Chapter 3
Sloane
Something was going on. There were stirrings around the compound. There was a shift in the energy that even I was able to feel despite my nearly outcast status.
I crept around the building that Ethan used as his main office, eyes darting around to make sure no one had seen me back here.
The last thing I needed was to be caught listening in.
My bruises had only finished healing mere days ago from the last beating I’d taken.
It’d been for a good cause—letting Abigail be punished by the men had been inconceivable—but it had still been hard for me to get out of bed for days afterward.
Bella, Abigail’s mother, and a few of the other women had been there to take care of me.
Bella had been nearly inconsolable when she’d seen the injuries I’d sustained on behalf of her daughter.
I’d gotten accustomed to the beatings. It went hand in hand with being an outcast. Ethan was so quick to beat the children into submission, and the zombie-like mothers were all too ready to let him.
I couldn’t blame them. They were good women at the core, but they knew if they interfered they’d receive the same treatment.
At this point I knew that any time I opened my mouth, I would get hit.
It was better me than the children. I’d learned how to, quite literally, roll with the punches.
To let Ethan’s blows land in the least damaging ways, thus I would walk away with bruises but no broken bones.
I wouldn’t forget though. I certainly wouldn’t forgive.
Make no mistake, I knew I didn’t deserve this.
I was doing this to protect the children, and the mothers who were still salvageable.
I took the beatings and whippings to keep them safe and alive until I could escape. Until I could get them all out of here.
The air was warm and still as I rose on my tiptoes to listen in at the window that had been left slightly ajar.
The summer heat had passed us by and soon winter would be settling in.
I was grateful the winters here would be so much milder than the last place we’d settled.
North Dakota had been brutal and though the Tucson summers were no joke I’d take them over those harsh winters.
We hadn’t been here long. The men were still in the process of erecting all the buildings and our utilities were still mostly temporary.
We were all grateful to have them, but we needed something more permanent if we were going to stay here long term.
It was always the plan when we moved somewhere new to remain permanently, but just the nature of our community ended up making us enemies.
We would settle in a place and inevitably be run out some time later.
Big surprise that Ethan and his ‘acolytes’ weren’t good at making friends.
“What happened?”
I froze at the sound of Ethan’s voice as he and his right-hand man, Jacob, walked into the room. This was it. I was about to find out what had caused the tension in the air today.
“I don’t know, Ethan. Chet isn’t answering his cell phone. I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”
There was silence as Ethan absorbed that information.
I wished I could see them, but honestly, after growing up with this group of people I knew them so well I didn’t need the view.
Ethan would be rubbing his jaw as he thought about why one of our newer members might have abandoned the faith, and with it, us.
“Do you think he’s betrayed us?” Ethan finally said, breaking the silence.
Jacob sighed. “I don’t know. As far as I can tell, everything is still where it should be and nothing has changed. That’s not really my field of expertise though.”
“That’s why we needed Chet, or more importantly, his cousin.”
“Exactly. The loss of Chet—as long as he hasn’t taken anything from us—is something that we can recover from. But losing Derek…” Jacob trailed off.
I wondered who Derek was—obviously Chet’s cousin—but why was this man no one seemed to know so important to our group? Rarely did Ethan place real value on anyone other than himself.
“It’s long past the meeting time.” Ethan would be digging his fingers into his temples right about now, something he only did when he thought no one was watching. “If we don’t have Derek then we’re going to have to find someone new.”
Jacob sputtered. “Ethan, that's…not going to be easy. That man had a plethora of skills that would have-”
“I’m aware of that,” Ethan snapped. “That’s why I’m going to initiate the backup plan. I don’t fucking like it, but it’s necessary.”
Silence fell again and I wondered if they’d left when I heard Ethan speak again.
“I’m calling for Derek Holden.” I held my breath and waited.
“I see. This is highly unusual, but I’m willing to give this a second chance as long as you can prove to us that you won’t be as unreliable as your cousin.
” Another lengthy pause. “Be that as it may, Chet has left us in quite the predicament. If you wish to secure the funds I’ve offered, you’ll meet my man in two hours at the address I’m texting to you. ”
It was all I could do not to pull my hair out by the roots. I couldn’t hear both sides of the conversation and my curiosity was killing me. What funds? Who was Derek Holden?
The sound of someone coming toward me had my head snapping in that direction.
I gave a little frustrated growl under my breath and backed away from the window.
I edged my way around another building as one of the men walked by, doing a sweep of the perimeter.
Once Bruce had come around and joined our group he’d convinced Ethan to secure our community better.
There’d been guns and round the clock guard rotations ever since.
It was a damn inconvenience for someone like me—who did her best to cause trouble as much as she could and not get caught—but I’d learned over the years to flit through the shadows, to pocket things here and there so I could squirrel them away for ‘someday’.
I lived in a cult. The Order of The Earth.
They didn’t think they were, but that was exactly what this place was.
They worshiped Ethan as though he were the reincarnation of a god on Earth.
Not a messiah, prophet, or anything remotely reasonable.
No, a god as flesh and blood, here on Earth.
It was ridiculous. It was insane. It was downright dangerous.
But I couldn’t leave. Not yet. There were too many here who needed my help.
Women and children who weren’t here of their own volition.
My whole life I’d been a part of this group. I was born into it. I didn’t intend to die here as well. It’d been years of planning and prepping, but every day, I did what I needed to in order to survive and prepare. I would get out of here. One day.
Today wasn’t that day. I hurried away from the main office and made my way across the camp.
Hissing as an errant cholla spine stabbed through my boot, I bent and carefully plucked it out before tossing it away.
Many of the women hated the desert. It was hot and everything poked, stung, prodded, and tried to kill you out here—even the damn plant life—but oh it was so beautiful, too.
The sunrises gave me life each morning. The way the colors painted the sky in their oranges, pinks, and purples was truly a testament to all the wonder that existed here.
The monsoons—while deadly—were such a need in this arid environment and they provided everything the inhabitants of the desert required.
I felt connected to the land here, loved it.
This was where I would make my escape and I’d disappear into this desert where Ethan and his group of nut jobs would never find me again.
I just needed to make sure I was ready when that time came.
“Sister Sloane!”
The cries of the children as I walked into the schoolroom made me smile. They were why I was still here. One thing about Ethan was that, though he refused to ever integrate us into whichever cities we lived near, he refused to live without amenities.
That refusal had been my salvation. My mother had believed in this life with her whole heart and soul. Even as a child, I couldn’t understand how any kind of god would want people living the way we did. The men weren’t kind, gracious, or pious.
My doubts were the first thing that had me learning how to sneak around.
I’d creep into Ethan’s office while he was occupied and use his computer.
This started when I was around thirteen years old.
I’d taught myself more than our pitiful excuse for a schoolteacher back then and had learned a little about the outside world.
Now the children benefited from the things I’d managed to learn.
There were still so many things I didn’t know.
I thirsted for the knowledge, but creeping around was getting harder and harder.
I’d finally realized that if I wanted to stay and teach the children, then I’d have to stop sneaking into his office.
There wouldn’t be any more access to the computer.
The kids were all I cared about. It had taken years of convincing Ethan that our children would be able to better serve The Order if we educated them on more than just life here.
He’d put me in charge of teaching them one day after he realized the decrepit old school teacher had done more napping than teaching.
Education was a fine line for Ethan. Too smart and people asked questions, learned to think for themselves.
That was bad for him. He needed devout, gullible, and unquestioning followers.
Too little education, and you wound up with mindless drones, not unlike a few of the men around here. Obedience was good, stupidity was not.
I was happy with my job here. Most of the time the men expected the women to clean, cook, and make more babies for The Order, so being a teacher gave me something to do.
It worked for Ethan because it was a means of control over me.
If I over-educated the children, if they learned to think critically and ask questions, they would get beaten. I had to be careful with my teachings.
Somehow, I’d managed to avoid the usual path for women in this community and I was still unmarried at twenty-two. Probably had something to do with the fact that I was a known trouble maker and most of the men didn’t want me. That was just peachy as far as I was concerned.
I didn’t want to get married. The men here were disgusting.
They thought they owned their wives and they mistreated them.
I’d known the majority of these men for most of my life and wanted nothing to do with them.
The women would flutter their lashes as a handsome man walked past. The only reaction I usually had was disgust. It made me wonder if there was something wrong with me.
I’d never giggled and flirted with a man, not even as a teenager.
Even though I wanted nothing to do with the men, I longed for children. It was why I bonded so closely with the kids. It wasn’t hard to deduce that I’d never have children of my own—I refused to give myself over to these cretins—and that made the yearning that much more difficult to bear.
Ethan often forced marriages upon our community, but he had yet to find a match for me. I hoped to keep it that way. As long as I was doing my job by teaching the kids they left me alone to keep planning my escape. I smiled and stepped up to the chalkboard that was at the front of the classroom.
“Alright. Where did we leave off yesterday?”
The chorus of voices answering me was music to my ears. They made this place bearable. I knew I needed to do my best to take as many of them with me as I could when I went. My heart sank as I thought about it, because I knew I wouldn’t manage to get them all out.