Love Me in the Dark

1. Leona

LEONA

P eering out the window over my cot, I scan the grounds surrounding the bunkhouse. Moonlight glints off razor wire just about as far as the eye can see from this position. The sight of it makes my blood run cold, and my self-hatred heats up until it’s about to boil over.

I can’t believe I ever saw this place as a sanctuary.

It’s painfully quiet at this time of night, with the only sound coming from the compound, the occasional crunch of boots as the guard on duty makes his rounds.

I never thought to ask why armed guards were patrolling what’s supposed to be a peaceful, religious community.

I was so glad to have a bed and a hot meal; I overlooked the red flags that were so obviously waving around by the end of my first day here.

From the window of my room, I have a view of the wide dirt road cutting through the heart of the compound.

It leads down to the main gates and up to the house where Rebecca and her son, William, live.

They’re probably sleeping in there right now.

I have to believe they are. People like them can sleep peacefully and comfortably because they are the ones with all the power.

They make the rules and can change them whenever they feel like it. No warning and no mercy.

I hope Rebecca is asleep now. It’s past midnight, and there’s a church service in the morning. I imagine she’s resting up before standing in front of her congregation and looking out over a sea of faces with that hard, glittering look she gets in her eyes.

At first, I used to sit up a little straighter when she started looking in my direction.

I wanted her to notice me. I wanted her to see how hard I was trying to prove I belonged here.

Like she didn’t make a mistake by picking me up off the street and bringing me to New Haven.

I wanted her to… be proud of me, I guess.

Now, straining my ears for even the slightest sound outside, I want nothing more than to escape. To never, ever come back here.

I didn’t feel this strongly until a week ago, the day after my eighteenth birthday. Sure, I was starting to get a funny feeling before then. Just a little. Like something was off. You don’t survive on the streets without honing your instincts. Mine have been driving me crazy.

Like, why are the men around here vaguely creepy all the time?

They’re always looking at me, all of them, and I know I’m not making it up in my head.

Because I’m not the only one they look at.

I’ve caught them watching the girls working in the gardens, staring at them from behind while they’re on their hands and knees pulling weeds.

I wasn’t raised super religious, but that doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t they, like, fight against lust?

Because that’s definitely the sort of thing Rebecca talks about during services. How we should all be good—pure. We’re all soldiers for the Lord. And we’re going to go out into the world and convince others to join us because ours is the true way.

It makes me shudder when I think of her pulling me up to the front of the room so I could testify to how desperate and awful my life was before she found me.

At the time, a couple of months after I came here, I was happy to do it.

I stood up there and said all the things she told me to say.

How I owed my life to New Haven, to God’s mercy, all of that.

The worst part is, I sort of believed it then. I even convinced myself that maybe if Mom had been more pious, she might still be alive. That it was her fault she died. I was that twisted up.

I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean it. It’s amazing what you can get a kid to believe when they’re starving and broke, with nowhere to live. Nowhere to even take a shower. When you’re in that desperate of a place, you’ll do anything to stay out of it for as long as you can.

The bag on the cot that’s been my bed for the past year holds only the things I brought with me: a couple pairs of jeans, T-shirts, and a toothbrush.

The basics, in other words, but at least I can say it all belongs to me.

The few things I still possess from my old life.

I always kept them under the cot, out of sight, afraid somebody would take them away from me.

Because once you’re here, you’re supposed to let all of that other stuff go.

The past. You’re supposed to be washed clean, ready for a new future.

But Mom bought me those clothes. Mom did my laundry for me and folded it when it was all clean. They’re all I have left of her presence in my life. I wasn’t about to give them up for anything.

I will have to go back to living on the street, but frankly, I would rather do that than stay here another night.

Because when I told Rebecca I was thinking about leaving a week ago, it was like I flipped a switch in her head.

She was always stern, sort of cold, talking about love and acceptance but looking at people like she was judging them.

The sort of person you want to impress not because you love them and want them to be proud but because you want to avoid them punishing you—like the kids who’ve been forced to skip meals for the stupidest little infractions.

She commands through fear. I realized that a few months ago, when everything started to look different. It was like I was seeing her through new eyes.

But her refusal—flat, cold, spoken like a judgment to which there could be no argument—opened my eyes wide. Like that one last piece of the puzzle fell in place, and I finally saw the whole picture.

Because why do you keep somebody from leaving a place like this unless there’s something you’re hiding?

“That is out of the question,” she said, almost with a laugh in her voice. “This is where you belong. With us. We are your family now. There’s no leaving family.”

That was when I started seeing the fences and the armed guards through different eyes. They’re not here to keep us safe from the outside world, the way Rebecca and her son and the so-called elders want us to think.

They exist to keep us inside. A reminder of what happens when you decide for yourself.

And once I saw that everything else was crystal clear.

Like how we’re all forced to go to those strange church services, even if we’re sick, we have to go.

And on the way in, the two men by the door count everybody—I finally figured out that was their way to make sure we were all where we needed to be. Everybody present and accounted for.

And dressed the way we’re supposed to dress. If you’re a man, you can get away with a lot.

If you’re a woman? I’m almost ashamed I didn’t think anything of it at first. I wanted to make excuses, to make it add up in my head. I mean, it didn’t seem like a huge sacrifice to not wear underwear. It wasn’t like they wanted us to be naked.

It’s enough to make me ashamed of myself. I hope Mom isn’t ashamed of me, looking down from where she is. I have to believe she’s there because I need somebody watching over me as I try to do this. I need to believe I’m going to get through it.

One excruciating minute passes, then another, until finally, it seems like the coast is clear.

I need to get moving before I lose my nerve—or worse, before a guard comes past or even something as innocent as one of the kids from another building going out to use the bathroom. I can’t let anybody see me do this.

First, I toss my bag through the window, waiting for the soft thump of it hitting the ground before hoisting myself up and wiggling through. It’s not a long drop, but I still have to clamp my lips tightly shut to hold back a grunt when I hit the ground.

The night air is cool, and the sky is full of stars.

That’s one thing about being out here, in the middle of nowhere, with only a few lights scattered through the compound.

There’s nothing to get in the way of all those millions of stars up there.

I might even miss it when I’m back in Reno. Somehow, I have to get back to Reno.

But first things first. Instead of trying to climb the fence and the razor wire coiled on top of it, I grab my bag and dash for the rear of the compound.

Behind Rebecca’s house and the gardens, there’s a brick wall instead of a fence.

I’ve kept my eye on it the past week after Rebecca refused to let me leave.

Wondering if I could climb it when the time came.

I spotted a couple of cracks in the mortar, big enough for me to wedge the toe of my sneaker into when the time came.

And the time has come.

I run as quietly as possible, my eyes sweeping my surroundings constantly. Not a single light is on in Rebecca’s house—a good sign, something I have to cling to as I duck between the rows of carrots and potatoes and finally come to what’s probably about ten feet of stacked brick.

Here goes nothing.

I find the lowest toehold and reach up to grasp the closest hole in the mortar.

And that’s when the sirens go off.

“No!” I can’t hear my own heartbroken cry over the high-pitched scream of the warning siren somebody waited to set off until I touched the wall. Like they wanted to drag this out to the final second. Waiting until I was almost sure this would work before bursting my stupid bubble.

I can give up now, or I can keep going. There’s really no choice to be made here.

My heart’s going to burst, but I have to try, so I do, scrambling as fast as I can and scraping my fingers while I do.

I reach the top of the wall by the time feet pound over the ground behind me, and I throw myself blindly over the side.

Only when I’m falling through the air do I remember that I have no idea what’s on the other side. It’s kind of amazing how many images can go through a person’s mind in only a second or two.

As it turns out, there aren’t pointy rocks or guard dogs or anything like that.

There are armed men. Two of them. Waiting for me.

“No, please!” But they’re already on me, snickering at my pleas. Their hands encircle my arms, hurting me, and something deep down inside tells me they’d hurt me much worse if I tried to fight.

There was never a chance. Rebecca is always watching.

By the time we reach the front porch of her house, somebody has cut the alarm. She’s waiting for us up there, wearing an ankle-length robe covering a nightgown with a neck that buttons under her chin. Always modest, staring down at me from the top of the steps the way she looks down on all of us.

“Lift her head,” she murmurs when I won’t look at her. One of the men gives my long, brown braid a sharp tug that aligns my gaze with Rebecca’s.

And it’s chilling. There is no light behind her cold eyes. Her thin mouth is twisted in an ugly scowl that makes the sweat covering my skin turn icy.

“Take her to one of the holding cells for the night. Get her out of those clothes and into a proper dress,” she adds, wrinkling her nose. “We’ll deal with her in the morning.”

I’ve been just about as low as a person can be over the past couple of years.

But this is the first time I’ve ever hoped tomorrow never comes.