Page 60 of Tusk's Fury

He glances over at her. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but once we get somewhere safe, you can tell us your story. We’ll do what we can to help you. But for right now, you need to trust us.”

The more outgoing teen puts her hands on her hips and says, “Why should I trust you?”

Siege pulls out his wallet and hands her a small wad of bills. “Suit yourself. However, unlike your idiot bishop, I’m not into abducting women. Take this and get a bus to wherever you want to go.” Shoving the money into her hands, he adds, “I’m warning you right now that if you hang around here, they’re probably gonna lock you back up again.”

Then he turns and walks out the door. The other girl reaches out, grabs her arm on the way past, and whispers, “We stay together. That was the deal, remember.”

The redhead stumbles along behind her because the girl I rescued won’t let go of her. When we get to our bikes, it takes us almost riding off and leaving them for them to pick a brother to ride with. The one I rescued comes to me, and I grudgingly let her ride on the back of my bike, although it feels all kinds of wrong to put her where my old lady should be.

As we ride off, I’m vaguely aware that Tank and Dutch have stayed behind to torch the church. I can smell gasoline and see smoke as we’re pulling out. It might take them days to put out a fire that size and figure out whether or not it was arson. I worry that they might think the teens got loose and lit the place up. But then again, Harper would be pretty damn stupid to admit to having teens locked in his basement.

Chapter 21

Tusk

We get to the hotel and meet up in Siege’s suite. I immediately get them some drinks and snacks because it looks like they were being intentionally starved, maybe as a punishment for something. They are quick to accept cold drinks and guzzle down a couple each before they slow down enough to eat. This whole situation is making me furious. This is the kind of shit Harper had in mind to do to my Brittany.

Siege sits the three of them down on the sofa in his suite, and we start asking them questions.

First of all, Siege asks, “How old are you?”

The boy answers, “We all just turned eighteen. My sister and I are twins.”

“What did you do to piss Bishop Harper off? Why did he lock you up?”

They all glance at each other. The boy stammers, “They didn’t like me and Christy dating and locked us up. My sister, Ember, came looking for me, and they got her too.”

Something about his demeanor feels off. I think he’s lying to us. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”

His eyes get big, and he nods.

Rigs, who is always the insightful one when it comes to human behavior, says, “You know that we’re not religious. Whatever you did to piss off your church won’t piss us off. We literally don’t care what you did.”

The redhead’s bottom lip quivers as she speaks. “It was all my fault. I wasn’t careful, and my parents found my diary.”

“Ember, no. Don’t tell them.”

She does anyway. “I had a crush on Christy, and my parents found out. They sent me to this camp. Christy was worried about me and confessed to Bishop Harper that she thought about kissing women.”

“Let me guess,” Siege grumbles. “They sent her to the camp too.”

I ask, “Didn’t your parents object?”

Christy explains, “Sure, they did, at first anyway. Then Bishop Harper convinced them that the devil was consuming our souls and that if we were allowed to stay at home, we would corrupt all the other kids we came into contact with.”

“How long ago was this?” Although I ask the question we’re all thinking. I know before I even ask, I’m not gonna like the answer

“That was almost two years ago,” Ember tells us.

Rigs speaks up again, “None of that explains how you ended up being locked up in your church’s basement.”

Ember glances at Christy before revealing, “It was a program for underage teens. We aged out of the program. Our parents didn’t want us back because the camp couldn’t pray the gay away.”

I ask, “So, all three of you were locked in that basement just for being gay?”

Ember glances at her brother, who looks miserable. “Cecil isn’t gay. He got locked up because he wouldn’t stop raising hell all over town looking for me.”

“Not that it did any good. The bishop is a very well-respected person in our community. He’s best friends with the mayor. Nobody would listen to me.”

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