Page 1 of Obsession

Prologue

Xander

They appear peaceful in their homes, projecting the perfect utopia of what they deem to be an acceptable nuclear family. Years of indoctrination, beginning from infancy, have helped them foster these lies from one generation to the next. A stark emptiness pervades these dwellings, devoid of the love, safety, and genuine service to the Lord they so readily profess. They stain these homes with corruption cloaked in fabricated beliefs and celestial deceptions.

There was another ceremony tonight. One more girl was forced into servitude. Another light snuffed out when she was bought and sold like property.

I peer through the ajar window, my hand on the glass that separates my world from theirs. The boy is off somewhere with the father. Probably another ceremony meant to teach him how to be a twisted version of a man. I know the lessons they teach at their all-male getaways—sick lessons thought to cultivate more men who do nothing but instill fear.

The girl appears sad tonight. She’s frightened when her brother isn’t near. The two of them have created a twisted codependency throughout the years. She should be terrified of what he’ll eventually become and the impending doom of what her parents will force her into.

Her twenty-first birthday is approaching, and so is her promise, like all females before her, to be sealed by the elders. Some of the young women are lucky—they get paired with men who don’t disgust them. Men that, if nothing else, are at least close to their age. Other girls are forced to marry men old enough to be their grandfathers. Elders who have lost their wives and are looking for a new companion. Their desire for procreation is a disgusting disease that’s infested their veins with clotted poison. Some of these men have thirty-plus children. Others are almost eighty years old with a toddler calling them father.

I shuffle further into the shadows as her bedroom door opens and her mother enters the room. If one could describe evil, it would depict this creature. I’ve watched Sonya Donaldson over the years, witnessed how she moves people in the town like pawns on a chessboard.

Sonya picks up the brush on the dresser, and Margarete sits on the chair. Does she see the dimness of her eyes in her reflection?

My heart lunges in my throat as Margarete undoes her tight updo, and her long, dark hair tumbles down her back. The strands shine like black zirconium.

She gazes at her mother’s reflection in the mirror as her long fingers twirl in nervous anticipation. “Why must we all watch the union?”

Sonya squints, plastering a fake smile on her sinister face. “We bear witness for God. We must know that the union has been blessed. Lies spread easily without confirmation.”

Venom burns my throat, a blazing fire desperate to erupt. Sonya should know all about the lies. She spun webs for perverted men. Lies that assured she’d get a second chance when life twisted and took her first husband, leaving her a destitute single mother. At times, I feel empathy for Sonya, but I also know she’s the reason my mother never truly recovered from the sheer brutality and callous heartlessness The Covenant dealt her.

Margarete’s chair scrapes against the wood floor as she turns and gazes up at Sonya. “Has anyone said no to their pairing?”

Yes, but then they disappeared.

The older woman’s voice and hands hold no gentleness as she works the brush through her daughter’s hair. “That’s not our place. Our duty is to wed who the elders dictate and follow without question. We serve the men and raise children.”

“What about love?” Margarete asks.

“Our love is for God. We do what He asks of us. One day, our service and devotion will be rewarded in the celestial kingdom.”

“What do we get in the celestial kingdom?”

Sonya’s hands freeze, and she sighs, frustrated by reasonable questions. “Freedom.”

“It’s odd that we must live in servitude to our fathers and are then pushed on to men we barely know. It appears as if God hates us.”

Sonya turns Margarete toward her before a loud slap reverberates around the room, snapping Margarete’s head back.

I grip the window ledge until my knuckles turn stark white, holding myself in place by sheer will as I rein in my base desire. I want nothing more than to run inside and beat Sonya until all that’s left is mangled and mutilated flesh. But I can’t. Margarete will be stuck here if I make one false move.

I hate the way her voice shakes and her eyes well up with tears. She struggles not to fall. It saddens me that her light will soon be extinguished, and her eyes will eventually be dull and void of joy.

Her honest question is one that most in the community would never dare to ask. Especially not the women. Being inquisitive in front of the wrong person could unleash a nightmare far worse than the fate she was born to. Questioning is the greatest sin with The Covenant. It shakes the foundation of blind faith and obedience with no tangible proof. When a member dares to use critical thinking, the entire house of cards plummets.

Organizations that manipulate through religious indoctrination demand blind allegiance. Questions result in doubt, which creates non-believers and dwindles numbers. These things could be ignored if the defectors remained quiet, but that silence is hard to control once the cloud of lies and manipulation is shattered. Hence, defectors from their doctrine are labeled as the most dangerous of all. Heretics who abandon God and collude with the devil.

“Men are righteous. Women are sinful. We must atone for the way we entice them. That we tempt them has ruined society, and this is the only way to right the world again.”

I grind my teeth, fighting to control the anger a mother’s words to her child have unleashed. This world has brainwashed its disciples so completely that these women would send their child into the belly of the beast in fear of the hellish nightmares The Covenant perpetrates.

I grip the pendant of my necklace and take a deep breath before my anger gets the better of me. I don’t know if Heaven and Hell are real, but if God rewards abuse and instills fear, I would rather burn than live anywhere near him.

My heart longs to go to Margarete. To comfort her. To assure her that all this will soon be a bitter memory and that these people will become a forgotten mirage.

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