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“You have a sister!”
“I – I had a sister.”
“She’s …”
“Dead.”
“Oh! I am so sorry.”
He just nods.
“I am – was – an only child.”
“Why do you say was?”
“Because my parents are no longer my parents. I use that word still to describe them, but I am the world’s. Not theirs.”
“Right.”
“Did you enjoy living at Gaia?”
“I did. When you’re eight years old, you just do what your parents say because you don’t know any different and because you don’t have any say. No control over your life. You just go with the flow, and they told me and Mira we were going to be living a very different life because we were going to make a difference in the world. That the rest of society was going in the wrong direction, and we needed to be agents of change.”
“That sounds admirable.”
He gives me an odd look.
“It is admirable if that’s what you’re really trying to do. Purely and authentically.”
“Why wouldn’t they be pure and authentic?”
“Because people lie, Paigelynn. They lie and manipulate.”
“Why?”
“To gain power. Control. Authority. Money.”
“And you are saying that Gaia was a cult run by people trying to do that while lying to those who actually believed?”
His head reels back and he looks at me, staring so long I fear he will run off the road.
“Yes. You understand all that? Can put it together and see how it synthesizes?”
“I didn’t say Iagreewith you. I am trying to restate what you’re explaining to me.”
“How can you assemble all that in your head and not see that you’re being manipulated yourself?”
“By you?”
“NO!” His shout scares Winnie, who begins to shake in my lap. “By the people who have imprisoned you!”
“You keep saying that, but so far, you are the only person who has kidnapped me!”
The car screeches to a halt so fast, I nearly slam into the dashboard, my body curling around Winnie instinctively to shield her. We’re in the middle of the road, on a quiet stretch of a numbered state route now, bare land around us.
“If you don’t want to be here, Princess, then be my guest.” The words come out like a growl, a grunt, a fiery, furious sound, and something in the vibration of his voice makes me angrier than I’ve ever been in my life.
“You could have killed Winnie, you useless fool!”
