2
By the time afternoon rolled around, she really wasn’t in a much better frame of mind.
From her hips down, she felt heavy and uncomfortable. She wasn’t particularly keen on the tampon, and her back ached as miserably as her wrist after Linnie examined it.
The good news was the cast could come off next week.
No more cumbersome, itchy weight dragging her arm down.
The bad news had come later, during the meeting led by Elias and Jasper. Anarchy and a woman called Tabitha, who had the same intimidating presence as Jasper and who was actually his sister, were also there.
It had been a short meeting; once Tabitha relayed the information that the community was no longer in residence, Tamsyn had freaked out and bolted back home to lock herself in the bathroom.
Jedidiah was on the warpath.
The community was built in the mountains for a reason, mainly the network of manmade caves tunneled into the rock. Whenever the elders got paranoid about discovery or a perceived threat against their way of life, they herded the entire population into the mountainside to live underground.
It had only happened once or twice to her recollection—those memories were hazy—but the elders were strict on being prepared, and every few months they ran drills, forcing everyone into the cave system for a week.
She hated those drills with a passion.
Food and water were rationed disproportionately. Beds were reserved for the elders and married couples while children and untraded women were left to huddle in their quarters with barely a handful of blankets between them. The lights were unreliable, run on generators kept a fair distance away from the population, and sanitation was… well, the less she thought about that, the better.
It was no coincidence that they’d gone to ground now.
Tamsyn’s prolonged absence was making the elders nervous, which meant the community was in lockdown inside the mountain, and Jedidiah was on the hunt. He wouldn’t stop until he found her—she was a loose thread, a continued threat to what he treasured most.
Daughter or not, he was going to kill her.
Even if he had to burn the world to ashes to do so.
“Tamsyn, open the door.”
It was the third time in the last half hour that Merrick had asked, but she wasn’t moving from her spot in the tub. The familiar terror she’d lived with for years was back after her month-long reprieve, seeping into her bones colder and nastier than ever before.
How foolish had she been to let her guard down? To let the perceived safety of this haven distract her from the fact she really wasn’t as free as she hoped? She was the product of a system which operated outside the laws of morality; a product with a chain around her throat and a vicious hand on the other end, willing to yank her back to captivity regardless of whether or not the pull broke her neck.
She was sleeping with a man who was not of the community, after running from the man who held her life in his hands. She’d given away what was not hers to give, stolen from the community and denied an elder his right to her body, broken the sanctity of her bloodline—the last of her family name.
When her father was finished with her, when the elders were done with their castigation, she doubted very much that there would be enough left of her body to use as a warning to the other women. The penalties they wreaked upon her flesh would be done in public instead, her pain and fear on display for all to see.
Her screams would serve as the warning, and she knew from experience how long the elders could keep a traitor alive, those screams hanging in the air for an eternity.
Something thudded against the bathroom door.
Huddling deeper into the tub, she bit her tongue as the wooden frame exploded inward with a thunderous crash. The door swung back with force, smacking loudly against the wall.
Blood hit her tastebuds as Merrick stalked over to her, staring down at her with concern. He didn’t say anything, just reached down and plucked her out of the tub, holding her tight to his chest.
She clung to him, seeking comfort from fear so intrinsic, there were no words to describe it.
He didn’t carry her into the bedroom, but took her to the living room instead. Settling on the couch, he made her straddle his lap, her tender butt on his thighs, and ran his hand up and down her back. “Been putting this off too long, Tamsyn. Maybe I’ve been reluctant to ask because it’s gonna cause you distress, and I’m afraid of what I’m gonna do to the ones who’ve made you so fucking terrified.”
She shook her head against his neck, but he just took her by the shoulders and eased her back until his eyes met hers, locking them in a hypnotically green stare.
“Like it or not, little owl, it’s time. We know what the community is, what they do, but your trauma is personal to you. Daughter to an elder, that probably means you were held to a higher standard, right?” His head cocked slightly, studying her when she didn’t reply. “Perhaps not. Just another female then, no different than the rest.”
That about summed her existence up in a nutshell.
“My mother loved my father.” The words shocked her. “At least, in the beginning. She thought he was different to the rest of them, even when he made the trade. It didn’t take long to realize he wasn’t, and just what kind of monster she’d married. Luckily, he seemed to have some fondness for her and while he wouldn’t break the rules, he wasn’t cruel. Not to her, at least. Not for a few years.
“I was born about a year after the trade. My father was thrilled to have his standing elevated when the elders discovered their female inventory was expanding by one, but my mother was not. By then, she understood the baser existence of being a wife, her lack of freedom, and knew what kind of life she’d sentenced me to, simply by having me.”
Merrick stroked her cheek. “You lost her.”
“We had a few years together, a lot of which I don’t remember. She spent a lot of time telling me stories, which were basically warnings in disguise, but my father caught on. His fondness twisted, cementing his loyalty to the community. I was six when she died; Jedidiah told me she committed suicide, hanging herself in the woods because she was so ashamed of compromising community values, she couldn’t live with herself anymore.”
“They killed her.”
She nodded miserably. “When I was twelve, I overheard some of the elders talking, laughing about how she’d danced from the rafters with broken arms, on legs smashed into pieces by their bats and bars. How my father, her own husband, had cut out her tongue as she screamed for mercy, before he opened her throat and watched her die.”
“Jesus fuck,” Merrick whispered.
“I loved him too, as a child. Loved him harder after my mother died. He was all I had left.” Anger began to trickle into her voice. “Six weeks after he killed her, he took his next wife. That forced a wedge between us, but it was finding out he was the one who killed her that severed my love completely. Because he knew my mother told me about how the community worked, he made promises. He broke them all, one after the other.”
Merrick’s eyes softened.
“The biggest promise of all was that if I followed his rules, behaved and conducted myself with immaculate grace and poise, he would allow me to live in his house without fear of being traded. If I served him and his wife, he would protect me. I did as he asked for fourteen years, Merrick. Fourteen years of hating him, pitying each of the wives he took to replace the last, and I was stupid enough to believe I was actually safe.”
“That’s why you ran away,” he said slowly.
“The women have a routine at night. Everyone shares the same bath to preserve resources. I was about fifteen or sixteen when I figured out that the schedule wasn’t random. On trading nights, the elders meet and the proposed buyer sits down with his chosen woman’s father or guardian,” she explained, feeling her bottom lip quiver. “The paperwork is signed at midnight, and the buyer’s bride is delivered to him before the twelfth chime sounds, as his wife.”
Now he frowned. “Wait a minute. So there isn’t a ceremony, vows, any legal paperwork involved? Rings?”
“No.”
“It’s basically straight human trafficking then.”
“I guess?” What did it matter? They went from being owned by their fathers to being sold to a husband. “On trade nights, the women who were at the top of the bathing list were taken from their beds before midnight. The night I ran away, I was at the top of that list. He finally broke that last promise. I’d seen him talking to Elder Frank earlier in the day, and I just knew…”
“Frank is the bad man?”
“Yes. He’s one of the richest traders—his family was one of the original families, like mine. He doesn’t trade to achieve community goals, he just likes to…” Tamsyn swallowed sickly, thinking of how many girls had fallen into his clutches. “He enjoys causing pain. He’s careless and rough, and he takes pleasure from making girls scream. Worse, he delights in killing them when he’s done. As far as I know, he’s never traded for anyone over the age of sixteen.”
“How do you know it was him buying you?”
A full-body shudder ripped through her from skull to toes at the memory of how Frank had looked at her once her father walked away from their discussion. Those dark, predatory eyes locking on her where she hid in the shadows, brightening with intent and evil promises. Fat lips curling into a smirk, his tongue lashing over them.
“The way he stared at me, like he could already see me screaming.”
“Christ.” He clasped her face in his hands. “You know that’s never gonna happen, right? He’ll never get his hands on you. Not him, not any of the others. Jasper is working damned hard to get the rest of the women away from that place, darlin’. What happened after you saw Frank and your father?”
Tamsyn leaned into his palms. “I had to keep going, pretend I didn’t suspect anything. I did my chores, I behaved as expected. An hour before the bathing chambers opened for the evening, I told my father I needed to stock up on supplies from the communal pantry for his breakfast the next morning, and that I’d go straight to the chambers from there.”
Jedidiah had sighed and rolled his eyes, she remembered, but given her his blessing.
“When new people join the community, they’re stripped of their belongings. Baggage, clothes, devices… anything that provides a link to the outside world. In accordance with community law, it’s supposed to be destroyed, but there is a trio of elders who miss certain comforts. They keep everything in a disused shed.” She closed her eyes. “I went there instead of the pantry and raided the clothes. Tried to fit as many layers on as I could. After that, I slipped around the back of the shed, down one of the paths my mother showed me when I was younger. She knew all the ins and outs of that place.”
“And you made your way down the mountain.”
“The boots were too big,” she said ruefully, “and even with all those layers, I was still so cold. I ran and ran until I lost the path. I knew if I stopped, they’d find me. If they found me, I would die. There wasn’t any other option.”
“No, there wasn’t.” Merrick stroked his thumb over her cheek until she opened her eyes again. “The cuts and bruises, your wrist…”
She offered him a tentative smile. “I can be clumsy. The fresh injuries were my own doing; I slipped and caught myself on a tree, then stepped on an icy root and… well, the world revolved a few hundred times before a tree broke my roll.”
Merrick grunted in exasperation. “Fuck’s sake, Tamsyn. The old ones, the scars?”
“Jedidiah, the other elders. Trades only have to be intact one way.”
He hesitated for a long minute before speaking, his eyes searching hers. “As long as you’re a virgin, nothing else matters.”
“It’s their holy grail.”
“They can’t police that, surely.”
“Elders are forbidden from touching females until the paperwork is signed—the penalty is death. Boys and girls are usually kept apart from a young age, although there are instances when kids will be kids.” She smiled again, sadly, as she recalled playing in the orchard with Elder Richard’s boys. How old had they been? Four, five? “Touching yourself is most definitely forbidden; the punishment for that is losing a hand.”
Scoffing in disgust, he shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. A hymen isn’t infallible, they know that, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. The only way you get traded is if you have one. If you don’t…” Tamsyn dropped her gaze. “The elders get their pound of flesh and the wildlife gets the rest.”
“I…” Merrick pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is so fucked up.”
She couldn’t disagree with him. Even though she’d been raised from a young age with all this as normal, her mother had made sure Tamsyn understood none of it was right, none of it was normal. Though her actions cost her the rest of her life, her mother had ultimately saved Tamsyn from a similar fate.
Without those early lessons, the walks through the compound and surrounding forest to the boundary lines, Tamsyn would’ve walked blindly into the trap, believing her father’s lies, falling victim to the elders’ pedophilic agenda.
“Wait a minute.” Lowering his hand, Merrick narrowed his eyes at her. “How do they make sure you’re still a virgin? Do they just take their chances on the night?”
Damn it, she should have known he’d sink his teeth into the part of the process she was deliberately withholding. The problem was, with those green eyes so serious and focused on her, she couldn’t even find the threads of a lie to pull together.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He weighed her up, then shook his head. “No, that’s not gonna fly today, darlin’. Not even a little bit. What did they do?”
Gnawing on her lower lip until he popped it free with his thumb, she debated telling him the truth. He’d already warned her he was going to take her back into that medical hellhole to desensitize her; if he knew the truth of how deep her fear was buried, he wouldn’t stop digging until he unearthed it all.
“Tamsyn,” he murmured, lowering his voice to a croon. “You can tell me.”
Of course, she could. It was Merrick —she trusted him with every part of herself. Her physical self was all his; some of the mental pieces, she didn’t trust in her own mind.
“If it hurts, it needs to come out. We can deal with it in the open, little owl.”
She shuffled uncomfortably on his lap, well aware the words were about to spew forth whether she wanted them to or not—that was his gift, damn him. The ability to pry open the subtlest cracks and squeeze out what he wanted to know.
“Once a month, we’re required to visit the community doctor, Elder Dinan. He’s the only one trusted by the hierarchy to touch untraded females. He’s been there forever, since before I can remember.” That was as far as her voice would allow.
“It’s okay, Tamsyn. I’m here, he’s not. Give me the rest.”
How could she not when his voice was soft and understanding? More than that—and she truly believed his voice was as effective as a leash around her neck—was the way his hand slid around her nape, squeezing lightly, drawing her mind away from the sick memories and guiding it to that simple connection of skin on skin.
“It starts when you’re twelve. As soon as you’re old enough to be traded, you’re scheduled to see him. For the girls who get traded on the eve of their twelfth birthday, Dinan is permitted to examine them the day before—another dead giveaway,” she said sourly. “A parent or guardian assigns a security officer to escort you to Dinan’s clinic and stand outside in case you panic and run. There are multiple punishments for that, including getting shot. Once inside, Dinan orders you to strip off everything before he makes you get on an examination table.”
Merrick’s fingers tightened slightly, but his face remained relaxed.
“He checks everything—heart, lungs, reflexes, ears, eyes, you name it. Anything and everything required for a wife to do her duty at a moment’s notice if she’s chosen by an elder. After that, he straps you down. Here,” she whispered, dragging her fingertips over her chest, then over her hips, “and here. Wrists, thighs, and ankles too. If you struggle or fight, he fastens your head down. He takes a blood sample to test for banned substances and then…”
“Then?” Merrick prompted gently.
“I don’t know.” Her breath shuddered out. “He sedates you. The next thing you know, you’re being carried home, fully dressed, by the security officer. No idea of what time it is, what day. No recollection of what happened after the needle slid into your vein. You feel dirty and violated even though nothing hurts. A month later, you go through it all again.”
“Well.” He kissed her forehead. “That explains a whole fucking lot, darlin’.”
Emotionally exhausted now, she sighed and leaned forward, pressing her breasts against his chest and relaxing into him. His hands instantly shifted to her back, stroking up and down as though he realized how much it cost her to tell him the sordid details.
“I just need you to tell me one more thing, little owl. Do you know where your father and the community are?”
She nodded, rubbing her cheek over his warm skin for comfort. “I don’t know where Jedidiah is, but I guarantee he’s out with a team, hunting for me. He won’t stop this time, not until he finds me. I’m too much of a threat now, so he’ll hunt until he knows I’m dead.”
“He’ll be hunting a long time then, won’t he?”
“The community will be in lockdown. We used to have practice drills for events such as this—emergencies where their reality is threatened by an outside source. There’s a path leading west from the compound that takes you to a rock formation about twenty minutes in. On the north side, there’s a concealed entrance. It’s small and narrow, barely big enough to fit one person at a time, but it opens up after about ten feet into a series of manmade caves that stretch underground. The community version of a safehouse.”
“They have a cave system at their disposal?”
She nodded tiredly. “Built decades ago. It’s a natural fortress, Merrick; no one can breach it without detection, and Jedidiah will have men guarding the entrance. Most of the elders are too fat and lazy to defend themselves, let alone the women, so they hired security to do it for them. Armed security.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it anymore, little owl. I’ll give the data to the relevant people and they can work out the logistics. This shit is all gonna come to an end soon, and Jedidiah’s empire is gonna crash and burn.”
Tamsyn settled her face into the curve of his neck, nuzzling her nose against his throat.
Maybe her father’s empire, his pride and joy, the thing he devoted all his time and attention, would hit the ground and implode. It was once her greatest wish to watch it do just that, standing in the middle of it as it all tumbled down around his head.
Now, all she could hope for was that it didn’t snare her as an added casualty before it all turned to rubble and broken dreams.