17. Kara
17
KARA
H awk, Grayson, and I picked up Hayley Jade from school on our way home from our hike. Hayley Jade climbed into the back of Grayson’s car from the school pickup line and waved at all of us, a delighted grin on her face.
“You had a good day, sweetheart?” I twisted around from the front passenger seat to check her over.
Her hair was a mess, and she had a tiny smear of paint smudged on one cheek, but she nodded.
Grayson steered the car out onto the road, but in the opposite direction of the clubhouse.
I frowned at him. “Where are we going?”
“Hayley Jade seems like she needs a…” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Milkshake?”
She smiled widely.
“Candy too,” Hawk added, ruffling her hair. “She definitely looks like she needs some candy.”
I gave all three of them a disapproving frown, but it was mostly playful. She’d be on a sugar high for the rest of the afternoon, but I was on a high of my own and I wasn’t quite ready to come back down to earth yet.
Kyle’s phone full of my sister’s texts was waiting for me back at the clubhouse, along with the stress and grief of needing to read them all.
I could stand living in the bubble of happiness I’d found here with two men and a little girl for a few hours longer.
Hayden met us at a café not far from his work, and we all ate a ridiculous amount of sugar considering we were having dinner in a couple of hours.
But I couldn’t stop watching Hayley Jade. The way her eyes were bright. The way she lit up when Grayson asked her about her friends at school and she was able to make a few simple signs to tell him she was friends with two girls and one boy.
Hayden and Hawk both frowned at the mention of a boy, but I elbowed Hawk and kicked Hayden under the table, and both schooled their “overprotective dad” expressions into something more neutral.
But my heart saw it. The way all three of them were with her. Grayson had taken on more of a friend and teacher role, rather than a fatherly one. And that was okay with me, and clearly with Hayley Jade as well. I didn’t expect any of them to be her dad and I didn’t want to pressure their relationships in any way.
They would develop in their own time.
But Hayden, and especially Hawk, were gazing at my daughter like she’d hung the moon, and I knew in my heart while Hayden had loved her since the day she was born, Hawk had fallen for her as much as he’d fallen for me.
I smoothed her hair back off her face tenderly, and in that moment, made peace with the fact she might never speak again.
Even if that were true, I wasn’t to blame. I wasn’t the one who’d taken her from me. I wasn’t the one who’d made threats against her life, forcing us to run.
All I’d ever done was love her.
By the time we got back to the clubhouse, after a day away from the place and some time with the people I cared most about, I felt more ready to deal with the texts on Kyle’s phone. Hayley Jade tugged on Grayson’s hand, holding up a book Hawk, Hayden, and I had already read a hundred times each, but Grayson trotted after her into her bedroom, the two of them settling side by side in pink beanbags so he could read the story to her.
With Hayley Jade taken care of, I picked up Kyle’s phone, and yet again, lost myself in my sister’s whirlwind affair with a man who had probably killed her.
Golden:
You ever just feel like you don’t belong anywhere?
Tulip:
Every day. I don’t fit here. Never have. My sister is married to our spiritual leader. So she’s obviously the golden child in our family these days. The way my parents brag about her to every other member of the community is so gross. My other sisters aren’t much better. They all have their heads stuck up their asses, their only interests in marrying a man of the Lord and bearing his children. Yawn. I can’t think of anything worse. I need to get out of here before I end up in front of an altar, marrying a man three times my age.
Golden:
You have no idea how lucky you are to have a family. People who respect you. Care about you enough to want you married to a man who can take care of you.
Tulip:
Did you miss the bit about me marrying a man I don’t love? Or even like?
Golden:
I didn’t. But I focused on the good things about your family so I wouldn’t type words I know I shouldn’t.
Tulip:
Don’t be cryptic now. You know me better than that. You can tell me anything.
Golden:
You could marry me.
I nearly dropped the phone. My fingers shook. Hayden, with his arm around my shoulders and a cat on his lap, noticed my trembling and looked down at me. “Hey. What is it?”
I showed him the screen.
He swore low under his breath and pressed his lips to my head. “Just remember everything you’re reading is in the past. This isn’t happening right now, and this isn’t something you can save her from. That responsibility wasn’t ever yours.”
I nodded. “I know.”
But it didn’t stop me wishing she’d come to me. Told me what was going on. Wishing I’d been more available for her instead of so wrapped up in my own problems.
All I could do now was find this man and make sure he paid for his crimes.
I laid my head on Hayden’s shoulder and stroked my fingers through the soft fur of the cat on his lap, drawing comfort from both while I kept scrolling.
Tulip:
Are you serious? About marrying you, I mean?
Golden:
Don’t freak out.
Tulip:
I’m not. Much.
Golden:
In a good way or a bad way?
Tulip:
Is it crazy if I say good? Is it even crazier if I say I would marry you in a heartbeat?
It was like watching a train wreck in reverse. Knowing the inevitable impact and being able to do nothing to stop it.
Golden:
You would? You don’t even know me.
Tulip:
We’ve been talking every day for months. I know you better than some grumpy old dude who’s a friend of my father’s and needs a young wife to give him babies. If I married you, I couldn’t marry him!
Golden:
You don’t even know my name.
Tulip:
You don’t know mine either. That didn’t stop you from asking me to marry you. And it won’t stop me from saying yes.
Golden:
That’s crazy.
Tulip:
Maybe. But if I could get out of here and come to you, would you do it? Would you marry me?
Tulip:
Please. I don’t want to marry a man I don’t know or love. I can be a good wife to you. I can cook and clean. I can get a job somewhere to help support us. I just need somewhere to go when I leave here. I just need you to say yes. Please don’t leave me here.
My eyes welled with tears for how desperate she’d been to get out. I knew the feeling all too well.
Golden:
I want to marry you. But you don’t have to get out. I can come to you. Ethereal Eden sounds amazing.
Tulip:
No! I know you want a family who accepts you. I know you’ve never had that. But I can’t stay here. I want to travel the world. I want to see things. Meet people.
Golden:
People and things are overrated.
Tulip:
Not to me.
Tulip:
I’ll come to you. Somehow. I’ll figure something out. And then we’ll get married. Have babies. Create our own family. Together.
Golden:
Okay.
Tulip:
Okay? Really?
Golden:
I’m Xan.
Tulip:
Alice.
I scrolled right through the rest of the messages that were dated right up until the day we left the commune. My fingers shook violently as I opened the last few threads of Alice and Xan’s conversations.
Tulip:
Xan! You are never going to believe this, but stuff went DOWN during the night. BIG HUGE STUFF. I’m out. Oh my God, I’m so giddy I can’t even talk. If there’s typos in this message, I’m sorry, I can’t even blame my sore fingers. They’re all because I’m currently flying down a freeway, getting the hell away from Ethereal Eden. FOREVER.
Golden:
What? Are you serious?
Tulip:
SO serious. Josiah threatened Hayley Jade, so now I’m on the run with her, Kyle, and my sister. We’ll be in Providence in hours. You said you live near there, right?
Golden:
Yeah. Just across the town border in Saint View. I can’t believe this. Can I see you when you get here? Tonight?
Tulip:
YES! Where? Can we go somewhere fun? Somewhere where I can dance on tables and drink alcohol?
Golden:
You aren’t twenty-one.
Tulip:
Shit.
Tulip:
If I can steal my sister’s ID, we can still go? Please? I am so full of adrenaline right now I can’t even sit still. I’m trying so hard to play it cool so my sister doesn’t suspect anything. She’d never understand if I told her about all of this. She’s so scared of everything out here. Even her own shadow, it seems. I thought she was going to hold my hand to cross the road when we stopped at a gas station. I just want to stick my head out the window like a dog and scream that I’m free.
Golden:
Don’t do that. I’ve got some things to take care of in the city tonight. Can you get there?
Tulip:
YES!
Golden:
Text me when you get to your sister’s place.
Tulip:
Oh my God. I can’t wait to hear your voice.
Golden:
Alice?
Tulip:
Yes?
Golden:
I love you.
Tulip:
I love you too, Xan.
Tulip:
We’re here. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to meet you.
Golden:
Sneak away as soon as you can. Meet me at Sixth Street in the city. It’s a club. I can’t wait to meet you either.
Tears flowed freely down my face, my heart breaking.
Hawk squished onto the couch with me and Hayden and took the phone from my fingers. “Stop. It’s over. We give this to the cops and let them handle it.”
“It might not mean anything,” Hayden said softly. “It still could have been Josiah or one of his guys who killed her. She might have gone to meet this guy there and been intercepted before they could meet.”
“But if that’s true, why are there no more messages from this Xan guy? Why do they all stop that night? If she hadn’t turned up, wouldn’t he have called her? Texted her?”
Hayden looked as hopeless as I felt. “Maybe. But Hawk’s right. We need to give this to the police so they can handle it.”
There was nothing else I could do.
The clubhouse door swung open, and Kyle and Kiki stumbled through, their arms around each other, both of them a disheveled mess. Kyle had a hickey on his neck the size of a small planet.
We all stared at them, and they straightened up.
Kiki pulled at her short skirt so it stopped riding up her long, toned thighs. “Oh. Hi, everyone. Good to see you. Did you have a nice day?”
Hawk sniggered. “Maybe not as nice as you and Kyle seem to have had.”
Kyle grinned at him. “I got laid.”
Kiki slapped at him playfully, but her giggle was cute, and she clearly didn’t mind he’d just advertised their business to everyone.
Hawk raised an eyebrow. “Kiki popped your cherry, huh?”
Hayden pointed at the refrigerator behind the bar. “Grab yourself a beer. Losing your virginity should be toasted.”
I glanced at him and whispered, “Seriously?”
He shrugged back. “Just trying to make him feel included. It’s tough being on the outside around here. You wanted him to fit in, right?”
Hawk sniggered. “He fit his cock right on into Kiki’s pussy.”
“I did!” Kyle called, raising his beer into the air in victory.
Kiki laughed and dragged his hand back down. “Sweetie, I know you’re riding a sex high right now, but you lasted all of two thrusts. Don’t get too braggy.”
I couldn’t help my laugh, and it mixed with those from the guys.
Kiki slapped Kyle on the cheek. “Don’t worry. You’ll get better with practice. You’re cute, so you can practice on me anytime you want.”
Kyle’s cheeks went pink, but he dropped onto the opposite couch and pulled Kiki down onto his lap, pleased as punch with himself, even if Kiki had just brought him down a peg or two with her honest assessment of his skills.
I was happy for him. He sipped his beer, seeming more at ease than I’d maybe ever seen him. He was a nice kid. If only my sister had seen that in him. If she hadn’t gone out that night to meet this Xan guy, maybe she’d still be here with us now. A ball of emotion lodged in my throat, considering all the what-ifs.
“You know what I don’t understand about Alice’s texts?” I mused out loud to distract myself from the tears pricking the backs of my eyes. “She mentions multiple times that her hands are sore.”
Hawk shrugged. “Lotta physical labor on a farm.”
“The men do most of the hard, manual labor at Ethereal Eden.” Kyle ran his fingers absentmindedly over Kiki’s bare thigh. “The women do a bit of gardening and feed animals. But mostly they’re cooking or at the women’s center. Maybe she did a lot of bread kneading or hand-washing on the days she mentioned having sore hands?”
I shook my head. “No, she specifically mentions typing. But Josiah confiscated all computers and devices years ago.”
Kyle shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a woman thing? My mom always complained about having sore hands at night too.”
I glanced over at him. “She did?”
“Sometimes she had to ice them. They got so bad at one point Dad asked Josiah if he could get in a wrist brace for her.”
“Did he?”
Kyle’s face clouded over. “No. He told my father a woman’s pain was necessary to bring new life into the world or some rubbish like that.”
Hayden squinted. “Was she giving birth at the time as well? For fuck’s sake. I can’t even think about that prick without wanting to stab something.”
Something clicked in my head. “Kyle, what did you just say about a women’s center?”
He frowned, his brown eyebrows pinching together. “You know, the big building where all the women who don’t have young kids go.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Kyle’s frown deepened. “I guess because you only ever came out of your house for church. But it’s the big building they erected a year or two ago at the back of the property so Josiah would have an office.”
Something wasn’t making sense. I knew Josiah had an office because it had been a blissful relief to have him out of the house. But him allocating a whole building to women, who were the lowest rungs on the totem pole at Ethereal Eden, didn’t compute in my head. “What do the women do in there?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I assumed they were knitting or playing cards or something—”
That didn’t fit at all. “Josiah isn’t that generous. He wouldn’t give women a place of their own just to congregate and socialize. He believes a woman’s place is in her house, ready to serve her husband at any time.”
Kyle paused. “What are they doing in there then? My mom goes there every day.”
I didn’t want to guess in front of him for fear his mother’s job at the commune was similar to the service I’d seen Shari performing the night we’d left. She’d taken men into the woods so they could use her body however they saw fit. A command from Josiah who was recruiting new members by showing them what they could have if they joined him.
But Kyle must have seen the expression on my face. “You think Josiah is having them do something bad in there?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I hope not.”
Kyle pushed to his feet, pacing the room, his face twisted in agitation. “She never wanted to join the stupid cult. It was my dad who dragged us there. That’s why she let me keep my phone and snuck me recharge cards whenever she went into town to sell vegetables at the market.”
“You need to call your parents,” Grayson said softly, coming out of Hayley Jade’s room. He glanced at me. “She’s watching something on her iPad.”
I nodded, but my head was too full of questions to be too concerned about the amount of screen time Hayley Jade was having right before bed.
She was safe. That was more than I could perhaps say for the women at Ethereal Eden.
Kyle paused in his pacing, leaning against the wall and considering Grayson’s words. “I haven’t spoken to them since I left.”
Hayden shifted his weight, his mouth pressed into a concentrated line. “You think they won’t take your call?”
Kyle shook his head. “No. They will. I deliberately didn’t call them because I didn’t want them to have to lie for me if the police questioned them about where I was. But if she’s being forced to do…something…against her will…” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and dug the heels of his hands in on top. “I feel sick.”
I picked up the phone and went to him, pressing it into his fingers. “Stop. None of this is your fault. We don’t even know if anything has happened just yet. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just call her and see if we can get some more information from her.”
He bobbed his head in agreement, taking the phone. “What do I do if my dad answers? It’s his phone.”
Men were the only ones allowed any sort of technology in Ethereal Eden, and even then, it was strictly limited to men higher up in the ranks.
“Just tell him whatever you think he needs to hear.” Grayson perched himself on the armchair. “Just get him to let you talk to your mom.”
Kyle’s face was still a mess of doubt, but he pressed his thumb against the screen a few times, and then the ringing tone came through the speaker for all of us to hear.
“Hello? Who’s calling, please?” It was a man’s voice, deep and rumbly.
I didn’t recognize it, but then I’d barely spoken to Kyle’s dad. How could I when I was locked in my house most of the time? I was beginning to realize I knew very little about what had been going on around me.
We all turned to Kyle as he sucked in a breath. “Dad? It’s me. Kyle.”
Mr. Baker let out a large breath of air that sounded a whole lot like relief. “Kyle! Really, it’s you?” His voice cracked with emotion. “Son, your mother and I have been so worried about you. Where are you? Are you safe?”
Kyle ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I’m safe. I’m staying with some friends.”
Like the initial, guttural response to his child making contact had passed, or maybe it was the reminder there was a whole other world outside of Ethereal Eden, Mr. Baker suddenly went cold. “You need to come home. Immediately. Josiah wants to speak with you urgently.”
Hawk rolled his eyes, but Kyle remained composed, keeping his focus on Grayson, who nodded at him, encouraging him to agree to whatever his dad wanted.
“I will, Dad. Soon. I promise. Can I talk to Mom, please?”
Mr. Baker paused, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. That it was a sin for women to make contact with the outside world without Josiah’s permission. Some of the women were allowed into town once a week to sell vegetables and homemade baked goods at the local market. Josiah always made a big show out of bringing them up to the altar on Sunday mornings during church and giving them special blessings to protect them while they were outside the Ethereal Eden gates.
“John! Is that Kyle?”
The woman’s voice came down the line, screechy and panicked.
I held my breath, hoping Kyle’s dad wasn’t as brainwashed as all the others and he would have enough heart to let a mother speak to her child.
“He’s fine. He’s—”
“Kyle?”
Kyle’s face crumpled at the sound of his mother’s voice. Despite the fact he might have just lost his virginity, he suddenly looked like a kid who’d had a lot of bad things happen and his mother was the one person who could make them better. But just as quickly, he glanced at the guys all staring at him, and Kiki watching on from the couch, and he pulled himself together, straightening his shoulders. “Mom.” His voice only held the barest of cracks. “I need to talk to you, but I need Dad not to hear it. Can you get away from him?”
There was a pause. Then she said to his dad, “The line is crackly. I need to go outside, I think, where the reception is better.”
“I’ll go with you.”
We all winced.
But his mom had it handled. “I have dinner on the stove. I don’t want it to burn, someone needs to stay here and stir the sauce. I’ll only be a minute and I’ll make sure nobody sees me with the phone. I promise.”
That would have never flown with Josiah. He would have backhanded me in an instant for so much as thinking about asking him to do a menial job like stirring a sauce.
But Kyle and his parents hadn’t been a part of the cult as long as some others had been. His dad had risen through the ranks quickly, as a lot of men his age did, but maybe there was still some part of him that remembered his life pre-Josiah and he wasn’t mortally offended by cooking.
Or maybe he actually loved his wife enough to give her something she desperately needed.
Josiah didn’t love anyone but himself, so he would never.
Mr. Baker sighed. “Just for a few minutes. I need to leave for the council meeting soon.”
We didn’t hear a response, but a moment later there was the sound of a door closing and then his mother’s hushed voice came down the line. “I’m alone. What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“Mom, I’m good. I swear, I’m safe, and I’m with friends. But we need to know something. What happens at the women’s center?”
She paused. “What? The women’s center? Why do you want to know that?”
“Kara and I found—”
“You’re still with Kara?”
He grimaced at me apologetically. But there was no point worrying about it now.
I racked my brain, trying to think of her name, and eventually it jostled free in my head. “Joan, hi. Kyle is good. He’s safe. But we really need to know what happens in that center. My sister said her hands were sore from whatever goes on there, and Kyle says yours are too.”
Joan breathed heavily into the phone. “We’re forbidden from telling anyone. Even our husbands.”
I eyed the others, realizing we might have stumbled onto something big. Maybe even something that could help us get Josiah locked up. At this point in the game, I didn’t even care what he went to jail for. If he wasn’t the one responsible for Alice’s death, he still deserved to be locked away for life for the abuse he’d inflicted on me, and for the countless other crimes I was sure he was committing within the cult. His hands weren’t clean in any capacity. It was just finding the proof and taking concrete evidence to the police so he couldn’t charm his way out of it.
“Please, Joan,” I begged her. “I need to know what my sister was involved with before her death. Anything you can tell me helps.”
Her voice dropped until it was barely more than a whisper. “We just do needlework…”
“No, you don’t.”
“He’ll kill me if he finds out.”
I let out a long, shaky breath. “He might kill you anyway. Look at what happened to Alice.”
I could see Joan’s face in my head, long brown hair always tied neatly off her face. Warm brown eyes, the same as Kyle’s. She was a tall, slender woman, one who blended into the background, just how the men of Ethereal Eden expected their women to be. I understood what I was asking of her. It went against everything she’d been brainwashed to believe.
But Joan was strong enough to fight it. “The women’s center is filled with computers. We type all day, every day, except for Sundays. Hours and hours of typing.”
That fit with what we knew from Alice’s messages. “Typing what?”
“Josiah calls it spreading the word. We use chat and dating apps to create relationships with people on the outside.”
I squinted, mulling that over in my head until it made sense. “So you’re like the people who come to your front door to talk about God?” I’d had some conversations with people like that when I’d first left Ethereal Eden. Two women had knocked on my door and wanted to speak about the Lord. They’d handed me brochures and told me I should read them. I’d quickly thrown them in the bin and hadn’t answered the door the next time they’d come calling.
“I wish that’s all it was. I could get on board with that.” Joan’s voice shook.
“Mom, please. Tell us. We need to know what Alice was involved with. If this is something to do with what got Alice killed, then you and all the other women are in danger too. I have friends out here. We can help you. Get you out.”
His mom’s breaths increased. “You can’t do that, Kyle. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill all of us. He gives us scripts. We form relationships with men or women, it doesn’t matter. We lie, make them think we’re people we aren’t. I’ve been an older man, a younger woman, whatever character I need to play in order to gain the other person’s trust.”
“For what purpose?” I interjected with a sinking stomach.
“Money, mostly. We trick them into sending us cash. Often this is how new members find Ethereal Eden. If the conversation starts seeming like the person might be open to joining, we push in that direction, filling their heads with ideas of how accepted they’d be within our community. How women would be looked after and men would be powerful. Everything depends on the target and what they might be lacking in their lives.”
“It’s a honeypot scheme,” Hayden muttered. “Fucking hell.”
I didn’t know what that was exactly, but it couldn’t be anything good. From what Joan had described, what Josiah was making them do was fraud at the very minimum.
There was a noise on the other end of the line, Kyle’s dad calling for his wife.
Joan whispered into the phone, “I have to go. But Kara, are you still there?”
My stomach swirled with a sick feeling. “Yes.”
“Your sister is involved.”
It didn’t surprise me. “Which one? Naomi or Samantha?” They were both such good, Ethereal Eden women who worshipped the ground Josiah walked on. It didn’t even surprise me they were involved with this. If Josiah had told them it was the Lord’s will, then they would have offered themselves up in a heartbeat.
“No, not them. They were both wed in a marriage ceremony a few weeks ago and are in their honeymoon seclusion period.”
The three-month period where a wife was not permitted to leave her home for any reason other than church. It was where she was expected to get pregnant with her husband’s child, and was therefore expected to be ready to receive his seed every day until that baby was conceived.
I shuddered at the memory of my own. Though unlike the other women, who mostly got pregnant during that time and could then live a more normal life, I’d been basically living five years of honeymoon seclusion hell.
Joan’s voice whispered down the line. “Jacqueline.”
My youngest sister’s name cut through my dark memories.
“What about her?” I asked, not making the connection, my brain triggering dark images through my head and making it hard to remember what was right here in front of me now.
Kyle’s dad shouted for her again.
“I’m worried for her safety. Something is going on. I see the way Josiah and his circle stare at her, and there’s nothing holy or respectful about it. They’re planning something, and she’s at the center of it…”
My heart thundered. “She’s a child!”
Joan’s voice was rushed, barely above a whisper. “That’s not the worst part. They use images of her to draw men in. Naked—”
I slammed my eyes shut, squeezing them so tight they hurt. “No!”
Joan stopped. “I have to go. I’m so sorry, Kara. None of us want this, I assure you. I was horrified the first time they gave me her photos to use, but there’s nothing we can do. If you can do something…anything to get her out… Kyle? I love you.”
The call ended before any of us could reply.
I couldn’t breathe. My skin crawled like bugs were covering it, and I scratched at my arms, fighting the horrible feeling.
Arms came around me, all three of my guys surrounding me, reminding me I was safe.
Reminding me I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart again. I’d come here a shell of a woman, and they’d built me up into something more than I ever could have dreamed of.
Now it was my turn to stand on my own two feet and fight alongside them.
She was only thirteen. Barely a teenager. Definitely not yet a woman. And my husband was abusing her.
There was no time for berating myself. For beating myself up over not taking her with me in the first place. I’d tried, and I’d failed.
I couldn’t do that again.
“We need to go get her,” I said quietly, but with a strength I didn’t think I’d ever heard in my own voice. I sounded like Rebel. Like Bliss. Like Queenie. Like a woman who had power and wasn’t going to let a man take it from her ever again. “We’re going back to Ethereal Eden. We’re getting my sister, and any other woman who wants to be free.”