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“What the fuck? He chose you? How old was that asshole?”
“I don’t know. A lot older than me. Maybe fifty.”
“Jesus. Motherfucker. I can’t believe your mother would allow that! How could anyone allow that? That bastard should have been strung up!”
“Mama didn’t have a choice. Women were supposed to do as they were told in the cult. As I grew closer to my sixteenth birthday, she started getting nervous. We’d both kind of hoped I’d be given to one of my friends.”
“What?”
“They wouldn’t have done anything,” she said hastily. “They would have protected me.”
He swore again and climbed off the bed so he could pace back and forth across the room. She’d expected him to react badly, but she hadn’t quite expected this.
His hand ran over his face. “He really would have forced you to marry him? Would have raped you?”
“He didn’t see it as rape. He . . . I didn’t have a lot to do with him before then. But the day after my birthday, he summoned me to his house. He lived in luxury, while the majority of us were in these shacks. He told me how my life was going to be. I was going to be subservient to him. I’d do whatever he said. If he wanted sex, I was supposed to just lie down and . . . and let him. I wasn’t to talk unless he spoke directly to me . . . the list went on.”
“That fucking bastard!”
“I thought he was going to rape me that night, but whenever the Deity took a new wife, he . . . he would have sex with them in front of everyone. So they could see that the marriage was consummated, and that she was a virgin because there would be blood.”
“Not all virgins bleed.”
“I guess they do when he fucks them,” she said bitterly.
“So you left?”
“Yeah, we had to. I didn’t want to go and leave my friends behind. It felt like I was abandoning them to a monster. But they insisted I go. It was awful. I didn’t know if he’d find out they had helped me. If he’d blame them. Punish them.”
“Would he punish you often?”
“He had a temper, even if he tried to hide it. He was very controlling. If we were caught breaking the rules, then we were punished. Well, not by him personally. He’d get his Sentinels to do it.” She shuddered. “That way, he could keep his hands clean. My friends and I did what we could to protect each other from the Sentinels.”
“These are the same friends that yelled at you?” He stilled, staring down at her intently. “That helped you create a secret identity?”
“Yeah. That’s where we all met. At the Camp. That’s what we called where we lived. In reality, it was a bunch of rundown shacks with a few nice houses that the Deity and his Sentinels lived in. My friends gathered up what cash they could find and created a distraction while Mama and I snuck away.”
“Motherfucking bastard! I can’t believe that the other adults who lived there let this happen!”
“Some of them bought into what he was selling and others . . . I don’t know.”
He slammed his hand into the wall, and she jumped.
“Sorry,” he told her. “I just. Fuck! I wish I could murder that bastard!”
“Too late. He and his Sentinels killed themselves when the FBI came to raid them.”
“Wait . . . I remember this now on the news. Did you help the FBI?”
She shrugged. “As much as I could. After we escaped, we went to live with Jake and Elsie. I didn’t know them, but Mama did. She said they were old friends. Before we left the cult, I made her promise we’d help my friends get out. Maeve was a few months away from sixteen and Immy wasn’t far behind her. I had to protect them. Jake had some connections, and we got in touch with the FBI.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Agent Stubbs?”
“Yeah, Stubby was heading up a task force looking into the cult already. I just helped with information. I wish the Deity and his Sentinels had been made to suffer. But at least they’re gone. And my friends were safe even if we weren’t together. One night I came home from work to find that Mama gone.”
“I’m so sorry, Preciosa.” He came and sat on the bed, facing her. “I can’t even imagine how hard all of that was. Living in a cult, then your mama just disappearing.”
“I hated how they thought they had the right to tell us what to do with our bodies, with our lives. I don’t like being told what to do.”
His face darkened. “Do I remind you of him? Of the Deity? We’re both controlling.”
Her eyes widened. “What? No, Alejandro. No, not at all. You like to be in control, but not because you want to harm or belittle me. I know you only want to look after and protect me.”
