by Winter James
“He had a good idea.”
I sit down heavily on the bed and pull my shoes off. Dove pads over and stands between my legs. She studies my face, her hands coming up to stroke my cheeks and my chin. It’s like the first time we saw each other—electric. Except I’m so tired that the shocks are barely keeping me upright.
“It’s going to be all right,” she says. The air conditioning unit in the room kicks on with a decrepit rattle.
“That’s not true, little girl.”
Her lips turn down into a thoughtful frown. “Why not?”
“We’ve got a room for a night. What about tomorrow?” I’m such a piece of shit. I’m a worthless piece of shit. “I’ve got some money saved from the job, but it’s not going to last. Then what?”
She takes a breath to answer me, but I can’t stop myself.
“It was hard enough to find a job in the first place. The road construction company took a chance on me. Now I won’t even have a reference, and I can’t—” Guilt adds a few more stab wounds on top of old scars. “I won’t be able to support us.”
Her hands haven’t stopped moving on my face. “I don’t need much.”
“You need more than nothing. I’m less than fucking nothing.” I reach up and take her delicate wrists in my hands. “You can’t stay with me. You don’t know the half of it.”
A little smile plays over her face, and I want to kiss her until we’ve both forgotten every horrible thing about the past.
“Why don’t you tell me, then?”
“What does it matter?” Hot anger settles over my skin like a sunburn on top of another sunburn. “It won’t change the situation we’re in now.”
“What happened, Jake?” Dove pushes against my grasp until she can hook her hands in the front of my t-shirt. “I want to know what happened. Sometimes, sharing the burden can make it lighter.”
I know she’s not asking about what happened at the rest stop this morning. She’s asking about why I’m in this situation in the first place. And I don’t want to tell her, because I don’t want to see fear creep into her blue eyes and take up permanent residence. But I used up all my willpower today when I kept myself from tearing down the walls of the jail with my bare hands. The secret has been lodged in my chest, growing like a cancer for years.
“I used to own a construction company.” Saying it takes me back to all the years I put in on building sites. I pitched in on hard jobs when I could have sat behind a desk in a shirt and tie. “I could’ve been the guy who ran the business, but I’ve always liked working with my hands. One morning I got to a site early.”
It was around this time in the summer. The sunrise came early but I was up long before it, checking in on my team’s progress. I’ll never forget the pink and purple watercolor sky in the east.
“We were building an insurance office next to this motel. I never paid attention to the motel before. It was part of the background, like this one.” My pulse pounds, kicking up like I’m crossing that parking lot again. I’ll be crossing that fucking parking lot for the rest of my life. “But this time went I went by, there was a sound. One of the motel room doors was partially open. And inside...”
“What was inside?” Her prompt is so gentle that for the first time since the trial the truth works itself loose.
“A man was in the room. With a little girl. He was...” I can’t describe what he was doing. I don’t want those words in Dove’s ears. I’ll share everything else, but not the awful images burned into my brain. “He was hurting her.”
I meet Dove’s eyes.
She understands.
The corners of her mouth turn down and she bows her head, her lips moving. Praying—she’s praying for that little girl, all those years ago. When she looks back up again she squares her shoulders. She must know there’s more.
“I completely lost control.” The door came off its hinges. That’s how out of control I was. “I beat him senseless. More than senseless.” My stomach twists. “He died of complications not long after that, so I went away for manslaughter.”
“You had to do it,” says Dove firmly. “You had to. He would have hurt her again. Over and over. I know.”
Exhaustion descends over me like a summer thunderstorm, quick and unpredictable. “I’m sorry,” I tell Dove. I’m not sorry for killing that guy—he deserved it. I’m only sorry that it’s making things harder for us now. And I’m sorry that she has to carry this with me now.
But mostly I’m sorry that my eyelids are dragging down and I can’t drag them back up.
A pair of small hands in mine coax me into standing. I can’t understand the words she’s saying but they don’t seem to matter much. She just wants me to get into the bed. I sink into the closest half of the queen-size bed and stretch out my legs.
Who knew you could find luxury in a cheap roadside motel?
For the first time in years, I breathe easy. I stay awake just long enough to feel Dove slip under the covers next to me, her body warm and small next to mine.
I wake up with my next breath. That’s what it feels like. The night disappears in a heartbeat. Sun hits my eyelids. I must’ve left the curtains cracked last night.
Another breath. I’m lighter, now that the secret isn’t taking up so much room. I’m as refreshed as I would be after a long, hot shower. That’s a hell of an idea right there. Dove could join me. We could take our fucking time.
I roll over to run my hand over her back.
My hand hits empty sheets.
Cold sheets.
I’m bolt upright in the bed before my heart has time to beat again, tearing at the covers. She’s not in the bed. A mirror across from the bathroom door shows that the narrow space is dark and empty. The curtains across the window are shut tight—I never touched them last night after all.
Instead the sun streams in through the door of the motel room. It hangs open, swinging lightly in the breeze.
Chapter Fourteen
Jake
Those fuckers took her.
They didn’t get what they wanted when they sent the cops after me, so now they’ve come and taken her back themselves. No fucking doubt in my mind. I leave everything behind and scramble out of the bed. My shoes are on the floor where Dove took them off last night and I shove my feet in and go.
Those House of Rapture cultists left the Buick.
It sits in its spot in front of our motel room, headlights unblinking. Fuck—keys. Wallet. I get them both and slam the motel room door behind me. I don’t give a fuck that it’s unlocked. Anyone who comes now can take what they want.
What matters is Dove.
I know where she is, and I have to get her back.
Arrest me. Fine. Throw me in jail. Fine. But I’m not letting her get locked away in that place. I know. She said that to me. She knows what it’s like to be hurt again and again, even if it wasn’t exactly the same as what happened to that little girl. I won’t let it happen. Fuck that.
The Buick gives a little jerk. I have to settle down if I’m going to drive there without throwing the transmission out of the fucking car. Deep breaths. Shove my emotions down. Don’t feel them, just act.
Part of this was my fucking mistake. We should have gone somewhere else. Another town. Staying here was a fuck-up of epic proportions. I see that now. Meeting with my parole officer shouldn’t have been my main priority. Making her safe should’ve been. Did I even remember to lock the door? My teeth grind together so hard my jaw aches. I can’t remember a damn thing.
My cell rings on the passenger seat.
I left my cell here last night. That’s how bad I wanted to get into that room. I left it on the seat and walked away. Maybe if I’d had it—
There’s no use thinking about it now.
I snatch it up and answer it without looking.
“I can’t talk right now, okay? I’m busy.”
“Where are you, Jake?” It’s Noah. “You need to talk to me. I have information.”
I don
’t want the distraction. I don’t want anybody talking me out of going to the House of Rapture right now. But Noah started studying for his law degree while he was in prison. If it’s that kind of information—the kind that could keep me out or prison or at least give me a leg up when the police come for me again—I guess I can spare him a minute.
“I’m on my way somewhere important. I don’t have long.”
Noah pauses. I can almost hear the gears moving in his head. If he’s trying to think of a way to stop me, he shouldn’t waste his time.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll talk fast. I’ve been doing some digging on the House of Rapture.”
“I know all I need to know about those fuckers.”
Another pause, this one shorter. “Did something happen?”
Noah doesn’t have a car. That’s the one fact that tips me in favor of telling him. By the time he finds a way to follow me to the House of Rapture, it’ll be too late.
“They took her.” Rage, white-hot and irrepressible, sears the memory of that open motel room door into my brain. I’ll never forget the way it swung there on its hinges. It fucking mocked me. “Someone took Dove in the night. I know it was them.”
I choose my words carefully. So carefully. More carefully than I’ve chosen any words since my original trial. When they come to question Noah later he won’t be able to say that I shared any plans with him.
“I’m worried about her,” I tell him. “They do some pretty fucked up things in that cult.”
There. Now he’ll be able to say that I was concerned, and it won’t be a lie.
The silence on the other end of the line tells me he wants to ask me where I am one more time. He wants to know exactly what I’m going to do when I get to where I’m going. But Noah’s not an idiot. He knows how these things turn out, especially with me. The police get it twisted. The prosecutor wants to make an example of you, never mind the abusive shithead you took out of the running. The rules only count for people with money and connections, and I only had one of those the first time around. Now I have neither.
I go past the sign for the rest stop exit.
“You called me, Noah. You have information, right?”
“Yeah. But I have a question first.”
“Shoot.”
“There’s no changing your mind, is there?”
He’s left it purposely vague. Noah’s a good guy. If I make it out of this, I’ll tell him in person. But am I changing my mind? No. I’m not changing my mind about Dove. I’m not changing my heart about her. I’m goddamn in love.
“No, man. There isn’t.”
“Okay.” He sighs a little. “You’re a stubborn motherfucker. Like I said, I’ve been looking into the House of Rapture. In this county, property owners are public record.”
”I know that.” Of course I do. I did some jobs around here before my arrest. But my company was the contractor for the building work. We didn’t have anything to do with purchasing properties, only surveying the land to have our architect draw up the plans. “What does it have to do with—” I almost say Dove. “With the House of Rapture?”
“I wanted to know everything I could find out about them, so I started with public records. There aren’t that many. There’s a record from the city about when they connected the property to the city water lines, which is wild ‘cause it’s way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere. They must have had some serious pull at one point or another.”
Deep breaths. Don’t bite Noah’s head off. “I don’t think the city water lines make a difference here.”
“Right. Yeah. They don’t own their own property.”
I put my foot down on the gas without thinking, then ease back off. “What?”
“I was expecting the property across from that rest stop you were at to be owned by the cult itself. Usually, even a cult will have some kind of organizational structure to hide behind. An LLC. A shell company. Makes things easier for them. So I thought I’d be seeing House of Rapture, LLC or even some generic company name as the owner of the compound property.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I saw Dove’s name.”
The puzzle pieces don’t neatly fall into place. They slam together like a semi truck and a propane tank. Leader Michael didn’t take her in as an orphan and do creepy shit to her because he wanted her. He wanted to marry her so he could have the property.
Dove has never been an ordinary member of the cult.
He could be forcing her to marry him now. And if he does that—
“Jake, where are you?” Noah’s voice is urgent, insistent. “Don’t go into...whatever this is by yourself. Let me come with you. Come back and pick me up at the house, and I’ll go with you.”
I swing off the highway into the exit ramp for the rest area. The Buick bucks under my hands, like it doesn’t think this is my best idea. Maybe it isn’t. But I’ll be damned if I drive away now, when anything could be happening to Dove. I pull into the first spot at the rest area and get out.
“Sorry, bud. No time left.”
Then I throw the phone back into the car and slam the door shut.
Chapter Fifteen
Dove
“I don’t hear your prayers,” snarls Leader Michael. “Your penance calls for continuous prayer, but I don’t hear them. We’ll have to begin again.”
What he says barely registers above the haze of pain and humiliation and despair.
After what he did to me the last time, I thought things couldn’t get worse. I thought it was the end of the line. Now I know better.
He’s taken me to his room for this.
Leader Michael brought the same low bench from the hall, only he’s made me kneel at the side of his own bed. Better that you get used to this now, he said, that old fake disappointment in his voice. When we’re married, this is where I’ll correct your behavior.
I would have been sick at the thought but he started my penance before my stomach could get rid of its contents.
The first part was taking my panties off.
I don’t even remember kneeling down—I only remember Leader Michael stuffing my dress up around my waist so that he has clear access to my naked skin.
The belt has come down twenty times so far, and he’s only paused to catch his breath. My skin throbs and aches and my hands shake, knuckles white from trying to keep them clasped like he wants. I’m going to have cuts from my fingernails from holding them so tightly. I already do. It’s only a matter of time before the blood starts rolling down the backs of my hands.
“Know in your heart that the Lord demands extra penance of you,” intones Leader Michael. He paces back and forth behind me, footsteps light on the thick carpet in his room. He’s the only one with carpet. “It will be fifty strokes with the belt, then twenty more with the paddle.”
A sob bursts out of me in spite of myself. It hurts. It’s going to hurt so much that there’s no way I’ll be able to stay on the bench. And if I black out, he’ll only start over again.
“Please, Leader Michael.” I don’t dare turn around to face him. “You don’t have to do this. There must be another way—”
“There is no other way.” He cuts me off with a harsh finality. “You know that. You chose to disobey me—you chose to disobey the Lord’s wishes. And now you’ll pay the price. That has always been how the Lord shows his hand in the House of Rapture.”
It doesn’t even make sense. Why would God, who is supposed to love all of us, show himself through this blinding, unending pain? Why would God want me to marry a man like this? A man who brought three other members with him to drag me out of that motel room this morning?
Leader Michael steps up behind me again and my last resolve crumbles. Tears stream down my face, and ugly sobs that I try to swallow back. Let it be over quickly. That’s my only prayer, even though it’s a futile one. This will never be over. As Leader Michael’s wife it will never be over. Not until the Lord calls me home to heaven. That might be the only time
I get to see Jake again, and that hurts worse than the belt.
“Resume your prayers,” says Leader Michael, and the belt comes down.
He pauses, and I think for a moment that my prayers have been answered.
Except he unzips his pants, and I gasp. I’ve never done this with Jake but he’s done it to me--enough that I can guess what Leader Michael wants, especially when he pushes white underwear down to expose a pink and throbbing penis.
“You’re going to pray to me,” he says, looking down at me, his expression almost sad, if it weren’t so merciless. “You’re going to pray for my forgiveness now.”
I close my against this reality.
It shakes the whole room—that’s what I think when pain crashes against my skin. It’s gone through me and to the foundation of the building. I brace for his penis or the belt, but it doesn’t come. Nothing comes. Because someone is shouting.
Someone with a deep, familiar voice.
Father Michael lets out a grunt and I twist around to see a miracle.
Jake. He’s here.
He has the back of Leader Michael’s collar in one fist and drives the other into his stomach. The belt in Leader Michael’s hand falls soundlessly to the floor. Jake’s words hit a second later like someone flipping the switch on a radio.
“You sick fuck.” He knees Leader Michael in the gut, then goes in with the other leg. “I know why you did this, and I’m going to fucking kill you. I’m going to kill you for being a sick fuck, and your cult can’t save you.” He hauls Leader Michael up and punches him in the face.
Leader Michael’s head snapping back jolts me into action. This is only a miracle if Jake doesn’t actually kill him. If he kills Leader Michael, he’ll go to prison and I’ll never see him again. I can’t live with that.
I scramble up off the bench, my legs weak, and run toward them. Jake hardly seems to notice me. His fist is cocked and Leader Michael’s head lolls. One more hit and he might be done for.
“Stop, stop. Jake. Look at me. Stop.”
