CHAPTER ONE
ISABELLA
Pressing my back to the side wall of the church, I try to steady my breathing and stay quiet. Panicking would not help me now. I need to keep a level head and stay calm, or Willow has no chance of getting out of here.
I peek around the back and take a few seconds to make sure the coast is clear. It’s well into the early hours of the morning, everyone should be asleep for at least another two hours.
I quickly move around the back of the church before checking to make sure the coast is clear, then I run to the next building, and the next.
I can’t believe I’m sneaking into the wretched cult twice. I try to temper my anger as I think about my younger sister, Willow chained to the bed like a Goddamned slave when I tried to free her last week.
Getting the chain cutters wasn’t hard, but sneaking back in? That took precision and luck.
I’d gone to the cops, but they said they’d had multiple reports on our father’s cult but were unable to do anything about it. When they checked it out before, they didn’t see anything illegal happening.
Nothing illegal, my ass. If you considered forcing women to marry against their will then raping nothing, then sure, this place is totally legit.
Fucking pigs were useless unless they caught a suspect red-handed.
And in California, there were plenty of stupid criminals to keep them busy that a little cult with 100 people wasn’t worth their time.
I’ve been free from this hellhole for over six months, and my biggest regret is that I couldn’t find Willow to take with me. I left her a note so she wouldn’t worry. But I’ve been planning her rescue ever since. It wasn’t easy when I had no place to go and no food to eat.
I’m grateful for the woman who found me shivering in an alley early one morning and brought me to a women’s shelter she ran. I told her my story and she and two other ladies who worked there made it their mission to teach me everything about the real world.
I hadn’t even realized how much they’d lied to us at the cult until I started learning what life is like for everyone else.
The next building is the one I last saw Willow in, and I pray she’s still there and unharmed. I quickly move close and duck low under the window and listen.
My heart sinks when it’s a male’s voice I hear. It takes me a second to recognize it as Paul, my father's second in command and a real piece of scum.
“It’s been almost a week!” Paul yells in anger. “Why haven’t you found her yet?”
“You know I have men out looking for her.” I suck in a sharp breath of surprise, hearing my fathers voice again after so long. I get the sensation of ants crawling off my skin and the urge to run consumes me.
“You know where she is,” Paul yells back. “Find her sister, and you’ll find Willow.”
My eyes widen and my body tenses up even more. Willow is missing? Holy shit, did my sweet little sister actually manage to escape and run away?
Shit, I need to get out of here and find her.
Silently I start to move back the way I came, but the bolt cutters chose that moment to slip out the back of my pants, the metal making a loud noise as it connects with the bottom of the metal wall.
I’m not sure why I don’t just run, and instead stop to pick up the cutters, but it costs me valuable seconds. In that time my father and Paul and running out the door that’s just around the corner, a few feet from where I stand.
“Isabella!” my dad says in surprise.
“Grab her!” Paul yells as he lunges for me. But he’s old and I manage to duck out his way, but my dad moves to grab my arm. I swing the cutters, smacking my dad across the face and he cries out as he falls to the ground and grabs his face.
I spin, just as Paul reaches for me again and I kick him right between the legs then hit him across the face with the cutters, sending him to his back.
I’m not strong, and my swing wasn’t big, so I’m sure I didn’t break anything but their pride.
But I use that as my chase to run. I don’t stop.
Not when I slip back under the compound's fence, not when I make it to a main street, not until I have to slow to open the front door to the women’s shelter do I finally stop running.
Pressing my back to the wall I take a few deep breaths and wait for my adrenaline to drop.
I’m out of danger, but now there is a much bigger problem I need to deal with. Where the hell is Willow?
Continue in Chosen by their Mate by Shona Knight