Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 154595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“He . . . he raped you.” He pulled off the road into a car park. The dark car slid in behind them.
Gray sent off a text, probably to the guys following them. Then he turned to her. “Tell me. Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, he never raped me. But . . .” She swallowed heavily. “But once girls turned sixteen, they were considered adults. They were old enough to be married off. The Deity decided what man got each girl.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Some of his favorite men, his Sentinels, they ended up with multiple wives.” She licked her lips. “Jenner and Sampson’s dad, he was one of the Sentinels. For some reason, the Deity wanted me to marry Sampson. He even . . . he even sent him to sleep with me.”
“What?” he yelled. “That fucking bastard!”
“He didn’t do it,” she told him. “Sampson would never do that to me. But Cat . . .”
“Cat what?”
“So, Sampson is the oldest of all of us. Then Abe, Isaiah, Cat, Jenner, me and Immy is the youngest. For the guys, when they turned sixteen, they were expected to drop out of school and start working for the cult. But like I said, for the girls . . . sixteen was the age they were married off. Cat turned sixteen first. And when she did . . . the Deity told her that she was meant to be his.”
“Fucking hell.”
“He was so creepy. Anytime he came close to me, my skin crawled. All of us knew it was wrong. He was an old man. He was going to take her as his fifth wife. It was disgusting and awful, but we weren’t sure what we could do.”
“What the fuck were your parents doing?” he asked.
“They all believed in him. Jenner and Sampson’s dad liked the power he had as a Sentinel. Isaiah’s dad was close to becoming a Sentinel. Abe’s dad died before he came to the cult. Abe was maybe ten when he came to live with us. He hated living there so much. Immy’s parents had been in from the start. And my mom, I don’t think she liked being alone. After my dad died, she kind of became lost. She was easy pickings for the Deity.”
“Wait, you had a stepdad. He was part of the cult?”
“No.” She shook her head. “My mom wasn’t married to one of the men. Some of the older women weren’t. It was just the younger ones.”
“Fucking hell. That’s fucking worse.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And that bastard decided he wanted Cat? Wait, what about her family?”
“Cat’s mom was actually a really good mom. She did her best to protect us. We were all close and we tried to hang out at her place as much as possible. She wasn’t as indoctrinated as the others. I don’t know the details, but I think that her mom was hiding from someone. That there was a worse nightmare on the outside than in the camp. Which is saying something.”
“So what happened?”
“Cat’s mom knew that she couldn’t refuse the Deity. He’d have her punished or killed. It had happened before. So she decided to sneak Cat out. Cat didn’t want to go, but we told her she had to. We created a distraction and they snuck away. Between us all, we’d managed to scrounge enough cash to get them on a bus out of town. Cat’s mom said she had some friends who could help once they got out. We didn’t hear from her for months. We didn’t even know if they’d made it. The Deity was furious. He lost the plot. I was a few weeks away from turning sixteen when he sent Sampson to sleep with me. We both knew that we were going to be in trouble if he found out that we were pretending. He’d decided that we were meant to be together. But Sampson and I . . . he’s my best friend, but I never felt that way about him. The Deity had just given us the order to marry . . . when the FBI raided.”
“Cat went to the FBI?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Even back then, she was a force to be reckoned with. Her mother’s friends helped her. They managed to get someone at the FBI to listen to her story. Then they did some investigating until they had enough information to raid the place.”
“Please tell me that bastard is rotting in prison.”
“No, he’s not.”
“What the fuck?”
“He and some of his Sentinels took this fast-acting poison. He died, along with Jenner and Sampson’s dad and Isaiah’s dad. Jenner’s mom actually took Jenner, Sampson, and Isaiah to live with her sister, who wasn’t part of the cult. Sampson’s mom had died a few years ago and Isaiah’s mom took her life when her husband did.”