by Naomi West
An angry face swam before her eyes. His narrow eyes were full of rage as he yelled at Vera. She couldn’t understand any of the words that came out of his mouth, as though her mind in its dream-state had muted him. But she felt the full force of his anger and his words nevertheless, and she knew she was in trouble. Vera tried to turn away, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her back toward him.
Her nose was only an inch away from his, his fingers squeezing tightly into her flesh. “You’re mine, Vera. And if you dare try to do something as stupid as running away again, then I swear you’ll pay a price.” These words were clear, and her ears didn’t grant her the mercy of blocking them out.
“I don’t want to,” she whimpered, feeling far more defenseless than she had even when in the canal. “You can’t make me stay here.”
His other hand was on the back of her head now, grabbing a handful of hair and keeping her close. She could feel the roughness of his whiskers on her face as he spoke, the roots of her own hair threatening to come loose in his hands. “You will stay, and I can make you. You’ve forgotten that you owe me everything, your entire life. Now get in there and think about what you’ve done.”
Darkness closed around her as he shoved her into a room and slammed the door with a heavy clank. She could clearly hear the lock tumbling into place as she regained her balance, her palms cold on the concrete walls. Slowly, Vera’s eyes adjusted to the small amount of starlight that came in through a barred window high on the wall. There was no furniture in this room, only a bucket in the corner. She looked down at herself, shocked to find that ugly brown dress hanging from her body.
Vera woke with a start, sweat clamming her skin and making the sheets stick to her. She began to panic, unsure of where she was for a moment. But the moonlight shone in the window and illuminated that beautiful field of tulips on the wall just across from her bed. She was all right. She was safe. She couldn’t explain what she had seen or why it was so vivid, but she knew it wasn’t good.
Getting out of bed, Vera went to the closet and made sure the door was shut. She didn’t want to risk having to see that awful brown dress again, no matter what significance it might or might not have. She went back to bed, but her eyes refused to close. She knew she would only see that room again, or worse, that terrible face. She rolled onto her side and her stomach, and she even tried moving her pillow to the opposite end of the bed, but nothing worked. She lay awake throughout the night, watching the moon and stars spiral through the window.
Chapter Eight
Rascal
The weeks passed, and Rascal did his best to keep Vera off his mind. She was just some girl who needed a little bit of help, and he had done what he could for her. The sex had been great, but there was no reason to think about it anymore than that. He’d had affairs with plenty of women and had been able to forget about them just as easily as he had become interested in them. Besides, Vera was safely at Lorenna’s and on her way to a full recovery.
“Hey.”
Rascal jumped, not having realized that someone else had come into the common room of the clubhouse. But Tat was standing right behind him, his eyebrow raised. Tat was aptly named, with random tattoos covering just about every surface of his body. He was also their artist-in-residence, creating new pieces of any member of the club who wanted one. The president had gladly kept him as one of the brethren once he had proven himself to be loyal and reliable as well as talented.
“Hey. Didn’t see you there.”
“I don’t think you’ve seen much of anything.” Tat took a seat at the bar next to Rascal. “You’ve been pretty distracted for the last few weeks.”
“No, I haven’t.” Rascal brooded over the beer he had poured for himself. He knew he had, but that didn’t mean he wanted to admit it.
Tat laughed. “Right. If you say so. But I happen to know you’ve missed a couple of meetings because you were out riding and nobody could reach you. And you haven’t volunteered for any missions lately. I might not be a high-ranking member of this club, but I do know you.”
Rascal shrugged. “Yeah, well. Just had a lot on my mind.”
“Your mom doing okay?” All the Dark Vultures knew how important Rascal’s mom was to him. He had made it very clear when he had joined that it was only for her sake. That was the way a lot of the men felt, though, and it had never been a touchy subject.
“Oh yeah. She’s fine.”
“Then what is it?”
“Why are you so eager to know?”
Tat shrugged. “Because it looks like you need to tell someone. Or maybe shoot someone, I don’t know. Either way, you need to do something about this before your head gets so far up your ass you can’t see straight anymore.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I’m going for a ride.”
“Want company?”
“No.”
“Suit yourself.”
Rascal got up and went out to the garage, feeling angry with himself for letting his unrest show. It was true that he had been having a hard time, but it made him angrier to know that someone had noticed. And he and Tat had never been particularly close, so that meant that some of the other members had probably noticed as well.
He took off, pushing the throttle to the limit and hoping to blow some of the cobwebs out of his head. Rascal wanted to make excuses for himself, but he couldn’t deny that it was Vera on his mind. He saw her face when he went to sleep, those big blue eyes and that gorgeous body, wishing he could have her there in his bed. Twice wasn’t enough to get her out of his system, and he wondered if there were any number of times that would. She haunted him every day as he wondered how she was doing and if she had ever figured out the mysteries that surrounded her.
Pulling over at a flea market, Rascal roved through the stalls without really paying attention to the wares they had for sale. It was just a place to go and waste time until he had to return to the clubhouse and face his brothers once again. He passed by brightly colored pottery, antique frames, and outdated furniture. The only thing that registered as he glanced at them was that they had a history, something Vera might still not have.
Suddenly, as he rounded a corner, a familiar face caught his attention. He couldn’t miss the silvery hair and the way the desert sun illuminated it, and she noticed him only half a second later.
“Rascal! What brings you to a place like this?”
He couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. He glanced around, expecting to see a fringe of dark hair and the azure eyes that went with it nearby. “I was just out for a drive.” At least part of that wasn’t a lie.
“I’ve been wondering if you might stop by some time to check on Vera. I wasn’t sure what your relationship with her was like, and she hasn’t really said.” The old woman watched him with amusement in her eyes.
Rascal shrugged uncomfortably. “Oh, well, you know. I hope she’s doing well and everything.” The truth was that he wanted all the details, but he couldn’t possibly ask for them.
Lorenna fell in step beside him and nodded. “She is doing well, for the most part.”
That caught his attention. “What does that mean?”
“She’s wonderful to have around the house. She definitely knows her way around the garden, and she’s an old hand at housework. In fact, she’s so good that I thought for the first few days I might not be able to handle having her around. I still want to feel useful, you know.”
“That’s interesting.” There was little more that Rascal could say beyond telling her to get to the point.
“Yes, I think so. I’ve never met someone who was ‘in trouble’ who was so good at taking care of herself. But here’s the kicker: Vera has been having awful nightmares. She wouldn’t tell me at first, but I could tell she wasn’t sleeping well. She’d drag herself through the day, still doing all the duties I assigned her but with no energy. Finally, I happened to be up one night when I saw her light on. I knocked on the door, and she let me in and actually opened up.”
Rascal wish
ed he could just look right into Lorenna’s mind and understand the truth at once without having to wait for the details to unfold. He felt like a child waiting in line at an amusement park, eager to know what was coming but terrified that it might not be pleasant. “What did she say?” he asked, trying to sound distant.
“The imagery from the nightmares is very vivid for her. She can recall every detail, but she can’t tell me who the other people are or where these scenes are taking place. It’s always something awful, like being beaten or locked in a room, and the same man is always there.”
“Do you think these are images from her past?”
Lorenna shrugged, pausing to study an old milk jug at a stand full of farm supplies. “It makes sense that they would be. I’ve tried a few more times to get her to go to a hospital or just to see the local doctor, but she freezes up as soon as I mention it. I did give her some herbs that help her sleep, so the problem has abated somewhat, but I don’t think it’s going to go away.”
Rascal walked along beside her, turning the situation over in his head and wondering what it all meant. If there was a man who had abused her, then it might make sense that her brain had blocked out all memory of it while she was conscious, only allowing those thoughts to come back while she was dreaming. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” Lorenna admitted. “And I haven’t even told you the worst part.”
Stopping dead in his tracks, Rascal turned to look the older woman in the eye. “What is it?”
She licked her lips and took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to say. “I was content to believe that she was just down on her luck, and that maybe she had hit her head or something. But about a week after she arrived, she came out of her room with an old brown dress and asked me if I had a place where we could burn it. I thought it was a very strange request. I mean, someone who doesn’t know who she is ought to be hanging on to every part of herself. But someone who wants to burn an item is trying to forget, do you see?”
Rascal nodded. “I think so.” He had seen that same dress in her suitcase and had wondered about it, but it hadn’t seemed all that significant.
“Well, it turns out that every time she has those dreams, she’s wearing that dress. There’s no conclusion to make other than that was what she wore while these things were happening to her. I did as she asked and burned the dress; I didn’t see any harm in that. But it really got me thinking. Do you remember that cult that was on the news? The one that the feds raided in South Dakota?”
“Yeah.”
“Those women—those women who were brainwashed, raped, and beaten until they stayed with their men, forced into polygamy—wore just that sort of dress. I have to wonder if she was one of them. I don’t know how she would have gotten away or how she made it all the way down here, but it’s definitely a possibility as far as I’m concerned.”
“Oh, shit.” Rascal couldn’t believe how stupid he had been not to put two and two together before. He had seen the news reports. Hell, he had even talked to Vera about it back at the Jackrabbit. And Lorenna’s theory made perfect sense. Well, at least in part. “The people in those cults are really sheltered from the world. I can see why Vera would be able to cook, clean, and garden. That’s the sort of thing they do all the time to survive without help from society. And it even makes sense that she wouldn’t go to the hospital, because she was been raised to believe that doctors are bad. But how would she travel across the country on her own?”
Lorenna held her finger in the air. “That’s exactly the thing we need to know. Did someone bring her here? Did she just jump out the window, hop on a bus, and go wherever it took her? I wish there was some way of finding out. I wish Vera could help, but I haven’t told her my thoughts yet. On the one hand, I’m hopeful that they could jog her memory. But those memories are going to be very traumatic for her, I guarantee.”
“You’re probably right.” Rascal brushed a hand through his dark curls, feeling impatient. He wanted to go to Lorenna’s house, find Vera, and tell her everything they thought might have happened. He wanted to watch her face as she heard the words and see if they made any difference for her. Then he wanted to hear straight from her lips every detail about this abusive man from her dreams. But Lorenna was right; they needed to be more delicate with her.
“I just feel so bad for her, Rascal. I really do.” Lorenna looked mournful as she moved on to a stall selling old dresses and hats. “A lot of the people I take in benefit from hard work and solitude, and then they’re ready to go off into the world. I think with Vera, though, she might enjoy the hard work and solitude so much that she’ll never want to leave. I’m worried about her.”
He nodded. He had been complacent for far too long. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Nine
Vera
Vera thrashed against the sheets, unable to find her way out of the nightmare that had taken over her mind. She was there again, that dark, strange place where all of her terrible dreams seemed to take place. There were so many other people around, and yet she was completely alone. Something—no, someone—was after her, and nobody would dare try to stop him. The feeling of being hunted prickled at her spine, and she couldn’t get away from it.
“What do you want with me?” she screamed, but her words came out as a whisper. She didn’t understand. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that she had trusted this man before. He had been a leader of some sort, someone the community had turned to in times of trouble and thanked when things had gone well. “I don’t want to be here! I don’t belong here!”
The room around her cleared, the vision sharpening into high definition. She recognized the old wooden sewing box on the floor at her feet, and Vera knew she could bend down and trace every carving in its hinged lid. The large living room she sat in was outfitted with only the most basic furniture, mostly carved and put together by hand, and what little upholstery could be found was only in plain, dull fabrics. Her own dress was plain and brown, the fabric scratching at her skin, and the other women in the room were garbed similarly. They glared at her, their frown increasing the longer she sat there. Why weren’t they helping her? Why didn’t they understand that she needed to get away?
“It’s your duty,” said an older woman, her gray brows furrowing together as she shook a pruned finger in Vera’s face. “You shame the rest of us by rejecting him!”
“You should be honored,” spoke up another. This one was younger, closer to Vera’s own age. She had pale blonde hair that hung down her back in a thin braid and a wide face that spoke of innocence. Vera felt a sense of friendship and caring from this girl, but if that was true then why was she trying to make her do something she was so firmly against? “Just look at me. I’m here with him, and I’ve never been happier. Only a few women are chosen, and you don’t really have the option to turn this down.”
The women were terrible enough, but then he came back in. Vera couldn’t recall his name or exactly who he was, but his face was frightfully familiar. She knew every square inch of his face, from the dark golden stubble that clung to his chin to the light brown hair he kept combed back. Pale emerald glimmered from his squinted eyes as he strode into the room, his focus completely on her. He was a thin man, but he walked with his shoulders set authoritatively. “Vera, I hope your time here has been effective. Are you ready to cooperate?”
Panic rose as a bubble in her chest, a massive sphere that pushed on her lungs and heart until she felt she could no longer breathe. She knew she had to get away, but there was no place to run. She had no other home, and everyone here was against her. She wouldn’t get far before they caught her and dragged her back. She knew that from experience, and Vera’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Yes,” Vera replied, even though she knew it was a lie. “But I’d like to wait until midsummer, when the flowers are in bloom and the countryside around is in its full splendor. That will make it more memorable.”
The room erupted in de
lighted murmurs from the other women, who began discussing the upcoming ceremony with a surprising amount of enthusiasm considering the tongue lashing they had been giving Vera.
His jaw tightened for a moment, but his face soon relaxed into a thin smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Very well. I’m glad to see that you’ve responded to your treatment. I hate to think what would have happened to you if you had continued with your stubborn ways. Isn’t that right, ladies?” He turned to the other women in the room, who all nodded their heads solemnly.
“It’s only by sticking together that we preserve our way of life,” said the older woman. “And that’s what keeps us safe.” She nodded at her own words as though that made them official.
