೦ Anna ೦
“Anna, don’t be scared, I got you.” Sam’s voice promises me, soothingly, and it is the only voice I know I can trust.
It is far beyond midnight. By now all members of the Church of the Second Reckoning should be asleep. That is, apart from Sam and me. Just a few hours earlier, Sam’s father Joshua, the leader of the church, has praised the Lord and thanked him for turning me into an obedient, god-fearing believer, and worthy of becoming a woman.
Sam and I knew that this day would come. There was no stopping my fifteenth birthday. There was no stopping Joshua from choosing himself for initiating me into womanhood. He doesn’t care that I am his wife’s daughter and that I have lived under his roof for almost six years as his adopted daughter. Thinking of that man being my first makes me want to throw up. I can’t blame him for his filthy thoughts, when my deepest wish is that Sam could be my first.
My small hand in his feels right. It makes me feel safe, it makes me feel at home. Hearing him call me by my true name, just sets this feeling in stone. Holding his hand let butterflies loose in my stomach. It makes my heart dance instead of hammering, as we run past the buildings towards the nine-foot electric fence that surrounds the property. And is makes my face explode into a wide smile, despite us being on the run.
Quietly, we run past the sect’s gathering hall that now lies silent and empty. Tomorrow, I am supposed to walk down the aisle, all dressed in white, to be introduced, to be given to Joshua by my own mother, who has told me that it is the highest honor to become a woman by Joshua’s hand, the man who took her name away and had baptized “Rachel.”
He has already taken me from my grandparents, he has taken my mother, he has taken my freedom, he has taken my toys, my books, my smile, but he won’t get my innocence, my virginity, and I will take back my freedom. And I will take Sam with me.
Even though I have lived among these people for almost six years, I knew that this so-called ritual is far beyond wrong. No matter what my mother says. No matter what anyone says. I am turning fifteen, he is in his fifties, he’s my mother’s husband, and he still takes every girl to bed first. This is wrong. Disgusting.
Sam feels the same way. He is my best friend, and he is my brother, my stepbrother. As the youngest of three boys he is still eight years my senior. He is twenty-three now.
Right from the start he has been my protector. He taught me how to behave correctly, to say the right things, act the right way, cast my eyes down, smile just slightly, keep my head down, be obedient. He taught me all that and still helped me to stay Anna.
He was the one who smuggled my grandparents’ letters into the property, and he did the same with the letters I wrote back to them.
Sam is my hero. He is my everything. He is risking it all, just to get me out. He is leaving his life behind, the only life he has ever known, for me. He sacrifices everything just to protect me and to be with me.
Sam is my own personal, guardian angel. I know that for sure. Sam… that’s not his real name either. His father gave him the name Samael, it means ‘venom of God’ or ‘poison of God,’ and is also one name of the Devil. Joshua called him that because his mother died giving birth to him. After Sam told me that story, I refused to call him that ever again, and started calling him Sam. But only in secret. His eyes shine when I call him that. He doesn’t look like the Devil, but the devil was an angel before he fell. And Sam looks just like that.
His hazelnut colored hair looks black now, in the darkness, but when the sun touches it, it has a golden glow, almost like a halo. His hair is long enough to hang into his face and cover his beautiful greenish-brown eyes that also turn golden in the sun.
I know I’m too young for becoming a woman, for doing what Joshua would do to me tomorrow if we wouldn’t run. I know, because my grandparents have told me in their letters and I know that they would never lie to me.
They never have.
They were never cruel, never took things from me, never hit me, or locked me in the closet. My grandparents were the ones who took me in when my mother abandoned me. They were my parents for the first nine years of my life. Until my mother showed up and demanded that I would come with her.
My grandparents have promised me that there is a place for Sam, back home, where I grew up. It is the only place I will ever call ‘home’. They promised me that they would take care of him as if he was their own. They would never lie to me. They never have.
I am too young for having my first time with a man, but when we are free, and home safe with my grandparents, I will give the only thing I have left to Sam. I want him to be my first. I want him to be my last.
I have never felt as feathery light or so full of hope as I am now, while I am running across the slippery grass, my backpack shouldered, my hand in Sam’s, and him leading the way, freedom in sight.
And that is when it all goes wrong.
Suddenly, the spotlights around the entire property come to life, as well as those along the electric fence that had been our destination, because on the other side the men my grandparents hired are waiting for us to reach them.
Instinctively, Sam and I freeze in shock and terror, like a deer in the headlights. His grip around my hand tightens and he turns around, pulling at my hand to maneuver me behind him, so that he is shielding me, so that I am hidden behind him.
I don’t have to see or hear Joshua to know that he is there, because his youngest son has turned as rigid as a pillar of salt. Sam always reacts this way when his father approaches him, because it is never a good sign. Joshua’s intentions are never good.
I have never witnessed the full potential of what is going on between them, but I have seen the marks. I have been the one to treat the gashes and wounds after ‘the guardian’s prayer,’ which are special lessons for the boys and men who are honored with the task of protecting the church. Sam is supposed to become their commander one day.
Sam has confessed to me that these prayers feel more like a curse, like a punishment. He has told me that his father is treating him harder than all the others not because he is supposed to be the best, but because he killed his mother. Twenty-three years of being an obedient son, of bidding each and every command, and he still is not worthy.
“Sam,” I plead, whispering, knowing that he can’t break himself free from the paralysis his father causes in him. “Sam, please. We need to go! We need to run! Sam, please!”
His grip on my hand becomes increasingly tighter, so tight that my fingers started to hurt. But his body begin to tremble, slightly. He was petrified, but he was fighting against it.
“Sam, you’re hurting me,” I urged now, louder. “Sam, come on. You will be safe!”
“I will never be safe,” he suddenly says, and his words hurt me.
“I will shoot you if I must!” Joshua’s voice bellows across the yard. “To keep you from the tainted world, my son and daughter!”
“I am not your daughter!” I step out of Sam’s shadow, who is now shaking, furiously screaming at the man, who is nothing but the evil he claims to protect us from. “I will never be your daughter. We are leaving!”
Joshua has brainwashed my mother, and tricked the authorities into declaring my poor, and beloved grandparents unfit to take care of a child. He has tortured and tormented Sam ever since he was born. I hate Joshua. I hate him with every fiber of my being, and if that means I am lost to the Devil, I will dance with him on Joshua’s grave!
“What was that?” Joshua replies, confused, and he slowly lowers the shotgun he is holding.
He isn’t used to me talking back to him, and then I realize that Joshua is thinking his son is kidnapping me against my will. Now, I must accept the fact that it might be the other way around.
All the men of the church are gathering behind him; most of them don’t carry weapons because only Joshua and only guardians and their church’s leader can carry them.
“Where does this sudden defiance come from!?”
The barrel of the shotgun is pointing downwards, and I pull at Sam’s hand, not to free myself, but to make him follow me. And then I run. I can feel him following me, but then I lose his hand, suddenly.
A shot thunders through the night and Sam’s hand is gone. I am stumbling as I try to stop and turn around to look for Sam. Strong hands take me by surprise as they pull me away from him and forward, before I am lifted off the ground.
Another shot answers the first, ripping through the cold night air. Its origin was right next to me. They are shooting back. Screaming and shouting swallow the night’s serene silence.
Whoever is carrying me turns around to run and I can see the entire scene laid out in front of me. My mother is running after us, shouting my name but everything is drowned out.
Sam is lying on the ground, and he isn’t moving.
“Sam!” I scream at him and begin to struggle.
I can’t leave him behind, no matter what, even if the worst has happened to him. But the man carrying me is continuing to run away from the only one that matters to me. He doesn’t let go of me, although I am now kicking and hitting him
“You need to help Sam!” I cry out. “Please! Help him! Please!”
I feel like I am drowning. My breath is shallow, my eyes water, and my heart hammers loudly in my ears.
“Sam!!!”
೦ Six years later ೦
I sit up straight in my bed and am instantly wide awake, trembling like a dead tree’s leaves in a storm. My face is covered in tears and my clothes are clinging to my skin, soaked with my sweat.
My nightmares are the reason I have a dorm room on my own. And that wasn’t even the worst of them.
This nightmare is the second worst, because it’s one of the memories I relive over, and over, and over again. My therapist says that this dream is returning, because I haven’t let go of Sam. She makes it sound as if that should be the easiest thing in the world to do. You can’t ask a priest to let go of Jesus.
Yes, Sam is haunting me. He’s haunting me in my dreams, and on rare occasions when I am awake. As a corpse, a ghost, an avenging angel, and sometimes he’s the Sam he should have been. As terrible as most dreams of him are, I’m still happy that I get to see him at all. I can’t google him, can’t attempt to investigate if he survived the shot, because Joshua might find out that I am back in the US, and where I am, what name has been given to me now.
The bounty hunters that brought me home did their best to convince me that Sam was dead, and that they couldn’t return for him, because they had to get me out of there. They didn’t know how much Sam meant to me, and my grandparents didn’t comprehend it either.
Tomorrow, I will finally be free. Tomorrow, I turn twenty-one, which makes me an adult, and I will stop being a ward of the state. I have already packed most of my things and crammed them into my little red car. Tomorrow I will vanish into thin air for one last time, but I will take Sam with me.
I wipe the tears from my face, pry the fabric off my skin and fall back onto the pillow. The clock tells me it’s 3:13 am. I should get some more sleep. I’m tired, and I plan to drive away from here as fast as possible; into one big city that can swallow me whole, which means I will drive the entire day for three days. And because of that, I should sleep, but I’m afraid.
Tomorrow is an important day, but not because it’s my birthday. I don’t celebrate my birthday. Never. At boarding school, and here at the college that didn’t believe that I was being serious, about not wanting to celebrate my birthday. I didn’t tell them why, since I hate the looks I get after they know, but because of that I had to turn on my heels and leave, twice. Once abroad, once here, so they knew I was being serious.
I don’t drink alcohol either, because it turns you reckless and into an idiot. And the last thing I want to do is to lose my virginity while being drunk to some random asshole. Of course, being a girl that doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs and is a virgin makes me the unicorn on campus. At least, to the guys and the girls who are into girls. For the rest, I am the freak with the nightmares, who can’t drink alcohol or smoke pot because she takes medication, which I don’t. They are just jealous I get all the boys attention.
I don’t want to fall asleep because I already know which dream will be next in line, waiting to make me jump wide awake again. That dream doesn’t make me scream Sam’s name. It will claw into my heart, twist, and turn it, squeeze it, until it explodes into a puddle of blood and flesh.
While Sam is haunting me for six years, this dream torments me ever since my sixteenth birthday. For five years. Five years since the fire.
I still believe with every fiber of my being that if I hadn’t taken the car my grandparents had given me as a birthday present, if I hadn’t wanted to hang out with my new friends at our favorite diner, my grandparents would be still alive.
I still remember the smell. And my car still stinks from the fire. The odor clings to my car like a leech to the skin, but I don’t try to cover it up, and I would never, ever sell that car. When I get inside on a very hot day, the stench is that strong that it makes my eyes water. Then, I can feel the scorching heat on my skin. It makes my eyes water again, just like they did when I got home too late and the beautiful house I had grown up in, had spent my only happy years in was consumed by flames, my grandparents still in it.
The fire department was already there, but all they did was save the neighbor’s houses, and stop me from trying to get inside.
The police said that it was a robbery gone wrong. That the fire was a tragic accident as there had been a towel left on the stove with my grandparents bound to chairs. They told me that they didn’t suffer, that the lack of oxygen made them lose consciousness and that they choked never waking up again, before the flames reached them. But I know that isn’t true.
My grandmother would never leave a towel on the stove, and with the fire that close they would have tried to get away, which meant they already had lost consciousness, or already had been dead. And then I simply knew that the cop talking to me was lying. Six years at that so-called church has taught me that.
I know my grandparents had been killed that night already. I knew without any doubt that it had been Joshua’s men’s work. They must have tried to get me back that night of my sixteenth birthday, not knowing that my grandparents had presented me a car and let me go out with friends despite their fear of me being kidnapped again. That that been their true present, letting me go, giving me a piece of freedom.
And that freedom got them killed. If I had been there, they would have just taken me and left my grandparents alive. That night I learned: I only leave death in my wake. I am the real angel of death, the real Samael, and that is why I asked the marshals to give me ‘Samantha’ for my first name.
That night, I was placed into the custody of the state, who put me in witness protection and shipped me off to a boarding school in Switzerland.
The tax payers didn’t pay for that.
My grandparents did. Their last will requested for me to go to that specific boarding school in case of their deaths. They wanted me to be safe.
When I was eighteen and came back to the U.S., I requested the file on my grandparents’ case including their autopsy reports.
It stated the truth about their deaths.
My grandpa had been stabbed to death, and is was possible that my grandma had been forced to witness the crime. After that, she was choked and eventually shot. It was assumed that the killer either changed his mind about torturing her, or lost his patience.
I also learned on my return that her inheritance as well as the money from my grandparents’ insurance policy had been put in a fund under an asset manager’s care. It would only be accessible to me on my 21st birthday.
Now, I have more than enough money, to search for a comfortable stone and to crawl beneath it.
And that is it, my worst nightmare.
Sometimes I am standing in front of the house and am forced to watch my grandparents being burned alive.
Usually, it is Joshua or either of his older son’s stopping me from saving them. Sometimes they force me to watch them while they kill my grandparents.
The dreams have changed over time; especially that one, because now, I can see Sam watching it all and doing nothing. He is just glaring at me, staring at what his brothers and father are doing to me, doing to my grandparents.
I don’t know why.
I guess, I think I deserve it.
೦ The next day ೦
Driving away from the private college that has been my home for the last few years feels like a relief, as if the buildings themselves dropped from my shoulders. Finally, I will start a life that is my own, and leave all my past behind. All of it.
I will forget about the teenage mother that had abandoned me after birth only to reclaim me as I turned nine, tearing me away from me grandparents, who meant everything to me, from my friends, school, from my life.
I will forget her; she who forced me to live among people I didn’t know. People who had strange beliefs, awkward stares, rigid discipline, and blind obedience to a man that terrified me.
I have spent my early teens with these people, who had called me “Rachel,” because my mom’s husband told everyone to. Still, every time I hear that name, it makes me cringe and shudder. Because it reminds me of the person he wanted me to be, but I never was.
It was different from being called ‘Sam.’
The name had been my own choice, because I wanted to be reminded of my first love, my only love. Still, when I hear his name, my name, the first thing I see is his body lying face down in the slippery, glistening grass. But I take the pain and swallow it down. I keep the memory, I cherish it. I carry his first name, because I will never get the chance to carry his last name.
There is still a part of me, whispering from the shadows, from the dark corners of my mind, that he is not dead. And I don’t shut up that voice, because I want to believe it, because I want to continue daydreaming of him, with the hope lingering that one day he will stand in front of me and scoop me up in his arms, to never let me go. Because there is a part of me that still refuses to believe that all the people I love are doomed to die, doomed to suffer.
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I inhale deeply, taking in the smell of fire, burning wood, plastic and stone that is stuck in the seats of my little, red VW. It’s the only thing I have left of my grandparents. Everything else, photographs, furniture, clothing, papers, all of it was consumed by the fire.
I roll down the window, because it’s too hot inside the car, and although I want to continue sucking in the toxic stench, I can’t breathe. My instinct is stronger than my self-loathing.
The hot summer breeze invades the interior and barely gives me any relief, but I don’t mind. This still feels like freedom, and for the first time I don’t feel like I must hide anymore, that I don’t have to run anymore. I can drive like this the whole day, the entire week. I don’t mind. Stench in my nose, and hot wind in my hair. The only thing missing is Sam.
I look to the empty seat next to me and try to picture him sitting there, looking at me with a smile. He probably would hold my hand like he did when he tried to run with me. I was so innocent back then, so full of hope. It takes me several attempts to swallow down the lump in my throat, and I bring my eyes back on the road quickly. I still didn’t see it coming.
A loud bang erupts from beneath my car and I lose control instantly as it veers across the road, wheels screeching and metal scratching across the asphalt. A tire or two must have burst.
What an irony, is the last thing I think, before my beloved, tiny car crashes into a ditch and everything turns dark.