Page 32 of Toy

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded shakily. “Okay.”

“Start talking.”

“I don’t know how to explain how it started. It was so long ago. But I guess I…” Lauren trailed off for a few seconds. “I didn’t know what to believe back at New Eden. When I was around the girls and heard them talk, it all seemed so hard and unfair. But when I was around the Prophet and the other men, everything they said seemed right too. I just agreed with whoever I happened to be around at the time. I could never make up my mind about anything.”

I snorted. “That’s because you’re a sheep. You have no personality of your own, so you just meld to whatever or whomever is in the room with you. You were always like that.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess so,” she whispered.

“So what happened the first time you snitched on one of the girls there?”

Lauren swallowed hard. “They burned her.”

“How did you feel about that? Good? Bad?”

“Both.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I felt like I’d done the right thing by turning her in to the men. But then I saw the other girls’ reactions and started to feel guilty.”

“Yet you kept doing it anyway.” I shook my head with disgust.

“I told you, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “You’re right about the sheep thing. I wanted the girls to like me, so I acted like their friend, but I wanted the men to like me too. I wanted them to think of me as a good girl and treat me accordingly. I didn’t want to get punished, and I didn’t want to go to hell if they were right about everything. You don’t understand how hard it was for me to know what to do.”

I scoffed. “Poor you. My heart bleeds.” I picked up the poker again and pressed the tip against her ribs. One hand held it steady as the other covered her mouth to stifle the agonized shrieks. “Imagine what those girls who were burned felt. It’d be just like this, only it would cover every inch of your body.”

“I know,” Lauren whimpered as I finally pulled the poker away again.

“You turned Elena in too, didn’t you?”

She lowered her eyes to her lap and began to sob.

“Answer me.” I raised my voice and brandished the poker again, holding it close to her face.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I turned her in.”

“How could you? She was your friend.”

“I know. I listened to her speak that night in the church, and I thought she might be right. But then I thought about it some more, and I was terrified of what would happen if she was wrong. So I went and told the Prophet.” She sniffed as a fresh set of tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I honestly didn’t think they’d kill her.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I narrowed my eyes. “They punished or killed the other girls for lesser shit. You knew exactly what they’d do to Elena.”

She shook her head wildly. “No! Seriously. I didn’t. I thought she might be possessed, so I begged the Prophet to help her. I begged him not to punish her for the things she’d said. He promised he wouldn’t. He promised he would help her.”

“Yeah, he really helped her.” I sneered. “Helped her right into a noose.”

Lauren nodded slowly, eyes focused on the fire behind me. “I know that now. But when I woke up the next morning and heard she was dead, I had no idea it was the men behind it. I believed them when they said it was suicide. It wasn’t until after the rescue several months later that I realized the truth.” She looked up at me. “Please, Mason. You have to believe me when I tell you how guilty I felt. How guilty I still feel every day. I was a different person back then. I wish I wasn’t, but I can’t change it. I can’t take it back.”

“No shit. Tell me about what you did to Jolie,” I said stiffly. “Tell me what happened the day before the FBI raid.”

She went silent for a minute. “Does she know?” she finally asked.

“I think so.”

She shook her head listlessly. “She’ll never forgive me.”

“Stop with the fucking pity party and tell me what happened,” I snarled, picking up a skinning knife. “Or I’ll start using this.”

“Okay, okay.” She gulped, face blanching at the sight of the knife. “I was carrying some washing through the shelter that morning. I heard you’d taken Jolie to the Penance Rooms for punishment, but when I walked past, I didn’t hear her screaming. All I heard was a really faint murmuring sound. I thought that was strange, and it made me curious. I went and put my ear right up to the door, and I heard the two of you talking.”

“Jolie heard you.”

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