Page 37 of Wife Number One

A sense of pride and achievement burst inside me, but it only lasted a second.

We were out, but that was only the beginning.

As he’d promised, Kyle had an old pickup truck parked just a few feet down the road. It was rusted, but in that moment, with Josiah and the rest of the commune closing in, it felt like the most beautiful mirage.

“Repent!” a chant started up from behind us. “Repent! Repent!”

They were too close.

I ran. Yanked open the back door of the truck and shoved Hayley Jade inside. Alice climbed into the front seat, Kyle behind the wheel and turning the key. The engine kicking over, blessedly promising a fast getaway.

“Kara!”

I spun, seeing Josiah cresting the top of the hill.

“Get in!” Alice screamed, spotting him at the same time.

I didn’t know Kyle from a bar of soap. For all I knew he was going to drive us right back to Josiah’s door.

It didn’t matter if I died.

I was more than halfway to making my peace with it. I’d been doing that every day since that monster had taken my baby from me.

But my little girl deserved to live.

Alice and Kyle were giving her a chance.

Giving us a chance.

I dove into the back seat, and Kyle put his foot down on the accelerator, the tires squealing in protest as we disappeared into the night.

Before we turned the corner, I twisted back to look through the rear windshield.

Josiah stood in the middle of the road watching us go. Flashlight gripped in one hand.

Shotgun in the other.

12

KARA

Kyle was clearly in love with my sister.

Alice sat beside him in the front seat while he steered us toward Saint View, the little town where our older sister, Rebel, had grown up before our dad had left her to be raised by her mom. Alice stared with wide-eyed wonder at the buildings and other cars as they flashed by in a blur of headlights. Kyle alternated between watching the road and watching Alice, her every smile making him smile too.

I saw it all from where I slouched in the back seat, too scared to raise my head for fear someone in another car might recognize me. We hadn’t seen a glimpse of Josiah or anyone from the commune since we’d left. It all felt too easy, though the constant throbbing in my ankle said otherwise.

Hayley Jade had scrambled to the far side of the truck as soon as we’d been on the road and curled herself into a tight ball, her skinny arms wrapping around her knees and her face twisted away.

I’d managed to get a seat belt on her. But she flinched every time I touched her and refused to lift her head when Alice offered her food and water from a bag Kyle had packed for us.

Hours away from the commune, Kyle was forced to stop for gas, and the urge to use the bathroom was too strong to ignore.

“Hayley Jade?” I asked quietly. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

She didn’t make a sound. Her hunched-over back still rose and fell with her breaths, which only eased a little of my worries, but the fact she wouldn’t look at me, speak, eat, or even use the bathroom was concerning.

Alice reached back and squeezed my arm. “Come on. I need to go too.” She opened the car door. “Kyle, we need to use the ladies’ room. Can you watch Jade for a minute, please? And when I say watch her, I mean you don’t take your eyes off her, okay?”

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