by Nicole Snow
Evan shook his head, a different anger flaring in his eyes. “Forget it. Doesn't fucking matter if she calls you Queen Anne. It's what we do that counts. Now shut the fuck up and let's eat.”
I didn't understand what they were talking about or why he was so hostile, too hungry to focus on anything except the food. The first few bites were truly as good as they looked.
No, after the hell, I'd been through, they were downright divine.
“How old are you, Cassie?” Izzy raked her knife against the plate, sending loud scratches echoing through the house.
“Go easy so the girl can answer,” Evan snapped, giving her the second evil eye of the evening.
I wondered how they knew my name. I must've let it slip during the fever.
“Twenty. Way past marrying age,” I said absentmindedly.
Evan laughed once, a deep throaty sound. “Is that really the bullshit they pull there? Wedding you off to some stud as soon as you're eighteen?”
“Sometimes younger,” I said, stopping to chew the succulent meat and potatoes again. “It all depends. My little sister's closer to getting married than me and she's eighteen. Always was Daddy's girl.”
“Sister?” Isabella made a movement like she kicked Evan beneath the table. “Were you and her close?”
I stared at him, swallowing my food more slowly. Were they always like this? Why did outsiders talk so strange and cryptically?
“No, not really. I mean, there were times when we played together and did what my father said. She always lived by the Prophet's word better than me, I guess. Kind of kept us apart.”
“She won't miss you, then,” he said confidently.
I dropped my fork. Izzy did too, and then ran a long, firm hand through her hair, as if the noise was giving her a really bad headache.
“You could say that. I know I'm not meant to go back there. Not an option after what happened, right?” Enough said. I didn't dare mention the incident in the rain, the way I'd met him. “What's going to happen to me?”
I was thinking more clearly with hot food in my belly, and I was starting to get worried.
“You'll stay here,” he said. “We'll help you get on your feet, Cassie.”
He fixed his deep dark eyes on me. For the first time, I really took a good look at him, basking in his raw masculinity. It wasn't like I hadn't seen it before in a quick, visceral sorta way through my sickly haze.
Now, it really stood out, as clear and delicious as the dinner in front of me. The evil silhouette I'd seen before was gone, and he looked damned good. Not dripping wet with rain and blood, or pressed low at my side with a cool cloth on my sick face like the last times I'd seen him.
Evan was big, cut with muscles that looked like they'd taken years to sculpt to perfection. But he had a more refined look about him than the laborers in our little community. He was younger, for one thing, but older than the boys in Beacon Grove who shot up and turned into scrawny men when they hit puberty. If I had to guess, I would've pegged him in his early thirties.
Young enough to have a man's vigor, but old enough to have a distinctive mind.
Honestly, he carried himself like a few of the celebrity photos I'd seen, good looking men all done up in tuxedos with smiles on their faces. Only he wasn't beaming like he was about to get a glitzy award.
He looked dead serious, even when he was smiling, keeping his tight abs carefully poised against the table. His eyes followed me closely, more like an animal hunting than a disinterested host, and his square jaw was tight against his face.
This is not someone I want to mess with, I thought with a small shudder.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked, looking at both of them.
Evan and Izzy exchanged slow glances. She tapped her fork loudly three times on her plate.
“Gourmet caterer. Cook,” she said, an idea I could understand. “I've been taking some time off lately, but I'm getting back in. It's a good business.”
I smiled. No wonder she was so interested in the food. Hearing about her passion made the woman seem a little more human too.
I hadn't liked the way she looked at me since I sat down. But I wasn't sure about her hostility. I thought I was just being silly, or confused with customs in this strange new place.
“You cooked this?” I asked, slipping another piece of ham into my mouth. It really was quite good, savory and seasoned on my tongue.
“Izzy's the best,” Evan chimed in. “She used to serve all kinds of rich assholes up in Seattle before we moved down here.”
The woman pursed her lips, hiding a smile. For a second, the whole atmosphere almost became normal. Then she looked at me again, eyes suspiciously studying, searching for something.
“And you?” I looked away, turning to Evan.
“Security.” He pushed his fingers together above his plate. I watched the muscles below bulge and flex. “It's my off season. Won't be picking up any new clients for a little while.”
I nodded, trying to hide my surprise. Finally, something here made sense.
If he was like a cop or a soldier, then no wonder he was so tightly wound. The revelation explained why he'd jumped into action on the road and dragged me back to this house too.
I was looking at a man who lived to serve and protect. Maybe I was naive in my fantasies about heroes.
Whatever. My eyes didn't lie. I saw a guardian angels in a man's flesh.
How had I ever hallucinated anything evil about him?
Evan was a living, breathing sentinel. Watching him sent a devilish heat spiking through my core. It curled through my veins and pulsed between my legs.
Insistent. Shameful.
Stop it! I told myself. The beating must've done brain damage if you think he'd ever be interested in a woman like you. This man did you a huge, hulking favor. The last thing he wants is to have his guest drooling all over him...
“How would you like to learn something about the meat you keep shoveling into your mouth?” Izzy looked at me with a hint of a smile. “I can teach you how to make this, and plenty other dishes too. How do some cooking lessons sound?”
Her frankness surprised me. First time I'd seen her smile too. Was this her way of making friends?
“Uh, if it'll help you guys keep the house up, I'd be happy to help! It's the least I can do.” I looked at Evan, seeking his permission.
He smiled and nodded. “Teach a man to fish, and you'll feed him for life. Or a girl in this case. I'm down with that. You know what I mean, or was that moral off limits in your bullshit cult?”
I nearly choked. The fork dropped from my fingers and clattered on the plate's edge. The wicked lust heating like a furnace inside me flicked out.
Damn! Was I really so stupid to think they saw me as anything but ignorant and weak? More like a child than a woman?
“The Prophet said similar things,” I whispered softly. “It's really not so different from the things you've been taught.”
So I hoped. In truth, I knew next to nothing about beliefs among the corrupted. I only knew I'd been warned in the harshest terms to stay the hell away from them. The Prophet always said if no man punished me for communing in this world, God would.
This world was dark, hurtful, and a mere prelude to worse ones waiting for sinners.
“I think you're wrong,” he said coldly, reaching for my hand. “But it's okay to be wrong, Cassie. You've got a lot to learn about this fucked up world, and we'll help you through it. You need anything, you let Izzy and me know. Seriously. Don't ever think I'm blowing smoke up your ass because I am not that kind of man.”
He didn't skip a beat. I couldn't help it, but I laughed.
It wasn't like I'd never heard his language before. Plenty of men in the congregation were rough and swore, but they always repented – they had to. Impure language was a damning thing, as toxic as everything else from the great beyond. Guess it was one of the first things to corrupt me too.
The man next to me spat crude words like they came natura
lly, totally unconcerned about offending anyone.
“I'll give it my best,” I promised, looking back to Izzy.
She got up and gave me a wink before retreating to the kitchen. She returned a couple seconds later, a decadent lemon torte in hand.
“Eat it and enjoy, babe. Forget everything you knew before,” Evan said, watching me intently as I took a big bite and smiled. “You're in my house now. Long as you listen, we're all on the same page. Here, we play by different set of rules.”
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so pampered, so safe. Yeah, these two were strange, but they were a far cry from living with a tyrant I was forced to call my father.
It wasn't until the next day when I found out just how fucking different the rules Evan mentioned truly were.
Izzy was losing her patience, and so was I.
I didn't expect her to come for me so early. It had been a long, fitful night after we ate dinner and she re-dressed my wounds. She told me they were healing nicely, but the pain was enough to make sleeping on my back like laying on needles.
I shouldn't have tried to cook. But she was so insistent, dragging me to the kitchen, where everything was laid out and ready to go.
Ready for me to ruin.
In just a few hours, I'd burned a pan of bread, over seasoned a potato salad, and dropped several slippery egg yolks on the floor. I learned fast that I didn't know a thing about cooking. The tools, the recipes, the ingredients she threw at me weren't like anything I'd ever seen, a far cry from popping the frozen family dinners into the oven at home or opening up a can of cold ravioli when Daddy screamed for food.
“Enough!” My instructor said, throwing out her hands when I offered to help dab up the splattered yolks. “Just go sit down. I need a minute. This is...much harder than I expected.”
I didn't argue, just turned and went to the table where we'd eaten dinner last night. Daddy had beaten me plenty of times on the rare occasions when I served him burned crap. I thought I was used to punishment and disappointment.
Being chastised by this stranger with a thin temper was something else. They'd taken me, given me a simple job to do, and I'd completely screwed it up.
It wasn't all my fault, though. I smelled liquor on her breath since she woke me up – the same sharp stink I knew on Daddy. My gag reflex always tried to override my brain when it went up my nose.
I sat the table like a scolded child, listening to Izzy curse and mutter to herself, cleaning up the mess I'd created. Evan was a distant dot beyond the large glass door next to the kitchen. My hosts owned some serious land, a rolling network of gardens surrounded by high trees where the forest started.
I absently wondered what brought a gourmet chef and a mercenary to this God forsaken place. Their careers were out of the question. We couldn't be that far from Beacon Grove, and the congregation was no man's land.
“Cassie! I'm all set. Let's try this again,” Izzy called, growing irritation in her voice.
It's okay. I'll do it right this time, I thought, rounding up my battered confidence. You're not stupid. You can learn. You've just never had the chance.
She had a large mixing bowl waiting on the counter. Flour and rich fudge syrup kissed my nose, drawing me closer to the mixture.
“Here. I want you to take this, push it in, and go all the way around the edges. Surely, you've done this before?” Izzy held up something that looked like two short whisks attached to a plastic box. It was electric. A cord ran to the wall.
I looked her in the eye. I was afraid for what would happen if I said no. I'd already exposed myself as a redneck who'd never set foot in a modern kitchen.
Not this time. I had to show her I wasn't an animal. How hard could it be?
I took the heavy mixer and lowered it carefully into the chocolatey goo. Then I flicked the switch all the way, pulling at its wheel.
All hell broke loose.
The mixer kicked on to a faster, more violent setting anything I expected. Fudge slime went flying, and so did my fingers. It dragged my hand into the muck as it crashed against the bowl and turned over. The whirring metal kicked up more sugary mud as I struggled to hold onto it with both hands.
Izzy dove over my back and flailed for the outlet. Her arm grazed one of my cuts and I yelped, going into even more of a frenzy. I jerked, elbowed her.
Somehow, she ripped it out of the plug. The chaos stopped.
I didn't truly realize how bad it was until I stood up and looked around.
Oh, no. Oh, crap!
Chocolate muck dribbled down my face, smeared my neck, staining my new dress. Izzy's arms were smattered with it too, but it was nothing compared to the kitchen. The disaster somehow traveled in all directions, even to the ceiling, like a chocolate bomb had gone up in a big fudge mushroom cloud and splattered fallout over everything.
“You...you stupid little bitch!” Izzy wheezed.
I wasn't prepared. Not even close. My jaw trembled and she took a long step forward, slamming her hand across my face before I could think about protecting myself.
The blow was like current jolting through my body. A delayed scream tore itself from my mouth and I threw my arms out, desperate to stop the blows as Izzy grabbed a wooden spoon and started to hit me.
It wasn't so bad on my skin, but I had to keep facing her. If she struck my back, I might pass out.
“Holy fucking shit! Are you stupid, or just plain loco, bitch?” A man roared, and the wood stopped thrashing at my arms and face.
I opened my eyes just in time to see Izzy go down on the hard floor, Evan on top of her, pinning her shoulders to the floor. He maneuvered so she picked herself up for a second, before slamming her down again.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing? You realize if you tear her shit open again, we'll have to start all over? Where the fuck's your head? Where!”
I wasn't watching a man anymore. I was watching a lion in all his magnificent rage. He tackled her in a brute grip and held her with his rage as well as his strength. After a few twists in his hands, she went limp.
“Open your fucking mouth!” he growled. “You won't do the talking, but your goddamned tongue will.”
And I thought things were weird before he stuck his fingers between her teeth. But there he was, reaching into her mouth, prying it open. What the hell was going on?
He leaned down, holding her tighter, and inhaling her breath. Slowly, Evan looked up and shook his head, before climbing off her. Izzy scuttled backward across the floor like a scared puppy.
“Jesus. Okay!” She threw up her hands. “I went a little overboard, I get it. But I don't deserve to be treated like a...like a...”
Izzy looked at me, eyes hurt and dark and confused.
“Slave.” Evan said a word I'd only heard in scripture, always when the Prophet's Final Book talked about ancient times.
He can't mean me? My spine went cold, like an icicle between the fiery lakes of my cuts.
“What the hell's gotten into you?” Fear melted. Venom returned to Izzy's voice.
Evan moved in, cornering her near the entryway leading to the dining room. “None of your fucking business. I know exactly what's gotten into your drunken ass, though. Where's the damned bottle? I'll tear this fucking kitchen apart if you don't cough it up. I'm not even gonna count, Izzy. Find it. Right. Fucking. Now.”
Izzy swallowed loudly. She sniffed once, stood, and walked to the cabinet beneath the sink, its wooden door stained with chocolate mush.
I stood, rubbing the numb fire on my cheek where she'd struck me. Izzy ripped the bottle out of the dark compartment and pressed it into his hands.
“Pour it down the fucking sink,” he growled, popping the cap and shoving it back at her.
For a second, I thought she'd protest. But then she grabbed the bottle with both hands and obeyed. It tapped the sink loudly, and soon the silence was broken by the chug of alcohol sluicing through the pipes.
“Is that all, sir?” She was testing him
, wearing a little smirk on her face and dripping sarcasm. “Are you practicing on me?”
Practicing for what? I didn't understand, but all this coded crap flying between them made me want to scream. Or run.
Evan pushed up to her before I got a chance, crushing her against the counter with his weight.
“Get the fuck out of my sight. And if you ever touch her like that again, I'll make sure the hangover you get from drying your ass out is the least of your problems. Understand?”
“I don't get it,” she whispered, so low I had to strain to make out her words. “What's the big deal? You know what's around the corner. You told me what he's like. Isn't it better to introduce her to this now?”
“That's not your fucking problem. I told you to march. Do it.” He looked like a cobra, bowed up and ready to strike.
Izzy was the first to break their barbed wire gaze. She slipped past me, faster than necessary, clicking her heels on the hard floor as she left the kitchen.
When Evan turned toward me, I started to shake. God, I'd never wanted to open up a hole in the floor so bad and plunge straight through.
Would he punish me too? The man looked like he wanted to wring my neck for ruining his kitchen.
“Lessons are over for today. Go to your room. I'll fix you a plate.”
Every instinct clamored in my head to shut up and listen. But I couldn't ignore what I'd heard, the strange little whispers, this whole crazy scenario...
“I can't, Evan...there's something I need to know.” Gulp. I strained to push a rock down my throat. Evan watched me gulp down fear, and then nodded his head. “What was she talking about? What's around the corner?”
“Nothing you need to worry your pretty head about, babe. It's shit between Izzy and me.”
“Where's your wife?” I snapped. “Why do you live with your sister-in-law? Forgive me, Evan...it's just...this whole thing is weird. I'm scared.”
His face twitched as if he were going to explode when I said wife. Then it turned to stone, revealing nothing. I looked for something – anything! A little quirk of the lips, an eyebrow twitch, a pulse in his fingertips. I'd seen nervous ticks before in abusive liars like daddy, and I knew I should've been seeing one now.
