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And neither is she.
My right knuckles hurt from giving Rooney a lesson. My legs are screaming from wrestling with The Basher. My hands burn from a hot gun, and my stomach doesn’t like that shitty vegan protein bar the owner of this Subaru volunteered for us. How much fiber was in that thing?
Add into all that the fact that I have no idea if I can trust Rooney, who may have ratted me out after all, and there could be a helicopter or a drone on our ass in minutes, and I’m done with any whining.
Dog or human.
For thirty blissful minutes, Paigelynn rests her head against the cracked window, staring out into space. The silence is a relief.
Then she shuffles a bit in her seat and turns to me.
“You said my real name is Paige Lynn? Do you know my last name?”
“Hoya.”
She blinks, just once. “Yes, that’s right. Paige Lynn Hoya. Just Paige. I was told by The Mother to forget I ever had a last name. That it’s unnecessary in the new age that is coming. Forget that my parents were my parents and to consider them good people who were honored to bring me into the world, led by fate to find Makiah Rooney and to offer me to the world.”
Something in her voice makes a piece of me break inside. She sounds so sad.
Not angry. Not fearful. Not indignant. Long gone is that insufferable talk of being the princess, the queen, the embodiment. This is a woman seeking answers about herself, answers that have been stripped away from her systematically by cowards who use and abuse people for their own benefit.
She’s a victim, not a role.
She’s a human being, not an organ production vessel.
She’s a soul, not a target.
A rush of tingling shoots across my skin as she watches me, cautious and seeking.
“What else do you know about me?”
“We’ve been searching for you for nearly two years.”
“We?”
“A team of elite hackers using computer databases to find women like you.”
“Like me? There are no other women like me. I am the only one.”
I stay quiet. Let it sink in for a few beats. When I look at her, tears fill her lower lids.
“Oh,” she says softly. “Oh.”
“This is a lot for anyone to understand, Paigelynn. I can’t explain it all to you in one conversation.”
“I’m beginning to see that.”
“I promise you this: no matter how long it takes, no matter how many questions you have, no matter how painful or confusing it all is, I’m here. I am here for you. I am here to walk this journey with you. You will come out on the other end of it healthier and whole.”
Her eyelids flutter as she fights to maintain eye contact. “You make this sound like torture.”
“I get it.”
“Do you? Were you, too, once brought into the fold of a group who taught you that you are nearly a deity? That only by being perfect could you save the world once you submitted to your husband and true king?”
“No. Not quite like that. But I was once under the powerful brainwashing of an environmental cult that taught us not composting was a sin, all gas-powered travel was the equivalent of murder, people who ate meat were intellectually inferior, all developmental disorders were caused by mothers who drank nut milks during pregnancy, disability was a sign that the Earth found you undesirable, and that private property was an artificial construct.”
“But it is.”
