Page 58 of Toy

Beck tilted her head forward. “I know. You better have Jolie with you. And the rest, too.”

I nodded grimly. “I’ll do my best. Make sure you watch out for snakes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just go!”

I patted her shoulder and set off down the path, bright flashlight in hand. The air was alive with the ear-splitting chirps of innumerable insects, and they only grew louder as the last of the twilight rays disappeared and the sky turned black and oppressive. I reached the pass about ten minutes later and briefly shined the light ahead of me to see what I was dealing with.

The cliff walls surrounding me were craggy and unforgiving, dotted with overhanging plants. I would barely be able to move without leaves and branches brushing against my skin. The sheer denseness was enough to make a claustrophobic person faint, and the stream Leonel warned me about zigzagged all over the ground, rendering the pass almost impossible to navigate in the darkness.

I decided to grab a vine and hold onto it for dear life, sticking to the very edge of the pass as I took less than ten steps per minute. It was painstaking, but I didn’t dare speed up. If I tripped and broke something, Jolie would be screwed. Beck was out of the picture now, so I was her last hope.

A cocktail of endorphins flooded my brain as I finally made it to the other side of the perilous pass. There was a slight incline up ahead, and beyond it I could see a faint glow in the night sky. Firelight.

The cult was here.

I turned my flashlight off and crept up the small hill before flattening myself on the ground so I could get a proper look at things. A copse of bushes lay to my right, and a waterfall cascaded on my left, emptying from a river in the new valley into the stream I’d just navigated my way around. Directly ahead were two hulking silhouettes in a flat grassy field. A small plane and a helicopter. That was obviously how the men got around and gathered supplies—and fresh blood—when they wanted or needed to.

About two hundred yards away, an enormous loop of flaming torches bordered what I could only assume was the cult’s village. I had to look through a pair of high-powered night-vision binoculars to get a proper look at what lay within the perimeter, and I spotted several houses on stilts, arranged around a central square. There were also a few flat cabins with thatched rooftops off to the left. In the distance was a long torch-lined path leading up to an opulent white mansion which appeared to have been built in the image of Jacob Chastain’s old mansion back in Louisiana.

I could see a few young barefoot women carrying things between the smaller houses, and in the central square, a few children played in the dirt, scratching out patterns. The cult obviously wasn’t keeping anyone underground this time, although to be fair, this wasn’t much better. There was no real hope of escape for any of them, because there was nothing but thick forest and precipitous mountains surrounding the village, unless you counted the incredibly dangerous pass I’d just come through.

Even if the women and children somehow managed to make it through the treacherous pass with no shoes on, they wouldn’t last long, given that this valley lay nestled in one of the world’s remotest areas. It was astonishingly easy to get lost in mountain ranges and forests, so without a map and supplies, any would-be runaways were well and truly fucked.

I crept forward, following the river for the next few minutes. On the edge closest to the mountain, there were thick trees and bushes; more than enough to conceal me.

Or so I thought.

“Who are you?”

I whirled around in shock. A young girl was standing near me amongst the dense trees, holding a bucket of water. She couldn’t have been more than five or six, and she was so tiny I hadn’t even noticed her loitering by the river until she spoke up.

When she caught sight of my face in the moonlight, she let out a piercing scream and dropped the bucket. Then she turned and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her. “Mama!” she cried, hurtling back toward the village. “Mama!”

I crouched behind a large bush, heart pounding. A woman rushed toward the crying girl, arms outstretched. “Josephina!” she called. “What’s wrong?”

She spoke English with a very thick accent, and she appeared to be around eighteen or nineteen years old. She must’ve been one of the first girls the cult kidnapped when they arrived here in Costa Rica. The thought that she’d been forced to bear a child at the tender age of twelve or thirteen made my stomach lurch.

“I saw the Devil!” Josephina shrieked, flying into her arms.

“What do you mean?” the young woman asked, stroking her hair.

“When I was collecting the water, the Devil appeared next to me! Half his face was normal, and the rest was… there was something wrong with it! It was the Devil!” the little girl babbled between wrenching sobs.

“I’m sure you were just seeing things, darling,” her mother said soothingly. “Now, hush. You know the men don’t like it when girls are loud.”

“But I saw him!”

“You wait right here. I’ll go and get your bucket, and I’ll show you there’s nothing over there.”

The young woman began to head over to where her daughter had dropped the water. I crawled back into the forest and lay flat again, covering my head with a large frond.

A moment later, I heard crunching footsteps. They eventually faded away, and then I heard the young woman’s voice again. “See? There’s nothing there. Everything is fine. Now go back inside, darling. Time for your bath.”

I waited for several minutes to make sure no one else was close. Then I began to creep forward again. When I reached the first house on the edge of the village, I spotted three young women sitting by a little fire behind the building. They were so close I could hear almost every word of their conversation.

“Is she really the Prophet’s daughter?” one of them asked the others.

The oldest-looking one nodded. “That’s what they said.”

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