Page 19 of Wife Number One

I was ruined.

But my determination to get Hayley Jade to safety mattered more than the state of my soul.

I caught up with Shari as she left the woods and entered the main area of the commune. We didn’t have streets as such, at least not with signposts and names, but there were well-worn paths between the central gardens and the modest homes that had been built around the edges.

Shari took a path I knew well. It led to the small cottage I had once lived in with my baby.

Back before I was wife number one.

My heart ached at the sight of it now. The little home I’d created for my daughter, that had been given to Shari when I’d been given to Josiah. I paused a few feet away and watched Shari enter her home, the lights flickering on and spilling out around the edges of the curtains.

“What now, Kara?” I mumbled out loud, breathing into my ungloved hands to warm them. I could practically hear a clock ticking in my head, counting down the seconds until Josiah would leave the bonfire and realize I wasn’t in my bed.

I froze when the door to Shari’s cabin opened before I could even decide what to do.

Shari stared right at the shrub I was hiding behind. “Are you coming in or just hanging around out there waiting to get caught?” she whispered.

Shock held me immobile for a moment, but Shari waved me in impatiently again, and slowly, I rose from my crouched position.

“Hurry,” she whispered.

I passed by her and into the home I’d once known so well.

Shari closed the door behind me, then the two of us stared at each other in the tiny living room of the cabin I’d once called home. Nothing much had changed. All the furniture was still the same as when I’d left. Only now, the handful of baby toys that had sat in a wicker basket in the corner was replaced with a small desk with crayons and paper, and a ragged doll.

Shari followed my line of sight and picked the toy up off the floor. She held it close to her for a moment and then reluctantly held it out to me. “She’ll need this. Here. Take it. The crayons and papers too. She likes to draw.”

I didn’t dare move, my heart pounding. Was this a trap? Something her and Josiah had conjured up together to test my loyalty?

Shari’s expression shifted to desperate. “Take it!” She threw the items at my chest, so I had no choice but to grasp them before they fell to the floor.

Shari found a small backpack in the mudroom closet and started pulling tiny clothing from a laundry basket of fresh-smelling, neatly folded clothes. She shoved as many as she could fit into the backpack and then thrust that at me too.

I stared down at the bag full of Hayley Jade’s things and then back up at Shari. “I don’t understand.”

Shari’s expression turned angry. She glared at me with barely concealed hate. “You’re taking her, aren’t you? Getting her out of here?”

“I…” I closed my mouth, too scared to say a word. My brain screamed this was a trap. That this woman and Josiah were working together to trick me.

Shari moved in until we were practically nose to nose. She stared at me with such intensity I desperately wanted to turn away and yet I didn’t dare anger her further.

Shari’s eyes blazed as hot as the bonfire. “Listen to me, Kara, and listen to me good. Take that little girl and run. Run as far and as fast as you can.” She strode to the couch and lifted one of the sagging cushions. Beneath it, she withdrew an envelope and pushed it at me. “Here. Take this. It’s not much, but it should get you a bus ticket.”

With trembling hands, I looked down into the open envelope. Inside was a handful of small bills. Maybe two hundred dollars altogether. I snapped my head up in shock. “Women can’t have money here.”

Shari sniffed. “You think I don’t know that? That’s why I had it hidden beneath the couch.”

“How…”

Shari sighed. “The only way women have ever made money when they have nothing else to give. You saw what happened tonight. You think that’s the first time? The newcomers don’t know Josiah doesn’t allow us women to have money. Many are in the habit of tipping to ease their guilt.”

My heart broke for the woman. She was older than me, maybe even closer to my mother’s age. I grasped her hand. It was cold, and I rubbed it briskly between mine. “Come with us. You don’t have to stay here and keep doing this.”

But the woman shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve been saving that money for years, knowing this day would come and I would have to protect that child. But I have nowhere to go. Nobody to help me. If I leave, I’ll just end up doing the same thing I’m doing here, but with no home, and no community around me.” She stared down the hall to where I knew there was a small bedroom. “I would have done it, for her.” She shifted her gaze back to me. “But you have a shot on the outside, Kara. You have a sister out there who will help you, right? I remember seeing her once years ago, when she came to visit your family, back before Josiah closed us off.”

I swallowed thickly and nodded. “Rebel.”

“You’ll go to her?”

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