Chapter Two
I ease myself onto the bed that the Greene girl sat on before I crushed her throat, and I make myself as comfortable as I can.
My cane rests on the bed next to me as I drape an arm over my forehead.
I’ve been smart enough through all of these years to stay off his radar, and I have to maintain the secrecy until Dalton sends me word that Darby’s children are safely away from the house.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.
Instead of thinking about him so much, I need to gather myself.
My body hurts from all the walking I did to get to Dalton’s home. A small smile curves my lips, because I know this ramshackle of a domain had a woman’s touch.
Either he’s hiding her from me, or she left him.
That’s how it is with all Greene men.
Hide the wife so no one knows what truly goes on under their roof, and then wonder how they got away while they slept.
My eyes begin to flutter—fatigue finally winning the fight, I find myself thinking of the others.
I’ve seen so many of them following his mantra of love. Forcing themselves on their “wives” to keep the family line pure of any blood other than our own.
A soft sigh escapes me.
The bed I’m lying on should have been used for the same purpose, but Dalton is one of the few of us that knows it’s wrong.
Even if he’d never been taught any different.
___
“Shhh,” I put a finger to my lips of the little girl who’s walking slowly toward me. I can see so much of Darby in her that I know she’ll never tell him I was here.
“Okay,” she replies uncertainly, her tone soft, curious, and a little scared.
I rest my walking cane against the large oak tree and smile as she continues to cautiously approach me.
When she’s finally standing a few inches away, I settle down on the grass, my eyes quickly flicking toward his house, scanning all the windows to be sure he can’t see us here.
“Daddy went to town,” the little girl tells me. She’s smart; she knows what—or rather who—I’m looking for.
“Has he been gone long?” I ask her, wincing slightly at the pain in my side.
A dull reminder of my time spent in this hell that he constructed out of lust and deviance. Every now and again, my body reminds me that I’m no longer the woman I once was, and that I need to be careful.
She shrugs. “For a little bit.”
Then I know I have plenty of time. Luke Greene goes to town when food, water, and general supplies are running low, and he also likes to stop in certain shops and talk to any friends he’s managed to convince that he’s worth having a conversation with.
“What’s your name, honey?” I ask her, patting the patch of grass next to me.
“Skylar. What’s yours?”
“Jocelyn,” I reply with a smile. “But that’s our secret, okay?”
The little girl nods and holds up the pinky on her left hand. I loop my right pinky around hers, and we shake on it.
“You kind of look like Momma,” she says as she pulls her hand away. “Do you know Momma? Is she coming back?”
“Where did she go?”
I already know the answer, but I don’t want to believe it.
Darby went where all Greene women go when Luke decides we’re no longer of use to him.
“Daddy put her in the hole.”