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Other people in the community have heard the ruckus and gather around to watch as I continue to yell.
“Come out and talk to me!”
Suddenly, the guard’s got his arms hooked around mine.
“Shut your mouth, initiate,” he growls into my ear.
I ignore him and continue yelling, “Noah! Come and face me, you coward!”
The people around me look on in shock as I’m dragged away from the door and down the steps.
“Let go of me!” I try to elbow the guy holding me, but he’s much bigger than I am, and it’s almost as if I’m hitting a rock. “I have to speak with him!”
I manage to wriggle away from his grasp, and I quickly run back up the stairs, refusing to give up. I slam the doors with both fists as hard as I can. “Noah, you listen to me! I know you’re in there! Tell me why you brought me here! Tell me who my mother is!”
A hand wraps around my wrist, pulling me down the steps again. “You’ll be punished for this,” the guard growls.
“No! I need to speak with Noah!”
“The patriarchs don’t speak to the likes of you,” he says, and he holds me tightly against his chest as he talks to me. “How dare you call out his name without his title?”
“Fuck you.” I spit on his face, and he wipes it off with disdain.
“You’ll pay for that,” he hisses. I’m sure it’s not just a threat, but I don’t care.
I’ve made my presence known, and the people here know I’m not supposed to be here. I can see it in their eyes, the fear of a newcomer. I’m an unwelcome guest in a house I don’t belong in, and they all know it. All I need to do is get them to act.
“You see how I’m treated?” I yell at the crowd. “I don’t belong here, and you know it! Noah took me from my world and brought me here into your community. He stole me away without telling me why. Is that what you want? Is that what you want to teach your children?”
I look at a woman standing in the crowd, huddling over her children, whom she protects with her arms, and she covers their ears with her hands.
“That’s right. Hide them away from the truth. You’re all monsters abiding monsters.”
“Enough.”
The voice at the top of the stairs makes us all turn our heads.
It’s Noah. So he did hear me.
The guard’s grip on my wrist loosens to the point that I’m able to free myself from his grasp.
He glares at me from the top of the stairs, just beyond the doors, which have opened a tiny sliver, just enough for a single person to slip through and speak to the masses.
“Everyone, back to your work. There’s enough to do,” Noah says to the crowd. “Show’s over.”
I watch them leave, along with my hope of ever getting out of here by trying to incite them to throw me out.
He tosses me a single glance, one that could bring any woman to her knees. And I swallow back the fear I felt in my heart the moment the guard grabbed me, hoping he’ll give me what I need.
“Take her back to her hut.”
What? No, that wasn’t supposed to happen.
“No, wait!” I yell as the guard grabs my arm and whisks me away. “Noah! You can’t do this!”
But he doesn’t say another word.
Instead, he turns around and goes right back through the door he came from, closing it shut behind him, shattering whatever hope I had left.
And I let the guard drag me all the way back to my hut without even fighting him. What’s the point? Not even Noah cares enough to stop him, so why should I?
He throws me inside, and says, “Stay here until someone comes to get you.”
And he closes the door behind him and locks me in.
They’re probably going to decide on my punishment now. I deserve it for being dumb enough to believe Noah would ever try to intervene, that he would even remotely care enough about me to stop the charade and talk with me.
He’s a patriarch, one of the leaders everyone looks up to. He can’t abandon the rules for a girl like me. Even though he’s the one who brought me here in the first place, he’ll still uphold the community’s laws … because he is the law. If he doesn’t listen to it, then who will?
Complete and total anarchy would ensue.
Of course he’d want to avoid that at all cost.
What was I even thinking, going to that temple all by myself?
Sighing, I sit down on the chair, trying to make sense of the jumbled mess inside my head. This place is already getting to me. I can feel it in my bones. I’m starting to fall in line, and there’s no way to stop it from happening. Assimilation is only a natural progression of life here in the community, and he knows it. It’s exactly why he put me through all of this … to force me to become one of them.
