Page 25 of Wife Number One

Jacqueline and I both froze.

“What’s going on?” Naomi sleepily rubbed her eyes and blinked in the sudden light, even though she was the one who’d created it. Her eyes widened as her gaze landed on me, without my veil on. “Kara? What on earth are you doing here? Does Brother Josiah know…” Her forehead furrowed in confusion when she noticed Hayley Jade’s backpack slung over my shoulder, and a similar one strapped to Jacqueline’s back. Her shoulders straightened, and any remaining grogginess disappeared. “Why do you both have backpacks?”

I grasped her hand, nothing to say to her but the pure, honest truth. “Jacqueline is in danger. So are you. All the women here are. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

“Leaving? Leaving where? The house? Where are you going?”

I shook my head fast, my heart pounding at how long we were taking and how every second we stood down here was another second we risked being caught. But I had to try. Try to convince her to come with us. “We’re leaving the commune.”

Naomi ripped her hand away so quick it was like I’d burned her. And from her expression, I may as well have just burst into Hell-spawned flame.

“You don’t have permission,” she protested.

Jacqueline’s eyes watered. “Kara and Alice heard the men talking about selling women…”

Naomi squeezed her eyes shut tight, like a toddler who thought that if she couldn’t see, then no one could see her either. “No. They must have misheard. Now go back upstairs before Mama and Daddy catch you talking such nonsense.”

“It’s true,” I whispered urgently. “Please, Naomi. Just listen to me. You’re all in danger.”

My sister’s eyes narrowed. “The only person we’re in danger from is you, Louisa Kara. There’s a reason Brother Josiah keeps you locked up in that house. It’s so your evil doesn’t spread.”

My heart split in two at my sister’s hard, cold words.

“Naomi!” Jacqueline gasped. “Don’t talk like that! She’s our sister.”

Naomi shook her head. “She hasn’t been my sister for a long time.”

Her expression hurt more than any of the beatings I’d taken. Any of the cruel words my husband had taunted me with.

The only thing that hurt more was losing my daughter, and I wasn’t about to do that again.

I nodded at Naomi and the scorn and indignation in her eyes. She might have hated me in that moment, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the same. There would be no coming back here after this night. This would be the last time I’d ever get to see her. “I’ll miss you, Sister,” I said quietly, meaning every word. I turned to Jacqueline. “Come on. We need to go.”

Naomi grabbed Jacqueline’s arm and glared at her. “You are doing no such thing. I don’t care what Kara and Alice do. They’re grown women, and if they want to disrespect Brother Josiah and our Lord by leaving, then that’s on their souls. But they aren’t dragging an innocent child down with them. I will scream this house down and have Mama and Daddy here in a second if you so much as take a step outside this house, Jacqueline. You are not going to be dragged down by them. I won’t stand for it. You’re a good girl.”

I was suddenly glad Hayley Jade was outside somewhere with Alice, out of Naomi’s sight. If she’d known we were taking her too, she would probably already be screaming.

Unless she believed that innocent little girl was also as evil as the woman who’d given birth to her.

“Let her go,” I begged Naomi in a frantic whisper, checking over my shoulder for the others, but I couldn’t see them through the open door. “Please. You don’t know what you’re doing by keeping her here.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Naomi argued, her voice rising with every syllable. “I’m staring down the Devil, protecting an innocent from his clutches.” She shook her head at me with a look of pitying disgust. “There’s no hope for you, Louisa Kara. Go. Leave our house and our community, we’re all better off without you.”

I drew in a sharp breath.

Naomi’s eyes softened just the tiniest bit, like maybe she realized she’d gone too far. But she didn’t admit it. “Leave Jacqueline and I’ll give you a five-minute head start before I raise the alarm.”

“Naomi!” Jacqueline whispered. “You can’t tattle on them! I won’t go, but you can’t say a word! If they’re caught…”

I didn’t even want to think about it. The punishment would be the worst I’d ever received.

But Naomi held her frame tight and shook her head. “I won’t have Brother Josiah thinking I was unfaithful or that I kept this a secret. Five minutes is being more than generous.”

Five minutes? We were never going to get out in five minutes.

Naomi didn’t relent though. “Time is ticking.”

I frantically glanced to Jacqueline, knowing I couldn’t stay.

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