Chapter Fourteen
Phebe
I woke to the now-familiar sounds of birds chirping and the breeze rustling through the leaves. I braced myself for the sickness, for the exhaustion I had felt every day since we had arrived, but I smiled in relief when I felt only muted tones of those pains today.
I had been sleeping on and off for two days. I slept, ate, showered, then slept again. I had purged more than I ever thought possible, and slowly, I began to feel better. I breathed more easily, walked more easily, talked more easily. Everything just felt . . . easier. The weight in my chest a little easier to bear.
I showered and dressed in my favorite one of the dresses AK had packed for me; it was olive green. I ran a comb though my hair, then made my way outside, where I knew AK would be. Since our arrival, he had spent most of his time outside. It was as though he could not stand to be inside this home. Sometimes, when I had awoken to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I had seen him outside, awake in a chair by the fire pit. Not sleeping again.
He was sitting at a table at the side of the house. A large rusty trunk sat beside him, and several pieces of black metal and plastic were strewn about the tabletop. His hair was pulled back off his face and tied back in a bun. I could not recall ever seeing his face so clearly before.
His concentration was fully on the task as he cleaned the pieces in front of him with excruciatingly meticulous detail. I walked to where he sat and saw him flicker his brown eyes to me. “You look better,” he said and carried on cleaning the small, fat piece of metal in his hands.
“I feel better.” I looked down at the worn trunk at his side. It was full to the brim with shapes I thought I recognized. A thick layer of dust lay over each one.
“Are those guns?” I asked in confusion, wondering why he owned so many.
AK stopped cleaning, but he didn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah.”
“They look old,” I said, wanting him to speak, needing some form of conversation. He had been so quiet and subdued since we arrived here. I did not know him that well, but I sensed that he was not usually this quiet.
AK shrugged. “’Bout fifteen to twenty years old. Some are newer, ’bout seven years.” His expression was tight, as were his muscles. Each one was corded and strained. He was dressed in a black tank and dark jeans. As he recommenced cleaning, I allowed my eyes to scan over his skin. His tattoos were many, boasting many different images. A large depiction of a gun, not too dissimilar to the one he was cleaning, stood out most.
“You like guns?”
AK’s lip hooked up at the corner. “Could say that.”
“Why is that amusing?”
AK laid down the final piece of metal he was cleaning, and then, at a breathtaking speed, proceeded to join all the pieces together. His gaze was intent on his task, his lips pursed. Even when a strand of hair fell from his bun he was not distracted. In what felt like seconds, the random metal fragments that had once littered the tabletop had morphed into a gun. AK pulled something on the top of the device, and it clicked into place. He placed it down on the table and sat back, sighing deeply.
“That was . . . impressive.” I could not help but smile. I had never seen anything like it before.
Seeming suddenly shy, AK lowered his eyes, but I saw the flicker of a smile on his lips. He leaned back in his chair. “You know what this gun is called?”
I shook my head. “I know nothing of guns at all. The prophet’s disciples would carry them in the commune, but the females did not touch them. They are only for men.”
“One”—he held up a finger—“they ain’t just for men. And two, this here gun is called an AK-47.”
AK-47. Realization dawned.
“AK,” I said, feeling as though I had just solved a huge mystery. “You were named after a . . . a gun?” I was confused. Who would do that to a child?
“I have a name, Phebe. AK just became my nickname at the Hangmen. ’Cause I’m good with guns. Styx’s old man saw me shoot, and my road name was born.”
“That is why you have so many guns, because you are good with them?” He nodded, but stiffly, as if that was not the entire story. “So what is your real name?” I asked.
AK shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Xavier. Xavier Charles Deyes.”
“Xavier.” I smiled. I liked how it sounded on my tongue. “I like this name.” I repeated it in my head once again. “I prefer it to the gun name.”
“But I ain’t that person no more, so I go by AK now. Suits who I am now. Xavier died a fucking long time ago.”
“And who are you now?” I asked, confused by the dark turn this conversation had taken.
“A Hangman. And not Xavier fucking Deyes.” AK leaned down, clearly ending the conversation, and took another dusty gun from the trunk. With the same speed as he had put the other together, he pulled it apart. I watched in silence as he made quick work of cleaning it and putting it back together. He placed it down, and I saw that he had a pile of glistening guns on a blanket to the other side of his feet.
“You like to shoot?”
My question stilled his movements. “Yeah.” He cocked his head to the side. “You?”
I laughed. I could not help it. “No,” I sputtered. “I have not even held one in my hands before. I would not even know where to begin.”
AK picked up a gun from the pile beside him and laid it before me. I stared at the large gun and screwed up my face. “I would have no idea how to operate such a thing.”
AK took another gun in his hand. “Then I’ll show you.” He got to his feet, and any awkwardness he had harbored minutes ago seemed to have disappeared. He was confident with the gun in his hand, transformed. He picked up the gun he wanted me to use. “Come with me.”
I rose from my seat and followed his retreating form. AK led the way through the trees, stopping at the edge of a small field. Five trees were in the distance, a brightly painted wooden plaque affixed to each trunk.
“Targets,” AK said, as if reading my mind. “You aim, shoot and try to hit one.”
“Impossible.”
“Not at all, Red. You just need a good teacher.”
I turned and smiled. “Are you that good teacher?” I asked teasingly. His eyes flared at the smile on my face and humor in my voice.
“Too right I fucking am.” He came closer and took one of my hands. His palm and fingers felt rough in my own. He works hard, I thought. Worked with his hands. A sudden image of those hands on my breasts slammed into my mind. More memories followed—of his fingers cupping my behind as he thrust into me, of his fingers stroking along my core before slipping inside and making me scream.
My cheeks heated at the memory, and when I looked up, AK had closed in until he was just an inch away. His put his finger under my chin and lifted my face. “What’s got you blushing like this, Red?” He stroked that finger over my cheek. “Like all your fucking freckles have joined up.”
Avoiding the truth, I said, “I hate my freckles.”
It was a pathetic attempt at distraction, so I was struck mute when he leaned in even closer, his hot breath over my face, and said, “I fucking love them.”
I swallowed, feeling my nipples harden and my breathing become erratic. “You do?”
“Mm,” he murmured and stepped closer still. I had to stop a moan from escaping my mouth when I felt the bulge in his jeans harden. My breath hitched, and a slow grin tugged on AK’s lips. He brought the gun in between us and placed my hand on top.
I felt dizzy with heat as he stepped back. Hands on my shoulders, he turned me to face the targets on the trees. His mouth came to my ear as he stood at my back. I shivered. “Concentrate,” he said, his voice low.
I closed my eyes. “I . . . I am finding it difficult to do that with you this close.”
AK’s deep, rough laughter split through the air. He did not respond, but instead lifted the gun higher in my hands. He moved one of my hands to the underside of the gun and the other to a switch. “Trigger,” he said, guiding my fingertip along the smooth metal. “Barrel.” He ran his fingers over my hand that was placed on the underside of the rifle. He made sure the bottom of the gun was tucked under my arm. “Hold it firmly, like this.” He ran his hand up to my hair, guiding my head with his palm. Another glimpse of a memory flashed before my eyes. Me between his thighs, kneeling at his manhood. I swallowed, suddenly able to taste him on my tongue.
“You’re blushing again,” he teased, his lips scraping past my earlobe.
“I . . . I am remembering,” I confessed breathlessly. I allowed my mind to show me what came next. I had climbed on his lap and ridden him, slowly, back and forth, his hands roaming over my behind and thighs.
“Yeah?” AK growled.
“You and me,” I said. “Outside your home.” I turned my head until my lips brushed against his. I breathed and he breathed, sharing the same air, warm, then hot. “You took me.”
My chest was rising and falling in hard movements. AK chuckled into my mouth and licked along the seam of my lips with his tongue. I groaned at the feel, my breasts aching. “No, bitch.” Heat flooded my core as he said, “You fucking took me.”
AK dragged his nose along my cheek, and then carefully turned me back to face the trees. His hand guided my head downward until my eyes were looking through a lens on the top of the gun. His torso was flush against my back. I felt him everywhere. Within me, behind me, my senses breaching their capacity.
“Concentrate,” he ordered again. My back straightened as I tried to do as he asked. I blinked, seeing the tree targets up close through the lens. Taking my hand from the trigger, he brought it to a small black switch on the side of the gun. “Safety.” He pulled my hand back. The gun clicked, and he guided me back to the trigger. “Line up the cross in the lens with the bullseye—the center point—on the target. Wait until your hand is steady and take the shot.” I did as he said, then felt his hand tighten on my finger on the trigger. I let calmness run through me. “When you’re ready, pull the trigger.”
I counted to three and pulled down on the trigger. The loud bang of the bullet flying from the barrel caused birds to scatter into the sky around us. But I barely noticed due to the sudden pain in my shoulder. I stumbled back, and AK wrapped his thick arms around me to stop me falling. I gasped as I tried to breathe. “Welcome to the kickback,” he said and laughed dryly.
I blinked my sight back into focus, then looked straight ahead. I saw a bullet mark in the first tree, the one closest to where we stood. A laugh pealed from my throat when I saw that I had not hit the intended target—rather, I had taken a chunk out of the wood of the tree. The laugh poured from my throat, and water built in my eyes. I held the gun close to me as I tried to gain composure, but it was no use. I had not laughed like this in . . . I was not sure I ever had.
“Phebe?” AK asked, but I could hear the lightness in his voice. He relaxed his hold on me, and I turned toward him. He kept his hands braced on my back, as though he was not yet ready to let me go.
“The shot.” I snorted, which only made me laugh harder. “It did not even come close to the target.” I threw my head back as another wave of amusement hit me. My throat and chest ached from my laughter. When I finally managed to calm, I wiped my eyes and looked at AK. He was watching me with his lips pursed. I fell silent. AK stayed unmoving. Just as I was about to ask him what was wrong, he stepped forward and pushed me back against the tree behind us. My back scraped against the rough bark. He took the gun from my hands and threw it to the ground. Then AK’s lips were crushing mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth. I moaned as I tasted him on my tongue, the flavor of him familiar and so very wanted.
His hands ran down my sides and held me still. I felt his hardness against my stomach and heard his low groan, the vibration from his chest ricocheting through mine. My core became wet as he pressed himself against me. Then he broke away, breathless and muscles tense. “You need . . .” He caught his breath. “You need to fucking laugh more, Red. It looks real fucking good on you.”
My hands were shaking as they held his hard biceps. AK stepped back, then back again, ripping the tie from his hair. His dark hair tumbled forward as he picked up the gun from the ground. “Again,” he ordered and handed me back the gun. I wanted to protest. I wanted to leave the gun and bring him back to me, have his tongue and taste in my mouth. But then it occurred to me.
He had stopped.
No man had ever done that before in my life.
“Shoot,” AK said, his voice still thick with need. I lifted the gun and took up the position he had shown me before. He tapped my ankles with the tip of his boot. “Wider. It’ll stop you from falling so bad this time.”
I did as he said, lining up the gun to the target, feeling him beside me once more. And as I shot the bullet out, I smiled at the subtle, intimate touches he used to guide me. I braced for the kickback this time, glad when I firmly held my ground. I looked at the tree. I had chipped the base of the target. “I hit it!”
He gave me a smile, and the sight stole all the air from my lungs. He was so handsome that he caused my heart to ache. “You got closer than before, but you won’t be winning any prizes with that. We’re going again.”
And that was how the day went. At least until I grew too tired and we had to head back to the cabin. AK cooked on the grill while I lounged in a reclining chair. When we had eaten, I was exhausted, the remnants of the drink still stealing my energy. I rested my head against the cushions of the chair, and slipped into sleep.
When I awoke, the sun was setting, the sky streaked with pink and orange. I blinked as I looked around me for AK. He sat in the same spot as he had most days, only this time there were two pairs of black boots in front of him. Both appeared well worn, and both were pitted with dirt. Knowing he had not seen me looking, I was about to ask him to whom those boots belonged when I suddenly caught the expression on his face. It was . . . sad. No, that was not a strong enough word to describe what his face was conveying. It was pain incarnate, a visage racked with such sorrow it made me ache.
I watched from the dark sanctuary of the chair as he took one pair of the boots in his trembling hands. They were the most worn pair of the two. When he pulled them into his chest and closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking, I almost jumped from my seat and ran to him. To comfort him. To make sure he was okay.
But I did not think that would be welcomed. So I let him be. I stayed quiet as he held the boots to his chest for several minutes, before placing them, so painstakingly slowly, on his lap. He reached for a cloth beside him, and I saw the track marks of tears on his cheeks.
Tears of my own blossomed in my eyes. He was such a formidable male, so big and strong, that the sight of him crying was more than I could bear. AK began cleaning the boots in silence. I kept my eyes hooded, eyelids leaden, so he would believe me asleep. He methodically cleaned both pairs of boots until they were gleaming. When they were done, he stared at them for so long that I worried I would have to show I was awake or sleep here all night.
But then AK got to his feet. He glanced over at me, and I quickly shut my eyes. I heard him stepping toward me. I felt him stop beside me and crouch down. I evened out my breathing, trying to keep up the pretense of sleep. Gently, he ran his hand over my hair. His warm breath blew across my skin. Then, shocking me completely, he brushed a gentle kiss on my cheek. Such a chaste, loving gesture. The sweetness of the act set off a swirl of emotions inside me.
Emotions I was not familiar with. Emotions I did not understand.
AK moved away. I cracked my eyes open a fraction and watched as he took both sets of boots in his hands. Slowly, he walked to the front door of the cabin. He bent down and placed one pair of boots on one side of the mat on the floor. Then, more carefully, almost reverently, he placed the second pair down on the opposite side of the mat. He stood and stared down at the boots. They looked so perfectly situated at the door, as though both the occupants lived happily inside the house. AK pushed through the door and shut himself inside. I waited several minutes before I moved. I looked to where he had been sitting and saw all the guns were now clean, as was the trunk. I approached the door.
Crouching down, I stared at the two pairs of boots. I let my fingers graze over the polished leather. They were so clean I could almost see my reflection in the light of the fading sun. The boots were identical in every way, except one pair was bigger than the other.
They were not both AK’s, I guessed. My eyebrows drew together as I wondered to whom the other pair could have belonged. I heard the sound of a door closing inside the cabin and went inside. AK’s bedroom door was closed. I sat down at the table in case he reappeared. I wanted to be sure he was okay.
But he did not. So I went to bed, unable to get the sight of him hugging the boots out of my mind.
I knew that level of pain he displayed. And I knew how it could rob you of joy.
*****
Two days later, I walked out of my bedroom to see AK wearing jeans, boots and no shirt, waiting for me at the table. “Morning,” I said cautiously, testing if he was still as subdued as he had been yesterday.
“Morning, Red,” he replied, and I felt a weight slip from my shoulders as he called me that name. He pushed a plate of food and a coffee in my direction. “Eat and drink up.” I sat before him and did as he said. When I had finished, he came to my side and held out his hand. Despite my confusion, I let him pull me to my feet.
He pulled me to his bedroom and led me to a closet. He paused before reaching out to open it, his grip on my hand tightening. When I peered inside, I saw a small rack of clothing.
Female clothing.
“Should be about your size,” AK said gruffly. He bent down and picked up a pair of brown boots. “Try these on. I got somewhere I wanna show you today, and you can’t be wearing those sandals.” His shoulders stiffened. “I’m fucking sick of never leaving the grounds of this cabin.”
I took the boots from his hands and slipped my feet inside. “They fit,” I said, smiling.
He reached back into the closet and pulled out a pair of shorts and a tank. Surprisingly, the tank did not show the devil on the front, but instead the American flag and an eagle. The text beneath read “Semper Fi”. I did not know what that meant; the language was strange. “Put these on too.”
I took the items from him and went back to my bedroom. The clothes fit fairly well. I was clearly taller than the woman they belonged to, but they were decent. I walked out to the kitchen. AK was waiting, a couple of bottles of water in his hands.
“I think they are fine.”
“Good” He got to his feet. He still had not put on a shirt, but he had tied back his hair. I decided I liked this look on him very much. I could see his eyes so much better.
I pointed to my clothes. “Do . . . do these belong to an ex-lover of yours?” I was surprised by the intense streak of jealousy that surged though me. My body was tense as I waited for a reply. I knew I should not care . . . but I did.
But AK turned his back and exited the cabin. “Nothing like that,” he said quietly, under his breath, but I heard it. He turned back to me, lit by the early sun, and nudged his head in the direction of the trees. “Come on. You’ll like this.”
Excited by his promise, I followed him outside and took his hand. AK stilled and looked down at our fingers, seeming surprised by the gesture. I was surprised I had done it too, but I had felt a sudden need to hold on to him. I could see there was a heavy kind of sadness that lived within him, a sadness I felt compelled to take away. AK took a deep breath and turned us toward the trees. I looked back over my shoulder. The boots were still sitting by the door. His sadness was linked to those boots somehow, it had to be. I just did not know why.
It seemed I was not the only one with hidden secrets.
“AK,” I whispered, overcome by the sight before me. “It is beautiful.” We stood on top of a high rock, looking down upon a waterfall that cascaded into a small, bright-blue pool. No one was here in this sanctuary but us. Birds were singing, and the sun’s rays glistened off the turquoise surface of the water.
“AK,” I said breathlessly. “I have never seen a waterfall in real life before. I have seen them in books, read about them. But this . . .” I shook my head in disbelief. “I can barely believe the incredible beauty before me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s pretty fucking good.”
AK sat down on the edge of the rock and took a drink from his water bottle. We had hiked all the way here. The excursion was exhausting to my still-aching muscles. AK, however, barely seemed to break into a sweat. His fitness was astounding.
Tearing myself away from the sight, I sat down beside him. I lifted my hair, trying to get some air to my overheated neck, but it was clinging to my sweating skin. AK smirked at me fighting a losing battle to get the bright-red strands off my face. Silently, he slid the tie from his hair and handed it to me. His dark hair fell forward over his cheeks, but I caught his smile. I brought my long hair into a bun that resembled the one he often wore.
“I have never seen anything so magical in my life.” I watched in a trance as the waterfall bubbled into the crystal pool. “What is all of this, AK? The lodge, the hiking, the shooting, the waterfall?” I shook my head. “It is like being in another world. One I believed only existed in my dreams.”
“It fucking is another world,” he said and laughed a single rough laugh. “At least it’s miles away from the ones that we come from.” He finished his bottle of water and I took a sip from mine. “It’s a hunting lodge. I grew up coming here. Used to practice shooting, hike every day and just get away from the world for a while.”
I smiled, trying to imagine AK here as a youngster. “It sounds as if you had a very different childhood than my own,” I said with a nervous laugh. AK looked directly at me and I saw the humor fade from his face.
“But a not-so-dissimilar adulthood.” He looked away.
I was about to push him, to ask him what he meant by that, when I noticed a tattoo on his arm. I glanced down at the tank that I wore and realized it was the same image. Reaching out, I stroked my fingers over the American flag on his arm. “This emblem,” I said and pointed at the shirt. “They are the same.” AK’s muscles tensed. “What does it mean?”
“Shit to me anymore,” he said harshly. He got to his feet and began to descend down the side of the rock. The muddy path was steep. He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on. It ain’t so bad. I’ll help you.” I didn’t hesitate to take his hand and follow. As we made our way down the path, I realized that I trusted him.
I trusted a male.
I had never doubted he would keep me safe. Not even for a single second.
We arrived at the edge of the pool. AK bent down and refilled his water bottle. He held out his hand for my bottle too. I passed it to him and took a closer look at the waterfall beside us. The crashing fall of the water was loud from this proximity, and it was just as beautiful as it had been from the top of the rock.
“Here.” AK held out my bottle for me to take. Too busy watching the waterfall, I had not realized that the cap of the bottle was not in place. So when AK pulled his hand back and threw the contents of the bottle in my face, I screamed aloud in shock. I jumped as the cold water sprayed my face and body. I stood, motionless, until I looked at AK. And he was laughing. Not just smiling, but laughing heartily, the deep sound causing a lightness to flood my chest.
“AK!” I shrieked and lost my footing. My feet slid into the water and I fell back until I hit the mud, my bottom hitting the earth with a thud. When I lifted my hands they were covered in mud. AK laughed even harder behind me. My entire bottom half was drenched from the water. And I was covered in wet mud.
AK approached me as I rinsed my hands. “I was fucking with you, Phebe. I didn’t expect you to fucking fall in.” I scowled at him as he came closer, still laughing and not apologetic in the slightest. I waited until he held out his hand for me to take, as I knew he would. I scooped up as much water as possible in my hands and threw it in his face.
“Bitch!” AK shouted as he stepped back, the water dripping from his long hair. But there was no malice in his tone. His dark eyes that had been so dull and sad since the night he had cleaned the boots were full of light. Then he was coming at me. I scrambled forward until I was submerged into the water, hoping to escape any retaliation. My chest and arms sank into the cool liquid. But arms wrapped around me from behind and lifted me into the air. “No!” I called out, laughing as he threw me into the air. I landed in the water with a splash and scrambled to stand, brushing the water from my face. “I cannot swim!” I said and thankfully found my footing. I cast my eyes around the water. I could not see AK anywhere. And then he burst from the water right in front of me, and my heart almost swelled out of my chest.
AK’s arms wrapped around my waist. I slapped his bare arm as he smiled. “That’ll teach you to try and fuck with me, Red.”
I shook my head in protest. “Me?” I laughed at the playful look on his face. “You threw the water at me first!”
He shook his head and dropped his laughter. “You looked . . . hot. Thought you needed cooling down.”
I laughed at his smug face, and then slowly, second by second, the smile fell from my lips. My hands on his arms began smoothing over his wet skin. I felt my cheeks flush as AK’s gaze lost its playfulness. He waded us out farther into the pool, so far that my feet no longer felt the bottom. Gasping, panic taking hold of me, I gripped him tighter, and had no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist.
“I cannot stand,” I explained. “We are too far out for my height.”
“That was kinda the point, Red.” He lowered his hands until they were around my behind. I felt him harden against me and felt my own core build with sudden heat.
“AK,” I whispered when he slowly moved his hips against me. One of his hands dipped into the waistband of my shorts. His fingers were slow as they traveled south, gentle as they cupped between my legs and began stroking back and forth along my folds.
I gasped and closed my eyes as he ran his fingertip over my clit. I heard AK’s breathing deepen, felt his hardness against me, and wanted nothing more than to touch him too. Lowering one of my hands from around his neck, I slipped it down his muscled torso, sliding over the deep valleys and ridges until I met the button on his jeans. I unfastened it and unzipped his fly. I pulled out his length and felt AK immediately thrust into my hands.
“Fuck, Red,” he hissed as his hands moved harder and faster at my core. I stroked him up and down as he kept me solidly in his arms, never letting me fall.
I fought the urge to close my eyes. I wanted to watch AK. I wanted to see him, without the potion or the drink. I wanted to watch this man who had brought me to this lodge to help me simply because he wanted to. I had been wanted by many men before, but not for any other reason than sex. I could not be entirely sure, but when AK’s dark gaze watched me, when he offered me his hand, and kissed my cheek when he thought I was sleeping, I did not think it was for only his pleasure.
I was not sure, but . . . but I hoped, and I prayed, that he actually liked me. For me. Not my body. But just . . . me. I did not understand how that could possibly be true, but I desperately wanted it to be.
AK leaned his head forward and took my lips with his own. He kept his hand at my core, slipping back and forth, and then inside me in a slow, rhythmic motion. His tongue sought entrance to my mouth, and our mouths fell into the same rhythm as our hands.
When AK kissed me, the whole world fell away. All the pain and demons that clouded my brain fell into a blissful void, locked away as the taste of him consumed me, chasing the dark. I moaned into his mouth, AK catching my cries and swallowing them whole. I felt the telltale tingles build at the base of my spine. I clutched him tighter, meeting his gaze again as he worked his fingers into me faster, one, two, then three fingers, until he hit the spot inside me that I knew well, that I’d been trained to stimulate, the one that when AK pressed against it, broke me apart into shattered shards of glass, my body nothing more than light. The long cry from my throat sailed on the wind, echoing around the waterfall.
AK’s breathing stuttered. Then he stilled, and never taking his eyes off mine, he came into my hand, his hips jerking as his release washed away with the water. His black pupils almost eradicated the brown of his irises, and his cheeks were flushed with pink.
Our eyes remained on each other, locked in some silent yet poignant bliss. AK kissed me again, not using his tongue this time, just his lips, his soft, sensual lips. They caressed mine as though I was special to his heart.
As though I was worthy of such of affection.
My eyes welled up. His hand moved from my core and stroked up and down my back, soothing my thoughts. His lips worshipped me. I never thought I would ever understand the meaning of a kiss. How it could momentarily stop your heart from beating, or how such an innocent touch could make you feel so incredibly cherished.
I took my hand from AK’s length and quickly fastened up his jeans. AK pulled me back closer. “I fucking like you, Red,” he said hoarsely.
My eyes closed at those words, and I shook my head. “Why? How could you like someone like me?”
AK pressed a single kiss to each of my closed eyes. When I opened them, he said, “Because you understand.” His words were barely above a whisper. Before I could ask him to explain what he had meant, a slow smirk edged on his lips. He kissed my cheek. “You’ve caught the sun,” he said. “We’d better go before you burn.”
I looked at him and saw nothing but bronzed, perfect skin. He had several scars scattered around his body, some large, some small, but I did not pay them any mind. We all bore scars, whether on the outside or in. AK gave me one more swift kiss on my lips and started to move away, but I placed my hands on his face. His skin was warm under my palms, whether that be from the sun or his release. “Red?” His brows pulled down.
“Thank you,” I said, when I could find the words. I gave him a watery smile. “Thank you for bringing me here. For taking me from Meister . . . for it all.” For treating me as if I am more than a whore, I wanted to add, but refrained. AK’s shoulders sagged, and he exhaled as if he had been holding onto that breath for a very long time. “I have no idea why you have done all that you have done for me, but . . . thank you.”
AK did not speak, but he held my stare for several seconds. “We’d better go. The sun won’t be your friend if we stay here much longer.”
Keeping me in his hold, AK took us back to the edge of the pool. He helped me stand on the uneven ground and climb out of the water. I was thankful for the cool water on my skin when the heavy sun immediately beat down on my face.
AK picked up the bottles of water from the ground, then held out his hand. I sighed and slid my hand into his. The walk back to the lodge was quiet, yet more comfortable than I had felt in . . . years. His affection had somehow become a salve to the constant fire of regret that burned, never-ending, in my heart. And this temporary reprieve, this short moment to be able to breathe, had everything to do with the man that led me home.
The one my heart was suddenly leaning toward.
*****
I took a nap and showered, for once not thinking about anything else but AK. I looked in the mirror; my skin was kissed by the sun, more freckles than I ever thought possible peppering my face. A smile came onto my lips when I remembered AK telling me he liked my freckles. My face, a sky full of stars.
My red hair.
Red.
Night had fallen, and AK was outside cooking on the grill. I dressed in a loose black dress I had taken from the closet in AK’s room. The material hung off my shoulders, baring my skin, for which I was thankful. I was slightly burned on my face and arms from today’s sun.
AK turned his head when he heard me come outside, He was already sitting down. There were various items of food on the table and meat on the grill behind him. He lay back on the reclining chair, staring at the stars in the black sky. Smiling, I walked past AK to take the seat beside him, but he took my hand and pulled me down onto his lap. I gave a small cry of shock when I landed on his thighs.
“You’ll be sitting on here with me from now on.” He pulled me down until my head lay on his bare chest and my body pressed against his. His hand was immediately in my hair, stroking through the long strands as if it calmed him somehow. His skin was warm; it too had been burned slightly by the sun. But it smelled heavenly and felt even better under my cheek.
I sighed in contentment. AK got up to get us some food. We ate side by side, not saying much, just content to be by the other’s side. When we had finished, AK lit a cigarette. I curled back into his chest. I was sure if I never left this spot again that would be just fine. I watched the white smoke soar up above us and drift into the blackness of the sky, shapes swirling and dancing in the night air.
“It’s so beautiful out here,” I murmured. I tried to count every star, but it was impossible, there were so many. “I do not think I have ever truly looked at the night sky before. I am sure I have never really looked at the stars before you compared my freckles to them at your home. Yet now I find myself wondering what they look like up close, if they are as beautiful as they appear from here.” I shook my head, amazed at the fact that I was here, doing something as idle as looking at the stars. I ran my hand across AK’s torso. “And here I am. With you, in this unfathomably blissful place.”
“Red,” AK said gruffly and pulled me closer to his side.
“It is true.” I thought of my days back in the commune. No man would have ever lain with me like this, not without sex having been performed. He would never have stroked my hair. Played and joked with me in a waterfall’s pool. Affection held no place in The Order. Love was shared through the act of sex. And as a Sacred Sister, it was never gentle or pure.
Yet here was AK, holding me for no other reason than he wanted to.
I was wanted.
“When I am here, with you . . .” I said softly, feeling my heart beating too fast at what I was about to confess. “When I am with you, it is easy to not think about my life before. I . . .” My cheeks burned with embarrassment and a sudden wash of pain. “I have never been with a man who saw me as anything but someone in which they could find their release.” My stomach sank at that sad truth. “It was all I was ever meant for, AK. To give pleasure to men for our Lord’s cause.”
I lifted my head from the crook of his arm and rested it on his chest. He was looking up at the sky. His cigarette was burning in his hand, and his jaw was clenched. He must have felt me looking upon him because his eyes rolled to meet mine. “It is true.”
Shifting my leg over his, I lifted my dress. AK’s forehead creased with confusion. I pulled my dress higher and higher, until my inner thigh was exposed.
“Matthew 4:19,” I said. “‘And he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’” I turned my thigh and ran my finger over the tattoo that the prophet had commanded all of his Sacred Sisters to wear. AK was frozen as he stared down at the tattooed scripture leading to my core. The place Prophet David said men desired most.
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked angrily. Pulling down my dress, I placed my hand on his shoulder and guided him to lie back down. He did so, reluctantly, and I placed my head back on his shoulder and my arm around his torso.
“Prophet David declared that certain women in The Order were meant for a special service. Revealed to him by God, as a way to bring in more members. He claimed that this scripture, particularly the words ‘fishers of men’, had a bigger meaning than we knew. He claimed that God had revealed to him that women from the commune, handpicked by him and his disciples, would become such fishers of men. Men were the goal, the prize for the prophet, and we—the Sacred Sisters—were the bait.”
AK had become incredibly tense beneath me, but now I had started, now that I had begun to unload this burden from my soul, I could not stop. I wanted to speak these words, words I had never spoken before. “They came for me when I was ten years old.” I closed my eyes, remembering that day in great detail. Brother John taking me away to be trained.
“I had been touched before by men. Children at the prophet’s communes were freely touched by anyone who wished to do so. There was no age that was deemed too early. In fact, Prophet David encouraged our parents or guardians to touch us first, to show us what God’s love felt like so we would not be alarmed when other men and women came for us sexually too.
“When Brother John came for me when I was ten, to tell me I had been selected to be a Sacred Sister, I had tasted grown men on my tongue, and they had tasted me. I had been touched in every way but full sex.” I winced, still remembering the week that followed. “Though it was less than one week later when I was introduced to that act.” My thighs clenched together as I recalled Brother John laying me down on the bed, his naked body climbing above me. I flinched as I remembered his breath on my face and his hands skirting up my bare thigh. And I remembered his length as it pushed through my innocence. The tears, the blood, the pain and the shame . . .
“Phebe.” AK turned his body to face me. I had not realized the tears were on my cheeks until he wiped them away. His hand cupped my face, and his thumb stroked along the damp skin.
“For days afterwards, I tried to stay hidden in the corners of rooms. But every day Brother John came for me and took my body again. He took me until I managed to block out the pain. Until his touch and attentions became the norm for me.”
I swallowed and looked up at AK’s face. It was filled with thunder. His teeth were gritted together. I reached up and threaded my fingers through the hand that was on my face. I lowered it to my chest and kept it near my heart. “Then the training started. Older Sacred Sisters would come to our rooms every day. There were about twenty of us when I trained. All similar in age and all receiving our first sexual encounter from Brother John. More lessons followed. Lesson after lesson on how to hold a man’s length, how to stroke it until he begged for more. How to take a man in our mouth and entice them with the subtle movements of our body, how to make them fall into our arms and give themselves over to the Lord through our bodies. We fished the men and they always took the bait.”
“They trained you to fuck?”
“Yes,” I said and hated that it was the harsh truth. “In the commune at first. Prophet David often invited men who were important to our cause to his many communes, both domestic and abroad. I never knew what they were there for—business, we were told—but from the age of ten I was called to seduce them. Many liked young girls, even more so when we could service them in bed with the skill of a woman twice our age. And I did it all happily . . . eventually. I came to believe in what I was doing so much that I rejoiced when I was chosen by a visiting male from the lineup. Even more when I reached the age of fourteen and was sent outside into the world. Only the best Sacred Sisters were sent outside of the gates. Those who excelled at pleasing men.”
I could tell by AK’s expression that he could not speak. So I continued. “I had never been outside of the commune before. There were so many sights and sounds that made me scared. But the brothers who would drive us out into the towns would keep us safe. They would keep us focused.” I sniffed as I recalled walking into the hundreds of bars I visited as a child, then later as an adult. “The men always took the bait. When they saw us coming in they would practically salivate on the spot. We would dress seductively, take them back to the bus that took us into the town. We would give them pleasure like nothing they had ever felt, and then we would convince them to return to the commune with us. And they mostly always came. Especially when they saw what awaited them there. More free love. More women . . . little girls.”
“The pedophilic cunts,” AK snarled. “I’m glad I put a bullet through that fucking dick’s head. And took out dozens of the other cult fuckers too.”
I stilled and blinked at AK, allowing his words to sink in. “You . . .?” Surely I was mistaken. “You killed Prophet David? You were the devil’s man that took his life?”
“Yeah.” He pulled me closer to him. “I fucking watched that pedo prick fall as my bullet got him right between the fucking eyes.”
My breathing sped up at his confession. In the commune, I had mourned the prophet’s death as though my heart had been ripped in two, but now, after everything that had happened, knowing that AK had been the one to slay him only made me want AK more.
I lifted his hand and kissed along his fingers. “Thank you,” I whispered. He would never understand the level of my gratitude. Yet with that enlightenment came my greatest pain.
My regrets illuminated.
AK held me close as the tears fell from my eyes. He pressed kiss after kiss on my forehead. He made me feel safe. “There have been hundreds upon hundreds,” I confessed and felt the deep shame run through me like a sweeping tide. AK was as still as a statue underneath me. “I have serviced so many men I do not even know a number. Sometimes by choice and sometimes by force.” I sucked in a breath. “But if it was the latter, it was because I had failed as a Sacred Sister.”
“What? What the fuck does that mean?”
“If the seduction was not well performed, or my whisperings of God’s scriptures were not strong enough in conviction, sometimes the men would be unkind and take away our will. They would take the tithe of our flesh for our failure.”
“Rape?” he growled. “You’d be blamed if they raped you?”
“It happened sometimes,” I said, remembering the first time I had a knife held to my throat and was beaten as the man thrust himself inside me . . . in my every entrance. I remembered Meister and how he had been one of those males. “Meister did not like to be seduced; he liked to take. He took pleasure in extracting pain from my body. But the less I protested, and the more I allowed him to do with me what he wished, the more his possessiveness of me grew. I could see him becoming addicted to me, day by day, and I was frightened. But Judah ordered me to be beside Meister as long as he wished.” I closed my eyes. The rest of that story was blurred, due—I knew now—to the drugs. “He never gave me up.” My fingers stroked over AK’s face. “Until you came to claim me from his command.”
“You’re never going back to him either,” AK said firmly, and I felt my heart break at the promise.
Fresh tears flooded my cheeks. I could not believe this man was fighting for me. “I do not . . . I do not know how to live in this world, AK.” I swallowed. “I do not know how to be anything but a . . . whore.” I laughed without mirth. “People on the outside world would talk of us. ‘God’s whores,’ they named us in the bars. Prophet David and Judah would call us ‘David’s Whores’. It is what Meister wanted me to stop being. I was to be his whore and his alone.” I squeezed my eyes shut and felt the salt from my tears sting my lips. “In this world, whores are not revered but punished. What man would ever want a woman like that as his life’s love? A woman who had taken men in every way possible? Who had sucked and stroked and fucked so many men that she could not recall a single face among the masses?” I shook my head, choking on my words. “Who would want a woman who lost her innocence as a ten-year-old and was frequently touched before that?”
And then I felt it rise up within me. My most secret confession, my deepest pain. I tried to hold it back. I had tried to hold this, my biggest regret, inside for so long. But I could not. AK was safe. Here was a safe place for me to shed this guilt.
I had to finally let it free.
“What man would want a woman who was with child at the age of twelve?”
As the words left my lips, I felt AK tense underneath me. His breathing stopped, and his hand stopped moving on my back.
“Phebe . . .” he eventually said, softly. My eyes scrunched up as I hid my face in agony. I shook my head, trying to not let the floodgates of those times open in my mind, but I could not resist. So I let my story—my sins, my failure—spill forth . . .
I looked in the mirror and ran my hand over my stomach. The bump was so large now that Brother John had taken me from Sacred Sister duty and ordered me to rest. My back ached, and since this since this morning, waves of blinding pain had clenched my stomach, making me scream. Martha had told me this was normal, that this was my baby coming. She had been assigned to stay with me. She had been with child, too, but delivered a few weeks ago. Since then, all she had done was cry. She had been punished for those tears, lashes taken from her flesh, yet she could not stop crying.
Because they took her baby boy. They took him for the cause. And they would not let her see him.
My back ached as another agonizing slice of pain ripped through me. I cried out, feeling a dull pressure building at the bottom of my spine. I stumbled on my feet. Martha ran through the door just in time to catch me.
“Come, Phebe.” She led me to the bed. I clutched the bump, screwing my eyes shut as the pressure became unbearable and my entire body was overwhelmed with the need to push. “I think it is coming,” I said, just as my bedroom door opened and Sister Leah entered.
“The baby is coming,” Martha told her.
Sister Leah parted my legs, and I felt her hand inside me. “You have to push,” she ordered.
Martha gripped my hand. “You can do this, Phebe,” she said, tears pouring down her face. I knew she was thinking of her boy. I knew she was in great pain.
With every ounce of strength I could muster, I pushed, feeling as if my body must surely split in two. I breathed as deeply as I could through the agony and exhaustion racking my body. And then, I did not know how long later, a loud cry sailed into my ears. Martha leaned down to view the baby in Sister Leah’s arms. “It is a girl, Phebe,” she said and squeezed my hand tighter.
“A . . . girl?” I said breathlessly and felt something switch inside me. I felt something unknown take root, something I had never felt before . . . a blissful kind of peace. Such peace and love that it robbed me of my breath.
Sister Leah placed the baby on my chest. I blinked, overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment, then I eventually looked down. Two dark-brown eyes stared up at me. To the side of her left eye lay a large, dark freckle. I stared at that freckle, mesmerized at such beauty.
She came from me.
She . . . she was mine . . .
Tears flooded my face as I held her in my shaking arms. “Sapphira.” I heard Martha sniff from beside me. “I will name her Sapphira.”
“It is beautiful, sister.” Martha laid a kiss on my head. Martha was fourteen, two years my senior, but I knew that at that moment she understood me more than anyone ever had.
“Sapphira,” Sister Leah said and leaned over me. Panic filled my lungs when I saw her arms stretched out to take my baby from me.
“No!” I said loudly. Sapphira jumped in my arms and began to scream.
“Give her to me, child. You know she is a David Baby. You know she does not stay with you. You have a greater purpose to serve.” A David Baby. Babies born to Sacred Sisters. Babies that are “owned” by Prophet David and not their mothers. Raised not by their parents, but communally by carers.
A sob ripped from my throat. I tried to turn away, to move off the bed. Sapphira was mine. She was my baby! “No, please . . .” I glanced down at her brown eyes. “She is mine. Please, do not take her from me. I will care for her. I will manage both duties.”
“Phebe!” Sister Leah snapped. “Do as I command, or Brother John will be brought in. You have known since you discovered you were with child that she would not belong to you.”
“No!” I shuffled off the bed. I held Sapphira close to my chest as I struggled to hide myself in the corner of the room. Sister Leah left, and I saw Martha staring at us, crying as she sat on the edge of the bed, lost.
They had done this to Martha too. Took her baby boy away when she had wanted to keep him.
I looked down at Sapphira and shook my head. My face was drenched with tears as I held her to my chest. “You are mine.” I smiled through my tears when Sapphira stopped crying and looked up at me. I kissed her head, feeling the warm skin beneath me. “I love you,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I love you, Sapphira.”
The door flew open and Brother John, followed by Sister Leah, stepped through. I wanted to run, to flee with my daughter, but I was trapped. There was nowhere to go.
Brother John glared at me in disapproval. “Phebe, hand the baby over to Sister Leah. Stop this foolishness.”
“She is mine,” I said under my breath, defiant.
He must have heard me, because he shook his head. “She is a David Baby. She belongs to the faith. You are a Sacred Sister. And you have a different path than being a mother. A much worthier cause.”
He came closer, and closer still until he had his hands on Sapphira. “No!” I cried again as he took her from my hold. “Please . . . I love her!” My chest racked with sobs and my body shook as Brother John gave my baby to Sister Leah and she took her from the room.
I screamed.
I screamed and I screamed until my throat was raw. I did not remember what happened next, everything was a blur, but when I lifted my head, Brother John was gone from the room too. Only Martha and I remained. My eyes were swollen from crying, and my body hurt all over from giving birth. But nothing was greater than the void I felt in my arms. The empty space where Sapphira should have been.
The pain came in crashing waves, over and over again. “Sapphira,” I whispered. “Sapphira . . .” Her name felt like a cruel prayer on my lips.
A hand lay on my back, stroking up and down. “Martha.” I fell into her lap. “What am I to do now?”
I felt Martha’s tears hit my cheek—a shared pain. She stroked my hair. “Brother John told me that we can earn the right, through fishing, to see them on occasion. We are forbidden from saying who we are to them, but we may claim that we are their sisters. They will at least give us that.” Her voice sounded as desperate as I felt.
I blinked quickly, trying to rid the water from my eyes. “They will?” I asked, a glimmer of hope sprouting in my shattered heart.
“Yes,” Martha said. “And that is what I intend to do.” She sniffed. “If we recruit more men than our quota, our reward is time with them. And I must see him, Phebe. I cannot . . . I cannot . . .”
“Breathe,” I finished for her, when she could not express what was in her bruised heart.
“Yes,” she said after several silent moments.
Clutching my hand to my chest, I pictured Sapphira in my head.
My heart never healed after that day, shattered and irreparable. But I believed in our prophet. In the end, I believed he would do what was best for his people—including me.
I just had to obey and have faith . . .
AK’s chest was drenched as I fought to breathe through the memory of that day. His hand was tight in my hair, and I held onto him as though I would fall apart if not for his compass.
“Fuck, Phebe,” he said. “I got no words for that fucked-up shit.” He pulled me even closer to his body. “Did you ever see her again?”
I nodded, recalling those precious days. “It took me two years to see her again. They said I needed time to set her free from my heart. It never worked, of course. I knew that my bond to her would never fade. The day I met her again, she was playing outside with some other children.” I smiled though my tears. “She had the brightest, blondest hair, similar to Lilah’s, but Sapphira’s eyes were so dark, like midnight—I did not know who her father was, he could have been any one of the several men I had served, but he must have had those eyes. And to the side of her left eye lay the large freckle, the memory of which had gotten me through the two years before.” I looked up to see AK watching me. “I sat beside her on the grass. I was so nervous.” I laughed. “Nervous at meeting my own flesh and blood. I was shaking so hard that it took me forever to ask if I could play with her. She was nervous at first too. It transpired that she was a very shy girl. Beautiful, but extremely shy. It took a further two visits for her to speak to me. For her to smile.” My bottom lip quivered. “And her smile lit up my life, AK. There was no sun before that day.”
I screwed my eyes shut for a second, and AK pulled me further up his chest. “What?” he asked, searching my face, tone low.
“She was six when I told her I was her sister. Her blood. Her sister, AK . . .” I shook my head. “My soul died that day. Died when I could not tell her that she was mine, that I was her mother and she was loved more than I had known possible. She was the fabric of my soul. The very air I breathed.”
“And you earned those visits?” AK said tightly. His hold on me grew firmer.
“I fucked men, AK. I fucked my way through so many men to get to those visits. I fucked so well that I won rewards from the prophet for my recruitment record, medals. And they rewarded me with a much-coveted position—head Sacred Sister. I taught others; I led our missions. I was called upon to entice and impress the most important of Prophet David’s, and then Judah’s, visitors.” My chest tightened and a sob sailed from my throat. “But they made her a Sacred Sister too, AK. My baby, my little girl, they made her a Sacred Sister. They turned my daughter into a whore.” My chest ached. “I knew it was likely. The female David’s Babies were often put into the same circle as their mothers. The prophet deemed them worthy of being one because it was already in their blood. But it still hurt more than anything when I discovered she was in training.”
“Fuck.” AK pressed a kiss to my head. I reared back, refusing his kind touch. His eyebrows pulled down.
“No,” I said. “You do not understand.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I placed my finger over his lip to silence his words. “I believed in it all, AK. I believed that my sacrifice, no matter how hard it was to endure, was necessary because the prophet deemed it so. Even when Sapphira was made a Sacred Sister, I believed it was God’s way. Despite the pain it caused, the hardship to us both, I would never doubt the prophet. I truly believed he knew what was best.” I choked on those pathetic words. “I was stupid and naïve.” I sucked in a pained breath and let more tears fall. “I failed her in every way because of my blind faith. I failed Lilah, encouraging her to believe and rejoin the faith before she was punished.
“It was not until we all came to New Zion after Prophet Cain’s ascension, and things began to change, that the veil that had shrouded my eyes drew back and the truth of our so-called mission was revealed to me. It was all false . . . everything we did had been due to the ego of one man . . . and all those people perished because of it. . .”
AK placed his hands on my cheeks and lifted my head. “Sapphira . . . the suicide . . .?”
“She was not there,” I said and watched him relax. I thought back to Judah. “The only good thing Judah did when I was his consort was send her away. I begged him to stop her mission as a Sacred Sister. I said that if he loved me as he claimed, he would do this one thing for me. He would save her.” I exhaled, feeling some glimmer of comfort.
“He did as I requested and sent her away, sent her from a life of sexual servitude. She was thirteen at the time. She would be fourteen now. Judah informed me there was a smaller commune where the elderly or impaired were placed. Judah sent her there to work. It was abroad and far away from Texas.” My eyes fell. “I never even got to say goodbye to her, but I took comfort that she was away from New Zion, where I could see everything was falling around us.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But my daughter is still out there in the world somewhere, without me.” I inhaled deeply. “Since you saved me from Meister, since you forced me to face my demons, I have been plagued with guilt and regret. I should have fought harder for her. I should have realized sooner that The Order was a veritable hell. But at least I am safe in the knowledge that she still lives. Others were not so fortunate. They watched their babies die alongside them. I heard no order from Judah demanding the elderly or infirm be killed, so I pray that she is safe.” I laid my hand on my heart. “I have to believe she is okay, that she breathes, or else I would cease to be. I would waste away.”
When I had confessed the last of my sins, a heady kind of numbness took hold of me. AK was watching me carefully, and I almost wept when I saw no censure in his gaze, no judgment. His hand was shaking when it threaded through my hand.
That small gesture of comfort allowed me to breathe. It allowed the tightness in my chest to relax and find some morsel of peace in this mess.
“You weren’t to blame, Red,” he said, his voice low, deep, but best of all, sincere. “You were a fucking kid. You were a kid who had a kid, and those fuckers took her off you, giving you some bullshit trope, all that you could still be their whore. They brainwashed you. About every single thing in your life. And you have fuck all to be sorry for.”
“I do not believe that,” I said tiredly. I was drained and depleted.
I was numb.
AK sat up and pulled me onto his lap. His hands cupped my face, and he made sure I looked directly into his eyes. “Then I’ll fucking believe it for you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, more thankful than he could ever know. I looked into his kind, handsome face, and I knew that I owed him an explanation. All was blurry, but I knew how I must have acted after he saved me, under the influence of the drink. I took a deep breath. “I am nothing if not a whore, AK. I do not know how to be anything else.
“I do not know how to live with all my demons. My failure of Sapphira, Lilah, and all the lives of the men I seduced, wasted when Judah ordered them to drink his poison. I brought those men to the commune, to our faith, and they died under Judah’s command.” I clutched on to AK for dear life. “And I do not know how to live in a world where I see my daughter in my arms whenever I close my eyes. Not knowing where she is in the world, if she ever thinks of me.” I breathed slowly. “Meister’s potion took all that away—the cares and the worries. The drink I found on Ky’s porch did the same thing to me, when you had taken the potion from my veins. It was a suitable substitute. It made me not remember, or think of Sapphira, for a time. I saw Lilah with Grace, and although it makes me elated they have one another, it killed me to see what a mother looks like. A true, good mother. That is why I did not want to be brought back to real life.” I shook my head. “Real life is too hard. And I do not know how to cope with it. Not at all.”
I clung to AK as if he were the only tether keeping me from breaking apart. And I whimpered, losing the final restraint on my sorrow when his large arms came around me and held me as close as possible. He kissed my hair and rocked me back and forth, keeping me safe in his hands. “You ain’t to blame,” he said again, his kindness rushing over me like a balm. “They made you do it. Those fuckers took you as a fucking kid and raped you. Forced you into service and stole your kid. You can’t blame yourself. You were fucking trafficked.”
AK said no more as I purged years’ worth of sorrow from my heart. He just held me close as my tears dried to a drought and my body sagged in exhaustion.
My eyes fought to close, and I lost the battle to keep them open. I recalled being lifted in AK’s arms and placed down a warm bed. But when I next woke I was alone, and my entire body shook. My skin was sweating from my nightmares. I saw my daughter’s face, felt her in my arms. I saw Lilah on the stake, her bloodied body, too vividly in my head.
It was all too much.
I threw back the comforter and left my room. The cabin was quiet and still, but I needed him.
I needed him so badly.
I tiptoed into AK’s bedroom. There were two small, narrow beds in this room too. AK’s tall form was under the covers of one. As if he were a beacon to my bruised heart, I followed my feet until I arrived at his bedside. The wooden floor creaked beneath my feet. His body jolted upright, and he blinked into the light from the moon. “Phebe?”
I did not speak. I simply lifted the cover under which he lay and climbed inside. I let his smoky scent soothe my nerves as I lay down on the pillow beside him. I stared into his eyes and shuffled close to his warm body, the two of us barely fitting on the tiny mattress. I laid my head against AK’s shoulder and closed my eyes.
His arms came around me, and I heard his breathing in my ear. In the comfort of his safe embrace, I let sleep pull me under. And for the first time in my life, I lay in bed with a man and just slept.
My body protected in his arms . . .
. . . and perhaps my soul too.