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“Even if it’s not raining.” Zeke tapped the wheel. “Hmm, but naked rain dancing. I’m in.”
She snorted into her drink bottle. “That might be the moment I make my escape attempt.”
“What’s a little nakedness in the rain between cult members?”
Naked anywhere with Zeke would be—hmm, she rolled her lips, not thinking about that. “It’s a survivalist cult, not a nudist colony.” She hoped. There was so much they didn’t know. And shit, she was thinking about it. He’d been half naked on the bar top last night. He was premium male, made from A-grade materials, near-mint condition and his soulmate was missing out on his prime-time offering, and there was something tragic about that.
“Anything that’s negative about the leader, their beliefs or the cult itself is slanderous,” she said.
“Fake news.” He steered around a dead furry thing long barbecued in the middle of the road.
Wished she hadn’t seen that. It made her stomach roil. “Anyone who is outside the group is jealous, evil, out to wreck things and is therefore a threat.”
“Everyone inside the group has come to believe their old life was mad, bad and dangerous, also about to end at any moment, and only in their new life can they be truly safe, happy and fulfilled.”
The Continuers were effectively roadkill. “Everyone in the group has been subtly brainwashed, coerced, manipulated and lied to so cleverly they not only can’t tell, they’d be outraged if you suggested it. They’ve had their sense of self systematically broken down so they can’t function independently any longer.”
“Daily life is tightly controlled. Where you live, when you wake, eat, work, sleep is all prescribed.”
“Because you can’t be given the opportunity to think critically, challenge norms or question authority.”
“Leading to intense psychological stress.”
They fell silent. Her gut had settled; the headache was fading. She twisted her hair up in a loose bun. The sun was much lower on the horizon. When it set there would be a billion, billion stars and other than their headlights, the moon would be the only light.
In 1987, 31,000 men lost $4.5 million on a scheme that promised they could retire to a paradise tended by nude angels. In the thirty-plus years since, too-good-to-be true schemes kept popping up, and desperate, lonely people kept being suckered out of their savings.
Abundance was simply one of many elaborate nude angel schemes and it was time it was exposed. They just had to find a way to do it, without being suckered themselves.
Zeke shot her a look. “We’ve got this.”
She nodded. He’d done this before. He knew how to play this game, how to manage the stress they’d be under. And he knew how to read her uncertainty.
“I never got to see them live, you know,” he said.
It took her a second. “The Foo Fighters?”
He drummed on the wheel, humming the opening bars of a song. She knew that song. “The Pretender.” It was his personal anthem. She grabbed for her phone and plugged it into the car stereo, had it playing through the car speakers in seconds. It was the perfect song for the moment, all about being kept in the dark and insisting you weren’t like everyone else.
Zeke gave her this enormous delighted grin as the opening bars played and launched into the song with Dave Grohl, his voice dark and gritty, his hands alive and his knees jumping.
They were minutes from putting their lives at risk, facing untold unknowns for an indefinite period of time to save others, and he was rocking it out in the driver’s seat of a rental as if all of that was just a load of laundry.
He was the most extraordinary man. Her best, most constant friend. And the one thing she was certain about was that nothing had changed between them. She’d still follow his lead, and he’d still have her back.
Chapter Three
They had to leave the Foos on the highway. It wouldn’t look right to roll up to the gates of Abundance with “Long Road to Ruin” thumping through the speakers. Tempting though.
There was color in Rory’s cheeks now. Seeing her pale and a little shaky had made Zeke feel guilty for all of thirty seconds, before he remembered how a dash too much alcohol consumed in a safe space on the eve of giving up their independence to join a cult had made dancing with her a blood-roaring thrill.
They both had strong exhibitionist streaks. That bar-top dance had gone from a Coyote Ugly good time to Magic Mike simulated sex in a single hip thrust. Five or six delicious songs worth of extreme bump and grind on a plank of polished wood. Ghost-fucking, air-boning in front of their nearest and dearest. Mom had been yahooing the loudest.
Which made it unbearably arousing and terminally innocent at the same time.
That was his whole deal with Rory. She featured in every notable childhood escapade he’d ever engineered and way too many sexual fantasies he’d never admit to. She was the little sister who wasn’t. She trusted him completely, and no amount of wishing would make their ass-cupping, button-rubbing, twerking anything more than the best kind of fun.
The sky was streaked with peach light when the gate came into view. They’d been following the fence line for a good hour. The rest of the property was bordered by mountains and gorges. He veered suddenly, pulling in and turning the engine off when he spied movement in a watchtower at the gate.
