To the Ends of the Earth: A Stripped Standalone (4 page)

While I’m thinking of my answer, debating whether I can trust him, he plucks the Bible from the back of the toilet. As casual as can be, he strolls toward the light off the kitchen. The heavy book flips open. I manage to grab my shirt, pulling it on as I run after him.

I’m two steps behind him, reaching for the book. What page does he see?

“‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,’” he says. “‘The earth was formless and void.’”

“‘And darkness was over the surface of the deep,’” I whisper. Genesis.

He looks at me sideways. “Do you have the whole thing memorized?”

Shame clenches my throat. “That was the only way I could know it. I didn’t know how to read.”

Candace taught me a little bit when she helped me escape Luca. Then she went back to Ivan Tabakov, a man renowned for his cruelty. Now she’s called Candy, because she’s a different girl. A smart, sexy, strong person. Not like me.

And I had to keep running. Had to give my child some chance at a normal life, the kind without cults, without criminals. There are people who live that way. I pass them, their windows dark as they sleep, but I can’t seem to
become
them.

His hand touches mine, his fingers large and calloused against the back of my hand. “Beth.”

I blink away the dark memories. “Why would you help me?”

“I’m a selfish man,” he says. “I want you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you in that godforsaken house, wearing that see-through shift and holding a rifle.”

“Then why?” I gesture helplessly to the bathroom, where he’d turned me down.

His hand curls along the side of my arm, tickling me. I twist away from the sensation, and he uses the motion to hold my hand. Skin to skin. Palm to palm. His thumb sweeps over the tender skin. This shouldn’t feel so intimate—soul to soul.

His green eyes glitter. “When I fuck you, you’re going to want it. Understand?”

I swallow hard. “I don’t—”

“No, you don’t understand. Which is a damn shame considering you gave birth to a child. But I’m going to fucking teach you if it kills me.”

The memory comes to me, that strange heat in my body. The laxness of my limbs. Is that what he means? Is this what it means to sin? My thoughts swerve away because I have my hands full with survival.

“You said you could make Delilah safe?”

His eyes narrow, but he lets me change the subject. It’s the only subject that matters. “Yes, but the first thing we need to do is get her out of this godforsaken state. When God made the surface of the deep, I’m pretty sure he was talking about Alaska.”

It’s the worst thing I could do at a time like this, but somehow I find myself laughing. His irreverence, his insistence. The irrepressible feeling of safety I have whenever he’s around. “Where will we go?”

“First we’ll take Delilah down to Candy and Ivan. They’ll watch her, keep her safe.”

“No.” Every cell of my body fights the idea of bringing Delilah into that nest of sin. Ivan Tabakov runs a criminal organization. He once owned the strip club where Candy worked when she escaped. That’s not a place to raise a little girl. That’s not what normal is about.

“No one can get through Ivan’s fortress of a house. Not even your brother.”

Leader Allen sent my brother to terrorize the girls who worked for Ivan, threatening Candy so she’d come back to Harmony Hills. That plan backfired because Ivan had already fallen in love with her. His protection was fierce and brutal—resulting in Leader Allen’s death. If anyone can protect Delilah, it’s Ivan Tabakov. “We can’t stay there forever.”

“Not forever. Only until your brother is caught.”

If my brother is caught, he’ll be put on trial. He’ll be found guilty. He’s hurt people in the name of God. I know he deserves to be punished, but I’m still the product of my upbringing. I don’t want to be the one to do it.

Delilah’s little fist. Her dark curls. I’ll do anything to protect her. And my brother won’t rest until he finds me. Until he brings her back into the fold, the lost lamb.

Then I understand why Luca’s really here. “You want to use me as bait.”

It’s a relief, after thinking he would force me. I shouldn’t feel even the smallest pang of disappointment.

His jaw tightens. “Your brother went after the girls at the club. He went after Candy. Tabakov won’t rest until he’s been found.”

“I’ll do it,” I whisper.

“I won’t let you get hurt,” he says, his voice hard.

He can’t promise that, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep.
The deep isn’t really Alaska. It comes from the Hebrew word for chaos, for confusion. For the restless motion of waves. If there’s one thing you learn from the Bible, it’s metaphor.

The chaos continues until God creates the earth. The story is meant to tell us God’s power, his might, but all I ever thought, as a little girl in a dirt-floor room, is that something existed before him.

The darkness was here first.

That’s how I end up at Mrs. Lawson’s door again empty-handed. Luca stands a few yards back, watching to make sure no one from the Last Stop comes around. It makes me shiver to imagine those bodies—how many were there? They’ll be hard by now, lying on the pavement. When will someone find them? It might not be until tomorrow at ten when the cook opens for lunch.

There’s a move in the white lace. I’m sure Mrs. Lawson sees Luca. There’s a longer pause before she opens the door. Her eyes narrow as she glances over my shoulder.

Luca normally looks terrifying, but with those bruises, the blood, it’s an especially scary sight.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Lawson.”

Her harrumph says she knows what she knows. “Come inside, child.”

As soon as she shuts the door, she turns the deadbolt. “I’m calling the police. Don’t matter what he takes from your place or if he trashes it. You and the child are both inside here, and he’s not coming inside. Not without meeting the side of my baseball bat.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek, and she blinks in surprise.

She’ll be one of the few things I’ll miss about Alaska. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

He’s not going to hurt Delilah, which is the important thing. What he does to me alone, in the dark, when I’m his bait…that might hurt. Not the kind of pain he has now, from being hit and kicked. The kind inside you, in places you don’t know about until they’re rubbed raw.

The hallway is still dark, the door still open.

Delilah’s still asleep, her dark curls stark against her curved cheek.

I pull her warm body into my arms, cuddling her close. She makes a sound almost like a squeak before nuzzling her face against me. She wears the warmest wool nightgown I could find in preparation for these little walks, her hands and feet covered with the same thick material. It helps even inside the apartments, where cracks in the insulation make it impossible to keep warm.

Mrs. Lawson blocks the doorway. “I’m not gonna see you again, am I?”

I can’t ever come back here, even if I escape Luca again. “I’ll miss you.”

She shakes her head. “If you ever need to run away from that man outside, you call me first.”

My tears prick. When I imagined running all those years in Harmony Hills, I never thought anyone would help me. They told me stories about the sin outside. That didn’t scare me half as much as the calloused disregard. We were a community, they said. We took care of our own.

They didn’t take care of me, though. They hurt me. And I’ve found little pockets of community all along the way, shining like diamonds in the gutter.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice thick.

She steps aside. “I’ll miss that little angel, besides.”

The little angel doesn’t stir even when the cold night air touches her cheek. I say goodbye to Mrs. Lawson not with a word, but with a long look that tells a thousand warnings—the kind that women who’ve known violent men can share.

Luca’s face looks worse under the flickering lamplight, more wild. He gazes down at Delilah’s sleeping face with an expression I can’t read. “We’ll stay the night,” he says. “Our flight leaves in the morning.”

I don’t know whether Delilah’s sleeping face gives us the reprieve, but I take it. Keeping her warm inside my apartment is hard enough. Out here it’s below freezing.

“Thank you.” I cross the small walkway quickly, slipping into my apartment with practiced ease. Luca follows behind, glancing around before locking us in.

Her little bedroll is still laid out in the one bedroom of the apartment, where she usually sleeps. She curls up against the pink and purple stars on the pillow, arms immediately wrapping around her stuffed unicorn. In some ways she’d had to live like me—in a bare room, with only a thin comforter as her mattress. In other ways her life is completely different, filled with color, with wonder. With love.

I turn to leave her and almost run into Luca.

“Dark hair,” he says, but he’s not looking at Delilah.

He’s looking at my long blonde locks.

Delilah’s curls crown her face, a beautiful raven color that I’ve never seen before. Leader Allen had already grayed by the time I knew him. I like to think it’s hers alone, that she didn’t even have a father. That’s what my brother believes. That it was a virgin birth, the baby given to me by God. Only despite what I’d rather believe, I know the truth.

“It’s beautiful,” I say. “She’s beautiful.”

He nods. “Did you love him?”

I feared Leader Allen. I despised him. In a sick way maybe there was love too, in the form of necessity. The way you love air, unthinking, because you need it to live. I didn’t fight him when he taught me the divine worship he wanted. Because I had no choice? Or because I was brainwashed? It doesn’t matter. “I don’t regret what happened. It gave me her.”

He leaves the room, and I follow, shutting the door carefully so we don’t disturb her. I’m already schooling my mind to accept whatever happens next. Whatever form of payment Luca desires. It’s not so very different from Leader Allen. I need Luca to survive just as much.

In the luggage I find the white plastic box with FIRST AID written on it. “Let me take care of those cuts for you.”

He gives me a strange look. “They don’t hurt.”

That seems impossible, but then maybe a man as tough as him doesn’t feel pain like regular people. “It’ll get infected.”

After a hesitation he nods. I find a swab of alcohol and tear it from the packet. He stiffens when I approach, and I freeze. It’s like walking up to a dog who’s already bitten, who’ll do it again. But he doesn’t resist when I step close.

My hand reaches up to his neck.

He lowers his head.

The alcohol must sting against the open wounds, but I’m the one who sucks in a breath. Remembered pain. His blood drenches the little square cloth quickly. I work through two more packets before I’m done. He must bleed every time he fights.

“Who does this for you at home? When you fight in the ring?”

His voice has gone low and rough. “No one.”

This close I can feel his breaths against my temple, his heat warming my front. The apartment isn’t that much warmer than out there, especially outside the bedroom, but he feels like a furnace. When I turn away, my breast brushes against his arm. Embarrassment heats my cheeks as I find some antibacterial cream.

He stood still for the sting of the alcohol, but he pulls back from the soothing cream. It surprises me more than him when I give him a stern look. “Hold still.”

His lip curls up in amusement. “Yes, ma’am.”

I use a cotton swab to dab the cream on his cuts. “Thank you.”

He looks at me through slitted eyes, almost slumberous. “Why are you thanking me?”

“You saved me.”

He makes a coarse sound. “You really have no idea, do you?”

I turn away, fussing with the little tube of cream. “What?”

“How many men I’d kill for you.”

My eyes go wide. It’s a horrible measurement, the number of deaths that would be on his hands, the amount of violence he’d commit. And yet it’s a strange comfort too, knowing he would do that for me.

I throw away the bloody pieces and pack up the first-aid kit, using the excuse not to meet his eyes. “When will we go?”

“Tomorrow. Well, today. When you’ve had a chance to rest. I’ll come to the door at noon.”

Then I have to look at him. “Where will you go until then?”

“I’ll sleep in my car.”

“It’s freezing out there!”

“That’s where I slept last night.”

I try not to think about him outside my apartment while I didn’t know. How long has he been in Alaska, waiting for me, watching? And why does the thought make me feel safe instead of scared? “You can stay here.”

His eyes narrow. “With you?”

“I mean it’s nothing comfortable. Just the floor. But there’s a blanket. And basic heating.”

I’m not offering a blanket or heating. His car would probably be more comfortable on both counts. I’m offering my body. Maybe I should fight him, but I’m about to put the life of myself and my daughter into his hands. I want him to be as sympathetic to us as possible.

He studies me. Does he see my fear? My desire to please him? My mind is a mass of scripture notes. Already I’m trying to think of what he’d want. It was one thing when I planned to run away. Now that I’m hitching our fates to his, it’s in my best interest to make him happy.

I dig out the blanket I sleep on, which was rolled up for travel, from my suitcase. Only when I throw it out over the carpet do I realize how pathetic it looks. Sleeping on the floor seems strange to most people, but it’s all I’ve ever done. The few times we stopped at a motel, I could never get comfortable on a bed. I ended up on the floor by the end of the night.

“I hope this is okay,” I whisper, flushed.

His gaze roams past the sad makeshift bed to the corner, where the carpet curls up. To the ceiling, where leaks have turned the white plaster black. “It’s not okay,” he says gruffly.

My hands clench together. “I know Delilah deserves better.”

His eyes narrow. “And you.”

I’m not sure what I deserve, but it can’t be good. By the rules of Harmony Hills I’d go to hell for leaving, for working in a bar. And of course for helping them fight Leader Allen. And by the rules of this society, what little I’ve been able to quilt together from scraps of conversations, what Leader Allen did to me makes me a freak. I don’t belong anywhere.

All I can manage is a shrug.

He gestures to the bed. “What do you think is going to happen tonight?”

That’s a loaded question. I don’t want to whisper my fears aloud. I’m afraid I might be right. “Whatever you want?”

My voice curls up at the end, turning it into a question.

He grunts. “Get underneath the blanket.”

This part I’m used to. It wasn’t so cold in Harmony Hills, but I know how to lie on my back, how to squeeze my eyes shut. I know how to stay completely silent no matter what he does.

There’s a soft rush of air as he lowers himself next to me. I feel his size like a looming shadow in the room, as large as a mountain. I’m a trickling valley stream, about to be crushed. Except he doesn’t lay his body over mine. He lies next to me. He pulls me close, until I’m half on top of his body, my head pillowed by his chest.

“Sleep,” he says.

My ear rests right by his heart. I can hear the steady
thump thump
. In contrast my heart beat’s a mile a minute. My eyes are wide open, looking at the plain white apartment wall. A wall I’ve seen a thousand times but never like this. Never cradled in the arms of a man who could crush me.

I’ve slept with a man before. The proof of that is in the bedroom.

But I’ve never
slept
with a man before.

I bite my lip. “How—”

“Go to sleep, little bird.”

It’s impossible. He smells like the outside, like ice and pine—with a metallic undercurrent that I think might be blood. His chest moves steadily with his breath. It’s like resting my head on the ocean.

And I never sleep well. It’s not the carpet that bothers me. It’s softer than the whitewashed wood slats in Harmony Hills. The memories haunt me most at night, when my hands aren’t busy, when my mind is still. That’s when I remember what Leader Allen did to me when everyone thought we were praying.

Luca’s hand moves over my hair, brushing softly, petting. The rhythm combines with the motion of his body, lulling me into a kind of trance. His muscles are brick hard. They shouldn’t be comfortable at all, but he’s hot. Burning. A rare comfort in a cold frontier.

I press my face into him, my very own pink and purple pillow. My stuffed unicorn in the form of a hard-muscled man. My hand clenches a fistful of T-shirt, holding him there.

“Shh,” he murmurs. “I’m watching over you. I’ll keep you safe.”

That’s the last thing I hear before the night falls away, replaced only with deep, dark waters. They swirl around me in an endless tide, back and forth, dreamless and warm.