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“As do I,” Fontenot chimed in. “If it’s something that can bring good fortune upon our commune, we don’t mind. So if you wanted to work on your own things every so often, we wouldn’t stop you.”

What they meant was: if I could make even more money to send their way, they were totally cool with it. No shit.

“Anyway, sit back and relax, son,” Jacob said, holding up his palms. “This is the part you’ve been waiting for. You’re about to discover what we’re all about down here.”

“Great.”

He formed a pyramid with his hands on the table in front of him. “The main reason we accepted you is that during your interview, you proved to be very similar to us in mindset. We think you’ll fit in just fine, though some of our ways may come as a surprise to you. A pleasant surprise, we hope.”

I nodded. “I’m all ears.”

“During your interview, you mentioned how you thought the only way to truly fix society so that women don’t wind up straying from their natural paths is to keep them away from the influence of the outside world. But you said you thought that was impossible.”

“Yes, I did.”

He smiled widely. “Well, it took a lot of planning and great sacrifice, but we were actually able to make it happen here.”

I leaned back and pressed my lips together, waiting for Jacob to tell me what I was already sure I knew.

“Back in 1999, we found ourselves in a unique position. We’d already been working on the concept of New Eden for a while, but due to a certain event—one which you know all about—we lost the women and teenagers of the church. All we had left was men and children. While this was very distressing at first, we realized what we could achieve if we put our minds to it. We could create a society where women were finally subservient and didn’t try to act like men.”

I tilted my chin to one side. “How?”

Fontenot lifted his hands in the air. “This shelter… it’s not exactly what we initially led you to believe it was. The girls and women aren’t scared to leave because they’re traumatized from the 1999 attack on the church.”

“Then what?” I asked, feigning confusion. “What makes them stay down here?”

“Like I said, they were young when we first brought them here. The oldest ones would’ve been twelve, and the youngest were still babies or toddlers,” he replied. “Anyway, young minds are malleable. Very malleable. We took advantage of that, and we led the girls to believe that a cataclysmic event had occurred outside of New Eden. One which would stop them from leaving.”

Elder DuVernay pushed a sheaf of papers toward me. “You can read exactly what we teach the girls and women in these papers,” he said. “Please, take a few minutes to do so right now. One of your most important duties as a man is based on this.”

I frowned and flicked through the papers. They described an event called the Great Reckoning. It was just as I thought. The women here had all been raised to believe the outside world was nothing but ruins and radiation. They were told that New Eden itself had been protected by God during the ‘apocalypse’, which was designed to kill all the sinners, and that was why it all looked so normal out here despite everything that had allegedly occurred in the rest of the world.

They were also told that the ‘brave men’ of their commune occasionally went out to explore the rubble leftover from the Great Reckoning in order to find food and other survivors to trade with. In reality, the men were simply leaving the ranch to go to the fucking grocery store every so often.

These poor girls. They lived like rats down here, toiling away every day, and every single one of them was eternally grateful to the men, believing they were putting their lives at risk every time they stepped foot off the ranch.

“This is…” I shook my head. Even though I’d suspected this was happening, it was still an enormous shock to see it all laid out for me like this. “This is very impressive,” I finally said.

“Thank you, Mason.” Jacob bared his teeth in yet another creepy white grin. “Like I said, it took an immense amount of time, money, and personal sacrifice to make this happen.”

Personal sacrifice.From that comment alone, it seemed obvious he and his Elder minions had engineered the supposed terrorist attack on the church all those years ago, just to get rid of all the women and young adults who would be old and wise enough to realize the apocalypse never actually fucking happened. Of course, he and the Elders would probably never admit it out loud.

It was fucking sick.

“So the women never try to leave?” I asked, brows knitting.

Fontenot shook his head. “They’re far too fragile and frightened. We even leave the shelter entrance unlocked, just to make it easier for the rest of us to get in and out, and still, none of them have ever escaped. The farthest they’ve gone by themselves is up to the old chapel a couple of months ago, when one of the young ladies started to suspect the truth and tried to lead some sort of mini rebellion.”

“What happened to her?” I asked. This girl, whoever she was, could be a decent ally in helping me get solid proof of everything that was happening here.

He smiled thinly. “Elena was dealt with appropriately. Let’s just say she’ll never try to start any more rebellions.”

Knowing these men and their general attitude towards women, they’d probably belted the crap out of this Elena girl in one of those Penance rooms until she promised to keep her mouth shut. I’d have to find her and try to convince her to help me anyway, as scared as she might be at first.

Jacob leaned forward again. “We’ve found this is the best way to completely control women. Through isolation and abject fear, along with dependency on men. It may seem like a drastic measure to take, considering all the effort it takes to maintain the lie, but if they realized there was a whole world out there, they might be tempted to leave and abandon their true paths.”

“I totally agree,” I said, forcing myself to keep a straight face. “Fear works.”

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