18. Sawyer
SAWYER
Iwas wrong to think the fresh air would help. It does nothing for my racing thoughts.
Luna’s hand locks with mine as we walk the path toward the Nurturer’s side of the compound, the sun high and warm in the sky despite her chilled fingers. Somewhere beyond the trees, people spread blankets and toss balls on open grass.
For once, I wish it would rain.
When a muscle tugs in my palm—sharp, involuntary—my fingers jump like puppets on a string. I clench my hand to mask it, squeezing Luna tighter than I mean to.
Instead of flinching or tugging away, she turns her head to look at me. I keep my eyes forward, fixed on the Nurturers’ compound.
Wooden cottages line up in neat rows, housing bundles of girls—all girls—along with their surrogate mothers, women in green tasked with ‘bringing up the young’ so as not to distract biological parents from their roles.
Or, more likely, to prevent families from escaping together—children the ultimate tether for the disillusioned parents.
Sick.
Clever.
“What are you doing?”
I turn to Luna, brows pulled together.
She points to her mouth. “You’re like, chattering.”
I am?
I am…
Shit.
My jaw slackens as I prod my bottom lip. “Kind of cold out here.”
“Is it?” A gust of wind lifts hair off her face as she scans. It settles back like snowy strands coating the faint pink of her cheeks. It’s a face made for winter, the human equivalent of a snow angel.
Then the light catches her eyes.
“You know, it’s okay to have quirks,” Luna says. “I have quirks too.”
Quirks…
I assume she means the dresses spaced evenly in the closet. My shoes lined up at the door. Dirtied rags folded neatly by the bathroom entrance. Baseboards scrubbed stark white.
Quirk wouldn’t be the word I’d use.
And yet, I seriously doubt anyone called Luna Rainman for all of junior high.
My eyes drift ahead at the sound of youthful, high-pitched screams cutting through the trees. Angry screams, not scared. Girls arguing over a game.
“You know you talk in your sleep?” Luna asks.
I’m thirty-nine years old. Yes, I know I talk in my sleep.
The girls having the yelling match appear up ahead. Braids cheated by opening her eyes while Pigtails hid the doll abandoned on the ground.
“At first I thought you might give something exciting away, but you just spit out random numbers.”
They’re not random. They’re never random.
When my spine shivers, I roll my shoulders. I clench my jaw so my teeth won’t tap.
“Your eyes kind of glaze over when you walk,” Luna continues. “Are you—”
“Look.” I point to a treehouse poking out of the forest. Luna’s gaze follows my finger. “Let’s see if we can get a better view of the compound. I’ve never seen it from above.”
I don’t turn to face Luna, but I can see her staring at me from my periphery. She flicks out a “sure,” her hand subtly pulling from mine.
Neither of us say anything as we make our way through the cluster of trees. Luna is first to the rope ladder leading to the wooden platform above, and doesn’t pause for a moment before starting the climb.
I follow behind her, my hand steadied beneath Luna’s ass in case she slips. But it’s me who wobbles as the rope stretches and groans beneath my weight. The ladder twists and sways while Luna climbs with an annoying amount of grace, leaving me behind.
When I reach the platform, she’s already seated, legs dangling over the edge, hands folded in her lap. I haul myself onto the wood beside her and flex my hands until the sting of rope burn eases.
My gaze points forward while I work to relax my features. I’m careful not to give Luna anything else to read.
The yelling girls in the distance seem to have made up. Six or so run around in hand-knitted gloves and hats, playing what looks like an altered version of Hide-and-Seek.
“Did you like Hide-and-Seek when you were a kid?” I ask.
Luna sits with her hands tucked beneath her, her gaze observing the game below. “No.”
“Really?” I ask with a raised brow. “That was, like, my favorite game.” When she says nothing, I plant my palms on the splintered wood and lean back.
“I was good too. We had a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and every Friday night, we’d go to the pier and play either Hide-and-Seek or flashlight tag for hours…
What games did you play when you were a kid? ”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” With a light chuckle, I nudge her tensed arm. “Surely you played something.”
She doesn’t turn to me. Doesn’t appear to be searching through her memory bank. Instead, she continues to peer out at the children below. Transfixed.
“Look,” Luna begins, “if you want to talk, that’s fine. We can talk about anything you want. Anything to delay going back to the…”
Training room.
She wipes her palms on her knees. “But please don’t expect me to open up to you. If you don’t want to tell me anything real, fine, but don’t try to pry into my life.”
“I just told you something real.”
Her head falls back in a laugh—short and dramatic. Without looking at me, she shakes her head, a smile lingering as if she’s truly amused.
I feel my eyes narrow, tongue stroking my teeth. But as a minute stretches, my lips curve with hers.
I don’t know how she caught the lie, but she’s not wrong to assume I would.
The kids around the neighborhood would’ve kicked my ass if I’d tried to play with them, but I did watch them through my bedroom window. Every Friday night.
When seconds pass without Luna speaking, I move my gaze forward and try to ignore her. The top of the electric fence peeks behind trees, maybe a hundred yards or so away. The Nurturers are nearest to the border, the obvious location to scout for escape. And also the most guarded.
My eyes scan, counting the Keepers at various posts, my brain churning through a backup escape plan. But when Luna sighs—light but audible—it tugs like a cord in my gut. She rubs her arms as if suddenly cold. Or self-soothing.
I try to go back to the ground below, but the twist in my stomach pulls so tight, I hardly see anything.
“What is it you’d like to know about me, Luna?” My tone is flatter than I mean it to be.
“I don’t know,” she says, voice low. “Something. Just not another lie.”
She tucks hair behind her ears and glances at me—hopeful, I think. “I’m alone and I’m scared. And your mind games are cruel. They make me feel like I’m going crazy…. “ She exhales a shaky breath. “I just want a break from them. Five minutes. Please.”
Her voice breaks on the word and scrapes across my eardrums, her gaze so pitiful, I can’t help but break away.
“It can be anything,” she prods. “Like… who do you see during the day?” she asks. Innocent. On the surface. “You’re always showered when you come back… Do you have friends here or…?”
Pity loosens its grip on my chest. My jaw follows.
She almost had me.
“I already told you, my way out is my way out. My friend is no use to you.”
“You don’t know that,” Luna insists.
“I do know that.”
“Then why would it hurt to tell me?” She flings her hands, swatting the air. “Why is everything off limits?”
I huff a laugh, palm grinding up my forehead.
“Because you’re fishing for information and pretending it’s companionship.
” I twist my body toward her. “You want honesty? Then be honest. Don’t give me this boo-hoo, ‘I just want to talk’ bullshit…
If I could help you escape, I would. But I can’t. So this fit of yours is pointless.”
She whips toward me. “What was the name of your childhood pet?”
What?
“Who was your best friend when you were seven?”
I laugh. “You trying to get into my bank account?”
“What’s your favorite Beatles song? What flavor of ice cream do you hate? Do you have any hobbies? Did your first love break your heart?”
My mouth shuts, lips thinning.
“See?” she yells, voice booming, disrupting the children’s play. “You won’t tell me anything.”
“Lower your voice, for God’s sake.”
“Or what?” she barks—half amusement, half pissed. “What more pain could you possibly cause me?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”
Her face freezes, head rearing back slightly. With a hand over her mouth, she turns away. A curtain of hair veils her face as she hunches forward. Time stretches while I watch her sadness slowly unfold. She starts to cry—soft whimpers blooming to sharp gasps.
If we were in the training room, I don’t think it would bother me. But here, in the sunlight, I feel my face fall.
Fuck.
I look down at the girls, still hard at play. A Keeper’s head is tilted up, like he’s watching Luna and me, but no one moves toward the treehouse. Part of me wishes they would. If only so we could go back to the training room and pretend this walk never happened.
I would go easy on her, I think. Though I know I shouldn’t.
Every defiant word is an indicator that she needs more conditioning. Needs to be pushed harder. Longer. With fewer breaks.
We only have a week left, and she isn’t close to ready. Giving her mercy now would be setting her up to fail later.
But…
Minutes linger while Luna continues to cry. I just listen. Wait for it to stop.
Think.
Debate.
Argue with myself.
Then finally…
I wrap my hand around the back of my neck, my heart pounding pathetically hard, my palms pathetically damp. “I have anxiety.”
Her cries fade. The curtain of hair shifts.
“The school nurse sort of diagnosed me with it as a kid. I used to get horrible panic attacks and chomp my teeth so hard, they’d chip. It was a problem, but uh…” I wave a hand like I don’t know what to say. “I had this thing that I did to relieve racing thoughts.”
Luna’s eyes peek at me as she gently pulls back her hair, her spine lengthening. She drags her leg onto the platform as she faces me.
Again, I shrug, which is too many times now.
“I just … counted shit. Like how many steps it took to get from my front door to my bedroom or how many bottles of beer were on the coffee table. The more random shit I catalogued in my head, the more in control I felt. And the teeth thing…” I point to my mouth as if she needed the clarification. “It’s just leftover from that.”
Luna nods more times than necessary. Her lips are pursed like she’s skeptical, but her eyes are kind. Far kinder than I deserve.
“It doesn’t sound that random,” she says.
I smile as if amused and have a blow-off remark on my tongue, but I don’t release it. Not for her.
I don’t know that her father was an alcoholic like mine, but I do see parallels. I see fear. Abuse. A little girl who learned to scan for danger. How to lie for survival. A girl desperate for control—raw knuckles from overwashing, a bed made too perfect for the military.
I gesture at the kids. “My childhood didn’t look like that.”
She follows my gaze. “Mine either.”
I pat her thigh and leave my hand there as I stare out at all the green. The Northwest has always been too cold for me, but I can see why people love the trees.
“Is the money really worth more than my life?” she asks. Too confident to be manipulative. Too soft to be bitter. “I mean, you’re a billionaire, right?”
Was a billionaire.
It’s been a year since I’ve seen that money.
“How many of us have to be sacrificed before you’re rich enough?”
“Careful, Luna. We’ve already bickered.”
“I’m not bickering.”
Her voice is so full that I turn to her. She blinks, big, red eyes peering up at me as if I have all the answers she needs. As if she genuinely wants to understand. If there’s an ulterior motive, I can’t see it.
“I haven’t sacrificed anyone for money.” My chest sinks with an exhale.
“That isn’t what my island was about, and that was never my intention with you.
The money the cult has isn’t for me. It’s for a promise I made someone, a long time ago.
It has the potential to save millions of people and keep their families, their homes, and their minds…
So yes, it’s worth more than your life. It’s worth more than my life.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m sacrificing either of us. It just means you’re not the reason I’m here.”
“But you can take me with you.”
“No.”
“Why?” she whines, the single syllable full of defeat.
She flinches as I lay my hand on hers, grasping it like it's delicate. My thumb smooths over the back of her hand as I bring it to her lap.
I open my mouth, intent on telling her the truth, but I can’t see what good it would do. It’d only hurt her more. It’d only reveal the extent of my selfishness.
I know the way out… But I can’t take Luna with me because she’s my key to the money. Or more accurately, her ceremony is. That’s the only time all of the Keepers are in one place.
When Luna shifts impatiently, I clear my throat and spit out the first half-truth that comes to my mind. “The money is hidden within the mines, and it’s too dangerous for you to come with me to get it… As soon as it’s in my possession, I have to go. There won’t be time to come back for you.”
I watch the disappointment sink her face. Her hand pulls away from mine, her arms crossing.
“What exactly are you planning to do with the money?” Her voice is small, cautiously curious. It loosens my chest and brings my focus to the tension in my shoulders. I roll them back before flexing my neck.
“Doesn’t matter,” I finally say, turning to her. I blow out a breath and frown. “All that matters is that I’m sorry… While I’m here, I’ll do everything for you that I can.”
She bites her bottom lip and just stares at me for several excruciating seconds while I await her judgment. What a pussy I am for wanting her understanding. What a monster.
When she lets go of her lip, her throat contracts. The nod she gives is one of pure resignation. “If you won’t take me with you, fine… But no more training. If you’re leaving soon anyway, what’s the point?”
The point…
Staring into Luna’s eyes, no less strong, fiery, determined than they were two weeks ago… I don’t know.
She’s a survivor, but she won’t survive here. Not like this. Not in three weeks. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to prepare her. Right now, it couldn’t be more clear.
Some women just weren’t meant to be broken.
“Okay.”
Luna pulls back, crystal eyes dancing over my face. “Okay?”
I nod.
“As in no more—”
“No more training room… No more sex.” I force a smile as I tell myself I’m giving her a kindness instead of setting the clock on her execution.
“What are you going to tell the um … Aurelius?”
I shrug. “I’ll figure something out. I could say the camera broke or something… Don’t worry about that.”
She nods, and with the relief on her face, you’d think I just made all her problems disappear.
“You know this means you’re going to have to fake obedience with them?” I watch her carefully, searching for a sign that she understands the seriousness of this. When she gives me a small smile, I’m certain she doesn’t. I feel no less guilty than I did before.
She scoots toward me, the corners of her eyes crinkled with misplaced gratitude. As her delicate hands slowly circle my torso, I open my arms for her and cradle her to me.
I’ve lied. I’ve manipulated. I’ve deceived.
But never before have I felt like a bigger imposter.
She has no idea what’s coming