Page 42 of Torment

I was sick of feeling so low and guilty. Yes, I did something a long time ago that I regretted afterwards. Yes, I hurt Mason with that decision. Yes, I probably deserved some sort of retribution for that. But not like this. I didn’t deserve to be tortured for weeks before being murdered.

So what would Mason do if he were in my shoes? How would he get out of here?

I gritted my teeth through another lash of the cane as the seeds in my mind continued to grow. Liar. That was what Mason was. In my time here, he’d manipulated and tricked me on multiple occasions, all for his own savage ends.

I could lie too.

I might not have any information about my father, seeing as he was dead as a doornail, but I could make things up. I could pretend to break all the way, completely and irrevocably, and then I could start being ‘good’ and providing Mason with false leads and information. He would have to buy it because he was so certain that my father was still alive out there, and he was also certain that I knew everything, given that I was his daughter.

Eventually, he would figure out that I was lying, but with all the bullshit I fed him, I could send him on wild goose chases all over the country. That would buy me time, and that was my most precious resource right now. I still didn’t know how I would escape my cage, but with the extra days or weeks on my side, I was sure I could think of something. I simply had to.

Filled with a renewed sense of confidence and hope, I arranged my face into an agonized expression and screamed at Mason. “Stop! Please!”

“You know it won’t stop until you—”

I cut him off. “I know, I know! I… I’m ready to talk, okay?”

Silence reigned for a moment. Clearly, Mason was shocked.

He finally stepped around to my front and put the tip of the cane under my chin, forcing my head up so that our gazes were connected. “Are you fucking with me?”

I mustered up a pitiful squeak. “No,” I said, letting a tear slip down my cheek. “I just… I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take it anymore. Please stop hurting me.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for not entirely trusting you,” he said, eyes still narrowed with suspicion. “Given your history.”

“I know,” I said, forcing my voice into a broken sob. “But you’re right. You were right all along. My father… he had a plan.”

“I knew it,” he muttered, dropping the cane and slamming a fist into the table, right by my face. “I fucking knew it!”

“I’m sorry I lied,” I murmured. “I wanted to protect him, and I thought I could handle whatever you did to me. But it’s too much. I just can’t—”

“Shut up,” Mason said, pressing a finger to my lips. With his free hand, he untied the ropes from my wrists and ankles. “I don’t care about your bullshit apologies and excuses. I just want the information.”

He left the room and returned a moment later with his phone, a pen, and a notepad. He clicked something on the phone, presumably to record our conversation. “All right. Start talking,” he said, eyes gleaming with excitement.

I feigned reticence, and that earned me a slap. I didn’t mind, though. This had to be convincing. I couldn’t seem too keen to share my supposed information with him, or he’d know I was totally full of shit.

“I said start talking, little whore,” Mason hissed, dropping his face to my level.

I took a deep, shaky breath. “My father and the Elders… they had a plan for escape in case anyone ever discovered what they were up to at New Eden. Only the men knew, for obvious reasons, but my father told me all about it just before they left that day, because he didn’t want to leave me forever.”

“What was the plan?”

I held up a palm. “It’s a long story. But essentially, they figured that once their cover was blown here in Louisiana, they would have to start over elsewhere with an entirely new set of women.”

“Why?”

I hesitated. “Because if they had to uproot and start again elsewhere, they couldn’t exactly take the women with them, could they? Not when they believed for so long that New Eden was the only safe place for them to live. The men could make up some lie about discovering a new safe place, I suppose, but then they’d have to explain why we had to move from New Eden when there was seemingly nothing wrong with it. It would cause too many suspicions. Leave too many loose ends. It was better to cut and run before starting again with a new generation of girls.”

“So what happened?” Mason narrowed his eyes.

I swallowed nervously. “Just before the FBI showed up to raid New Eden that day, my father told me how he was doing it and how I could contact him afterwards. You were right about the plane being a decoy. He was never on it, and most of the other men weren’t on it either. Only a few sacrificial guys. The rest of them spread out over the country over the next few days to hide themselves.”

“How?”

“Like I said, they always knew there was a chance their cover would be blown. So they had a backup plan in place all along. They had cars hidden all over the place with Go Bags in them. Fake IDs, untraceable burner phones, stacks of cash, disguises… everything they could need to quietly escape the state without anyone noticing. When they realized the FBI was about to show up, they set the decoy plane plan in motion, and then they made it across state lines one by one, each of them driving in a different direction.”

“Then what?” Mason’s brows were furrowed. I could tell he wanted to believe me, but he still wasn’t sure if he could.

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