Chapter 37 Lara
Lara
My sister stirred, and I lifted my head as her eyes opened. “Lara?”
Tucked into the middle of Cassius’s bed, she looked so small. Too small for all the things she carried.
“Hey,” I said sleepily, lifting my head from the side of the bed. While there was definitely enough space for me to have slept next to my sister last night, I’d instead fallen asleep in the recliner that Cassius had pulled next to the bed for either me or him to sit in. “I’m here.”
“Where . . .”
“You’re safe.” I squeezed her hand, watching her absorb what I’d said.
Even when she’d woken up yesterday afternoon and ate, she’d still been so groggy from the cocktail of sedatives.
She’d asked what had happened, but could barely keep her eyes open to wait for an answer—one the meds would probably make her forget anyway.
This morning, though, all that was cleared.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Rach . . .”
“Please.” She looked up, her green eyes glistening. “I need to know.”
Carefully, I walked her through what happened yesterday morning.
Being brought to one of the cabins during the morning meditation where I’d found her.
Matthew helping us escape. Hiding at the campsite until the authorities arrived.
I left out what happened with Ben. Today wasn’t the day for that conversation.
“Oh, Lara. I’m so sorry—” Rachel’s shock cracked open into grief, and I immediately slid onto the bed and held her to me.
“Don’t apologize, Rach. Please.” I cupped her face, brushing her hair back. “None of this is your fault.”
Her shoulders shook with quiet, gasping sobs, and even though I told her not to, all she would repeat was her apology. So I let her. I held her and I let her grieve for what had happened and for what she’d hoped, because sometimes, that was all you could do.
I hugged her until her breathing finally started to calm and she drew back to look at me. “I just wanted to be better—to feel better about myself. To do better for myself.”
“I know, and they took advantage of that. They took advantage of you and all those other women, and they won’t ever do it again.”
“Something wasn’t right. I knew something wasn’t right,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “But I wanted it to be right, Lara. For once. I needed it to be right . . .”
“You’re going to get through this—we’re going to get through this,” I promised and handed her a glass of water.
She took the glass, but the way she stared at it . . . She was seeing something else.
“What is it?”
“They gave me a smoothie in a cup like this for breakfast. That’s the last thing before everything gets fuzzy.”
I frowned. Well, they were certainly consistent with their delivery method.
“They mixed a sedative in the drink. Those drugs can cause retrograde amnesia, so you forget some of what happened before they take effect,” I explained, and she brought the cup to her lips like she wanted to swallow down the memory before it made her sick.
“Where are the other women?”
“Getting the help they need,” I assured her.
“And Dr. Julia? Adam?”
“Dr. Julia was arrested, along with the rest of the men of Eden’s Children, and Adam is in the hospital.
But, Rach . . . his name wasn’t Adam.” Her eyes only grew rounder as I elaborated on James Braun’s journey to becoming Adam Eden, and those he’d preyed on and sacrificed along the way. Including, by the end, even Dr. Julia.
“I just . . . It almost still feels like I’m dreaming. That none of this is real—could be real.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe . . . you found me. I can’t believe you went to Calder.”
I braced, heart pounding, knowing we had to get to this part eventually.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
Her face was drawn as she admitted, “I know how that feels.”
Allen. The baby. I wanted to ask, but less than one day after being rescued from a cult wasn’t the time to dredge up the past, no matter how much it had shaped our future.
“How did he find me?”
I blew out a breath, unsure whether the story made me want to laugh or cry. “First, he tracked down Brandon, who told us about Wilderness Within, and then I called and pretended we were a couple so they would let us join.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped just as a knock sounded on the door.
“Can I . . .” I checked with her, and once I had her go ahead, I called, “Come in.”
I’d thought about this moment a surprising number of times in the last twenty-four hours. The moment when I’d be in the room with the two of them again. My sister and Calder.
A moment I feared would bring me right back to college and the knot in my stomach and the worry that I’d looked at him too long. That my sister would discover my crush. Moments when I was on the outside of their relationship and stealing glimpses in. Stealing fantasies of him.
“Rachel,” Calder said, keeping his distance from the bed and from us. “Glad to see you’re okay.” There was kindness in his voice, a gentleness with how he looked at her. But no intensity. No heat. Nothing like his gaze when he turned to me. “Lara.”
“Thank you, Calder,” Rachel blurted out. “Thank you for helping my sister and saving me.” She bit into her lip as it quivered, but wouldn’t let emotion stop her from saying everything she wanted to say. “I owe you more than a thank-you, and for much more than this.”
“The thank-you is more than enough,” he murmured and then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to have to ask, but the police are here and want to get statements from us about what happened yesterday. If you don’t feel up to it, I can have them come back—”
“No,” she insisted, sitting taller. “I’m okay.”
“I can tell them to come up here, if it’s more comfortable,” Calder offered as Rachel slid her legs off the bed.
She looked grateful, but refused. “Thanks, but I think I’d rather talk to the police from somewhere other than your dad’s bed.”
Calder and I shared a small smile between us, and then I took my sister’s hand and we followed him downstairs.
I was surprised Cassius had even wanted the police at his house, but when I mentioned it to Calder, apparently, Cassius had insisted; he hadn’t wanted my sister to have to go down to the station after what she’d been through.
That was how the Stones were, I realized. Hard to crack through, but once you did, they closed ranks around you like a fortress.
It took almost three hours before the two detectives finished interviewing the three of us, both unable to hide their amazement when Calder explained how we’d discovered not only the Eden’s Children compound but also the truth about the man leading it.
After they’d left, Rachel wanted to go for a walk, and I did, too.
I’d made sure to be in a separate room when I recounted what happened with Ben and how I stabbed him so my sister wouldn’t hear, but once I was done, even I wanted to be outside and let the fresh air clear the band from around my chest.
Colby volunteered to take us on a loop through the ranch. Between her pointing out the “sites” on the homestead, the tree house, the huge tire swing, the garden, and then introducing Rach to all her rescue animals along the way, it was an easy way to while away the time.
By the time we got back, Cassius had made dinner, and it wasn’t until after we ate that my sister and I ended up being alone again in Cassius’s bedroom.
“I should probably go back to my apartment. I shouldn’t be staying—sleeping—in his bed—”
“There’s no rush. Give yourself a few days. Please,” I begged. “I think Cassius might chain you here if I don’t.” I winced, wondering whether that had come out as wrong as I now thought it did.
Judging by the bright-red stains on my sister’s cheeks, that answer was a solid yes.
“Do you want something to read? I can grab a book from the library. Or a crossword? Calder has a whole stack in his Airstream. Or I can play an audiobook for you—”
“Lara.”
My heart dropped into my rib cage at her tone.
“Are you and Calder . . .”
She didn’t have a word and neither did I, but whatever the right word was, my answer was still the same.
“Yes.”
I was surprised how easy it was to say. Sure, there were a dozen reasons, not the least of which was a dozen years, why my answer shouldn’t have been a problem, but I still worried.
I worried because, at one point in time, she’d wanted to be with him.
I worried because he would’ve been a safe bet for her, and I didn’t want her to resent me for it.
I worried, but I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t ashamed. And I wasn’t guilty.
“Are you upset?”
“No, of course not,” she blew out the answer so quickly and easily, my chest caved with relief. Her lip trembled, and she looked about to cry again as she added, “If anyone has the right to be upset, it’s you.”
“What?” I sat next to her on the bed.
“Because I lied to you about him.” Her voice cracked and she blinked back tears. “Back in college, I told you a lot of horrible things, and I let you think they were about Calder, but they weren’t.”
“They were about Allen.”
Her breath tripped. “How did you know?”
My throat constricted to the point that I couldn’t swallow. “When we were at the retreat, we went through Dr. Julia’s files. It mentioned Allen, so I made Calder tell me the truth.” My voice dwindled to a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
She wouldn’t—couldn’t—look at me for several moments, and when she finally did, it was like she wanted to cry but just had nothing left.