Chapter 3
Rose
This weekend was a cup of joy poured over an already blissful life.
A siren wails somewhere behind me, the sound blurry and distant.
A woman in a navy suit strides past, phone pressed to her ear, her heels clicking against the sidewalk in a quick, impatient rhythm.
On the other side of the street, a line of kindergartners in yellow safety vests shuffles along, all of them connected by the same bright rope their teacher holds.
I’m swept up in the rich scent of freshly ground coffee as a café unlocks its doors.
A cool breeze snakes between the buildings, lifting the hem of my skirt and brushing my legs.
I’m wearing a mid-length navy skirt, boots, and a buttery soft beige sweater.
My hair falls over my shoulders and down my back, wild and free.
I never braid it anymore. I know Vox loves threading his rough fingers through it.
When anxiety claws at me at night, he runs his hand through my hair, and the nightmares loosen their grip.
The flower shop where I work is only two blocks from our home. It’s small and quaint, like it stepped out of an old cartoon. The windows are fogged around the edges from the warmth inside, and bunches of dried lavender hang above the door.
The bell chimes as I push the door open, and I’m greeted by the soft recorded song of birds. Olga’s favorite CD. It plays all day on a small old radio behind the counter, the faint crackle blending with the rustle of leaves outside.
“There she is,” she says with a smile, straightening her green apron.
Olga is in her sixties, beautifully timeless.
Her mid-length gray hair is twisted into an updo and magically held in place by a simple pen.
Today she wears a thick white Irish sweater and a black-and-pink floral maxi skirt.
Elegant and practical. Gold earrings gleam at her ears.
She told me once that her husband gave her a new pair every anniversary.
I smile at her, lift my hand in a small wave, and mouth, “Hello.” She never makes a fuss about my mutism.
I think half the time she forgets about it and loses herself in custom orders and color schemes.
I love watching her pace the shop, solving little crises with flowers.
I open the small Dutch door that separates the counter from the back room and step through to the lockers.
The air smells like damp soil and roses, with a faint bite of eucalyptus.
I shrug on my green apron and put my phone on silent.
A smile tugs at my lips when I see his text.
Vox
Have a good day, angel. I’ll pick you up at five.
He still tracks my phone, even this new one.
I’m the one who asked him to. Knowing he can always find me if something happens is like having my own guardian angel in my pocket.
I’m still getting used to the outside world.
The harsh sounds, the rush of people, the way strangers brush past me on the sidewalk.
Before, my whole life existed between the church, my house, and the Institute.
The real world was only a shadow at the edge of my understanding.
It took a month before I dared go out alone without Vox.
I felt exposed, like my skin was too thin, ready to snap at any moment.
Once, a jogger brushed my shoulder from behind.
He apologized and kept running, but in the space of that heartbeat, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.
I imagined him grabbing me, dragging me back to the Faithful Lambs, punishment waiting for my betrayal.
So I froze on the sidewalk. Vox saw me on his tracker and ran from the house.
It was only my second time out alone. I was supposed to buy eggs from the small grocery shop at the end of our street.
Instead, he found me trembling on the corner and brought me home.
There were a lot of moments like that, back and forth, until now.
The support group I attend calls it “readaptation.” I go once a month to sit with other survivors of spiritual abuse.
The room isn’t big but there’s always donuts and enough chairs for anyone brave enough to sit and share their story.
It brings me peace to know I’m not alone.
Vox often comes with me, his big hand wrapped around mine while we listen to others and the guidance the organizer gives.
So yes, readaptation is still ongoing. Healing is slow, but it’s happening.
I answer Vox’s text, then head back to the main room. The front of the shop glows with morning light, streaked through the glass and softened by the condensation. Cut flowers wait in tall buckets, stems submerged, petals open to the day.
“Three funerals, five anniversaries, and a dozen others, wait…” Olga steps closer, sliding on her glasses, which hang around her neck on a pearl chain.
She squints at the paper on the wooden desk.
“This one’s wrong, it’s supposed to be red tulips, not peach.
” I pull the small notebook and pen from my apron pocket and write, No problem, I’m on it. Anything else?
“All good, love. If you handle those, that’ll be perfect.
I’ll open in ten. Tea?” I nod with a smile.
It’s our Monday and Tuesday ritual. A cup of green tea before the doors unlock and the world walks in.
Pulling back a strain of hair, I then glance over the personnel messages from the orders Olga gave me.
With love, Thomas
For Grandma and Grandpa, Lola
My condolences, Henry
Good luck on your new job, Margie
To the love of my life, Jack
The steam from the cup warms my fingers as I read them.
All these people, living lives as tangled and fragile as mine.
None of us spared from loss. None of us spared from joy.
Everyone is fighting their own invisible battles and carrying mountains of grief in their chests.
Being a tiny gear in this big, strange, beautiful machine of life feels like being a little fairy, crafting a small treasure for a stranger somewhere to hold.
I put extra care into the arrangements meant for funerals.
It’s my way of trying to brighten the edges of someone’s hardest day with as much dignity as I can.
Olga watches me from the corner of her eye.
“Rose, I think, um, you’re done with that one love,” she says gently, but I shake my head. Some things just need more love and attention. If I were the one grieving, I would have appreciated it.
The day unfolds in a soft ballet of customers.
The doorbell chimes, footsteps echo on the wooden floor, and the shop gradually empties and refills.
Plants hang from the ceiling in ceramic pots, leaves brushing the air when the door opens.
On the left, dozens of different flowers stand in tall vases so people can compose their own bouquets.
On the right, small potted plants crowd the shelves, a miniature forest of green.
I listen to Olga chat with customers while I work, doing my best to make each bouquet as beautiful as possible, adding velvet ribbons and tiny wooden butterflies.
Hours slip by until Olga calls out, “Rose, darling, look. Your man is here.”
Lost in sorting tulips by color, I look up and see him.
My tall, dark knight stands outside the glass, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier on guard.
The gray sky behind him makes his black clothes appear even darker, his tattoos hidden under leather and cotton.
Electricity shoots through me, sharp and sweet.
I wipe my hands and clear my space as fast as I can, wave goodbye to Olga, and hurry to my fiancé.
He opens the door for me as I step outside and, with one arm, lifts me from the ground.
My toes barely brush the tiles as he presses a reverent kiss to my lips.
“Finally,” he breathes. “Waited hours for this.”
I grin. “Me too,” I mouth.
“Waffles?” he asks, and I nod, almost giddy.
It’s only five, and we have the rest of the evening ahead of us.
Some nights, he doesn’t make it home until I’m asleep, and I only feel the mattress dip, his body sliding in behind mine, his apologies whispered into my neck.
The club needs him. I understand. So I savor every minute we get.
There was a time when working at a flower shop and having him pick me up after, just to go eat waffles, existed only in my imagination.
A fragile daydream I used to cling to when despair wrapped around my throat.
Now it’s my reality. Something solid I can touch and wrap around myself.
Hand in hand, we walk through the streets of Seattle like any normal couple.
The air smells like rain and fried dough from a nearby food truck.
Neon signs begin to flicker awake as the sky darkens.
Freedom tastes like strawberries melting with chocolate, and calloused hands on my skin.
We pass a newspaper kiosk on my right. Vox’s hand is warm around mine, his thumb tracing slow circles over the back of it.
A shiver brushes my nape. Is someone watching me?
I search the crowd, my gaze landing on my right, where a newspaper stares back at me with the face of a girl I can’t quite place printed across the front page.
A long brown dress, a tight braid, her skin pale as a ghost. My blood turns to ice.
Why is she so…familiar? I dig through memories I often wish I could erase and finally find it.
She was younger than me. A freshman at the Institute.
I saw her in the corridors, always walking with her head bowed.
We never spoke. My gaze drops to the headline.
Survivor of the Faithful Lambs, a local cult from Tennessee: read her story. Page 12.
“Angel, everything okay?” Vox asks, but I don’t respond, pinned by the haunted look in her printed eyes. I tug at his hand and point at the newspaper.
Vox
What the hell is this?
I step toward the kiosk and grab the paper, sliding a bill to the old man behind the stand.
All I want is to shield Rose from whatever this is.
Protect her from the parts of her past that still sink their teeth into her.
Only I can’t. Not this time. I open the newspaper, scanning the article fast, dread crawling up my spine like a warning.
I already know she’ll read it. I already know I can’t stop it.
Back when she first escaped, Rose spent months researching the Faithful Lambs.
She stayed up late on my laptop, combing through every corner of the internet, desperate for proof that someone else had made it out alive.
She found nothing. Only propaganda. Praise written by the same people who trapped her.
So this is the first real thing. The first voice that mirrors hers.
Could it hurt her to read it? A weight pushes on my chest, almost unbearable.
Still, I hand her the paper. Inside, the article reads:
“I was cut off from the real world and forced to marry a man three times my age. Until recently, I had never used the internet or even seen a television screen. My food was rationed, and I suffered malnutrition and irreparable damage to my bones and health. I escaped before getting pregnant. I couldn’t live with myself if I had brought a child into the cult.
When our Leader died, I…”. I stop reading, wishing her past was behind her and not here, an article away, in my bare hands.
“You sure?” I ask, even though I already see the answer in her eyes.
Fear and resolve resting their hands on her shoulder.
As she reads, I search her face for any sign she’s slipping back into those shadows.
Her skirt moves in the wind, her hair brushes her cheek, but she stays rooted in place, holding her ground like she refuses to let her past shake her again.
A tiny crease forms near her eye. My girl's lips tremble before handing me the article back.
“I need to…meet her,” she signs. Her hands don’t waver. Every protective instinct in me screams no. My brain fires off every nightmare scenario, traps, manipulation, trauma, dragging her under again.
“I support you no matter what, but-” I run my palm on my face. “Just… give me a sec. What if- what if it’s a trap?”
“A trap?”
“To get you back?”
“I don’t think so,” she signs. “It wouldn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not. But…what if it was and they took you back and—”
“Vox…” she signs.
“You really wanna do this thing?” She nods again, and there’s no fear in it.
All I see is her determination gripping her heart.
“Okay,” I breathe, “but we'll do it my way. So I'm sure you’re safe.” She nods without argument and that alone tells me how much this matters to her. We walk the rest of the distance in silence before arriving at the waffle place. My gaze browsing the crowd outside, as if a man wearing odd black hats and a woman with braids could pop up from anywhere and take her away from me. I need to calm down. We’re far away from this shitshow.
Instead of rummaging, I focus on my girl.
Even if I always look like an elephant in a china shop here, the way she lights up every time we walk through the door makes it worth it.
“I’ll contact the newspaper,” I tell her. “Set it up somewhere we own.”
She lifts my hand and kisses it softly. “Thank you.” And that’s all it takes.
I’m done for. Later, we go back home. Rose gets started on dinner, while I lock myself in my office and get to work.
Calls after calls. Every favor pulled. When the newspaper ignores me, I move to Plan B: Pat, the private detective I rely on.
He’s discreet, fast, and most importantly, doesn’t ask questions.
An hour later, he sends me an address and a phone number.
Carolina Becket. 16 years old.
Live in Portland with her aunt.
(503) 555-7824
It’s three to four hours away. Close enough for us to reach.
Far enough that she’s truly out. I stare at the number for a second, thinking about what it means for Rose to dig up ghosts that should perhaps remain underground.
Maybe that’s the only thing I wouldn’t be ready to do for her.
If only she hadn’t asked me to do this. Nevertheless, I dial the number.
“Hello?” a young voice answers. I clear my throat, explain who I am and why I’m calling. A soft sound pulls my attention and I glance behind my shoulder. Rose stands in the doorway, head resting on the frame, gratitude shining in her eyes, a quiet smile lifting her lips.
Nah. I take it back.
There isn’t a single thing in this world I wouldn’t do for my angel.