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“They hid her from us all. Made her work the fields. Put her on solitary in small shacks in the fields.”
“Fields?”
“We grew all our own food.”
“They made her do labor like that while starving her?”
I didn’t know I had a limit until now, a wave of angry exhaustion making me instantly irritable.
“They did.”
“What happened when she died?”
“They tried to hide it.”
“Hide her body?”
“All of it. What they did to her. To some of the other children. Some of the adults, too.”
“How did anyone outside of Gaia find out?”
Dread fills me. As much as I want to be open, I also have to be careful. Paigelynn is starting to crack open a bit. Telling her about my experience in a cult is going to be key to deprogramming her.
If I explain that Debbie was the one to bring down Gaia, then I have to tell her who Debbie is.
And on the surface, she’s my boss.
Nothing about the surface is real, though.
“One of the adults in the cult,” I lie. “Someone told a family member. The family member used a drone to capture footage of the burial.”
“Oh, Cam.”
“And that person went to the authorities. Then the police arrived. They took my parents away. Gaia twisted everything to make it seem like my parents were the ones who made Mira starve.”
“How old were you when that happened?”
“Fourteen.”
“So young. Who took you in? Your grandparents?”
Now we’re really in dangerous territory.
“I was fine. Raised better than I had been in Gaia.”
“Good. I’m glad you found people to love and nurture you.”
“My parents did love us. Did nurture us,” I snap, hating how desperately I still need to believe that. “They were just taken in by powers stronger than their own judgment.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.”
“And Gaia is dismantled?”
“It is now, yes.”
“You have so much hatred toward cults.”
