of the hall, a couple doubling over in the pain of what they’d been a part of, if only in a smaller capacity.

  “Listen, I know all this is so hard. The girls lost to us may be lost forever. Maybe not. The federal authorities are looking for them, turning some of the men they captured last night when my daddy and the others were arrested.

  “They have to come in here and search. I am going to be here, and no one will get hurt. No family will be separated except for those wives who want to leave, or husbands who are done with all this. I’ve told them that so many of you believe in this life, in the principle. I know that you love your lives, your families, and that’s okay! There’s nothing wrong in that, if it’s what you truly want.

  “They will be talking to everyone, and you’ll get to ask questions too. Please, don’t be afraid of them. No matter what my father and grandfather have told you over the years, they are not the enemy. They are here to help, and to take out the bad people from here, those that stole your children! They stole your daughters for money!”

  Rachel got up to speak, and so many watched her, crying at the sight of her. “I know this is true. Aaron and me have known for a while now, but we knew with my daddy around, he’d make sure we were banished if we tried to tell. We didn’t want to leave our moms, our brothers and sisters. Matt didn’t either, but he had to. They tried to kill him because he helped girls get away!” Rachel went to him, pointing at his face. “They almost did kill him, and they killed Dean, our brother, for helping girls to get away so they wouldn’t be sold to strangers who didn’t have one bit of morals in them.”

  “It’s true. They tried to kill me, and they killed Dean. But it wasn’t in vain, his death or my beating. We fought for you all, and I will continue to do that. I’ll help however I can. The federal agents coming will too. We’re all going to stay here, and while some of them search, others will come in here and start asking about your families, and I want you to be honest! He was no prophet, my daddy, and neither was my grandfather. A legacy of lies is where I come from, but I plan to change that, and if you will help me, we can make this community right with God and with man.”

  Rachel held his hand in a crushing grip, her eyes shining from tears not yet fallen. There were calls of disbelief still, but she cut those off quick. “Did you ever notice it wasn’t one of his own daughters married off the compound, or any of his close men?”

  That quieted them, but Matt saw, saw the hatred still in a few eyes. He saw a set of eyes that glared, the reddening of them, the shining. She was a cousin, married to one of his uncles, his grandfather’s brother. He knew he’d said enough, so he put the computer in Aaron’s hands and started out of the hall. Before he could reach the stairs, however, he heard a shout, a female’s voice rang out in the room, echoing, “Fornicator! Liar! Devil!”

  When he turned, he saw her, Angela, the one who’d been glaring at him with so much disdain. She was moving from her seat at the end of the aisle, away from her sister wives and husband, one of the wives grabbing at the air, unable to reach her.

  Matt watched helplessly as she grabbed one of the hunting rifles from the floor, where Ken Halquist had laid it down, and she took it into her hands. He stumbled backward up the stairs but couldn’t outrun the bullets that came as she shot at him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Steve watched his eyes fluttering, relief flooding him as they opened, immediately searching out the room and finding him. “Steve? What happened?”

  It came out on a breathy laugh, his answer. “You were shot at and not one of the bullets hit you.”

  Sitting up quickly, he held his head as he winced. “I…I remember, she was shooting at me.”

  “Yeah, she was a bad shot. Aaron went over to protect you, and knocked you down so hard, it knocked you out. Your sister, she’s the great one. She tackled the girl before she could shoot up the place too much.”

  He couldn’t lie to him, but if Matt knew the rest, he could hurt himself more. Matt read his face easily. “What’s going on?”

  As hard as it was, he held Matt’s hand, hoping to keep him from bolting out of the bed and running. “When they heard the shots, the feds moved in and a lot of people got scared. A couple more picked up weapons. No one was seriously hurt, but much of the progress you made with the community is wiped out. The feds scared them.”

  “I can’t believe this,” he groaned, lying back on the pillows and staring up at the white ceiling of the hospital room. “Why am I here?”

  “You’ve been unconscious for a while, honey. After the beating and the head trauma from that, the EMTs were worried. I was worried.”

  That was when he finally seemed to realize that Steve was by his side but scared to death. He flipped on his side, grabbing Steve’s face. “I have a hard head, okay? I am fine, I swear.”

  “Walk away from that place, please. I know you have family there, and they will always be welcome in our home, but it’s time to leave it. For good.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Steve let his head fall, having known the answer before it was said. “I know. I had to try. She’s here, by the way.”

  “Who?”

  Looking back in his eyes, he answered, “Angela Whitehouse, the one who shot at you.”

  The way he looked, like he would cry for her, that said so much about him to Steve. “Is she okay?”

  “No, um, well yeah, but when Rachel tackled her, she went into a seizure. They’re doing tests to see why, but I have a theory.”

  “What theory?”

  “Sometimes victims of trauma have seizures that don’t come from anything physical. I’ve seen it before, watching over a witness. He’d been…he’d been tortured by this gang and escaped. While he was captive, he saw a lot of things, and that was how he became a federal witness. A show we were watching in this cabin in the desert, there was some phrase the character on the movie said that triggered him, and he fell right to the ground and had this massive seizure. He didn’t have epilepsy, no other condition that induces them, so my partner at the time asked the doctors to send in a shrink to talk to him. He came back with the diagnosis fairly quickly.”

  “Well, she was married to an old man when she was sixteen. That’s pretty traumatic.”

  Steve was skeptical of that, but he didn’t rule it out.

  “Let me go see her, Steve. Please?”

  He was already getting out of bed, and since she was just down the hall with a guard in front of her door, he didn’t figure he could stop him. “Keep your distance.”

  He held Matt around the waist as they walked down the corridor, Matt’s eyes set on the guard. “Tell him to let me in.”

  “Pat gave us free rein as long as you don’t get shot at again.”

  They breezed past the guard and Matt stepped into the room, letting go of Steve, walking in front of him right to her bed, where she was cuffed. “Angela.”

  “Go away. You took the prophet from us.”

  He sat in a chair by her bedside and pled, “Please, just listen.”

  Her eyes, filled with angry tears, turned on him as she spat, “You’re no better! You knew everything and let it happen all those years but now you’re taking the prophet from us? At least…at least after he sealed me to my husband it stopped! I owe him for that! And if I get the chance, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  Matt rose from the seat and Steve watched in horror as he stumbled backward, hitting the other bed with his thighs and falling back on it. His face was pale as milk and his eyes crazy wide as he stared helplessly at Angela.

  Steve started to holler for a doctor and the guard as Matt started to scream.

  The guard rushed in, and a surprise visitor as well. Helen Rouch was there. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know, he just started to scream.”

  Angela cried out, “Because he knows! He knows!”

  “Knows what, honey?” Helen asked as Steve held Matt, who was crying and clutching at Steve�
�s shirt.

  “I know. I know. I saw!”

  Steve got Matt out of the room with the help of the guard, and Stacy and Charlie were running down the hall, then pitched in to help him get Matt back to his room. Once on the bed, he curled into a ball and cried and cried, but said nothing more to any of them.

  A doctor rushed in, injecting him with a sedative, then started yelling at all of them, asking how it had happened, and making them all leave the room. None of them went far, just down to the waiting room, but Steve couldn’t sit in any of the cheap plastic chairs.

  “Steve, tell us what the hell just happened.”

  He rattled off the events as they occurred but was shaking his head throughout. “I just don’t know. She started accusing him of knowing something, and the look on his face…he was terrified.”

  Noticing Charlie, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “My case finished, and I thought I’d come and fetch this little lady.”

  She glowed, but it didn’t take the line of worry that was firmly creasing her brow. “He came straight here from the airport. What the hell could he know that would freak him out like that?”

  “I can tell you,” Helen said as she came into the room, shutting the door behind her. She waved to the chairs and said, “You may want to sit down. This is much worse than even Matt remembered.”

  Stacy grabbed his hand and sat next to him. Charlie sat on the other side of her and they all stared up at Helen, awaiting the story that he knew none of them really wanted to hear.

  Helen paced a little as she started, “I think Matt blocked it out, but that knowledge that was buried in his head, it helped him to believe that girls were being sold. That’s not the end of it, though.”

  “Not the end?”

  She shook her head as she glanced his way. “Honey, you don’t have any clue of how bad it can get on those compounds. The marriages of young girls to old men is the tamer stuff, believe it or not. Some of those girls, like Angela in there, the horrors start long before they’re sealed.”