Chapter 2

"You can't do this," I choked out, backing away from them. "You don't understand who they are."

Brenda scoffed, her face hardening. "Oh, we understand perfectly. They value you. Unlike us, apparently."

"They're dangerous," I pleaded, my voice rising. "The Prophet, Elijah, he's not what you think. He'll hurt you if he finds out you did this for money."

Earl flinched at the name Elijah, but Brenda stood firm.

"Don't you threaten us, girl," she spat. "After all we've done for you? Taking you in?"

"Taking me in?" I cried. "You're selling me!"

Kyle stepped forward, his face contorted with anger. "You were always a problem, Ashley. Always."

"They'll kill you," I insisted, looking at Earl, trying to find a spark of sense in his weak eyes. "You have no idea what they're capable of. Caleb... he punishes people for just looking at me wrong."

I remembered Caleb, my adoptive brother, head of the Guardians. His eyes, always watching, possessive.

I remembered the screams from the Re-Education Quarters. The fear.

Brenda' s eyes narrowed. "Stop your lies. They were very polite on the phone. Very concerned about your well-being."

"It's a lie!" I screamed. "They're a cult! They hurt people!"

Brenda' s hand cracked across my face, sharp and sudden.

My head snapped back, my cheek stinging.

"You ungrateful bitch," she hissed. "Do you know how much I suffered because of you? That pregnancy almost killed me."

"And Kyle," Earl chimed in, finding his courage now that I was stunned. "He was always sick as a boy. Doctor said it was the stress you put on your mother."

Kyle nodded eagerly. "Yeah, it's all your fault. Always has been."

They blamed me. For everything. For their miserable lives in that run-down trailer park.

The hope I' d clung to, that tiny, stupid hope for a real family, shattered.

These people weren't family. They were monsters, just a different kind than the ones I'd escaped.

"Please," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "Turn the truck around. I'm begging you."

Kyle grabbed my arm, his fingers digging in. "Shut up. You're going back where you belong."

He shoved me towards the truck.

I stumbled, my body aching, my mind reeling.

They didn't believe me. They wouldn't.

Their greed was too strong, their resentment too deep.

I remembered a young man, a new initiate, who had accidentally brushed against my arm in the gardens.

Caleb had seen it.

Later, I heard the man' s screams. They said he' d fallen from a ladder.

No one fell from a ladder like that.

These people, Brenda, Earl, Kyle, they were walking into a nightmare.

And they were dragging me back with them.