Page 160 of One More Heartbeat
Because that’s what it looks like. Like Tilly and Athena have been branded.
I tighten my hold on Peony. What kind of fucked-up place is this?
“I brought you clothes.” Tilly lifts the small, folded stack of clothes in her hands and some diapers.
Track marks scar her arms. She doesn’t seem high or strung out, but I could be wrong. I haven’t had any experience with people addicted to heroin or whatever it is she shoots herself up with.
“What is this place?” My sleep-deprived voice comes out rough. An echo to how my body and my brain feel.
“Peony’s home. Yours too.” She sets the clothes on the bed I woke up on.
“I have a home. Thanks. In Oregon.” I glance around the room again, searching for any clues as to what this messed-up building could be.There are no pictures on the walls, nor are there any religious symbols, like a cross, decorating the space. “Is this…is this a cult?”
I don’t know much about cults—other than what Kenda told me. She wrote a paper on cult culture for one of her sociology classes.
Tilly shakes her head slowly but doesn’t look too certain of her answer.
Kenda was smart. She wouldn’t have fallen for the mind tricks cult leaders use to recruit new members. But I could see her becoming involved with a cult, with the goal of pitching an exposé to a newspaper or magazine. Or to do research for a book.
I roll my shoulders, working out the stiffness and pain from holding Peony. “Thanks, but I’m not interested in being part of a cult.” Or whatever is going on in this house.
“You’ll like it here,” Tilly says sweetly, but the ghost of a plea ripples through her tone. “You’ll get to have fake lashes and pretty nail extensions.” She wiggles her fingers at me, showing off her long red nails with flowers painted on them. “And pretty clothes.”
“I like the clothes I have at home, thanks.” I kiss Peony’s temple, branding her with the message that she’s with me. “So that’s where we’re going. Home.” I stumble-walk past Tilly, Peony held securely in my arms. Every muscle and every joint and every ounce of dignity protest the movement.
They can protest all they want. Peony and I are getting out of here, spondyloarthritis be damned.
I just need to find a phone and call my cousin Serena. She’ll come get us. And I’ll call the authorities and Garrett. And find out how Emily is doing.
My body trembles at the memory of her on the ground, bleeding. I switch the picture in my head to her sitting in her hospital bed, working on the final details for the upcoming weddings she’s coordinating. Nothing will keep her down from doing what she loves.
Peony still on my hip, I walk along the stretched-out hallway, my heart beating in my throat. We pass a series of closed doors.
A white man with shaved-short dark hair, wearing a crisp white shirt and gray trousers, steps into the hallway from a room just ahead of me.My heart stops, and a gasp tumbles past my lips. Then my heart restarts, the pounding in my chest faster and louder than the rap beat playing nearby.
The man smiles. He’s tall and bulky, maybe in his midfifties, his body a mix of muscle and overindulgence.
I take a step back, putting distance between us.
His smile is charming, but there’s a hardness in the gleam of his eyes, the set of his jaw, that sends a galloping shiver through me. “How are you settling in? Zara, isn’t it?” His thick Southern accent wraps around an unspoken threat in his tone.
I take another step back, shifting Peony onto my other hip, and angle my body to put distance between her and him. My gaze flicks to the stairs a few feet away and back to him.
“I hear we have a mutual acquaintance. A mutual friend.”
I have a feelingfriendisn’t the word Athena would use to describe this man.
A barrage of questions circles through the fog in my brain. Questions I want answers to, but I don’t know where to begin, or if I can trust anything he says. I just want to get out of here, with Peony. I just want something for the pain.
“The men who kidnapped us said you wanted Peony. Why? She’s not your daughter.” I’m making a huge leap here, assuming he’s the one responsible for what happened.
“What makes you think she isn’t my daughter? Rosaline and I had an…arrangement.” His words are polished, a steel blade, his underlying meaning ready to draw, quarter, and eviscerate me.
I stare at him, muddling through what he’s saying. Who the hell is Rosaline? Does he mean Kenda?
No, it can’t be. Kenda wouldn’t have had sex with him. Not willingly, anyway. “I don’t care what kind of arrangement you had; she’s not your daughter. And you can’t hold us against our will.”
The man chuckles, a serpent planning to hypnotize its victim into complacency. “I’m not holding you here against your will. You’re free to leave. But you leave, and Peony dies. Your choice.”
