Desperate Rescue

“I don’t understand—”

She pulled back her hand, unable to focus on her thoughts while he held it. A tendril of her hair had worked loose. When it dropped against her cheek, she hastily tucked it over her ear and was glad for the distraction. “At first, some of the women asked Noah to kick me out because I was so adamant about being there against my will and they were tired of listening to me. But Noah refused. He was insane and power-hungry. To him, I must have represented the secular world and he wanted to be able to control it. I think he also must have thought that if he managed to tame me, it would send a message of dominance to the rest of his cult.”

Eli’s blue eyes snared hers. Deep within them she saw uneasiness. “How did he manage to convince you to stay?”

“His threats grew. At first I refused to listen to them, because they were vague and full of innuendos. Then they got specific that one day. And later, his threats against Trisha became too real. One day, she got hurt outside. A board fell on her from the top of the woodshed. Noah looked at me and I knew he’d staged it to show me he meant business. So I shut up. I was scared.”

She paused, wondering why she was rehashing all the pain with this man, Noah Nash’s brother, of all people. But then, a second later, the rest poured out of her as if a plug had been pulled from a sink full of bitter, dirty water. “The months of semistarvation, of cold, browbeating captivity. There came a point where I just did what he said, period. I’d been taken to the lowest point in my life.”

She struggled in vain against the tears and the humiliation that she’d just let loose with all her fears and pain. “Before I escaped, though, I’d actually started to believe what I was prophesizing.” Shame added to the burn in her cheeks.

Through a swim of tears, she spied Eli climbing out of the car and walking around the front. He opened her door and tugged her to standing. Beyond, the gas attendant chose that moment to step out of the store.

Eli ignored him to pull her close. For a brief, delicious moment, she felt important, cared for. For that time, she didn’t care who he was. He was what she wanted. Strong arms wrapped around her, protecting her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s all right.”

“Noah had started to make sense. The way he was interpreting things that had happened around us, the past and even what the Bible said. He’d started to really sound right.”

Eli tightened his grip on her.

She cried for a while longer. “I don’t want to go back there. I know what happened to me. I had started to believe some of the things he was saying. Then one day, Trisha left me alone in the kitchen. The back door was there and the yard was empty. I made this split-second decision to escape. I…I think it was just as possible that I would have stayed there. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to risk getting trapped again.”

He stiffened but held her tight. She felt his shoulders drop slightly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let anyone hurt you or take you.”

“What about Phoebe? What if Noah hurts her to get even?”

His mouth thinned and he tightened his jaw. “We just have to trust that she won’t end up like your sister. That’s all we can do.”

“The day after I escaped, Trisha was found dead in that motel close to the border. It could happen—”

“Kaylee, I wish I could change the past, but I can’t. You have to move forward.”

Run. Leave. Go away. The urge to flee surged over her like a tidal wave. Leave now while you still have a chance to prevent what could happen.

She peeled free of his arms, giving him a push to put a few feet between them. “Easy for you to say!”

“Kaylee, wait!”

She stilled, but couldn’t lift her gaze to his.

“Look at me,” he said, the tone strong, full of command and confidence, yet strangely gentle.

She wound her gaze up his frame. Again, she saw only compassion in his eyes as he spoke. “I need you. Phoebe needs you. If she stays there, what’ll happen to her? Or the other women in the group?”

She bit her lip and with her index fingers, wiped a few errant tears from under her eyes. While she was at The Farm, one of the women got married, with Noah officiating, of course, and she became pregnant. The baby was stillborn and they nearly lost the mother, too, because she had no prenatal care. Tiny Phoebe wouldn’t survive if she got sick.

A knot formed in her throat as the attendant asked them if he could fill the tank. After Eli nodded, they moved away. “But what I did in there…What I said, and…and what I started to believe—”

“Don’t think about that.”

Her lips thinned as she formed a grim expression. Did he think she could just drop a thought like it was an unwanted bread crust or scrap of trash? He had no idea of the lies she’d been forced to say.

And yet, a voice within her asked, can you disappoint Eli? Or risk Phoebe?

Phoebe was Noah’s most ardent follower, a voice inside reminded her. Think of the blow it would be to the group.

Kaylee swallowed. But Phoebe didn’t have to be there, she argued internally.

Eli walked around the car, stopping only to thrust a few bills out at the attendant. “Let’s go.”

“I’m no good to you. Take me home.”

After the young man left, he said, “We don’t have time. We need to get to the compound. They go shopping on Wednesdays, remember?”

She blinked. “Yes, but how did you know that?”

“Remember, I have a very good investigator. He knows Noah nearly as well as I do.”

She frowned. “Knowing your brother doesn’t mean you know the cult’s schedule.”

Their gazes locked across the roof of the car. The hairs on her neck danced. Panic threatened again.

“Trust me, Kaylee. I’ve done my homework.”

She narrowed her eyes. Finally, he went on, “Only the trustworthy women and one man to help were allowed to leave the compound. Noah used to tell everyone it was for safety and spiritual reasons. Should the end come, only being in the compound would save them, like being in the ark when the rains came.”

He knew so much. “But you don’t know if Phoebe is going to be one of those that leave. Yes, Noah would trust her, but she could just as easily stay.”

“That’s where faith comes in. Let’s go.” He climbed into the car before she could reply.

They drove past a small picnic site, turned and then bumped over a culvert onto the next side road, heading east. She peered up at the low hanging branches that scraped the roof. The car dipped into a long rut, splashing mud over the bracken ferns that clawed their way onto the path. Like a drowning victim clinging to a lifeline, she gripped her knapsack.

“Hang in there,” Eli said softly.

“The last time I was here, I was fleeing for my life.”

He winced. Kaylee checked her grim satisfaction. She’d meant her words to be harsh. Noah was dangerous and Eli’s faith wasn’t going to help them. Nor would she trust her life to a God who’d allowed Trisha to die.

When Eli slowed down, his eyes alert, on the lookout for any visible activity, she searched for another subject to calm herself. “What do you do for a living?”

“When Phoebe went missing, I sold my business and devoted my time to finding her.”

“Why did it take you so long?”

“Halfway through my search, I took some psychology courses and negotiation training. I actually got a short-term job working for a local police station.”

The road straightened out and both of them fell back into silence. With the car crawling along the dirt road, Kaylee spent the time digesting his words.

Itinerant. Nothing to tie him down.

With her father gone so much when he was alive, her mother found herself doing many things to stave off boredom, both Kaylee and Trisha had learned to appreciate security and stability.

Eli, a wanderer and one who could just hand over his life to the Lord. It was easy to understand how Lois could do that—she was a widow in the winter of her years—but how could he?

She stole a fast look at him. His handsome chiseled profile could lure a woman in. Under other circumstances, she might even have considered dating him.

No. She reined in that thought. He was a driven man who defined himself by his one noble goal—saving his sister. And once he’d achieved his aim, he’d be gone like a shot. He was one of those who were only in a person’s life for a season—in this case, a short one.

The car bumped over some rocks, jarring her to the present situation. “We’re getting close. I remember tripping over those rocks and some of the women would complain that they should be removed. Noah disagreed.”

The tips of the rocks scraped the undercarriage, a terrible grating noise. “Of course. They serve as a natural early warning system.” He slowed down even further, obviously trying to avoid any more detection. Branches scoured the doors, issuing more surreal screeches as they scratched the paint.

Kaylee nodded. Eli certainly knew his brother. She leaned forward, staring down at the road ahead. “Stop.”

Eli stopped.

“No fresh wheel tracks, and it rained last night. No one’s left the compound today.” She paused, wracking her brain for a possible reason. “Up ahead, past those blackberry bushes, is a turnaround point. You’d better take advantage of it.”

He maneuvered the car until it was safely facing the way they’d come. They climbed out as quietly as they could before Kaylee leaned over, her voice dropping. “After the next bend, you can see the compound. But they can also see you.”

“Then we’ll move off the path now.” He headed into the thicket.

She held her breath, hating the anxiety growing in her again. “Setback city, here we come,” she muttered.

Eli held back a branch for her. She heard him chuckle softly. “What may seem like a setback could be a test.”

She stepped past the branch, tossing him a cool look as she slipped past. “And all your setbacks? There were bound to have been some. Did you call them tests?”

“Yes. The investigator couldn’t find anything for years. It wasn’t until CNN reported on you that we got a lead. I was so grateful for it.” His voice cracked as he peered through the bushes ahead of them.

Unexpectedly, tears sprang into her eyes.

A bird called behind them.

Are You there, Lord?

Eli held up his hand. “I see it. Get down.”

She knelt and, with a preparatory breath, looked up. Chain-link fencing, topped with barbed wire, encircled the overgrown old farmhouse and the two outbuildings that sat askew to it. One was a washhouse for the men, the other the men’s quarters.

She’d never seen Noah enter or exit them. Driven and dangerous, he’d always stayed in the dark basement, keeping his face hidden. Trisha and Phoebe would say he was praying, but Kaylee couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t do that in a warmer and drier room.

Driven and dangerous. Her heart hammered in her throat. Eli shared those same qualities with his brother.

Behind her, Eli’s sharp inhalation drew cool air across her neck. Without warning, she was swamped with the urge to plow into him and stay safely huddled against his chest until this nightmare was finally over.

Caught between the compound that ruined her life and the man that could do the same again, she should run now while she had the chance.

“There’s no one around.”

Quickly, she scanned the area. “I don’t even see the truck. Maybe it’s been gone all night.”

“What could they be doing?”

Shaking her head, she answered, “I don’t know. Praying, maybe? Sometimes Noah would take them all to the basement for a prayer vigil. With him doing the praying, of course.” Her last words turned derisive.

“Yes, it’s called it seeding. With him controlling the prayers, he could be seeding his flock with specific instructions.”

She shivered. “I remember the things he’d ask for.”

Eli rubbed her arm lightly. “It’s all right. You don’t have to say any more.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You should know. Noah would take one of the flock and pray for them, claiming that it had been revealed to him that the person needed to have his or her wickedness purged.”

“Sounds par for the course.”

“Yeah, but it was me who delivered those lies.” Oh, how she hated what she’d done. Crouching down, she scowled at the drafty old farmhouse. The weather had been brutally cold last winter and everyone suffered. Even now, the memory chilled her bones. All those icy nights when she took pairs of socks or a sweater and jammed them in the leaks in the old bedroom window, anything to stop the drafts. Whose were they? Who complained in the morning when their clothes were stiff with frost?

She couldn’t remember.

She didn’t want to remember.

“I guess that’s why God doesn’t answer my prayers like Lois promised He would. I told awful lies for two years. I allowed Noah to intimidate me. My punishment, I suppose.”

Her words had been soft, barely audible and not really meant for Eli’s ears. But in the quiet woods, where even that lone bird no longer called, he heard. She should have kept her mouth shut tight.

“His grace is sufficient for you. You didn’t need anything else, nor do you now.”

With a twist around, she snapped at him. “Why are you quoting Scripture to me? It’s as if—” She tried to curb her anger by shutting her mouth, but being here, knowing Trisha had died…the pain was still so fresh.

The knot in her throat tightened. She waved her hand. “Forget it. Don’t answer. Let’s work our way around back. Sometimes there’s more life there.” Without looking at him, she thrust through the dense forest.

Eli caught her arm. “Let me go first.”

At the back, the forest encroached on the fence even more. If unchecked, it would soon swallow up the apron of cleared land skirting the chain link. Like the front gate, the back one was closed and locked with a huge padlock.

She looked up past it. The rear of the farmhouse lay as empty as the front. Kaylee’s gaze wandered up to the second-floor bedroom, the one she’d shared with Trish and Phoebe for a short time.

She’d been a prisoner there, allowed out only for ablutions, the occasional meager meal and prayer service when her “abilities” as prophet were needed. Left alone for hours in that freezing bedroom with its cracked and drafty window. Trisha and Phoebe would join her at night. Most of those nights they’d all huddled in the same bed. Phoebe had often reminded them that the pioneers survived and they would, too. That God was preparing them for the hardships that come with starting a new world.

Evil propaganda fed to them by Noah.

“No one’s around,” Eli whispered. “Would the kids also be downstairs?”

Kaylee threw off the thoughts and shook her head. “No. The older ones would have taken the younger ones outside. There’s no smoke from the chimney, either. And no chickens in the coop. This place looks like a tomb.”

Eli drew in a sharp breath.

She cringed. “Sorry. Bad choice of words. Maybe we should get a bit closer.”

Eli held up his hand and stood. Only then did she realize that he’d chosen his clothing well. His jacket, while not camouflaged, was a dark moss-green and his pants were chestnut. Only his pale blond hair stood out, but amidst the autumn golds and yellows of the birch and poplar, his coloring blended well.

He scanned the ground slowly, methodically, his gaze intent on finding something where trees met unruly grass.

Kaylee’s heartbeat quickened through her temples. A wild mix of emotions barreled into her chest and out to her shaking hands. She leaned forward, casting wary glances around them. “They’re gone, Eli. Taken off. Let’s go. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”

He studied the yard, not answering her. Just as she leaned forward to tell him she’d wait for him in the car, he turned. “How did you get out of this yard? Did Noah leave the gate unlocked?”

She met his stare. His eyes were an incredible electric blue. Her naïveté reared and she wished she could read him. She sensed someone wanting desperately to find his sister, or at least desperate to get into this compound. But she also sensed something else and hated not being able to recognize it.

Finally, she flicked her head toward the south side of the yard. “Over there.”

“Show me.” He stood, stepped back and wrapped his strong fingers around her wrist. Then, twisting her around, he led her through the woods the way they came. She wanted to tug her hand free, but having someone close felt good, especially here.

They pushed through the thick woods and around the corner of the yard.

“Where?” he asked.

She stepped past him and scanned the fence. There had been a large bramble bush that had caught her clothing. The children had told her it hid the break.

There! She bent down and after pulling her sleeve over her hand to protect it, she swept the prickly bush away to reveal the narrow break. When she turned back to Eli, his face was lit with anticipation.

“You may be too big to get through it,” she commented.

“I’ll manage.” He bent back the chain link, tearing it up slightly from the ground. “You go first. I’ll hold this back for you.”

She hadn’t needed him to do that, but once he stepped to the left, she swallowed down her reluctance and slipped into the compound.

She straightened. For a brief moment, Eli stood there, his eyes locked on hers. Wasn’t he coming in, too? Doubt flooded her. Was he returning her to his horrible place—

No. His expression told of his own mixed emotions. Finding Phoebe, but in what condition? Or finding nothing but pain and a missed opportunity. Kaylee wanted so much to pull him into her and hold him tight.

She knew all about mixed emotions. That day she’d escaped, the jumble of dos and don’ts tangled into her reasoning. Then, in a millisecond, she’d made her decision and escaped. She knew the pain Eli was feeling right now, and wished she could somehow take it all away from him.

She drew in a breath, hating the sudden attraction that both lured and frightened her.

“We don’t have to do this,” she said softly.

“I need to.” His expression melted. “And I’m glad you’re here with me.” Then he stepped through after her.

“Where first?” she asked.

“The house?”

She wet her lips. “I’d rather not, thank you.”

“I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He dusted off his pants, tugging free a dried bramble twig as he did so. “Okay, we’ll do the outbuildings first. I wonder what they’re for.”

“The men sleep in one and wash up in the other. Only the married men were allowed to sleep in the house and only one man was married. Noah had strict rules about those sorts of thing. I don’t know why, but I was glad.”

“Perhaps abstinence was part of the starvation routine he used to wield his control.”

Good point. She hadn’t considered that, but it made sense.

Eli led her across the lawn to the front of the buildings. “Where does Noah sleep?”

“I don’t know. He never slept when I was awake. He was always the first up and the last to bed.”

“He always was a night owl.”

She watched as Eli searched the men’s building. It was much newer than the old farmhouse. Occasionally, she’d wondered what had been its original purpose. But she’d never heard the men complain about it. It must have been well insulated.

Finally, Eli came out. Without looking at her, he walked into the other one and within a minute, came out again.

The disappointment showed clearly on his face. The buildings were empty.

She felt her own heart sink and yet at the same time, relief sluiced through her.

Eli walked up to her. “There’s no one in either building. The beds are made, everything is reasonably neat and tidy, like they just left it.” He turned to the house.

“I don’t want to go in,” she blurted out. “Not into the house.”

Eli blinked, his mouth softening from that tight line she’d seen before to something sympathetic. He reached out and took her hand. His fingers warmed hers.

“I know. But I have to find Phoebe. This is my life, Kaylee. And my parents need answers.” After a moment of holding her hand, he dropped it. “I’ll be back.”

The wind slid across her face like strips of cold, wet cotton, the kind she’d used to wipe the dishes in The Farm when it had been her turn. Ahead, Eli stepped upon the rotting porch. She could hear it groan under his weight and the sound brought back a vivid memory. The day those who remained ate spring greens while the rest went grocery shopping. The woman who’d picked and steamed them had lifted her head sharply at the sound of those front boards relenting to Noah’s weight.

Kaylee could still remember the look of apprehension on the two starving children who were still finishing their greens. When the door creaked open, the children gobbled up the rest on their plates and hurried to the sink. They dumped them in there and dashed out the back door.

“It’s open,” Eli said, breaking into her difficult memory. He pushed on the front door, then still outside, threw her his own version of that fearful expression.

Her heart squeezed. He didn’t want to go in and find the cult dead, murdered by his brother or, just as bad, all having taken their own lives.

She pushed aside the terrible worry. This wasn’t fair to Eli.

“Eli?”

Just inside the door, he turned.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go in. Maybe we could call someone to search this place for you.”

He frowned. “Like who? The police?”

She cringed. He knew her history, probably from the diligent investigator he’d hired. He knew she wouldn’t want to deal with the police here ever again.

He shook his head. “Like I said, this is something I have to do.”

Then, with gritted teeth, he walked inside.

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