I wanted violence. I wanted to run over to her village and tear the fucking place apart, piece by piece until I found Beth and got her the hell out of there. Although maybe not before beating the shit out of her father, first.
But how well would that go over? Especially if she didn’t know why. After the way she’d reacted after those guys attacked us at the barbecue—guys that were obviously chasing her—I couldn’t imagine how she’d react if I did something similar to her dad. Then something clicked in my head. “Those guys that were chasing them…?”
Ash nodded. “Sent by her father to bring the girls back. That actually scared Hannah enough that she was going to tell Beth, but then you guys disappeared. She figured she would do it when she got back, but she had no idea that she went home…”
I could still barely think about anything but tearing through her village and laying waste to everything in my path, but I tried to focus on Beth. I had to do things the right way. I turned my head quickly, looking back at the police station we just exited. “We have to report it,” I said.
“No.” Ash’s hand grabbed my arm just as I was turning to head back in. “That’s not the way it works with the Amish. Nothing will get done that way.”
“What do you mean? The cops will come in and bust the place open, arrest everyone involved—”
“No. I took Hannah myself after she told me. She’s already given her statement, but it happened a long time ago and the cops don’t have a lot of incentive to go into the Amish world. All that came out of that meeting was a business card. Detective said without hard evidence, they can’t really do shit. And they aren’t going to get that from the Amish. They won’t accept help from outsiders for shit like this. They have a whole other way of dealing with crime and punishment over there. No one there would ever cooperate with the police and give up one of their own for anything, and like I said, he’s into more shit than just preying on his own fucking daughter. But their culture is based around forgiveness. Basically, as long as you apologize for committing a sin and people believe you’re sincere, they just forgive and forget. And even if they don’t, or even if you like, kill someone, the most they usually do is cast you out of the community.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So we’re just supposed to do nothing?” My anger was almost beyond my ability to control now. In a moment I’d be ready to go with Plan A. Violence and mayhem. I’d have to deal with Beth’s disappointment afterwards. If it was for her own good, if it was to save her from the fate that her sister already had to live through, it would be worth it. Even if she didn’t understand. Even if it meant she never spoke to me again. It would be worth it to save her.
“We aren’t going to do nothing,” Ash said, a grim look on his face but a firm resolution in his eyes. He wasn’t letting this go, either. “We just have to figure out a plan.”
“So you’re in? You’re gonna help me get Beth out of that hell hole?” We’ve had our differences in the past, but I knew that having Ash by my side would make this task a lot easier.
“Fuck yeah I’m in, are you kidding me? After what they did to Hannah, I’ve been itching for a reason to get in there. But I think we need to get Reid in on this too, which means you and him need to get along. These guys may be backwards in terms of technology and shit, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this is going to be easy. It’s basically us against an entire town. They’re not just going to let a couple of outsiders stroll in there and grab one of their own. Especially without knowing why. Hell, even if they did know why it may not be much easier.”
“Fine,” I said. “I can put aside my personal shit for Beth’s sake.” Besides, both of my brothers had handled themselves well in that fight. Turns out we’d learned something useful from my old man after all. “Get him down here.”
Ash nodded and gave me a tight smile as he slapped me on the shoulder. “Congrats Wyatt, you may just be growing up after all. Anyway, it’s late and we need a plan, so we aren’t doing anything tonight. I’ll find Reid early tomorrow and get him up to speed, although I need to break this to Hannah as well. You need a ride back home?”
I shook my head. Another night in my truck would suit me fine. “It’s probably pointless, but I don’t want to add any more distance between Beth and I than I have to. Just in case.”
Ash looked at me for a long moment and then let out a heavy sigh. “I get it. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this sooner. Hannah just didn’t want her sisters to know. She was embarrassed by it all, and so afraid that they would side against her and she would lose them. I tried to tell her that wouldn’t happen, but…”
“I know,” I said. “This isn’t your fault. There’s only one person to blame here, and he’s gonna get what’s coming to him tomorrow. I can’t wait any longer than that.”
I watched as Ash got onto his motorcycle and roared away, not moving until the light of his bike was no longer visible in the distance. Wanting to stay physically close to Beth wasn’t the real reason I wanted Ash to leave me alone.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the contact list.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my brother’s desire to help, but this was too important to leave to chance. Ash was right, even if they really were just armed with pitchforks and torches, the three of us would have a hard time getting Beth out of there on our own. We needed bigger guns for this. Literally.
I really did want to turn away from this side of my life, but maybe there was some truth to the idea I was trying to sell to Beth back at the old clubhouse. Maybe there were some legit uses for the MC. Some ways they could do good.
And besides, they owed me for the Desperados thing. I probably helped prevent a war that would have buried them. Now it was time for them to return the favor.
23
Beth
Father kept his word after yesterday’s confrontation. After I confirmed my agreement to follow the rules and never mention my sisters, things went back to normal. I was woken at dawn this morning and expected to resume my familiar list of chores. Both Father and Mother were speaking normally, and aside from Sarah being gone, you would almost never know anything had happened.
Almost.
Despite everyone going through the motions of normalcy, there was now a tension in the air that I didn’t remember feeling before, and not just between myself and them. Things seemed strained between my parents as well. There was an eerie silence that light and love and laughter had once filled. But how much of those things came from me and my sisters, and how much from my parents? Certainly I recall my mother’s smile as she chased us around with a towel while we ran naked and wet from a bath, screaming with laughter. But those were old memories, from childhood. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there were fewer of those memories from the last few years than I had thought.
Especially after Hannah had left.
Even then, most of the fun came between Sarah and me, and with her gone, there was very little joy left. Now that I wasn’t distracted by her presence, the overall somber mood of our household was much more evident.
Shouldn’t there be more happiness now that I had returned?
Perhaps I was being too self-centered and vain. I was only a single daughter of three. It was natural that my parents would be still mourning the loss of Sarah, even if they had accepted Hannah being gone. It was like an old wound that had been reopened.
I could tell that my mother was missing them. Since I’d been back, I’d spied her on more than one occasion pick up one of Sarah’s old things, like a hairbrush, and just stare at it for minutes at a time when she thought no one was looking.
Yet I couldn’t say the same thing about my father. He was much more adept at acting as if Sarah and Hannah had never existed. All he seemed concerned about was that things got back to normal and that there were “no further disruptions and distractions to his household.”
Maybe I was expecting too much, rememberi
ng things with eyes tainted by the joy of my days with Wyatt. Maybe this really was how things used to be. Or how they would have been without Sarah and Hannah. Or maybe my own definition of normal had been changed now that I’d tasted life outside of the village.
For so long, doing my chores, going to church, and spending time at home with my family or friends had been enough for me. It was all I had ever known. But now that I’d gone out into the world and had a taste of all of the things I’d never even imagined, I wasn’t sure that my old life would ever feel the same. It might never be enough.
My heart yearned for those differences, despite how foreign they had seemed at first. Hannah’s small and cramped apartment. The variety of different foods. The daily assault on the senses delivered by all the strange sounds, smells and bright lights that came from living in the city. But most of all my heart yearned for Wyatt.
I even missed his ridiculous brothers.
Here at home, it was like I simply existed. Out there, I lived.
The realization left me wondering, once again, whether I’d made a mistake in coming home at all.
I had been putting all the blame on Wyatt, thinking about all the pain he’d caused—but really, how much of it was his fault? There were times where I saw his temper flare out of control, leading him to act out violently—but never towards me. He didn’t make those men chase Sarah and me—he stopped them. In that instance, his violence was warranted. It was Ash that I thought took things too far; his brothers having to literally tear him away from beating that man. Yet I had run from the situation in fear and judgment, blaming Wyatt for something I should have been thanking him for.
Then there was the bet. Hearing about that had been very painful but he claimed it had been more of a thing between his brothers and from what I thought I knew of Wyatt, it really was hard to imagine him being involved in something like that. Yet in my anger, I had barely given him a chance to explain or listened when he did.
I acted unreasonably and impulsively because I was angry. Aside from how we actually dealt with our frustrations, how did that make me any different than him? He used his fist to punch things, and I used my feet to run from them.
I was a fool.
For so long I had dreamed and imagined all the wonders I’d discover on Rumspringa and could barely wait to go—practically dragging Sarah along behind me—only to find that not only were my wildest imaginings realized, but I found something there I wasn’t really expecting at all. Love.
And then as soon as things got difficult and scary, I ran right back home to the safety of my parents. I truly was a baby.
Maybe I didn’t deserve happiness at all, so ungrateful was I when I actually found it. I’d gone from being free and feeling more alive than I’d ever felt with Wyatt to returning here to face a life of chores and drudgery. At best, father would set me up with someone to marry from the community if I refused to find someone myself, but it wouldn’t be love either way. I already knew all the eligible men from this village and not one made me feel remotely like I felt with Wyatt. I would marry because I had to, because it was expected. And then every night, I’d just lay there as my husband used my body to produce more sons and daughters destined for the same sort of life. And every morning I would awaken, feeling dead inside.
Was that how my mother felt? No. She never went on Rumspringa. She had nothing to compare this life against. She had no idea what she was missing.
Maybe that was why they tried to keep us from going in the first place. Although, in truth, I don’t remember Mother ever telling us not to go. That had all been Father.
Did Mother really love Father? With his harshness, and his rules, and his overbearing will to have everything done his way? While that was an apt description for many of the men in this village, it fit Father the most. It was what had enabled him to gain prominence in the village and to rise within the council of elders so that his voice was one of the most influential in the community.
Maybe that was what attracted her to him in the first place. Yet now she wasn’t turning to him for comfort at the loss of her children. It was his decree that was keeping them away—keeping her from even a simple visit. If I were to leave as well, to chase after my own happiness, she would have absolutely nothing left. Wouldn’t that be selfish of me to do, then? Even at the cost of my own happiness? After all she’d done for us?
Or would she want me to be happy? To pursue a life that filled me with joy instead of dread? The image of that slight smile on her face when I told her that her daughters had found love returned to my head. Would she feel that way about me, if I told her I wanted to leave to follow my own heart?
As if summoned by my thoughts of abandonment, Father appeared. I heard his heavy footsteps behind me even without turning, so I continued to chop vegetables for this evenings dinner. If I don’t look at him, he can’t read my thoughts from my face.
“Beth,” came his deep voice. “We need to discuss your recent trip.”
“Oh?” My heart began to thump hard against my ribs. Father didn’t even like to say the word Rumspringa, so I had hoped I’d escaped all discussion of it. When someone returned, they were not obligated to discuss what they had done. It was supposed to be a time of exploration of the outside world and experiences, and by returning you were acknowledging that you were rejecting those ways and were thus absolved from your participation.
“Come. Sit.” The familiar sound of wood scraping against the floor as he drew back a chair came from behind me. Unable to think of an excuse not to, I laid my knife down and turned. Father was staring at me with his hard, dark eyes that seem to go on forever in their depth. I often imagine that with them he could see right into my soul.
I took my seat and waited as he sat across from me. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I turned around, but I avoided meeting his gaze, just in case. The lines of his face seemed deeper than I remembered, like he’d aged noticeably in the last couple of weeks. Or maybe I had never paid as much attention to them.
“I know that out there, in that den of sin, there are many temptations. Some of those are harder to ignore than others. Especially for the young.”
Now I was definitely not looking in his eyes, instead tilting my head down as if to study a particularly interesting knot in the table. I didn’t like where this was headed.
“Some sins are more severe than others, Beth. Some sins are easy to forget, while others are more damaging, forever leaving their mark on you.”
When I continued to stare at the table without saying anything, he prodded me.
“Do you know which sins I’m speaking of, Beth?”
I took a moment to steady myself, willing my voice not to break or crack. “I think so, Father.”
“Good,” he said. “I know that you are a strong-willed girl, Beth. You’ve always been like the wild stallion that will not be broken. But I also know that you are smart, and not someone to be easily fooled and taken advantage of like Hannah.”
I didn’t think Hannah was a fool, or someone that was easily taken advantage of, but this was not the time for me to express that opinion.
“My hope is that you didn’t succumb to those temptations. That you didn’t ruin yourself forever in the eyes of God by doing something that you regret.”
He paused, and I knew he was waiting for me to confirm what he was really hinting at, that I still remained pure. A virgin. I didn’t want to lie, but I knew that saying nothing would be even more damning, so I chose my words carefully—picking ones that I hoped would both satisfy my father and let me remain honest.
“There were many temptations, Father,” I agreed, “and I admit that I partook in some and avoided others. But of those that I did fall into, I did nothing that I will regret.” Despite the harsh words I’d had for Wyatt during our final argument, I felt no remorse over having sex with him. I had trusted Hannah’s advice in that above all else, because it rang true to me. I did it because it felt right, and I couldn’t imagine that hol
ding myself back to wait for marriage to a man for whom I might not even feel as strongly would have made any more sense. If I had turned away from Wyatt in that moment, I would be regretting that decision far more.
Father’s deep eyes continued to bore into me, and this time I met them with mine, knowing that I had no shame for my actions and spoke no untruth. Finally, satisfied in what he saw, he nodded.
“Good. Now that you’re back home, you must always remember the duty you have to remain pure of soul and body. Not only for your future husband, but for me as well.”
This was something I’d heard before, although the idea of remaining pure for Father was a new addition. I was sure he only meant that remaining pure for my husband was a duty that if I failed in, would reflect poorly on my father but still, the way he said it made it seem oddly unsettling.
He continued, “I’ve lost two of my three daughters, and that does not reflect well on me or this family,” and again I was struck by how he didn’t seem bothered by Sarah or Hannah’s absence beyond how it reflected on him within the community. “But you and Sarah are both young and not entirely to blame. I have made mistakes as well. I was too easy on them; allowed them too much freedom. I should have taken firmer control over their virtue instead of leaving it in their own hands. After losing Hannah, I should have been more careful with the two of you. That was my first mistake. Sending others to rescue you from sin was my second—as is so often the case when you trust someone else to do an important job, you end up being let down. But I won’t make that mistake again.”
My mouth opened and then shut as I tried to make sense of what he’d just said. If there was one thing I would never accuse my father of, it was being too easy on us. But more importantly, what did he mean about controlling my virtue and sending others to rescue Sarah and I from sin? Who did he…
The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 56
