Chapter 14
“ H as Solomon been feeding you extras?” Abraham prods his bony finger hard at my stomach, and I crouch over to protect the child that grows inside it. The ridge of my stomach is only tiny and would hardly be noticeable if the rest of me hadn’t become skin and bone.
It’s a miracle that something could survive within me. I never get fed properly. I’m beaten almost daily and I’m constantly forced to take Abraham’s cock either in my ass or mouth. Just two days ago, Abraham smashed me against the wall so hard that I actually blacked out.
“Say the words.” Abraham removes his belt like he always does and when I feel its cold buckle press against my backside, I prepare myself for what comes next.
“He will be gracious and forgive us our sins,” I say the words he demands I speak.
“And…” he encourages me.
“Her sins will be punished, through Him, unto me.” I flinch when the metal hits my skin, trying to hold back my cries. He drives his cock into my mouth as he leans over my back and continues to strike me, somehow hitting the same spot every time with the buckle and making the pain excruciating. He holds my head tight against him so I choke and splutter on him and when he fills my mouth with his seed, my stomach retches like I’m going to throw up.
“And you take her punishments so well.” He pulls away from me and laughs as he slaps my cheek.
I want to scream at him, tell him that he repulses me and that I’m glad my sister got away from him. I can’t imagine how she must have felt about carrying his child. I might not like Solomon all that much, but at least he can be kind. Abraham and his terrible breath and rotten teeth are far worse than any monster I’ve ever been told of.
He leaves me in the darkness and I lie on my side, stroking my hand over the tiny bump I’ve got. I know he or she won’t stay a secret forever, and Solomon is going to have to do something to get us out of here soon, for his own sake, not just mine. He may not admit it, but he fears his father and he knows Abraham would be furious if he knew what he’s been doing to me.
I’ve just finished being sick in the bucket when the hatch pulls open and I can’t believe what I’m seeing when Magna follows in after Solomon. She’s the only person I’ve seen other than him and his father in what has to be months. I could cry from the relief of it.
“Magna, I ? —”
“Don’t speak to her,” Solomon orders sternly. He’s got a worried look on his face and I find it uneasy that he’s refusing to look at me. Usually, his eye contact is too much.
“How am I supposed to work in these conditions?” The old woman searches the space around us looking unimpressed.
“I could fetch another lantern,” Solomon suggests, but she shakes her head firmly.
All the women go to Magna when they’re expecting a child, She’s delivered all the babies in the village and, although her bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired, I’m glad she’s here to check up on mine.
“Here, get her to lie on this plastic sheet.” She hands something to Solomon who steps toward me.
“You need to lie on this.” He flattens the sheet out on the floor and when Magna starts to wash her hands in the basin in the corner, the guilty look she gives me over her shoulder turns my relief into nerves.
“What is she here for?” I hold my hand over my tummy protectively.
“You're starting to show that little gift I gave you.” He reaches out to take my wrist but I quickly pull away. “Father can’t know what happens between us. You're not a chosen one, Everleigh.” He lowers his head sadly.
“No.” I back myself up against the wall.
“Magna won’t tell, she owes me a favor.” He takes my wrist, dragging me toward the sheet, and I dig my heels into the ground below, trying to stop him. “She’s going to fix it, and make sure this never happens to you again.” His strength is too great as he wraps me up in his arms and lowers me onto the plastic sheet.
“No, please. Don’t… Don’t do that.” I thrash against him when he sits me between his legs, holding me firm as I kick to get free, and forces my body back against his chest. His hand covers over my mouth and the cloth it’s holding blocks all my airways. I lose all my fight, and my body goes limp.
“I wish things could be different,” I hear him whisper, and the look of guilt on Magna’s face is the last thing I see before everything blurs to darkness.
I don’t know how long I was out, but I’m alone when I wake up.
It’s pitch black and the pain that stabs through me when I sit up makes me wail. My insides feel as if they’ve been torn out and stuffed back inside me, and I clutch my stomach knowing that my baby’s been taken from me.
“I’m sorry.” I hear a voice come from the darkness, and although I can’t see him, I know it’s Solomon.
“Why? Why did you let me keep it for so long? Why let me grow it inside me?” I sob. My child wasn’t conceived out of love, and what I would have delivered it into is nothing but evil, but it was a part of me, one that he allowed me to nurture and fall in love with.
“I liked how you were when you were hopeful. I liked how it felt to go against him,” he admits, sounding weak and strained. “If your stupid sister hadn't run away I would have had you, you would have been my wife and I could have given you as many babies as you could carry. But now…” I feel him move closer. “Now you will have none.”
“No.” I shake my head and cry.
“This is your life now, Everleigh, the black is the only future you have. It will be better this way. You wouldn’t have wanted to go through that again, it wasn’t pleasant.” He strokes my face and when I feel his mouth just a breath away from mine, I clam up.
“Our secret, remember?” He presses his lips softly against mine and I swear I feel one of his tears drip onto my cheek. “Rest, I’ll bring you something nice for breakfast tomorrow morning.” He stands up and leaves me
I toss the journal at the wall when going back to that place feels too torturous. I don’t know if that memory can ever be blocked out. I think about the baby that I never got to meet every day. I think about the others there might have been if Addison hadn’t run away, and if Solomon hadn't taken away my ability to be a mother.
I don’t blame my sister for escaping, but I do blame her for not taking me with her. I blame her for the nights I had to take her husband's cock in my ass. I blame her for Solomon’s secrets, and I blame her for the fact I never met my child.
Days like today are hard, I want to scream, I want to go outside and kick down an outhouse like Mitch did, but I saw the way those doctors looked at me back in Colorado after I was saved. They wanted to lock me away, and if it hadn’t been for the bikers who were there that day they would have. Being here is a blessing, and I need to start appreciating it.
I leave my journal on the floor and head out the door, taking a big inhale of fresh air as I step off the porch and head across the yard to the outhouse that Mitch is fixing up.
“Ev—” He stops what he’s doing as I approach him, staring at me in shock.
“I want you to show me some of this place,” I tell him, standing tall and keeping my back straight. I meant what I said earlier this morning about proving myself to him, and I want new, happy memories to help dull out the bad ones.
“You wanna go explorin’?” I get the sense he doesn’t quite believe me when he tilts his head sideways and creases his brow.
“You said there were all kinds of wildlife around here, I want you to show me some.”
“Well, then, we best get started.” He drops the hammer he’s holding and moves toward his truck, opening the passenger seat door for me. My stomach starts to tie up in knots, but I smile and get inside anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, that's what Addison always used to tell me. But I don’t want to think about her, or where we came from right now. There’s a different feeling mixed up with all my nerves, one that I haven't felt since I was a child. I think it might be excitement.
Mitch drives us further away from the cabin, and when I see a huge ranch coming up in the distance I start to wonder if I’ve pushed myself too far.
“You're taking me to where you work?” I hear the horror in my voice because I know from what he tells me some nights that the Carson ranch is busy. There's sure to be lots of people there and although I’m feeling adventurous, I’m not ready for that.
“Only to get somethin’, we’ll be there five minutes. Tops. And ya don’t have to speak to anyone ya don’t want to,” he assures me.
“Everyone’s gonna know who I am. I’m the cult girl freak and I don?—”
“You're not a freak,” he cuts me off sternly. “And ain’t no one here's gonna look at ya that way.” He pulls up in a very busy yard, and I stay rooted to my seat as he gets out and makes his way into one of the stables.
One of the men who passes the window raises his hat at me and smiles, and I smile back awkwardly as I continue to wait for Mitch, breathing myself calm.
There's so much going on I don’t know what to look at first. Being here is a reminder that while I’ve been locked in a bunker and living inside my head, the world around me has carried on.
Mitch steps out the stable leading his horse, and when he opens up my door I feel my pulse start to quicken.
“I also told ya that the best way to tour the ranch is on horseback.” He reminds me, holding out his hand for me to take.
“You want me to ride him?” I look up at his beautiful, but very large, brown horse.
“We’re both gonna ride him. You ain’t gonna see no wildlife drivin’ around in a truck with a loud engine and a rattly exhaust.”
I take another leap of faith, gripping his hand and letting him help me out of my seat. I try not to take notice of all the people around us and focus on Mitch.
“Now, put ya foot in this stirrup and I’ll help you up,” Mitch instructs me, and I jump when I feel his hands lift under me and force me over the saddle. “Sorry, ma’am, there ain’t no polite way to do that.” He smiles up at me before taking the reins in one hand and lifting himself up behind me.
“Put ya hands here and hold on.” He places my hands on the front of the saddle. “Rest back against me, and just go with the rhythm of the horse.” He clicks his tongue and I hold my breath, closing my eyes as we start moving forward.
“Open your eyes, darlin’,” Mitch whispers in my ear. “You’ve spent long enough in the dark.”
I open them on his command and notice how everyone in the yard has stopped what they’re doing to stare at us, and suddenly I feel very exposed.
“What ya’ll starin’ at? Ain’t ya ever seen a cowboy give a lady a ride before? Get back to work,” he orders, before kicking us on and making us move a little faster.
I don’t know how long we ride for but the thrill of it quickly takes over all the nerves I’d built up. I know I’m safe with Mitch, and now we’re out of the yard it’s just me and him. I feel so free in all the space surrounding us.
The sky is bright blue and seems to roll on forever, there's nothing but mountains, trees, and pastures for miles. And I like how it feels to have Mitch’s arms wrapped around me.
“Sorry, there ain’t much about today.” He eventually brings us to a stop. “There’s a stream just through those trees, we should get JD some water.” He slides off the saddle and leads me and his horse toward the tree line. I grip the saddle a little tighter, knowing I haven’t got him for stability.
“It’s beautiful here, I can see why you’ve made it your home.” When we get to the stream he tethers the horse near the water and helps me down off the saddle. He sits on one of the rocks and I can tell from the way he’s frowning that he has something on his mind.
“I never really thought about goin’ any place else. This is the only home I’ve ever had and the only life I've ever wanted.” He frowns as he watches the water meander through the rocks in front of us.
“Well, I think it's perfect. It’s pretty and it's calm.” I take a seat beside him.
“Kinda like you.” He turns his head to look at me. “Now, do ya understand why I want you to see the world? There's so much more like this out there.”
“No one's ever gonna see the whole world,” I laugh, trying my best to lighten his mood. Up to now, I’ve had the best day of my life, I don’t want it to be ruined by him thinking he knows what’s best for me. “I think the world is what you make it, and you’ve made your own little paradise here.” I think back to the time when my world was in that bunker. I woke up every day hoping it would be my last. I became numb and unaffected by all the things Abraham did to me. I let myself believe that what he and Solomon did to me was normal. Now I’m away from it all I’m realizing how horrific it all was.
“You should make your own world too.” Mitch picks up a stone and throws it into the water. “Meet a guy your age, get married, have some kids.”
“I can’t have kids,” I tell him, picking up a stone myself and launching it at the water. It doesn’t go as far as Mitch’s but it does make an impressive splash.
“Sure ya can, you're gettin’ better every day. I’ll bet two weeks ago you would never have seen yourself sitting he?—”
“No, I mean, I can’t physically… It’s one of the things that was done to me back at the village.” I close my eyes when I see the horror on his face. It’s why I don’t speak to people about this stuff, it’s just as hard for them to hear as it is for me to say.
“They did that to you?” His hand grips at mine and his voice sounds just as shocked as it is angry.
“Unfortunately, they did, so there are no kids in my future. And I guess there’ll be no husband either because who wants a wife that can’t produce children?”
“Everleigh, you're not in the village anymore. People don’t think like that. Plenty of women who can’t have kids of their own still become moms. And men don’t measure women by how many kids they can give ‘em. They get married because they love ‘em and because they don’t want to spend a single day without ‘em by their side. Believe me when I tell ya, Evy, it won’t be hard for you to find someone to love ya.”
“And what if the person who I want doesn’t want me back?” I ask him, wishing I could know what goes on in his head and why he’s so determined to deny what this could be.
“Come on, we should get back to the ranch.” He stands up and dusts off his jeans, cutting the conversation before it even gets started.
We ride all the way back in silence, and for some of the journey I drop off to sleep with my head resting back against Mitch. That scent of hard work and leather seems to have become a comforter to me and I fear nothing when I’m with him, today is proof of that.
The yard’s much quieter when we get back and when Mitch lifts me down from the saddle, I follow him into the stable and smile when I see the horse he brought home with him yesterday.
“Hey, you.” I head over to stroke her and she blows in my face like she’s happy to see me.
I watch Mitch take the saddle off his horse and get him some water and can’t help admiring how good he looks while doing it.
The guys I saw out in the yard earlier may be younger than him, but Mitch seems to have something they don’t.
I’m starting to understand why the woman in the book Savannah gave me likes the things her man does to her, so much. When he touches his woman she doesn’t flinch, when he puts himself inside her it brings her pleasure not pain, and in one part I read he’d kissed her between her legs purely to make her feel good.
“You okay there, darlin’?” Mitch laughs to himself when he catches me daydreaming.
“Yeah… I’m fine.” I blush when he interrupts the vision I have in my head of him with his mouth on me.
“You’re lookin’ a little hot, you want me to get ya some water too?”
“Honestly, I’m fine.” I get back to stroking the golden-colored horse and try to ignore the strange pulse that’s beating in the pit of my stomach.