13. Prudence
Prudence
“I have never tasted chocolate,” I answer, and both women stare at me as though I have announced I’ve never breathed oxygen.
Nora recovers first. She reaches across the small table where the three of us have claimed a corner of the private room and squeezes my wrist. “We’re fixing that. Tonight.” She cups her hands around the sides of her mouth and hollers, “Lorcan,”
“We need chocolate,” Nora says. “The best you have.”
He vanishes and returns in under a minute with a small plate bearing three dark squares and a dusting of something gold. “Belgian. Seventy percent cacao. You’re welcome.” He sets the plate down with a flourish and winks at me. “Life-changing.”
I pick up the smallest piece and place it on my tongue.
My eyes close without my permission. The flavor is rich and deep—a bitterness that dissolves into sweetness and spreads across the roof of my mouth and down my throat like warm honey. My lips press together, holding the taste inside.
When I open my eyes, Saoirse is grinning. “That’s the face. That’s the ‘first chocolate’ face.”
“It’s wonderful,” I whisper. I reach for the second piece, then pull my hand back. Greed is—
No. I stop the thought before it finishes forming. Ronan told me I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I take the second piece and let it melt on my tongue.
“So,” Saoirse says, propping her chin on her fist, “tell us about you. All we know is that you two married fast and he’s walking around looking like a man who won the lottery.”
The question is warm, not an interrogation. No pressure.
I set my hands in my lap and consider what to say about the Enclave. All my life, I had thought it was Zion—a place of hope and salvation—and that we in the Flock were the righteous followers of God’s holy word. Yet, here, today, I find my previous beliefs no longer hold true.
“I was raised in a religious community,” I say. “We called ourselves the Children of Light. I lived there from birth until…” I pause, counting days. “Eight days ago.”
Nora’s hand finds mine again under the table.
“We grew our own food. Made our own clothing. We had no electricity, no telephones, no automobiles. I did not know what a television was until Ronan showed me one six days ago.”
Saoirse’s expression doesn’t shift into pity. It shifts into recognition—a tightening around her eyes, a nod so small I might have imagined it.
“Were you allowed to leave?” Saoirse asks.
“No. The outside world was forbidden. They told us it would damn our souls.”
“And Ronan got you out.” Nora’s tone makes it clear she isn’t asking.
“He married me in the yard to take me away from—” I stop. The whipping post. The scars on my back. Father’s pale eyes. “—from a punishment. He stood between me and harm, and he married me so they could not stop him from taking me.”
Nora’s grip on my hand tightens. Her hazel eyes are bright and fierce.
“Cillian did something like that for me,” she says. “Different circumstances. But the same instinct. These men—” She glances across the room toward the bar where the brothers are clustered. “They’re hard on the outside, dangerous, but fiercely protective of us.”
“Do you miss it?” Saoirse asks. “Any of it?”
I think about this with care. “I miss knowing what each hour holds. Everything here is…large, loud, and unpredictable.” I lift my gaze to both of them. “But I do not miss the fear. I do not miss the pain. No, I do not miss it.”
Saoirse reaches across and covers my other hand so both of mine are held.
Lorcan returns with three cups of something steaming and sets them before us. “You three look like you’re plotting world domination. Fuel is required for that. This is my special recipe hot chocolate.”
“Thank you, Lorcan,” I say.
“Anytime, new sister.” He ruffles the top of my head the way one would a child’s and disappears back toward the bar.
I lift the cup and sip. The hot chocolate is warm and sweet and thick, and I want to drink an entire ocean of it.
“Oh.” I set the cup down so fast it sloshes. “I almost forgot. Can we FaceTime?”
Both women blink.
“I love FaceTiming,” I explain, pulling my phone from the small clutch bag Nicholas gave me.
“Ronan taught me. You can see someone’s face even when they are far away and talk to them as though they are beside you.
I FaceTime Ronan many times a day. Maybe too much, but he says I can FaceTime him forty times, and he would answer every single one. ”
Saoirse’s mouth twitches. “That man is gone for you.”
“May we exchange numbers?” I press the phone toward them. “I would like very much to have others to FaceTime.”
Nora takes my phone and types her number in. Saoirse does the same, adding a tiny heart emoji beside her name.
“Tomorrow,” Nora says, handing the phone back, “I’m calling you and we’re going for coffee.”
“I know what coffee is.” I beam. “Ronan and I drink it every morning together.”
“Then you’ll love it even more when girlfriend gossip goes with it.”
Friends. I have friends.
Several of the guests in the private room have departed. I am warm from hot chocolate and conversation and the joy of my new friends.
I lift my head and find Ronan across the room.
He’s leaning against the bar with a glass of amber liquid in one hand, and he’s watching in a way that sends heat flooding through me—a heat I am learning not to suppress.
I smile at him.
He straightens from the bar, sets down his glass, and starts toward me.
“I think that’s our cue,” Saoirse murmurs, nudging Nora.
“Call me,” Nora says, squeezing my arm as she rises. “Or, FaceTime. Anytime. I mean it.”
Ronan arrives at my side and threads his fingers through mine. “Ready to go home?”
Home. The penthouse with its glass walls and warm floors and a bed I share with a man who I care very deeply for. Yes. I am ready.
He guides me through the main room of the pub, his hand on me the entire time. The crowd has thinned here too, but clusters of people remain at the bar and in booths, their voices a low hum.
We reach the entrance, and Ronan pushes the heavy front door wide for me. Cool night air rushes in, bracing and alive.
As I step through, I glance back over my shoulder.
My eyes catch on a woman standing near the far wall beside the coat rack.
Her clothing is plain. Long-sleeved, high-necked, the color of oatmeal.
Her hair is pulled back beneath a simple cloth covering.
Her hands are clasped in front of her the way we were taught to hold them during prayer.
Housemother Ruth?
She is still amid moving bodies, and she is watching me.
My lungs seize.
She holds my gaze for two heartbeats. Then she turns and melts into the crowd near the back hallway.
“Prudence?” Ronan’s hand presses firmer against my back. “You okay?”
She is gone. A man shrugging on his jacket now occupies the spot where she stood. The coat rack holds nothing unusual.
Did I imagine it?
I must have imagined it. My mind is overstimulated—new faces, new sounds, new everything. It constructed a familiar shape from the noise, the way a child sees monsters in coats hung on doors.
“I-I’m fine.” I turn back to Ronan and let him guide me into the night.
His arm wraps around my shoulders, and I press into his warmth. But an icy chill traces the length of my spine, and I cannot shake it loose.