I close my eyes, sigh, and then push past her.
“Natalie, you should be elated!”
“No,” I reply.
“You should be. It’s amazing,” she adds, following me.
“No, I hate it,” I say, glancing at her.
“What? You can’t say that,” she sputters. She’s still following me, so I go in another direction.
“I don’t want to be in his favor. I don’t want to be in anyone’s favor.”
“Why not? It’s the greatest gift in the world. God’s gift given to us by the men in this community.”
God’s gift? What a load of bullshit.
She’s indoctrinated, like every one of them.
In fact, it almost sounds as if she’s jealous just because he’s some kind of patriarch. She has no idea.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
I stop and turn to face her. “I don’t want to be here.”
“Don’t say that,” she says, shaking her head. “This is your home now. We’re your sisters. We love you.”
“I am not your sister, and I don’t love you, and you don’t love me. You don’t know me. This place is horrible, and you know that. You’re just in denial,” I say, pointing right at her heart as though it’ll add weight to my words. But I can tell from the way she looks at me that she has no clue what I’m talking about.
She was born here. This is all she knows.
“Forget it,” I say, turning around again.
“Wait a minute!” she says, grabbing me by the arm. “You’re not going anywhere. We’ll have lunch soon, and—”
As she jerks my arm, I spin on my heels and slap her right in the face.
She lets go of me and touches her cheek, and it’s only then that I realize what I just did.
We’re in the middle of the community grounds. Other people are looking at us as if I’ve lost my mind. Women, children, even men look up and stare.
And then the guards arrive.
I shudder in place as Emmy watches them grab me and take me away.
She doesn’t utter a single word as I’m dragged away.
All she does is stare with tears in her eyes … and at that moment, I almost feel pity for her.
Almost.
Because the prospect of being put back in that suffering hut wipes out all existing regret and replaces it with horror of unimaginable proportions.
I’m there again … in that concrete cell.
Alone. Scared. And hurting.
And the door is closed on me once again while I scream into the darkness.
Chapter 8
Natalie
I wish it was only the darkness that kept me company. I wished so hard.
Wished it was only the swooshing of my own blood being pumped through my veins that I heard.
Wished it was only my tears that dripped onto the floor.
Instead, there is a ruler, and my hands are covered in red marks.
A nameless woman stands before me, slapping the palm of my hand. At first, without a warning, without a word. Then came the questions, to which I had no answers.
Why did you slap her?
Why did you not repent?
Why do you not obey?
Why do you not follow rules?
I don’t know why I am the way I am. I just know that when I hit Emmy, I broke a little. I’ve been losing chips of myself here and there, but the moment she asked me why I wasn’t happy, it made me snap.
And now I pay the price.
Love your brothers and sisters.
Love your fellow believers.
Love everyone around you.
Love.
If you do not love, you get punished.
Even if you don’t mean it, show love, or you will feel pain instead. That’s the message they are giving me, and I have listened well.
For the past hours, all I’ve felt is the sharp pain of a ruler coming down on me, making me hold back the screeches I wish I could let out. But I know the more I hurt, the more they smile.
That’s what they do. These women are trained to belittle, subdue, and punish girls like me, girls who are forced to become part of the community just because some man wanted them.
I wonder if these women, these “sisters” who have made my life miserable, have husbands. If that’s how they learn this behavior.
Punish or get punished.
Maybe that’s how they keep the women in check.
Make them the ones dishing out the pain, then they know what happens if you try to defy the rules.
It’s working, though. Slap by slap, I’m enforced to believe that what I did was wrong. That I am truly sorry for hurting her. That I want this to stop, but I won’t say that out loud. I am a sinner. Sinners will be punished. Repent and you will be forgiven.
“I am sorry!” I yell out loud as she takes a break for a few seconds. “Please, forgive me …”
I feel defeated. Hurt. Wounded.
Betrayed by my own conscience … persuaded by my own guilt.
“Good.” The woman taps her own hand with the ruler, each snap a powerful reminder of what she can do if I don’t comply.
“You think about that.” The woman gathers her belongings and leaves me here in the dark, alone, crying.
I wasn’t even chained up. They didn’t need to.
I knew they were there, waiting behind that door, ready to pounce on me if I tried to flee. So I just accepted it and held up my hands when she asked.
I cooperated in my own punishment.
The bruises on my hand are so painful it makes me shiver. These are marks that won’t leave scars on the skin, but they will leave scars on the soul.
Suddenly, the door opens again. Is it that woman? Has she come for more?
When I look up, my jaw drops.
It’s him; the patriarch.
I push myself into a corner, shuddering. I can’t let my guard down. He goes to his knees in front of me. “Give me your hands.”
I reluctantly hold them out. He grabs both, and warmth instantly flows through me as though he’s siphoning energy through his fingers. It’s a figment of my imagination, and I know that, but it’s a powerful feeling that I find hard to ignore.
He slides a single finger across my palm, and I hiss in agony.
“Damn …” he mutters.
I didn’t know they were allowed to swear here. Maybe he has a free pass. He’s a patriarch, which means he must be powerful in some way. Powerful enough to bend the rules? Powerful enough to get me out of here?
“That elder’s wife really did a number on you, didn’t she?” he asks.
He reaches for my face, and I cower in place, but his hand on my skin feels so soothing compared to the rough beating I just had that I instantly melt in the palm of his hand.
He sighs and then gets up. Suddenly, he picks me up from the floor with both hands and carries me toward the door.
I’m stunned, completely frozen in his arms as he brings me back outside. My eyes squint as I get used to the daylight again.
The woman seems to appear out of nowhere. “Patriarch, what are you—”
“I never gave permission for this,” he growls, clutching me closer to his body, almost like a lion protecting its pride.
“I … I apologize, Patriarch,” the woman mutters under her breath, and she immediately bows. “It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t. I’ll make sure of it,” he says, still as valiant as before.
Then he walks off without saying another word to the woman. I wonder whether I’ll see her again. If I’ll have the chance to say how much I hate her and this place. I wonder if he’ll let me.
“Are you afraid of her?” he asks, still walking with me in his arms.
I don’t reply, but I do nod.
I don’t know what it is about him that makes me so silent, so compliant.
His face darkens. “Then I’ll see to it she doesn’t come anywhere near you again.”
Just
like that, he can unravel someone’s hold over me. That’s the kind of power he wields. This whole community is under his rule. Just like me.
He carries me back to my hut. When Emmy opens the door, her mouth is wide open, and she stares at us for a full ten seconds before moving aside so he can enter.
“Welcome, Patriarch, welcome.” She bows. “This is … unexpected.”
“Leave us,” he commands.
All the girls immediately get up from their bunk beds and the chairs and rush out the door. Even April is whisked away. Where to, I have no clue, as the patriarch immediately closes the door behind him.
He carries me to the bunk bed and sets me down on the bottom one to the left. “Stay here.”
I do as I’m told as he walks over to the cabinet and produces a box filled with bandages, which he brings back.
He gently tugs my arm until I yield and give him my hand, which he holds so softly between his fingers. My eyes home in on the tattoo on his hand, the symbol of a house, which was also on the scarf I have at home. Why does he have that same symbol on his hand?
That tattoo is the sole reason I’m here. If I had never seen it online, I wouldn’t have gone after it. I wouldn’t have found him in that joint … and he wouldn’t have taken me.
Why is this tattoo so important?
I wish I could ask, but I can’t get the words off my tongue.
He wraps the bandage around my hand and tightens it with a piece of tape. Has he done this before? But he’s a patriarch, so other people do this for him, right? If I understand the rules, everyone’s at his beck and call.
When he’s finished, he mutters, “There.”
He sits down across from me on the other bunk bed, and for some reason, I can’t stop wondering if he’s ever sat down on one before.
“If that doesn’t heal in a couple of days, you tell one of your hut sisters, and they will alert an elder for me. Okay?”
I nod. He smiles.
It’s the first one I’ve seen in this community that’s actually genuine. But it also makes me want to cringe.
“You know you can talk to me, right? I don’t bite,” he says.
But he does. He most definitely does.
Noah
She’s so fearful of me. I understand why, but she doesn’t need to be.
I won’t hurt her. Not in the way the elder’s wife has.
I’m still mad at myself for letting things escalate the way they did. That elder’s wife never should’ve put a hand on her. But I didn’t give explicit instructions on what they could and couldn’t do while she was in her initiation, so I accept partial blame for this.
Still, that elder’s wife will never go near her again. I will make sure of it.
I don’t want my precious prize to get wounded. Or worse … be scarred for life.
She’s far too valuable to be treated like that. If only she knew.
It’s too soon to start something, but when I look into her eyes, I want nothing more than to bring her back with me to my temple. But I can’t. This has to be done the regular way. She has to walk this path before I can claim her … before she becomes mine.
A question lingers on her lips, and I tilt my head to watch. “Who are you?”
I’m surprised that’s the first thing she’d ask.
“A patriarch, but you already know that,” I muse.
I wish her fellow hut sisters hadn’t shouted it off the rooftops, but it must be hard to contain their enthusiasm when they see one of us.
“But my name is Noah,” I say.
“Noah,” she repeats, narrowing her eyes at me. My name rolling off her tongue has a particular feel to it, and it makes all the hairs on my body stand up in excitement.
“What do you really want from me?” she asks.
I lick my lips. “Your life.”
She visibly shudders, and I don’t think it’s from the cold.
She turns her head away from me, and I avert my eyes.
“Leave me alone.”
Such cold words from a woman desperate for warmth.
“Or let me go,” she adds.
“You know I can’t do that,” I say as I get up. “But I promise you, there will be no more pain from now on.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says, grabbing the blanket in front of her to wrap it around her body like a cocoon.
I shrug. “Suit yourself.”
My words won’t be able to convince her, but my actions will. In time, she’ll understand why she’s here, but for now, we’ll both have to deal with the situation. She hates me, and that’s fine. We have all the time in the world to make her fall for me, and I’m not in any rush.
But as I walk toward the door, I can’t help but leave a tiny present for her.
Something I know she cherishes … something that’ll make her heart burn with curiosity.
The embroidered scarf with the symbol on the front.
The scarf that she knows came from this community.
Chapter 9
Natalie
For a moment, I stare at the door through which he disappeared. Next to it is a small post … on which a scarf lies. My scarf. The one I wore on the day we met.
Did he place it there just to entice me? To coax me into wanting more?
The scarf pulls me toward it like a magnet. My fingers gently caress the fabric and the symbol; the same symbol on his hand.
They must be connected. This can’t be a coincidence.
He put this here on purpose for me to find. For me to realize … to remember …
I close my eyes and dig into my memories, memories of a long-buried past … my childhood.
A woman with beautiful, dark, and thick flowing auburn hair wraps a scarf around my neck. She pats it down and tucks it into my coat, zipping me up. I’m like a walking stuffed marshmallow man. I shiver. It’s so cold, and where we’re going, I’m going to need all the warmth I can get.
Outside.
Boots crackle across the snow. There’s a path going toward the dark forest beyond.
Behind me, the woman waves at me. I wave back.
I’m about to leave … and she isn’t coming with me.
I look ahead. In front of me is a boy, and on his hand is that same tattoo.
Then he grabs me and whisks me off into the dark.
Away from home.
My eyes burst open. I can’t breathe.
The firmly clutched scarf drops from my hand onto the floor.
What did I just see? Was that a figment of my imagination? Or a … memory?
It’s been so long since I last had these fragmented images flash through my head. I used to always push them away and force them to leave because I don’t want to know. I don’t want to remember how I got from there to here … How I ended up an orphan.
But maybe that’s the answer to everything that’s happening to me now.
Picking up the scarf again, I bring it to my nose because the smell always calms me down. But the scent that enters my nose doesn’t remind me of my home. It smells like him.
Someone knocks on the door, breaking my chain of thought. “Natalie? Can we enter?”
I quickly tuck the scarf underneath my pillow in my bunk bed and clear my throat. “Yes.”
The door opens and in steps Emmy, April, and Holly. They tentatively look around to see if he’s still there as if that’s something to be excited about. Even April has given in to the charade, and I look her straight in the eyes, hoping she’ll remember that she isn’t one of them. We don’t belong here.
“Has the patriarch left?” Emmy whispers.
I nod, and she closes the door shut. “You have to tell us all about him. Was he kind to you? Was he sweet? Caring? Gentle?”
Emmy and Holly are all up in my face now, and I don’t like it one bit.
I hold up my hands. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Emmy squeals. “Oh my … I’m so excited. I wish I could say jealous, but that would be a sin, so I won’t ever
feel that way. But I’m so happy for you.” She gives me a kiss on both cheeks before I can say no.
“It’s a great honor to have the attention of a patriarch,” she adds.
“Hmm, if you say so.” I roll my eyes.
“What did he want from you?” Holly asks. “Oh, wait,” she immediately adds. “Don’t say anything. It’s not my place to ask. I apologize.”
I’m glad she corrected her because it really is none of her business.
“I am very curious, though,” she says, tapping her chin. “He brought you back from a punishment so there must be something special. No one’s ever interrupted a punishment before it was finished.”
A punishment … sounds as if they’re quite used to seeing people get hurt here.
“Maybe it was love,” I jest, but the girls seem to take me seriously.
“Of course. Love is what drives our community.” Emmy nods.
“Exactly. Love brings us together,” Holly says. “God wants us to love and forgive.”
A load of bollocks if you ask me.
Love … but punish one another if someone commits some kind of sin.
Still, I can’t believe Emmy is so happy and cheerful when the whole reason I got into that mess in the first place was because I slapped her.
I suck in a breath and direct my attention toward her. “Look, I just wanted to apologize for what I did.”
Even if she was getting under my skin, she only knows what she knows, and I can’t blame her for being ignorant. It’s how she was raised.
“It’s okay,” she says, smiling. “I forgive you.”
“That easily?” I narrow my eyes.
“Of course. Forgiveness is love, and the Lord forgives everyone who love in His name.”
Oh man, there they go again with that Godly stuff. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
Suddenly, a bell begins to ring in the distance, and Emmy’s face lights up like a Christmas tree.
“Oooh! It’s almost time for the ceremony. I completely forgot.” She immediately grabs my arm and whisks me off to the closet. “We need to put you in some appropriate clothes.”
“For what?” I ask.
“The ceremony,” Holly says. “Don’t you know?”
“No, the elder’s wife never told us about that,” April says. “Just some kind of ritual.”
Under His Rule (Dark Romance Suspense) Page 7
