11. Kara
11
KARA
M y legs throbbed. My chest burned.
I’d spent years basically doing nothing while my muscles withered away, and I ate to curb my depression. I’d never been a small woman to begin with, but now I was at my heaviest and trying to run through the darkness with the added weight of a five-year-old.
My lungs were going to explode.
The road I’d thought wasn’t really that far suddenly seemed like a million miles away. My steps slowed with every minute that passed.
Alice glanced over at me worriedly. “Do you want me to take her?”
I nodded and started to hand her over, but Hayley Jade’s fingernails dug into my arm.
This poor child. She’d been ripped from the safety of the only home she could remember. It was cold and dark, and she had no idea what was going on.
“I’ve got her,” I promised, picking up the pace again .
A clock ticked in the back of my mind, counting down the seconds until Naomi would raise the alarm.
A horn sounded somewhere behind us.
Alice and I both stopped dead, spinning around when lights came on and the members of our community all staggered from their homes.
In the distance, a group of men stood outside our parents’ house, Naomi talking frantically with them.
Time was up.
Neither of us needed to say a word. My burning muscles and breathless lungs suddenly ceased to exist, adrenaline coursing through me. I ran for the cover of the trees, following closely behind my sister, neither of us willing to be sitting ducks on the road.
I pushed my body, running harder and faster as the noises of the community and shouts of our names pierced through the night.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Alice mumbled, her eyes wide. “Hurry, Kara!”
I didn’t answer. I was too busy trying to keep myself upright. Too busy trying to keep myself going. Panic swelled inside me, and as if she could sense it, Hayley Jade held me tighter.
If this had been anywhere else, any other time, I would have relished the feel of her in my arms. She was so much bigger than the last time I’d been allowed to hold her. With every sharp inhale, the sweet smell of her hair filled my nose and took me right back to when I’d arrived back here with a tiny baby in my arms.
I’d been so stupid.
I’d gotten us into this.
It was up to me to get us out .
“Think, Kara, you stupid, stupid woman,” I muttered beneath my breath. But all I could do was put one foot in front of the other. I had no idea what we were going to do once we got to the road. The nearest town was miles away. We could walk, but it would take hours, and in that time the sun would come up.
Josiah would get his dogs.
He’d find us. Drag us back.
Make us pay for our disobedience.
This was not like the last time I’d left. Josiah had raised the stakes a hundred-fold, and not making it out now would mean certain death.
At least for me. I was his wife, and everything I did reflected on him and his leadership.
Maybe he’d spare Alice and Hayley Jade.
Maybe he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t catch us. That couldn’t be an option.
I broke into a run, pushing my exhausted body further than I ever thought I could.
Twigs snapped somewhere not too far behind us, and I stifled the urge to scream. They were catching up. Their flashlights lit up the darkness behind us, filtering out before it could touch us, but they were there. No dogs yet, but people called my name.
My father. My mother. Sisters. The other wives. Josiah. Their voices mingled until it was one big blur of terror.
“We’re nearly at the road,” Alice promised. “I can see it!”
I raised my weary head. Through the thick trees and the glistening moonlight, a paved road loomed ahead .
It was an empty stretch of asphalt, but in that moment, it looked like freedom.
I hurried, running faster.
“Kara!” Josiah’s booming voice cut through the night. “Where are you, sweetheart? Come back to us. Come back to the Lord, and He will forgive your sins.”
My fingers trembled, my footsteps faltering.
“Don’t you fucking dare listen to him, Louisa Kara.” Alice grabbed my arm. “He’s a fake and a phony and he’s been abusing you for years. Don’t you listen.”
I nodded, but it was hard. It was so, so hard when it was him I heard in my nightmares. When it was his voice telling me I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worthy to receive the blessings of the Lord.
Some part of me wanted to curl into a tiny ball and just let his dogs find me.
Let them rip me limb from limb until I was as nothing on the outside as I was on the inside.
I stumbled on a stick half hidden by fallen leaves, and a sharp pain wrenched my ankle. I went down hard, my knees crashing to the freezing ground.
Pain ricocheted through my entire body, but I cradled Hayley Jade from the brunt of the fall.
She cried out before I quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. My ankle screamed in agony, but I shushed the little girl, whispering reassurances into her ear. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Just stay quiet and we’ll be safe. Okay?”
“Kara get up,” Alice whisper-shouted, pausing and reaching back for me.
I shook my head, knowing I couldn’t go on with my ankle the way it was. “Take her. Go. Please, Alice. She can’t stay here!”
My sister’s determined face got in mine. “Neither can you. They find you, and you’re dead.”
Josiah’s voice filled the air. “Kara! It’s all going to be okay. Just come back to us and repent. Your sins will be forgiven if you bring the child back safely.”
To anyone else, his words might have sounded sweet. Reassuring.
All I could hear was the underlying malice. The vicious danger he barely concealed in his tone.
Alice knew it too. “For her. Get up and run, Kara. For your daughter.”
I nodded, pressing back up onto feet that protested my weight.
A flashlight shined in my eyes.
We were too late.
I closed my eyes against the bright light and pressed my lips to the top of Hayley Jade’s head, waiting for someone to rip her from my arms.
It didn’t come.
Only Alice’s low swear. “Kyle! Oh Jesus Christ, you scared the living shit out of me. Put that flashlight down before someone sees it!”
I blinked at my sister and the man standing next to her.
His face was rounded with youth, though he towered over my sister and me. He had to be around her age. Maybe eighteen or nineteen at most. I’d seen him at church, but he was the son of a newcomer, a family who had moved to the commune only in the last year or so and I hadn’t heard anyone call him by name .
I trembled in place, waiting for the young man to shout that he’d found the devil woman who was luring away Josiah’s flock.
But to my shock, he lowered the flashlight. His gaze fell on the ankle I was babying.
“She’s hurt,” Alice said urgently.
Kyle nodded once and moved to touch me, but I withdrew so fast it was like a rattlesnake had bitten me.
“Don’t,” I seethed, a warning beneath my breath.
“Kara!” Alice snapped. “He’s a friend. He’s trying to help.”
“He’s a man,” I said through gritted teeth, not willing to take my eyes off him for even a second. “You heard those men around the fire. You heard what they do. What they want when they think no one is watching. You know what happened to me.”
Alice got beneath my arm and slung it over her shoulder, taking my weight. “He’s a friend. I asked him to come. He has a car.”
Kyle nodded fiercely. “I want to help. Please. Alice told me everything.”
“Kara!” Josiah shouted from down the hill. “Kara!”
I stared into Kyle’s open, innocent face.
All I saw was danger.
But nothing was as bad as the danger that lurked behind me in the woods, slowly closing in on me.
“You have to trust him.” Alice shot terrified looks down the hill. “We don’t have any other choice!”
She was right.
With her help and guided by the dim light of Kyle’s flashlight, we made it to the fence .
I stared up at the prison-style fencing that was probably twice my height and made of chain-link metal.
Josiah had claimed we needed it to keep wild dogs out after some of our animals had gone missing. He’d sold it so convincingly that all the men had agreed, no thought given to the fact these fences might keep out wild animals, but they also kept us in.
Kyle pointed the flashlight at cuts made in the chain-link and pulled back the wire.
There was just enough space for a person to crawl through.
I stared at Alice. “How…”
She shoved me forward. “I told you! He wants to help. Go!”
I didn’t let myself think. I couldn’t make sense of this anyway. I just moved on autopilot, putting Hayley Jade down, crawling beneath the fence, and then turning back for her as Alice pushed her through.
I dragged her into my arms, the two of us standing there in the moonlight, on the other side of the fence.
We were out.
A sense of pride and achievement burst inside me, but it only lasted a second.
We were out, but that was only the beginning.
As he’d promised, Kyle had an old pickup truck parked just a few feet down the road. It was rusted, but in that moment, with Josiah and the rest of the commune closing in, it felt like the most beautiful mirage.
“Repent!” a chant started up from behind us. “Repent! Repent!”
They were too close.
I ran. Yanked open the back door of the truck and shoved Hayley Jade inside. Alice climbed into the front seat, Kyle behind the wheel and turning the key. The engine kicking over, blessedly promising a fast getaway.
“Kara!”
I spun, seeing Josiah cresting the top of the hill.
“Get in!” Alice screamed, spotting him at the same time.
I didn’t know Kyle from a bar of soap. For all I knew he was going to drive us right back to Josiah’s door.
It didn’t matter if I died.
I was more than halfway to making my peace with it. I’d been doing that every day since that monster had taken my baby from me.
But my little girl deserved to live.
Alice and Kyle were giving her a chance.
Giving us a chance.
I dove into the back seat, and Kyle put his foot down on the accelerator, the tires squealing in protest as we disappeared into the night.
Before we turned the corner, I twisted back to look through the rear windshield.
Josiah stood in the middle of the road watching us go. Flashlight gripped in one hand.
Shotgun in the other.