Silas: Club Sin Book 4 Jasinda Wilder

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silas
Club Sin
Jasinda Wilder
 contents

Prologue: A Wounded Bird

1. Into The Unknown
2. First Taste of Freedom
3. If Only
4. The Curse
5. Never Going Back
6. The Cabal Arrives
7. The Fight
8. A Kiss In The Dark
9. La Petite Mort
10. Taste And Touch
11. A Burst Of Boldness
12. From Strength To Strength
13. Hatred And Violence Versus The Power Of Forgiveness
14. The Best Day
15. Descending Heaven
16. Make Love, Make War
17. Warrior Queen
18. Old Friend
19. The Last Battle
20. Homecoming
Epilogue: But First, A Wedding

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Also by Jasinda Wilder
prologue: a wounded bird
 Silas

I t’s been a quiet couple of months. The compound beneath Club Sin is a hell of a lot louder and more active than ever, with
the addition of Annika to our group. The three women are thick as thieves, always huddling together and cackling and
talking, glancing at their men with those secret, sweet smiles. Chance is pretty much the same after his little trip with
Annika, except he smiles more, laughs more…and he and Annika actually leave the compound together for dates and
adventures.
Bully for him.
And Rev.
And Kane.
I always assumed “happily ever after” was fairy tale bullshit, but I guess for some lucky motherfuckers, it can be real.
Just not me.
I see Sax and Sol watching the three couples, and I see the jealousy. I see it. They want that shit, too.
Not me.
No fuckin’ way. Some needy bitch clinging to me, needing me, riding my jock about leaving the toilet seat up and all that
shit.
No.
I visit the girls in Hel when my physical needs get to the point where I can’t ignore it any longer and my own stupid hand
isn’t doing the job anymore. Mostly, Lydia. She’s hot as fuck, with that bottle-red hair and those big pale tits, and that mouth
like a fucking vacuum. She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t try to sweet talk me, doesn’t share her own shit, and doesn’t pretend
like it’s anything other than what it is between us—me paying her to scratch the itch.
Speaking of whom, I haven’t been to see her in a few weeks—since Chance and Annika got back. The Club’s been busier
than ever, and I don’t like to make a regular habit of it. I pay her, of course—top dollar, even though she offered me a lower
rate due to my status as a Broken Arrow. Nah, I’m not taking advantage like that. But, I’m feeling the need.
After the Club closes, Sol and Sax head to their rooms, as usual. I think they both visit Hel, just like I do, but we don’t talk
about that. Lash, ever the lone wolf, vanishes into his room as well. Rev, Chance, and Kane all hang with the girls in the
common room, and I take the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Not that I’m ashamed or anything, I just keep my shit private.
Toro and Taj are locking up the gate between Hel and Fisticuffs, and waiting to escort the girls to their cars. Chance usually
does that, but now that he’s with Annika, he’s passed the job to others and has pushed the role of lead enforcer in Hel to Lash.
He wants to stay away from the ladies, I guess. I get it. His woman probably doesn’t much like the idea of him hanging around
a bunch of half-naked bartenders and hookers all night.
The girls don’t live in the rooms they lease from the Club—those rooms are working quarters only. They all have their own
private apartments throughout the city and are provided escort from their cars into the club and back out to the parking lot at the
end of the night. They work set hours, too—for the Club, at least. What they do in their own time is up to them, obviously, but
they only work at Sin from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.—an eight-hour shift.
It’s after 4, by now; most of them, once the club is closed and the patrons are gone and the doors are locked, spend some
time at the bar in Hel, having a few drinks, talking, and relaxing before going home.
That’s where I find Lydia, clad in her loose, gauzy, sheer, black robe that obscures precisely nothing, lounging at the bar,
sipping a martini and laughing with Sindy and Karma about who knows what. Toro and Taj each have a bottle of beer and a
cigarette, but they’re off in a corner together, providing presence and security and waiting for the girls to be ready to leave.
I prowl up the bar between Sindy and Lydia, tap the bar top with a knuckle. “Yamazaki, neat—two fingers.”
Danni gives me a chin lift of acknowledgment and pours my drink—more than two fingers, because she’s nice like that. I
toss her a fifty and wave off change, and she goes back to sipping her own drink and chatting with Candi and Brie at the other
end of the bar. I never get tired of the sight of Danni--what straight dude could? But I pull my gaze from Danni’s bare, glitter-
dusted rack to Lydia.
“Hey.” I lean my elbow on the bar, sip the whiskey, and give her a look.
 She smiles at me, takes a slow sip. “Silas. It’s been a while.”
“Busy. The usual.”
She nods. Her expression is knowing. “Things okay?”
I shrug. “Sure. Same as ever. You?”
She twirls a crimson lock of hair around a finger and takes another drink. “Oh, fine. A busy night. I’m kind of tired.”
I push away what that really means with practiced ease. “Another night, then.” I take a pull from the Yamazaki, and it burns
like gold and sunshine going down.
She shakes her head, touches my chin. “I’ve always got time for you, Silas, you know that.”
She finishes her drink, stands up, and takes me by the hand. “Come on. Bring your drink. I’ll take care of you.”
She leads me down the hallway to her room and locks it behind us. It’s a small, simple room. Black vinyl floors that look
like wood planks. White walls and ceiling. A small en-suite bathroom. A queen size bed, with a small chest at the foot end.
Lydia has a few abstract art prints on the walls, a small red leather loveseat opposite the bed, and a bedside table with two
drawers.
She leads me to the loveseat and gently pushes me onto it—I let myself fall backward into it with a heavy plop. Straddling
me, she brushes her fingers through my hair, touching my stubble with gentle fingertips.
That’s what I like about Lydia—she makes seduction seem natural, gentle, and easy. With me, at least. I wouldn’t know
about anything else.
She brushes her robe off, clad now in nothing but a lacy white thong. Kisses my neck. Peels my shirt off. Descends slowly
to kneeling between my thighs, kissing down my chest.
Reaches for my buckle.
I’m ready for her, knowing what those hands and that mouth can do, and eager for it. Needing it.
She’s got me in her hands, using that soft, gentle touch.
My phone rings—it’s a dumb phone, and only a handful of people have the number—my brothers, Inez, and…my mother.
It’s not my brothers, and I just saw Inez while closing up the club.
Which leaves only one person who could be calling me.
I freeze solid. My heart hammers in my chest, and Lydia stops her strokes, looking up at me. “Silas? What is it?”
I swallow hard. “I gotta take that.”
“Now?” She sounds disappointed.
Fuck me, but I wish that was real, instead of her just being damn good at her job.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I stand up, a little too abruptly, and she rises with me, frowning at me in confusion as I buckle my pants
around my raging hard-on. “Wish I didn’t.”
The phone stops ringing. A beat of silence.
“Are you okay?” Her voice is quiet.
The phone rings again, and I fish it out of my front pocket—Mom says the caller ID on the front screen of the clamshell
device.
“Shit,” I growl. “I gotta go, Lydia.”
She unlocks the door for me. “I’ll wait around a bit longer, if you want to…resume.”
I shrug. “Just go home, Lyd. Another night.”
She nods, donning her robe. “Okay, Silas.”
I open the phone as I step into the hallway. “Hello? Ma?”
Silence greets me, and then I hear a sniffle. A rough, shaky breath. “Si, baby?”
“Mom. What’s wrong?”
“He…” a sob. “I couldn’t take it anymore, Si.”
“Mom—what happened?” I snap the words, harsh, angry.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve taken it for twenty-five years. I can’t take anymore. I didn’t want to do it, Si.” Her voice is
faint. Trembling. “I killed him.”
“Who? Dad?”
“Yes.” It’s a whisper.
I’m stunned speechless, shocked into unbreathing silence. “You…what?”
“I shot him. He wouldn’t stop, Si.” A sob, a sniffle. “I had to—I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry—I’m sorry.”
I’m jogging for the Broken Arrow area, pounding on my brothers’ doors. “It’s okay, Ma, it’s gonna be okay.”
Sol and Sax huddle near me, listening, asking me what’s wrong with their expressions.
“Ma, listen to me. Call the police, okay? Call 9-1-1. It was self-defense.”
“What the fuck, Si?” Sol demands.
I cover the mouthpiece. “Mom killed Dad.” Back to the phone, to Mom. “Are you hurt?”
“He wouldn’t stop, Si.” She coughs—it’s a wet sound. “I hurt, baby.”
 “Hang up with me, call 9-1-1, and then call Robert. Don’t answer any questions the police ask till Robert is there, got it?”
“Si, I…” I hear a shuffling against the mouthpiece on her end, a loud clatter, a faint, distant sob, and then she’s back. “Max,
oh god, Max. I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean it. Why didn’t you stop? Max, oh god, oh god…”
“Mom?” I can’t swallow. My gut is a void, an empty pit.
I know this feeling. Something bad is about to happen—something worse.
A sob, from Mom. Then, her voice. Faint, quavering—hollow, as if something integral to her being has been sapped away.
“Silas?”
“Here, Ma,” I croak. “I’m here.”
“Tell your brothers…” a pause, and a sound as if she’s panting and keening through her teeth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong
enough. I lost you. Tell your brothers I’m sorry.”
“Ma, hold up. It’s okay. Gimme a few hours and I’ll be there, okay? We’ll all be there, all three of us.”
“It’s too late, baby.”
“Mom, no.”
“I’m sorry, Si. I love you.” A brief, tense moment of silence. “Tell your brothers I loved them.”
“MOM!” I shout it, so loud my throat scrapes raw.
“BLAM!”
Clatter.
Silence.
I hold the phone to my ear. But I know what’s happened. What she did.
The phone slips from my fingers. Hits the floor.
Sax and Sol are staring at me.
“Si?” The question is on Sol’s face. In his voice.
Instead of answering, I spin on my heel and smash my fist into the wall—it goes through the drywall and splinters the
wooden stud; I’m roaring, screaming.
Sol pulls me away before I can punch the wall again; I don’t feel pain, even though I can see my fist bleeding, and know I
likely broke something.
My pulse hammers in my ears, and I can’t pull a breath into my lungs.
There are no thoughts in my brain.
Sax bear-hugs me from behind and Sol pins me from the front, his arms going around me and Saxon.
None of us speak.
There’s nothing to say.

DRESSED IN BLACK JEANS , COMBAT BOOTS , BLACK OPEN - NECK BUTTON DOWN WITH A BLACK LEATHER JACKET , I STAND IN THE
rain, watching the backhoe fill in the first grave—Mom’s. Dad’s is beside hers, waiting. Her casket gleams in the rain, dark
wood with shiny metal trim on the outside; mounds of rich black dirt and runny brown mud obscure the casket bucket by bucket.
Robert, the family attorney and executor of their estate, handled all the arrangements. My brothers and I drove through the
night and stayed in a hotel in Boston under fake names, met with Robert for a quick, discreet reading of their wills.
Everything was left to the three of us, split equally, the house and grounds in Beacon Hill to be sold and the proceeds split
between us. There’s a hefty pile of stocks, bonds, IRAs, and a host of other financial bullshit which none of the three of us give
a single fuck about—it’s old money, Boston Brahmin money, and we don’t really want anything to do with it. We collectively
decide to let the investments stay as they are, and just handle them later—the proceeds from the sale of the estate, liquidation of
other physical assets, and liquid assets in bank accounts are still gonna amount to fucking mountain of cash. Not that we need it.
Sol and Sax already left, taking the Club Sin G-Wagen back to Vegas the moment the service was over. I told them I was
gonna stay—I wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not sure why. There are plenty of cars at the house, and I technically own all of them,
so I can grab one later.
After I’m done here.
I need to watch to the end.
After a few minutes, Mom’s grave is a slight rise of black loam at the foot of her headstone: Elisabeth Carey Cabot,
beloved wife and mother, 1965-2022.
The backhoe maneuvers over to Dad’s grave and pushes at the pile of dirt, knocking it into the grave and onto Dad’s casket
with a loud pattering that turns into thuds. I hold up my hand for the backhoe operator to stop; he does, bringing the bucket to
rest on the pile of dirt and removing his hands from the controls.
I move up to the edge of the grave, staring down at the casket. “Fuck you. You fucking bastard.” I snarl the last word.
I spit into the grave, and it smacks onto the wood with a splat, a splotch of white. It’s not enough.
 Without thinking, I unzip and cut loose a stream of piss onto the casket. It’s chilly enough that my piss steams.
There.
I roll my hand to gesture for the operator to resume.
“Like that, huh?” The man says; he’s older, with short salt-and-pepper hair, and thick salt-and-pepper stubble, wearing a
baggy pair of dirty jeans and a ripped, stained Patriots hoodie.
I just nod.
“I was overseas when my old man croaked, but if I’d’a been here, I’d’a pissed on his grave, too.” He resumes filling the
grave.
I watch until Dad’s grave is filled, and then I turn away and walk out of the graveyard.
The rain is cold, slanting sideways, cutting against my face and neck like wet knives.
I like it. Suits my mood.
I reach a road big enough to have taxis after several minutes of walking, and I give the driver the address. I still know it,
even after ten years of absence. I can feel the taxi driver’s sense of awe as he pulls up to the huge wrought iron gate.
“You live here?” He’s a Southie, I can tell from his accent.
“Used to,” I grunt.
Robert told me the code to the gate, so I hop out and punch it in; the huge black gates—ten feet tall with spear-like spikes at
the top—swing inward. I hand a hundred-dollar bill to the driver and head through the gates without a word or backward
glance. Another code from Robert gets me into the garage.
The sea of cars is, honestly, impressive. Dad was a serious collector. The garage is more of a temperature-controlled
warehouse than a garage, containing at least fifty highly collectible, extremely expensive classic cars—the first six cars I see
equal at least a million dollars.
I walk between the rows of gleaming, polished metal, touching a hood here, a fender there. Mercedes, Ferrari,
Lamborghini, Pagani, Hispano Suiza, BMW, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, AMC…there’s something of everything, and each one is
most likely rare in some way.
The car that catches my eye is an Aston Martin DB5—silver, just like James Bond drives in several movies. That’s the one.
There’s a locking key box on the wall near the door to the house, with another code. I find the right keys after some hunting.
Fortunately, the DB5 is near the doors, so I don’t have to do any tedious rearranging.
There’s nothing in the house except bad memories and old nightmares, so I don’t bother going in. I just pull the Aston
Martin out and close the door with the clicker I find in the glove compartment. The gates open automatically as I approach, and
close behind me.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I put the monstrous old house in my rearview mirror. I blank my mind, just like in the bad old
days when I had to do something unsavory for my former crime syndicate employers. Don’t think about Mom. Don’t think about
that last fucking phone call.
Blank mind.
Just drive. Out of Boston. I don’t know fucking where. Don’t care. Anywhere but here.

I’ VE LEFT MASSACHUSETTS BEHIND AND I’ M SOMEWHERE IN P ENNSYLVANIA— THE STICKS . F ARMLAND . MILES OF BARBED WIRE
and clusters of cows grazing. Hay fields. Silos. The occasional little farmhouse, with an old barn, one of those lights hanging
from the electrical wire over the dirt driveway.
I fill the gas tank at a gas station so old and behind the times that it doesn’t even have pay at the pump. I grab a package of
beef jerky, a liter bottle of water, and a styrofoam cup of old, bitter, burnt coffee.
Keep driving.
Blank mind.
No memories, no thoughts. No feelings. Fuck, please god, no feelings. Feelings are toxic. Feelings are the enemy. Lock that
shit down tight, way down deep inside a box. Wrap the box in chains and padlocks, and toss it into the Marianas Trench of my
cold, black, bitter, broken soul.
Just drive.

P AST MIDNIGHT . NO FUCKING CLUE WHERE I AM, EXCEPT STILL IN THE GODDAMN BOONIES . WEST VIRGINIA, MAYBE.
My headlights pierce the night—it’s pitch black out here, with an endless wash of stars against a black sky. A deer crosses
ahead of me, pausing on the other side and watching me, its eyes shining silver in the darkness.
 A farmhouse ahead, the obligatory light glowing orange-amber, illuminating a patch of dirt driveway, a pole barn, and a
battered old truck.
Off in the distance, on a rise, small yellow squares indicate a house. Here, a high fence runs parallel to the road, six feet
high at least, with barbed wire rolling across the top. Clearly, someone likes their privacy.
A huge gate, this one chain-link, manually operated.
Oddly, it’s ajar a few inches. Some security.
I’m in an almost zen-like state, and I almost hit her.
She’s half-jogging, half-stumbling on the shoulder of the road. Holding her ribcage. My headlights give me a snapshot of
her—fairly tall, slender, willowy. Auburn hair, long, the tip of the braid dancing just above her ass. She’s wearing an ankle-
length skirt, the kind ultra-conservatives make their women wear. Denim or khaki material, it’s hard to tell from the brief
glimpse. Long sleeve shirt—not enough for the chill in the air this time of night.
I keep going.
Not my fucking problem.
I glance in my rearview—I can just make out her shadowy shape behind me. She stumbles, falls, catches herself on her
hands, scrabbles to her feet and lurches into an agonized, desperate run.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I jab my foot onto the brake pedal and slew the car onto the shoulder. Neutral, parking brake. Leave it idling. Hop out. My
taillights bathe the road in a dim red glow, exhaust curling in the light.
She halts several feet away. Arms around her ribs, gasping. Not crying audibly, but I see the tears on her cheeks.
Good fucking lord, she’s stunning.
Exquisitely beautiful. Her features were crafted by a master artisan, and she is his opus. Symmetrical, all perfect curves
and delicate angles. Wide almond eyes, dark, brown or gray. Even in that conservative, almost Mennonite or Amish getup, it’s
clear she’s got a hell of a body. Slender, svelte, but with enough curves to make a man dream of her.
She’s trembling, staring at me. Silent.
I gesture at the car. “Get in.”
She shakes her head. Not no, I don’t think, just…unable to process what I’m saying. Or, unable to even speak.
“You’re hurt. Running from someone.” I take a step toward her, and she shuffles backward with a terrified whimper. “Hey. I
won’t hurt you. Trying to help.”
She’s been beaten to hell. Her lip is split and bleeding, her nose is bleeding, and a bruise darkens her eye. The way she’s
holding her ribs makes me suspect they’re bruised at least, if not cracked or broken.
And yet, she’s breathtaking.
Seeing her beaten, battered face cracks open a memory.
His foot slams into her stomach, and she can’t even gasp or cry. Can only curl in on herself, mouth open and flapping,
eyes leaking tears. Or, they would, if they weren’t both swollen and bruising. He hauls her up to her feet..and backhands
her, a vicious bone-jarring crack of his knuckles against her delicate cheekbone. She stumbles backward, twisting away,
still not able to breathe from the kick.
I tackle him from behind, trying to get my arms around his throat. I almost manage, but I’m not fast enough, not strong
enough. I’m only ten, after all. He hurls me over his shoulder and his foot batters into my stomach, sending me rolling…
I shake my head. Here. Now. Side of the road, looking at a beautiful, beaten girl.
Fuck no.
I hold out both hands toward her, palms out like I’m trying to approach a skittish horse. Voice quiet. Low. “I’m not gonna
hurt you. Okay? You need help. There’s nothing out here in any direction for miles.”
She twists to look back the way she came—the partially ajar gate. “I…” her voice is a hoarse, scraping whisper, barely
audible; she looks back at me. At the car. Longing yet terrified. “I can’t.”
I approach another step, and she freezes, not even breathing, so I halt again. “If you’re trying to escape whoever did that to
you?” I gesture at the black ribbon of road disappearing into the darkness. “You won’t do it on foot. Not with broken ribs.”
“They’re not broken,” she whispers.
“Sounds like you know from experience.”
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to. I see the answer on her face. “Just leave me.” It’s another whisper, shaky and
thin.
I shuffle closer—three feet gape between us. I take another step, and she shuffles backward, almost hyperventilating. “Not
gonna happen.”
“Why?” The question escapes, it seems, unbidden. Immediately, she drops her head. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry.” Her voice
cracks on the second I’m sorry.
I blink at the sudden apology. “Wait, hold up. Why what? And what are you sorry for?”
 Shakes her head, chin dropped to her chest, visibly shaking all over. “It’s not my place to question. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus fuck.” I’m starting to get a vague sense of what she’s running from. I point at the car. “Look, lady. I don’t know if
you’re aware of what you’re up against, out here. There isn’t anything but fuckin’ cows and fields for miles in every direction.
Nearest anything is a gas station, and that was ten miles back the other way.”
She swallows. Doesn’t answer.
“You ever walk ten miles before?”
She shakes her head. “No sir.”
“No sir,” I echo. “Shit.”
She trembles. “Sir?”
“Quit calling me sir. Jesus.” I look away, exhale sharply, and look back at her. “You need medical attention.” I look down
at her feet; they’re bare. “Fuck me running. You’re barefoot?”
She wiggles her toes. “I didn’t have time to get shoes.”
“Well, you’re not going far in that state.” I gesture at the car. “Just get in.”
She stares at me. Blinks back tears, the nods submissively. Takes a tentative step forward. Another. Not looking at me,
shaking like a leaf, her chin tucked against her chest, eyes downcast, she rushes past me toward the car. Getting away from my
presence as quickly as possible.
She opens the door gingerly, folding herself into the seat—it’s obvious each movement causes her pain. Once seated, she
folds her hands on her lap and waits. Head down. Eyes down.
God, what did they do to this girl?
I close her door, taking care to do so gently, moving slowly. She still jumps when the door thunks closed. I slide behind the
wheel, put it in gear, release the brake, and drive away. She watches in the side view mirror, rapt. Waiting.
I glance at her. “Hey. You’re safe now.”
She shakes her head. “He won’t let me go.”
“Your husband?”
She shakes her head but doesn’t answer.
I drive in silence for a while and then glance at her. “I’m Silas.”
She doesn’t look at me. “Naomi.”
I chew on a million questions but only ask one. “Got anywhere to go?”
A slight shake of her head, eyes downcast.
“Can you look at me?”
She turns her head slightly toward me and meets my eyes. “Yes sir?”
The “sir” bugs the shit out of me, but I’ve gotta take this fucked up situation one step at a time. Right now, that’s the least of
my worries.
I reach out a hand, slowly. “I’m gonna see if you’ve got a broken nose. Okay?” She pulls away, a sharp, abrupt movement,
and I drop my hand. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
She lifts her shoulders, turtling. “It’s not broken. I’m okay.”
I bark a huff of laughter. “Darlin’, you’re far from okay. But if you say it ain’t broken, I’ll believe you.” I glance at her
midsection. “The ribs?”
Another shake of her head. “Fine.”
“Not fine.” I frown in her direction. “Take a deep breath.”
She glances at me, as if assessing me, and then I sense resignation in her. She sucks in a breath, but can’t fill her lungs all
the way before her breath hitches, and she breaks off the inhalation with a soft cry of pain.
“Cracked, at least,” I say.
“No doctors. No hospital. Please.” Her voice is soft but desperate.
“Why?”
A roll of her shoulders, a shake of her head.
I growl in annoyance. “I’ve got no problem avoiding a hospital, but I gotta know why.”
“They’ll take me away. Put me in jail.”
I frown. “What? Why? What’d you do?”
She looks at me in confusion. “They’re filled with sinful men of the world. They’ll take advantage of me. Take me away.”
I growl again. “That’s horse shit, Naomi. Lies they told you to keep you prisoner.” I glance at her. “Whoever they are.”
She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be in this car with you.”
“You’d rather go back?” I ask, frustration creeping into my voice. “I can turn around and bring you back there.”
The terror in her eyes at this suggestion breaks something inside me. “No! Please. No. Please, no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have questioned you.” She shrinks against the window, shaking all over, as if I’d lifted my fist toward her.
“Hey, whoa.” I glance at her, trying to soften my tone. “I told you I won’t hurt you.”
 “It’s my place.”
I snap my head around. “Your place? To be hurt?”
A shake of her head—this one means she can’t possibly explain it to me, and can’t even try.
“Jesus, Naomi.”
“You take the Lord’s name in vain rather liberally, Mr. Silas.”
I quirk a grin at her. “Sure do. Don’t like it?”
She rolls her shoulders. “It’s not my place to tell you otherwise. I’m sorry for speaking out of turn.”
“You apologize for everything.” I eye her. “You don’t need to apologize to me. Not for a damn thing. Not ever. You’re not
gonna make me angry. I won’t ever touch you unless you allow it. That’s a promise, okay?”
She stares at me, uncomprehending. “Sir?”
“Sir. Fuck, quit calling me sir. I’m just some guy, all right? I don’t own you. I’m not your superior or your better, or
anything. I’m just Silas.”
“Yes sir.” She realizes her gaffe and blanches. “I’m sorry.”
I can’t help a laugh. “All right, all right. Don’t hurt yourself.”
I switch my grip on the wheel, guiding it with my left hand and resting my hand, somewhat heavily, on the gear shifter. It’s
an abrupt movement, and she lurches away from me, shrinking against the door. She’s panicking, panting.
“Jesus, you’re more skittish than day old horse.” I eye her, thinking. “Look, you can’t—” I trail off. “Shit. I can’t expect you
to not be afraid of me. It’s obvious you’ve been abused your whole life. You’ve got no reason to trust me.”
I pull my Glock from the holster at the small of my back, moving slowly. I twist it to grip it by the barrel and hand it to her.
“Take it.”
She stares at it like it’s a snake. “Why?”
“You think I’m gonna hurt you, shoot me.”
She moves her gaze from the gun to my eyes. “No, I…I…”
I place it on her thigh without making contact. “It doesn’t have a safety, and it’s loaded. So, you know, keep your finger off
the trigger.”
“Wh-why?” Her voice shakes.
“Put you at ease, a little.”
She places her palm over the weapon, pinning it in place without actually taking it, staring at it. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me. That’ll help you trust me. You know I won’t touch you without your permission, cause
you can just shoot me.”
“Why…” she trails off, and then seems to find the courage to ask the question. “Why do you have a gun?”
“Some folks out there don’t like me. It’s for protection.”
She looks at me for a moment, breathing carefully, shallowly. “Are you kidnapping me?”
I laugh. “I just gave you my gun.”
“Oh. Right.” A lick of her lips. “Where…where are you taking me?”
“Hell if I know. Away.”
“Well, where are you going?”
I shrug. “I dunno. I…” I debate what to say. “My parents both just died, and I’m…still processing.”
“I’m sorry.”
I bat my hand as if smacking away her question. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“What—” she shakes her head. “I shouldn’t question.”
“You’re allowed to ask me shit, Naomi. I won’t bite.”
She studies me. “How did they die?”
I almost regret opening myself to the questioning. “Um. Well. My…my dad did that—” I gesture at her. “To my mom. My
whole life, her whole life. A few days ago, she snapped. Shot him, then herself.”
She gasps. “Oh. Oh my. I’m…I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. I was…I was on the phone with her when she…” I swallow hard, clear my throat. “Yeah.”
“Silas.” It’s the first time she’s said my name. It’s a breath, and the sound of my name on her lips makes something in my
chest thump, makes my skin tighten, makes my lips tingle. “That’s awful.”
“Hasn’t been fun.”
“Is that why…” she pauses to slow her breathing; she seems to be fighting panic just engaging in normal conversation with
me. “Is that why you’re helping me?”
“Part of it,” I answer, honestly.
“And the other part?” She’s getting a little bolder with the questions.
“Couldn’t leave you alone, hurt and scared, on the side of the road. I’m not a good dude, Naomi. But…even I’ve got some
ethics. Not many, but some.”
 “Why are you not good?”
I shake my head. “That’s a big question for another time.”
She bobs her head in a shy, subtle nod. “Of course.”
I glance at her again, stealing a surreptitious scan of her face—blood is crusted beneath her nose and on her chin, her lip is
puffy and split, and the bruise shadowing her eye is darkening with every passing moment. She needs to get cleaned up at the
very least, and I’d feel better examining her ribs myself. I’m not sure she’ll allow me that close, though.
I’ve been driving for more hours than I can count at this point, and while I could probably keep going, just looking at
Naomi makes it clear to me she’s in a lot of pain, terrified and exhausted. She can’t go much longer.
The fuck of it is, I have no clue what to do with her. I can’t be responsible for this girl—this woman? Another glance; she
appears to be in her early twenties, so at least I can’t be charged with abducting a minor or some shit. Not that I’m particularly
worried about that—I can handle myself, and I damn sure know how to avoid the law.
But what the hell do I do with her?
I chew on what to do and wrestle with what I’ve gotten myself into for the next hour of driving. Naomi is perfectly, utterly
still the entire time. Her hands are folded on her lap on top of my Glock, head ducked, eyes downcast, shoulders hunched up
around her ears as if waiting for a blow any moment. She barely breathes.
In all my life, I’ve never seen such preternatural stillness in a human being. It’s fucking freaky. She doesn’t look out the
window, doesn’t fidget, shift, sniffle, change positions, nothing. Just sits there.
Finally, the lights of civilization cast a glow on the horizon—I’m on a rural county highway rather than a freeway, so there
are no signs to tell me if there are any gas stations or hotels. As we approach the town, it becomes apparent it’s a tiny little
place. We pass a gas station, now closed, a general store, a hunting and fishing supply place, and a local dive bar populated
with a handful of older model pickups. And, thankfully, a 24-hour drugstore, and a motel. The motel isn’t much to write home
about, but it’s somewhere to stop for the night.
I pull into the drugstore first. Naomi doesn’t react at all.
“I’m gonna grab a few things. You need anything?” I turn my torso to face her, careful to move slowly, keeping my hands far
from her personal space.
She shakes her head, not looking at me.
“You sure? Hungry? Thirsty?” Her gaze snaps to me, and I hear a rumble from her stomach; I laugh. “Yeah, you’re hungry,
but too scared of me to say so.”
Her eyes are wide, and she’s breathing hard, panic panting. God, now what?
“What do you like?”
A shrug of her shoulders.
“Potato chips? Pretzels? Soda? It’s a drug store so it’s not like I can get you a real meal. Everything is closed at this time of
night in a podunk place like this.” I wait. “No input?”
“I don’t know.” It’s another of those barely audible whispers.
I sigh. “All right. I’ll grab a few things and you can decide.” I gesture at the gun. “I won’t be gone long. It’d be best if you
stay in the car. If you get scared, come in and find me. Okay?”
She’s shaking all over, fully panicking now. “I…I…” her little pink tongue slides across her lower lip. “May I come with
you, sir? Please?”
I nod and hold out my hand, palm up. “Sure. Whatever you’re most comfortable with. Can I get the gun back? Not safe for
you to carry it out in public.”
She scoops it up in her palms and proffers it to me, palms cupped together with the weapon in her hands. In taking the gun
from her, my fingertips brush her palms, and she gasps, yanking her hands to her chest as if burned.
I suppress my irritation, reminding myself that she’s probably never known a gentle touch, or anything but violence. It’s not
her fault, and it’s not me. It’s just the situation.
I shut off the engine and headlights, pocket the keys, and exit the car. Naomi doesn’t get out, seems to be waiting. With a
sigh, I round the hood and open her door for her. Moving slowly, she gets out and moves a step away, waiting with hands
folded together in front of her, head bowed, as I close the door. When I take a step forward, she assumes a place a step behind
me and to my right. When I slow my pace as we enter the store, she holds that position, behind me and to my right.
A woman’s place is behind the man, I would assume she’s been taught.
I halt just inside the drug store—it’s a little mom-and-pop place, not a chain; the rows of shelves are tightly packed, filled
with junk food, snacks, soda, sports drinks…the usual. The cashier counter is to the right of the entrance, and the wall behind is
lined with bottles of liquor, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The druggist counter is on the back wall, a metal grate closed and
locked, the light off. Behind the cashier counter lurks a young man with long greasy dark hair and a patchy beard, wearing
baggy ripped jeans and a huge black hoodie. He watches something on his cell phone, earbuds in his ears. He ignores us.
I glance at Naomi. “You can walk next to me.”
“Yes sir.”
 I again suppress a sigh. “I’m not telling you to. I’m saying you can do what you want. You can wait here. You can walk next
to me. You can wander around the store by yourself and pick whatever you want. I’ll buy it for you. You can walk out of the
store and not come back. You’re your own person now, Naomi.”
She shakes her head, hunching her shoulders up around her ears, looking panicked again. “I know my place.” Her voice is
quiet as ever, shaking with fear.
“Your place is wherever and whatever the hell you want it to be,” I growl, unable to contain my frustration.
“Yes sir.” Agreeing blindly, purely out of fear and conditioning.
I sigh. “Come on. Walk wherever you want to walk.”
She keeps her place behind me and to my right, following meekly as I grab a bag of Doritos, a bag of pretzel twists, more
jerky, a case of Coke, and an eight-pack of red Gatorade. Naomi expresses no interest in anything, just follows with her head
ducked, hands folded, skirt hiding her steps so she appears to float, so graceful and smooth is her gait.
I bring my armload of purchases to the counter, and the kid pauses whatever he’s watching and starts ringing me up without
a word, let alone removing his earbuds. I notice Naomi’s gaze wandering to the rack of magazines and chocolate bars lining the
front of the cashier counter—specifically, her eyes fix on a Hershey bar.
“You want that?” I ask, pointing at the chocolate.
A shrug of her shoulders.
“Do you?”
Another shrug, and now she’s shaking again.
“Naomi.” I keep my voice quiet, and as gentle as I can make it. “You want the chocolate?”
A hesitation, and then she very subtly, very fearfully, dares to nod, once—and then turtles, as if terrified this expression of a
desire will get her hit.
I reach in front of her to grab the Hershey bar—my shoulder brushes her hip. At the contact, she shuffles backward with a
sharp inhalation through her nose, hands raised in front of her face, shaking all over.
I straighten, moving slowly, lifting the bar of chocolate. “Whoa, easy. It’s fine. You’re fine.” I set the bar with the rest of the
purchases.
The kid looks up finally, glancing at Naomi; his eyes widen when he sees the state of her. His eyes flick to his phone. To
me.
I hold up my hands, palms out. “Hey, I didn’t do that to her. I’m helping her.”
He looks at Naomi. “He tellin’ the truth?”
Naomi doesn’t look at him, but nods. “Yes,” she whispers.
“Sure?”
Another nod.
The kid shrugs, reads off the total, asks me if I need a bag. I decline one, pay with cash. Carry the stuff out to the car, set
them on the hood to open the door, and pull the seat forward so I can place them on the minuscule back seat.
A diesel engine idles somewhere nearby, but I think nothing of it. A door opens, creaking, and then closes with a harsh
slam. Still, I think nothing of it. Not until I hear a soft whimper from Naomi.
I toss the last item into the back seat and straighten, glancing at her. She’s not just trembling, she’s shaking so hard it’s
almost a seizure, shuffling backward, eyes wide, tears pooling in her eyes.
I follow her gaze.
A huge red pickup truck idles halfway in the parking lot, halfway in the road. It’s older and well-cared for, with a
suspension lift and knobby mud tires. It’s mud-splattered, with a long whip-like radio antenna bent from the hood and fastened
to the rear bumper. There’s an LED light bar across the roof of the cab and a bull bar with a winch in front of the grille.
A man stands outside the truck, glowering at me and Naomi. Rage distorts his features, his hands fisted at his side. He’s in
his sixties, lean and hard, with gray in a lank ponytail and a long, thick beard at his chest. He’s wearing hunting camo and knee-
high boots.
“Get over here, now, Naomi Ibsen.” His voice cracks like a whip.
She freezes in place, and I watch her gaze flick to me, then to the man I assume is her father. “Please, Papa. I…I…” She can
barely form words, she’s so terrified.
I step in front of her. “I don’t think so.”
“This is none of your business,” he snaps, not sparing a glance at me. “She’s my daughter. My property. I say she’s comin’
with me, so she’s comin’ with me.”
I frown. “Property? She’s a person and a grown-ass woman. She doesn’t have to do a damn thing she doesn’t want to.”
He ignores me. “Naomi. Last chance. I gotta say it again, your punishment will be far worse.” He glares at her, his
expression ugly, vile, mean. “And you already earned yourself a world of hurt, girl. Ten days in lockup, you come now. Make
me say it again, you’ll be in there a month.”
I palm my pistol with practiced speed, cup the butt and take a prowling step toward Naomi’s father. “I’ll kill you where
you stand, old man. Look in my eyes and ask yourself if I’m bluffing.” I turn my head to angle a look at Naomi, without taking
my peripheral vision off the old man. “Naomi. Get in the car. Unless you want to go with your father. You make your own
choices. You stay with me, I can protect you.”
“You’re mine, Naomi. You’ll come with me. You’ll do as I say. Now.”
I don’t bother trying to answer his command. I just keep my pistol trained on his T-box.
A long, tense silence.
Naomi edges toward the passenger seat of my car, fumbles for the handle without taking her eyes off of her father.
“Goodbye, Papa.” She opens the door and half falls in, shutting the door on the corner of her skirt.
Her father’s eyes are full of hate and murder as they meet mine. “You’ll pay for taking what’s mine.”
I meet his gaze with a cold, baleful stare of my own; I’ve stared down mafia dons, hired assassins, and South American
cartel warlords. This pathetic fuck doesn’t even register. “She belongs to no one but herself. Come after me, you’ll find out
exactly who you fucked with. This is your only warning, old man. Don’t fuck with me.”
I turn my back on him deliberately, pistol at my side. Swing behind the wheel, start up the DB5. I keep the pistol in my right
hand as I put the car in reverse, back out into the road facing the way I’ve been heading, and then put it in first. Her father is
still standing by his truck, watching. I roll down my window. Rest the pistol on my left elbow, draw bead and fire once—his
back left tire pops, deflates. Naomi jumps at the crack of the gun, gasping,
He doesn’t react, but the hate and rage on his face intensifies.
Jesus. No wonder she’s so afraid of everything, if this is the monster who raised her.
I drive away.
“He’ll kill you.” I can barely hear her.
I laugh. “He can try.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t know him.”
I give her a cocky grin. “And honey, you don’t know me. Trust me when I say he won’t hurt either of us.” I let the grin fade,
let her see my confidence. “He’ll never lay a hand on you again. You have my word.”
She looks at me—we pass under a streetlamp, and I can make out the color of her eyes in the dull orange glow. They’re
gray. Not just gray, but the layered dark shades of a stormcloud. Her hair is pure auburn, a burnished reddish brown. In the sun,
I bet it’d be more red. It’s long—in a thick fishtail braid, it hangs over her left shoulder and curls on her lap. The end is tied
with a faded piece of red fabric torn from a larger swath. Not even a real ponytail holder.
“Why?” Her voice is stronger, a little louder. “Why are you helping me?”
I shake my head, roll a shoulder. “Honestly, I’m asking myself the same question. But I am. I will. I’ll protect you, Naomi.
You’re okay now. You’re free.”
She blinks rapidly at me. “Free?”
I nod. “Yeah. You’re free.”
She swallows hard. “I just didn’t want to hurt anymore,” she whispers.
I reach out a hand toward her, but she shies away, and I drop it back into my lap. “You won’t be hurt anymore, Naomi. I
fucking swear.”
She just looks at me. Assessing. She meets my eyes for a moment, and in that moment, I see behind the curtain—I see a
woman who has just done the most courageous thing I can think of.
Something that took balls of fucking steel.
And that was just her escape. Getting in the car with me just now? Defying her father to his face?
I can’t imagine the courage that must have required.
I find a huge well of respect for her filling up inside me. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, what I’m going to do…but I
just know down to my balls and bones that my future is tied up with hers.
Why, how, hell if I know. But I feel it as surely as I know the lines on my palms, the angles of my face in the mirror.
I’m starting to understand Rev, Kane, and Chance a little bit, suddenly. Not that I’d ever say that to them after I was so
openly derisive. But…I feel drawn to her.
And more than anything, I feel a fierce, feral, violent drive to protect her. To make sure no one ever hurts her again.
It’s something in her eyes. In her stillness. In her fear of everything around her, every twitch of my hands. She shouldn’t be
so afraid. She’s too beautiful to be so terrified, so deeply hurt.
She’s a wounded bird who deserves to fly.
I’ll take care of her.
Protect her.
And god help anyone who gets in my way.
into the unknown
 Naomi

P lop.
A crimson circle stains the faded wood floor between my feet.
Plop.
A second one joins the first.
Terror burns in my veins, paralyzing my body into rigidity. I know better than to move. I stand with my hands clasped in
front of me, chin tucked against my breastbone, eyes focused on Papa’s feet.
Plop.
Another droplet of blood creates a triangle of crimson splotches between my feet.
I don’t even feel the pain at the moment. I know I will later, but right now, all I feel is fear. Anticipation of the agony to
come.
I messed up—we ran out of flour, so I couldn’t make the meal Papa demanded this morning. He wanted venison stew with
fresh bread. I made the stew, but I couldn’t make the bread without the flour, and Papa was out at the training field all day with
his men, so no one could take me to get it or get it for me. So, I improvised—I made cornbread instead, using some flour
alternatives I had.
The instant Papa saw the cornbread in the basket on the table, I knew I was in trouble.
The first blow was just to get my attention.
Now that he has it, the real punishment will begin.
But not before he tortures me with anticipation, first.
“I didn’t ask for cornbread, did I?” His tone is low, so quiet I have to strain to hear him.
“No, Papa.” I can barely swallow past the lump in my throat.
“What’d I ask for?”
“Fresh bread.”
“Which bread do you think I meant?” He rests his hand on the broad brass oval of his belt buckle, emblazoned with the
coiled serpent and the words “Don’t tread on me” across the top and “America” across the bottom.
If I’m lucky, and he’s in a forgiving mood, I’ll just get the belt. If he’s not in a good mood, I’ll have the letters from the
buckle imprinted on my flesh, later.
“Mama’s recipe,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” he says, his voice syrupy with sarcastic condescension. “Your blessed Mama’s recipe, God rest her soul.”
“But Papa—” I know it’s futile, but I try anyway. “We don’t have any flour.”
“Oh, I see. We don’t have any flour.” He nods, as if in understanding.
His hand flashes and the backs of his knuckles crack against my cheekbone. Pain lances through me, my teeth rattling, my
lip splitting; I’m knocked to the floor, holding back a whimper.
Papa crouches beside me. “Whose fault is it that we don’t have no flour, huh?”
“I…” I swallow blood. “I asked for someone to take me shopping yesterday. You said you would.”
“Maybe you oughta plan better, so we don’t run out.” He pinches my split lower lip in a brutal grip between finger and
thumb, using pain to haul me to my feet. “When I ask for your mama’s bread, I expect to get what I ask for. You understand me,
girl?”
I whimper an affirmative, and he lets go of my lip, wiping the blood on his thumb and finger onto my sleeve.
“You know what today is, Naomi?” He takes a step away from me, shoulders square, spine straight.
He’s tall, my father. Hard as a steel post, all lean muscle and whipcord strength. His graying hair is still thick, worn long in
a perpetual ponytail; in my whole life, I’ve never seen him with his hair down. A close-cropped goatee covers his mouth and
chin. As ever, he wears camouflage pants tucked into tall black leather combat boots, which are laced up tight and polished to
a shine. Black crew-neck T-shirt, and a camo cap with a gold rank insignia on the front—his men refer to him as “The
Commander”, so I guess that’s his rank.
 They’re not the Army—they’re a militia, and Papa started it. When I was a little girl, it was just Papa, my uncles Aaron and
Jedediah, and twenty of their friends from their days in the Army; Papa and his brothers all fought in Iraq in Desert Storm.
Now, Papa’s militia is several hundred strong, and they all live and train here, on our compound. Of course, their barracks are
all the way on the far north corner of the property, with over three hundred acres of forest and field between them and me.
“What is today, Naomi?” Papa repeats his question.
I don’t know. But I can’t say that.
I just tremble and stay silent.
“You don’t know, do you?” He laughs, a vicious bark. “Too good to remember your own poor Mama’s birthday, are you?”
She died when I was eleven, and that was fourteen years ago.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Please forgive me.”
“You’re sorry.” He nods, still facing away from me, thumbs hooked behind his buckle. “Yeah, I’d bet you are.” He whirls
on a heel, glaring at me, his expression frozen and unreadable. “A few days in the lockup, maybe. That oughta teach you to
make sure you plan better.”
I did plan better. I had enough flour for the whole month. But he invited his “war council” over for a meal, and demanded I
make bread and pies and pot pie and cake, and I used most of it, and then he refused to take me shopping, saying he was too
busy with “training exercises.” Which means I ran out.
But that’s not his fault, it’s mine.
I’m supposed to anticipate his every need.
My whole body shudders, and I drop to my knees in front of Papa. “Please, Papa. Not the lockup. Please.”
He stares down at me. “No? Not the lockup?”
“I’ll do better.”
“Yeah, you will.” He juts his chin at the table. “Serve us.”
The table is crowded: both of my uncles, my older brother Zeke, and the rest of Papa’s inner circle—Mike, Matt, and Tony.
The latter three are Papa’s closest and oldest friends, going back to Boot Camp.
I rise to my feet and hurry to the kitchen, trying to hurry but not make any mistakes. I can’t go back into the lockup. I can’t—
I just can’t.
I ladle stew into bowls and top each serving with a piece of cornbread, setting two at a time in front of each man. When
they’ve all been served, I dish myself a portion and take my seat between my brothers.
Papa pauses with his spoon in one hand, cornbread in the other. “Did I say you could eat?”
I swallow. “N-no.”
“Put it back. You can watch us eat and think about being more obedient.”
“Yes sir.”
I dump the stew back into the stock pot and take my seat. I haven’t eaten all day—my list of chores kept me busy from sunup
till now. My stomach growls, cramps. I wasn’t allowed to eat yesterday, either.
I hold back tears. My lips burn.
They take their time eating, and there’s not so much as a crumb left by the time they’ve all headed out to the porch to smoke
cigarettes and drink moonshine.
Papa is the last to leave the table. “Clean up this mess.”
“May I please have something to eat, Papa? I’m hungry.” I say this with my eyes on the table, head ducked, hands on my
lap.
I feel his gaze but don’t dare look up.
“Clean up. Then we’ll see.” He joins the others on the porch, then, leaving me alone in the house.
It takes me an hour to clear the table—saving the scraps for the hogs—wash the dishes, and wipe things down. By the time
I’m done, my stomach is in knots, gnawing at itself. The men have left, my uncles to their cabins with their wives. Zeke’s cabin
isn’t done being built yet, so they live here in the main cabin with Papa and me.
When I’ve cleaned up, I stand in front of the sink and wait to be addressed.
Papa is on the phone, a thick cigar in one hand, the jar of moonshine in the other. Through the screen door, I can make out a
few words here and there. Something to do with a new exercise for the men, a possible hunting trip. He’s talking to one of his
men, then.
He ends the call and spends a few minutes puffing on his cigar and swigging moonshine.
He glances over his shoulder through the window and sees me waiting, but continues to ignore me.
His phone rings again. For reasons I can’t fathom, my gut clenches, and fear blisters through me.
“Hello? Jerry? Howdy, brother, been a while.” He listens for a moment. “No shit. It was quick, though? Well, that’s good.
Not like when Deanna died. God, that was hell. She suffered for three months before the Good Lord called her home. Well, Jer,
I’m sorry for your loss, brother.” Another moment spent listening. “Of course we’ve got room for you, Jer. I told you twenty
years ago, I’d save a place for you here, and I’m a man of my word. Yeah, ‘course—bring ‘em all. The more the merrier.”
Another pause. “Well, sure. I’d expect your boys to work their way up the ranks, but I’ll find a good spot for you on my war
council.”
Something about the next pause makes my blood run cold. Maybe it’s the speculative look in Papa’s eyes when he glances
at me.
“Well now, Jerry, that there is a mighty interesting proposition. Tell me about her.” Another silence, during which Papa
nods and hums a few affirmatives. “She sounds like exactly what I’ve been looking for, Jer. I’ve been praying the Good Lord
would provide me with a new wife, and now here you are filling that need…” Papa swivels in the chair to stare at me, his
expression calculating and cunning. “Yes sir, I’m lookin’ at her right now. She’s a pretty one, long as she keeps her mouth shut
—you know how it is. Take a firm hand with her and she’ll be a damn good wife for you. Well now, you’ll meet her when you
get here, but I can tell you all the boys here think she’s just about the prettiest woman they’ve ever seen. Had to punish a few
boys for trying to sneak over here and get a look at her, or worse. Naw, she’s been trained up right. Cooks, cleans, knows how
to respect authority.” A guffawing laugh that turns my stomach. “Jerry, if you weren’t my oldest friend, I’d shoot you for that.
What you do with her in the privacy of your own home is no business of mine. All I’ll say is that I’ve kept her on a short leash.
She’s intact, if you know what I mean. Yeah. You bring your daughter and she’s as pretty as you claim, you’ve got yourself a
deal. Obviously, this all hinges on you delivering on the deal with Alan McDermot.”
Another pause, this one longer.
“Consider this a verbal agreement, then. Yeah, I can send some boys out to help y’all pack up and move. We’ll be waiting
for your arrival. Yes sirree. All right, good talkin’ to you, Jer. See ya, now.”
He levers himself out of the rocking chair, leaving it rocking with a clattering thumpthump—thumpthump on the
floorboards of the front porch.
My pulse is hammering. Nausea burns like acid. I know exactly what just happened.
His boots thud toward me—clomp…clomp…clomp. I stare at the shiny black leather of his boots. “Got some news for you,
Naomi.”
“Yes sir?” I don’t look up. If I had anything in my stomach, I’d be retching it up, right now.
“You’re getting married.”
“I…” I’m expected to respond, but I can’t think of anything to say that won’t get me hit.
“My oldest friend, Jerry Oleson. His wife died end of last year and he’s moving onto the compound with us.”
“Yes sir.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Yes sir.” I can barely manage a whisper.
“You’ll obey him like you do me. You hear?”
“Yes sir.”
Papa’s eyes bore holes in my head, but I don’t dare look up, don’t dare meet his eyes. He’ll see the horror in mine.
“Anything to say, girl?”
I shake my head. “No sir.”
“Nothing at all?”
Another shake of my head. “No sir.”
“Want to know what he’s like? How old he is?”
Mean. Old. Violent. I don’t say any of this. I lift a shoulder in an effigy of a shrug. “Okay.”
“You oughta be happy. Grateful. I’m giving you a husband, Naomi. A damn fine man for you to serve and take care of. He’ll
give you kids, lots of ‘em. He’s got six kids and four grandkids. He’s a bit older than me, but he’s strong and hale as a horse.”
Grandkids?
A man for me to serve.
Another man for me to serve.
“Thank you, sir,” I manage.
“That’s more like it.” He nudges my chin up so I have to look at him. “Get yourself cleaned up and find something to eat. I
got a few things to take care of, then I’ll be back to settle you in for the night.”
“Yes sir.”
He hesitates, however. “I expect you to be a good wife to him, Naomi. A damn good wife. You understand what I’m
saying?”
Nausea rifles up my gut and into my throat. “Yes sir.”
“You better.” He pivots on his heel and clomps back outside, already on his phone. “Derek. Send Lucy to my quarters at the
barracks. Tell her I expect her to be ready for me. I’ll be there in five.”
The militia has female members, but they serve in a domestic capacity, rather than training for combat the way the men do.
They’re also expected to be available to my father at any time. I know what that means, even if I am a virgin. The men have
never been very tactful about their conversations in front of me.
 I go to the bathroom and wipe the blood off my nose and lips—my lip is puffy and split, and my left eye has a faint shadow
under it. I’ll be expected to hide it with makeup.
I scavenge for something to eat—I always keep a few leftovers tucked in the back of the fridge, for exactly this kind of
situation. I eat leftover meatloaf and veggies and then wash my dishes and put away the dishes from dinner.
Now that I’ve finished everything I’m expected to do, I have that rarest of luxuries: free time, alone.
I hurry into my room and dig under the bare steel frame of my little cot and pull out Mama’s guitar. It’s old, and always out
of tune, and it’s missing a string, but it’s mine and I love it. It’s scratched and battered, and it was cheap even new. But it’s
mine. The one thing I can call my own, something that brings me joy.
I have some old sheet music, saved from before Mama died. They’re all old hymns and worship music—Mama was a
Christian, and while she was alive, Papa pretended to be, too. But after she died, that part of him died with her.
Now, I play her songs and I try to feel her.
I hear Papa’s truck approaching, after an hour. I hear the engine shut off, the door squeak open and slam closed. Breath
lodging in my throat behind a ball of panic, I hurriedly shove the guitar and sheet music back in the case, latch it, and shove it
under the bed, all the way against the wall.
I lay on the bed facing the wall. Above me, there are bars on the window. I force my breathing to be slow and steady, even
as I hear his tread enter the house and approach my room. Pause. He shuts the lights off.
Closes the door.
And locks it…
From the outside.

I FIGHT THE URGE TO FIDGET WITH MY DRESS .

It’s porcelain, rather than white. Long flowing train, with a sweetheart neckline and long sleeves. My bouquet is daises and
wildflowers picked from the field behind the houses.
I’m barefoot—it’s part of the ceremony, Papa says. Symbolic.
Symbolic of my place in his world: barefoot, in the kitchen. Literally.
I’m facing Jerry. Papa is beside us, holding a Bible open in both hands.
My hands are engulfed in Jerry’s. His hands are huge, like dinner plates. His fingers are fat and hard. Where his wedding
ring used to be, his skin is pale white, in contrast with the sun-tanned skin of the rest of his hand.
Papa is talking, but my pulse pounds in my ears, rushing and pounding.
Jerry is an enormous man. Taller than my father, even, who’s six-two. But where Papa is lean and hard, Jerry reminds me of
nothing so much as a walrus, right down to the huge mustache hanging over his lips and draping down to his chin in dangling,
curlicue points. He’s not just fat, though. There’s muscle under the fat, and a lot of it. His hair is cropped short, buzzed close to
the scalp, brown shot through with gray. His suit doesn’t fit, the jacket not even close to closing, the slacks belted under his
belly, his shirt straining at the buttons.
“Naomi.” My father’s voice snaps through my thoughts. “Do you take this man to be your husband, before God and in the
presence of our community?”
Jerry’s beady brown eyes bore into mine, daring me to so much as hesitate.
“I…I do.”
Jerry repeats his vow, and then I’m being hauled up against his belly, which is somehow hard yet soft at the same time. His
mouth is on mine, crushing, awful, tasting of chewing tobacco and whiskey and halitosis.
I fight the urge to vomit as he pulls back, his huge hand clapping possessively over my bottom. Not just grasping, but
gripping. Clawing. Claiming.
He presses his mouth to my ear, hot vile breath washing over me. “This reception is gonna be awful short, Naomi. I’m not a
patient man. So if you want food or cake, you best get it before I take you home.”
Home.
A brand-new cabin about a thousand yards through the woods. My brothers’ cabins aren’t done yet, but because Jerry
brought resources and contacts to the compound, he got preference. Plus, Papa’s militia was hired for some sort of work
somewhere—two weeks after Jerry arrived, the whole militia poured out of the compound in an endless stream of hand-
painted camouflage pickups and second-hand military vehicles.
I was moved in there this morning. Meaning, my meager collection of handmade, floor-length, long-sleeve dresses and
undergarments was packed up in Jerry’s truck and hauled over to the new cabin. I was expected to unpack all of Jerry’s things,
as well, of course. His clothing, his young childrens’ clothing, his collection of books, the kitchen things.
I also had to cook for the reception—for my own wedding, in which I got no say.
By the time the wedding itself arrived at six in the evening, I was exhausted to the point of feeling faint. But if I slack off, if
I show the slightest hesitation or weakness, I’ll be punished.
I don’t dare.
There’s whistling and cheers and catcalls from the audience, and then Jerry holds our joined hands aloft. More cheers. As
if he’s won a prize, and is accepting his accolades.
I force my features into neutrality, which is the best I can manage. I cannot summon even a vestige of joy or excitement.
I feel horror. Disgust. Fear.
I’m hauled away from the makeshift altar, through the crowd of Papa’s friends and militia members. I spot a few of the
militia women in the audience and see only pity and understanding in their expressions. They know what this is—everyone
does. Yet no one does anything to stop it.
What can they do? What can anyone do?
Nothing.
I’m not a person, here. I’m a thing. A possession.

AFTER FORCING MYSELF TO EAT ROAST PIG AND CORN ON THE COB, BECAUSE I KNOW I’ LL NEED FOOD IN MY SYSTEM, I’ M
expected to dance with Jerry. He steps on my toes with his huge, heavy loafers. Holds me clutched up against his body with
possessive, grabby hands. On my backside, my hips. Grinning down at me, breath wafting over me.
All too soon, the dance is over. The band—a motley collection of militia members who can barely keep a rhythm, let alone
a cohesive melody—strikes up a country tune popular several years before I was even born.
Jerry is hauling me through the crowd—to more cheering and catcalls. They all know where he’s taking me.
I know where he’s taking me.
Into the cabin.
To the bedroom.
He closes the door behind himself and then turns to me. “Been a long, long time since I been with someone as young and
sweet as you, Naomi.” His grin is a leering, eager thing, turning my stomach. “Your father assured me you’d be nice and
obedient for me.” He steps closer, unbuckling his belt. “Is that true, Naomi? You gonna be sweet for me?”
I swallow hard. I’m shaking all over. I know, intellectually, what sex is, but I have no experience of it. I don’t know what’s
expected of me. I just know that if I get it wrong, it’ll cost me. Brutally.
I’ve considered my answer for too long.
His palm cracks against my cheek, spinning me around. “Asked you a question, wife.” He palms the back of my neck in a
crushing vise grip, yanking me so close I can’t make out his features. “Are…you…gonna…obey?”
“Y-yes,” I whimper. “Yes.”
“Show me that you’re gonna be a good girl.” He drops his slacks, his male member flopping free. He shrugs out of his
jacket and unbuttons his shirt. His member is hardening. “Show me, Naomi.”
“I…” I feel tears pricking at my eyes. “I don’t…I don’t know…”
“Awww,” he croons. “Ain’t that sweet? Don’t know what to do, huh? Well damn. I got me a real-deal virgin.” He palms his
member in one hand, pinching my shoulder in his other and shoving me down to my knees. “Open your mouth, wife. I’ll show
you what I like.”

18 MONTHS LATER

I’ M SITTING ON OUR BED , NAKED , WAITING .

Hands on my lap. Head bowed. Knees together.
I hear him. He’s outside, talking on the phone. Discussing a business deal—he’s taken over part of Papa’s farming business,
selling beef and produce.
I’ve been here for twenty minutes, waiting. I’m to be on the bed, naked, waiting for him every night at nine. Wait until he
arrives. Lay with him.
If I’m not? I found out, once. He wasn’t home, so I decided to wait until he was.
It hurt to breathe for two weeks, from his boot in my ribs—which came after he’d backhanded me to the floor.
Once he’d hit me and kicked me while I was down, he’d forced me to undress and lay for him, right there on the floor of the
living room.
So now, I’m on the bed at nine, ready and waiting.
It’s better than the alternative. It never takes him long, for which I’m always thankful. He falls asleep afterward, as well, so
I can shower him off me in peace.
My stomach roils.
I hear him through the open window. “Yeah, yeah, I sold all this year’s processed beef. Hell yeah, I got a good price. It’ll
set us up for the next few months, so we can resupply for the next job. Has Bud heard about the contract we were supposed to
be getting? Oh, right. Well, we’ll be ready…I’m gonna let you go, Jimmy. I got my wife waiting for me. Nah, not yet, but not for
lack of trying. All right, Jimbo. See ya tomorrow.”
Not for lack of trying. He’s referring to my womb, which is still empty. I seem to be infertile, which is a source of intense
displeasure to my husband, seeing as my entire purpose in life is to provide him with more children. Why he wants more
children, I do not know. He barely pays attention to the ones has—his youngest two are ten and seven, and I’m their primary
caretaker and educator.
I can’t breathe.
My stomach is in knots.
I’m cold, chattering, and shivering. My privates are still sore from laying for him yesterday—he was particularly rough in
his attentions last night.
Tears prickle, and something hot and thick and hard burns in my chest. Expands. Crackles. It’s…anger, I think.
Desperation.
I can’t lay with him again.
Not again.
I just want one night. Just one.
I won’t get it.
The tears spill down my cheeks, despite my best efforts to hold them back.
The door opens.
No, no, no. I’m not ready.
“Bend over the bed, Naomi.” He slams the door behind himself, already peeling out of his clothes.
I swallow hard. “Jerry…please, can…I’m sore. I…I can’t. Not tonight. Please.”
He stops in his tracks. I see the rage building. “You tellin’ me no, woman?”
“No! I’m—I’m just asking. Please, Jerry. Just tonight. Please?”
“You best do as I say, woman, or you’re gonna be sore in a lot more places than between your legs.” He palms himself.
“Tell you what. I’ll give you a break tonight.”
I almost whimper in relief. “Thank you, Jerry. I’ll…I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. I promise.”
I reach for my nightgown, neatly folded on the hope chest at the foot of the bed.
He grabs my hand in a crushing grip on my wrist. “I didn’t say you could get dressed, Naomi.” I hear the cruelty in his
voice.
“Jerry, I…you said—”
He forces my hand to his member. “I’ll give your pussy a rest. You’re gonna use your mouth.”
No, god no. He rarely bathes. He smells foul and tastes worse. Laying with him is preferable, and I think he knows that.
I feel something boiling inside me. “Jerry, please. I just want to go to bed.”
His grip on my wrist tightens until I feel my bones grinding together. “Last chance, Naomi. I’m feeling forgiving tonight, so
I’m giving you one more chance before I punish you.” He squeezes until I’m dizzy with pain. “Bend over or get on your knees.
Take your pick or I’ll pick for you.”
I’ve got nothing left. The pain means nothing. I live in pain, all day, every day. Ribs, cheek, nose, stomach. Sometimes he
uses his belt on my thighs or backside, to punish me for any imagined slight or disobedience, and sometimes just because he
wants to.
I can’t take anymore.
I can’t.
I won’t.
“No.” It’s a whisper, all I can manage.
But he hears it.
When his fist descends, I almost welcome it. The pain is always better than the anticipation.
It’s not long before I black out.
I WAKE UP ABRUPTLY AND IN AGONY. A LANCE OF YELLOW LIGHT STREAMS DOWN ON ME FROM A FEW FEET OVER MY HEAD . THE
air is thick, heavy, hot, and still, ripe with the scents of old urine and dust and mold. My ribs scream with every breath, pain so
acute my lungs hitch. There are other injuries, but it’s my ribs that demand all my attention.
I’m in lockup—a ten-by-ten cell in the side of a hill, with sweating concrete walls and ceiling, and a bare dirt floor. The
door is a three-inch thick slab of metal with a hole cut out a few inches down from the top; the latch is a simple steel bolt an
inch thick. Papa’s makeshift jail. A militiaman or -woman caught misbehaving—drunk, fighting, etc.—will spend a night or so
in here.
I spend more time in here than anyone else. If Papa’s already hurt me too badly to risk killing me with another beating, he’ll
toss me in here to punish me for backtalk, disrespect, hesitation to obey, being too slow to carry out orders; Jerry’s tossed me
in here a few times, for failing to show him the proper enthusiasm in bed, usually—but only after beating me bloody and
senseless. Like now.
How long will I be in lockup? I rebelled against my husband. I’m honestly surprised I don’t have more broken bones.
Time floats and stretches in lockup, distorts and twists, lengthening like pulled taffy and compressing like a finger on a fast-
forward button. Pain is all that keeps me grounded in reality. I feel insects crawling on me—roaches, ants, spiders, centipedes.
It hurts too much to move, so I ignore the creepy crawling of their passage over my feet and fingers and legs and arms.
The square of light slides across the room, fading from yellow to gold to red-orange, and then as darkness falls the square
becomes silver from the moon and the stars.
Again.
And again.
Days? The thirst in my throat is desperate, furious. I’m delirious with pain, starved, and dehydrated.
Just when I think they’re finally going to just let me die, a tiny square panel in the bottom of the door slides open: a plastic-
wrapped sandwich is shoved through, followed by a bottle of cold water.
As I devour the food and sip the water, I feel something burning in my chest, a non-physical sensation. Something hot and
hard, thick and acidic, a burning, cancerous knot.
The feeling grows and intensifies as the hot days and cold nights stretch onward.
I examine the feeling. What is it?
Anger.
It’s anger.
I can’t take any more. I can’t look at Jerry’s sweaty, jowly face one more moment—I can’t stomach the feeling of his fleshy
bulk grinding me into the mattress. I can’t withstand another punch, another kick.
I can’t make myself say “yes sir” or “no sir” one more time. I can’t obey. I can’t disappear. I can’t serve and perform and
acquiesce.
I can’t take it. I’d rather die than live this way one more day.
I have to leave.
The thought blazes through me like a rocket, detonating inside me like an atomic bomb.
I may not make it far, but I have to try. They’ll likely kill me when they catch me, but that’s better than this.
There’s a world out there. I’ve seen it. Either Papa or Jerry takes me to the supermarket once a month, and I see the world
through the window of the truck. There are stores and gas stations, breweries and restaurants and clothing stores. There are
people.
Maybe there’s someone out there who would let me work for them.
I let sleep wash over me, and dream of escaping the walls of this compound that is the only world I’ve ever known.

THE SCRAPING SQUEAL OF THE BOLT JOLTS ME AWAKE. I STRUGGLE TO MY FEET — MY INJURED RIBS SEND KNIVES OF AGONY
searing through me with every movement.
Papa stands on the other side of the threshold, anger limning his features. “Let’s go.”
I shuffle out of the lockup, cringing away from him and holding my breath as I squeeze past his lean hard frame.
I clench my jaw and suck in a breath, expecting a blow—
It still takes me by surprise, a fist to my kidney sending me to my hands and knees, pain whitening my vision and stealing
my breath.
“You told Jerry no.” His voice is low and vicious, vibrating with rage.
I don’t respond, because there’s nothing I can say.
He hauls me to my feet and grips my arms so hard I’ll have bruises. “Answer me, girl.”
“Y-y-yes. I did. I told him no.” I swallow hard, struggling for breath.
“You know better than that, Naomi.” Now, he sounds disappointed. “A few days in lockup ain’t anything like punishment
enough for disrespecting your husband’s authority that way.”
My cracked ribs aren’t? The hunger and thirst aren’t? I say none of this.
Papa’s truck is waiting, engine idling with a rattle and a cloud of diesel exhaust. The lights shine bright white, illuminating
a wide swath of the night.
“What time is it?” I ask.
He stabs a finger at me across the hood. “You shut up. It doesn’t matter what fuckin’ time it is.” The fury in his voice
promises a nightmare of hurt.
I climb gingerly and with intense pain up into the cab of his truck, waiting with my hands folded on my lap. He hops in,
jerking the shifter into gear before he’s even closed his door. We bolt forward with a spray of gravel, bouncing onto the two-
track running from the main house through the woods and between the training fields, to the lockup and equipment shed and
terminating at the barracks on the far north of the property.
He takes me to the house I called home my whole life—the main house. He parks in front of the porch, shuts the engine
down, and swings out. I follow more slowly. When I reach the front door, he stops and spins to face me.
“Jerry’s out of town on business,” he says. “You’re staying with me till he gets back. He requested that I let him deal with
your disobedience himself, which I feel is a fair request. So, until your husband gets back, you’re gonna stay here, locked in
your room.”
I nod.
“You understand me?” he demands.
“Yes, I understand.”
He leans toward me, eyes narrowing. “Try that again?”
“I said yes, I understand,” I say louder.
His jaw grinds. “Last chance to show me the proper respect.”
I can’t.
I won’t.
He backhands me to the rough wood of the front porch, and I feel blood sluice out of my nose and slivers slicing into my
palms. I stay down, waiting.
I’m saved by his ringing phone.
“Yeah, this is Buddy Ibsen.” A pause as he listens. “Oh, right. Great, yeah, come on up.” The sound of his voice fades as he
walks inside…but not before I overhear the most important sentence of my life. “Right, yeah. Gate code is three-six-six-seven.
Lock it again once you’re through.”
I limp to my room, shut the door, kill the lights, and crawl into bed. Alone.

I WAKE TO SILENCE.
My heart pounds in my chest.
Go.
The word clangs in my skull. Resonates in my chest.
Run.
I shift out of bed—my ribs scream, but not as badly as they did. My side where Papa hit me also hurts, but it’s tolerable. I
try the door, hoping against hope—
The knob twists in my hand…
And the door opens.
He forgot to lock it.
My pulse hammers in my throat, pounds in my ears as I tiptoe out of my room and across the darkened living room. The
kitchen is silvered with moonlight from the window over the sink. I smell bleach.
Papa’s new wife, Jerry’s daughter, must have been “punished” pretty severely, then.
The front door is locked—I twist the deadbolt as slowly as I can; the bolt thunks in noisily. The door whispers open. The
screen door squeals in protest, and I freeze. Listen.
Nothing.
I slip through the cracked open screen door, not daring to open it any further. Close it gingerly, so it won’t slam.
Down the steps. Stop to listen.
I hear a muffled whimper from the partially ajar dormer window above the porch roof. A slap of flesh against flesh. A
pained whimper.
“Bud, please—” a small voice, feminine, dainty, pained. “Stop, Bud. Please stop.”
A sharp smack, hand against face.
 Silence.
I can’t help her.
I tiptoe around Papa’s truck. Gravel digs into my bare feet, but I ignore it. It’s nothing against the ache of my ribs, and even
less compared to the tantalizing idea of freedom.
I just have to make it to the gate. Half a mile of gravel driveway. I can make it.
I hold my breath as I round the bend, putting trees between me and the house. My heart rate ratchets until I’m panting, even
though I’m tiptoeing as cautiously as I did through the house. I step on a sharp piece of rock and feel my foot open up.
I risk a look back; nothing but shadows lurk behind me.
A long straight downhill stretch, now. Cottonwoods and pines and elms line the driveway. The moon is high and full. My
breath puffs in a white cloud—it’s cold outside. I barely feel it through the adrenaline pumping through me.
The gate is just ahead, six feet tall chain-link with razor wire across the top. A wrist-thick chain loops through the post and
the gate, secured with a gigantic combination lock.
Three-six-six-seven. Mama’s birthday.
I fumble the code twice before the hasp clicks and drops open. The chain is heavy, clanking loudly against the gate when I
drop it. My heart clatters in my ears, and I stare up the driveway, waiting for the shout.
It never comes.
I haul at the gate, dragging it open a few inches—just enough to squeeze through.
On the other side, I step off the gravel of the driveway and onto the cold blacktop of the public highway.
A sob shivers of me—I did it.
I’m free.
Now I just have to stay free.
I stumble in a jog, not caring which direction I’m going because it doesn’t matter. I just have to get away.
Get away.
The cold starts to leach into my muscles, and the pain of my injured ribs and bruised kidney makes each step pure torture.
The cold air hits my lungs like a spear. Tears trickle—I won’t get far in this state. It doesn’t matter—I have to try.
I won’t go back.
I run.
A semi roars past me, not even slowing. The wind of its passage knocks me into the grass at the side of the road.
A car passes—this one is low, sleek, and old. Silver, lit by the moon. It whooshes past me and then stops. Parks.
A figure unfolds from the driver’s seat. A man. Tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. He’s wearing a black suit with
a white button-down, no tie. The moon illuminates his features as I stumble to a halt a few feet from him.
His face is carved from pure, perfect marble by the hand of God himself, symmetrical, angular. His jawline is razor-sharp
and hard as a cliff face, with reddish stubble on his jaw and copper hair buzzed to the skin on the sides, short on top and swept
to one side.
He’s the most beautiful human I’ve ever seen.
His arms stretch the sleeves of his suit jacket, and his thighs bulge against the legs of his slacks. His hands dangle at his
sides, curled into loose fists. His eyes bore into me—he radiates lethal intensity. I’ve met enough of Papa’s men to know a
killer when I see one.
He gestures at the expensive-looking vintage car. “Get in.” His voice is smooth, deep, and hard.
I’m terrified of him—he exudes violence, his aura one of concentrated lethality.
But yet…
I also see my future when I meet his pale green eyes the color of an oak leaf in the summer sun.
I’ve never had much of an imagination—play was discouraged, in favor of chores and acts of service. Yet when I look at
him, I see a million days skitter past my eyes, and he’s in each one…
I hesitate.
He’s everything Papa always said was wrong with the world.
It very well could be the worst mistake I’ll ever make, but I get into the car with him.
For better or worse, I’ve made my choice: stepping out into the unknown.
first taste of freedom
 Silas

I n the interest of putting mileage between us and her father, I opt to keep driving. We reach a junction and I take a left—
south. We pass between miles of farmland and rolling hills carpeted with forest, moonlit and still. At another junction, I
take a right, and after a few more miles, lights begin to glow on the horizon, indicating a town. It’s a bit larger than the last
one and boasts an interstate exchange, which means better gas stations, restaurants, and lodging options.
I pull into a Hilton and park near the entrance. Naomi sits in the passenger seat with her eyes on her folded hands, head
bowed, waiting.
I pause at the hood, rapping my knuckles on the metal, causing her to jump. “You coming?”
She stares at me for a moment, and then slides out of the car, moving gingerly, cautiously. She follows me into the cool,
well-lit lobby. A younger guy with slicked-back black hair, pearl stud earrings, and a matching pearl necklace greets us with a
smile, but the smile fades when he sees Naomi.
“First,” I growl, “I’m getting her away from the motherfuckers who did this to her, yeah?”
He eyes me warily, then turns to Naomi, holding her gaze intently. “Are you safe with him?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “He’s helping me. He wasn’t the one who hurt me.”
He hesitates a beat, examining her closely, probably trying to ascertain if she’s lying because she’s scared of me, then turns
to his computer and types rapidly. “We have a first-floor king suite available, or a double queen.”
“Double queen,” I answer. I dig cash out of the inner pocket of my suit jacket and toss a pair of hundreds on the counter.
“Two keys. Keep the change.” I lean over the counter, putting every bit of menace I possess into my glare as I meet his eyes.
“We weren’t here. Got me? You’ve never seen anyone matching our descriptions. Clear?”
He nods, swallowing hard. “I need a name for the room.”
“Ted Williams.” It’s the name of an old Boston Red Sox player.
He nods, entering the name into the system, and then activates two cards and slips them into a small envelope on which he
writes our room number. “Second floor, turn left out of the elevators, halfway down the hallway on the right. If you have any
questions, you can call the front desk. My name is Patrick, and thank you for choosing Hilton.”
We find our room. Because old habits die hard, before I let Naomi into the room, I palm my Glock and sweep the bedroom
and bathroom. “Clear.”
She just blinks at me. “What?”
“It means the room is safe.” I hold out my hand, gesturing for her to join me inside. “Come on in.”
She steps inside and perches on the edge of the bed farthest from the door, sitting bolt upright, head bowed, hands folded.
I peel off my jacket and toss it over the chair in the corner, then toe off my shoes and socks, then unbutton the shirt and shrug
out of it—I can’t help but notice that Naomi steals a surreptitious glance at me from the corner of her eye.
“Naomi.” I toss my pistol onto the other bed and stretch out. “You can relax, babe.”
Her shoulders hunch. “Relax?”
“Yeah. Kick back. Chill.” I laugh. “You’re wound tighter than a steel spring.”
Moving uncertainly, she puts her back against the headboard and stretches out her legs. Her posture is still tense, tight, and
uncomfortable. I can see the strain of pain at the corners of her eyes and the set of her jaw.
“You hungry?” I ask.
She glances at me sidelong. “Y-yes.”
“It’s late so I doubt there are any actual restaurants open, but I can grab you some snacks from the vending machine.” I tuck
my Glock into the back of my slacks and let my white T-shirt hang over it, then pull one of the room keycards from the
envelope. “Your key is in that envelope. Don’t open the door for anyone, no matter what they say. Got it? I won’t knock—I’ll
use my key. Anyone knocks, you hear anything that sets off your spidey sense, you lock yourself in the bathroom and lay down
in the tub.”
She nods. “I understand.”
“You have any preferences?”
 “Preferences?” Her nose and brow are wrinkled in confusion.
“From the vending machine. Chips, candy bar—what do you like?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Well, you feel like something sweet or savory?”
“I don’t know.”
I suppress a sigh of irritation—it’s not her fault, after all. “You don’t know what you want? Not even a hint?”
She shrugs. “No. I don’t know.”
I crouch beside her bed. “Naomi. Look at me.”
Hesitantly, she lifts her gaze to mine. Her eyes are rife with fear. “Yes sir?”
I shake my head, chuckling. “You get to want things, Naomi. You get to have an opinion. You don’t need to be afraid
anymore.”
She swallows hard, her throat bobbing frantically. “I’m scared of you.”
“I know.” I smile at her, going for reassuring; I’m not generally a reassuring sort of guy, nor do I smile all that much, so I’m
not sure how successful I am. “What you need to know about me right now is that you don’t ever have to be afraid of me. I’ll
never hurt you. I’ll never touch you in any way you don’t want and don’t allow, okay?”
She nods. “I’m afraid of…” she pauses, hunting for the right words, then gives a little laugh. “Everything, I suppose.”
“From what I saw of your father, I can understand that.”
She doesn’t meet my gaze. “Jerry is worse.”
“Jerry?”
She looks away. “My husband.”
“You’re married?”
She nods.
“You love him?”
Her gaze flicks to mine, and I see a little spark of fire. “No.” It’s hissed, vehement. There’s a spark of hate in that snarled
syllable.
“He gonna come after you?”
“Yes.”
“Your dad?”
Another nod. “Definitely.”
“Why’d you marry him, if you don’t love him?”
“I wasn’t given a choice.” She tucks her feet under her thighs, wincing as she moves. “He’s a friend of my father’s. He
married my husband’s daughter.”
“Um. That’s…” I shake my head. “That’s fuckin’ weird.”
“It was a trade. Jerry had farming equipment my father needed, and he also knows someone who can provide arms and
ammunition.”
I blink. “Arms and ammunition?”
“My father is the commander of a militia. They live and train on the compound, and hire out as security and private
paramilitary contractors.”
“No shit?”
“I’m telling you the truth, I promise.”
I tug open the door. “Hey, I believe you.” Pause. “So when you told me that I didn’t understand, that he’d kill me…”
“He has hundreds of men at his command. They’re rabidly devoted to him. And they’re all just like him. Like Jerry.” She
swallows hard, her chest rising and falling too quickly. “They are all heavily armed and well-trained.”
I grin at her. “Babe, I get you have no way of knowing what kind of man I am. But try to believe me when I say that if they
come after me, they’re in for a really nasty surprise. Especially if I call in my brothers.”
“Brothers?” She asks, curiosity curling at the edges of her voice. “How many brothers do you have?”
“Well, I have two actual, biological brothers, but I have four brothers in arms, so to speak. And I’ll take my brothers
against your pop’s whole fuckin’ army of assholes.” I smack the door frame. “Be right back.”
I hit up the vending machines, grabbing a couple of candy bars and a bag of popcorn, and then grab some Gatorade and beef
jerky from the car.
Letting myself back into our room with my key, I dump the haul on my bed. Naomi is still sitting exactly as I left her, bolt up
upright against the pillows, legs out in front of her, hands on her lap, chin tucked against her breastbone. Waiting.
Makes my gut burn with rage, seeing how broken this beautiful woman’s spirit is. It’s a fury like I’ve never known. Like I
never knew could even exist.
Worse yet is the damage to her face.
I gesture at the snacks. “Help yourself. I’m gonna get something for your face.” She hesitates, and I crouch beside her. “Hey.
It’s okay. You can eat everything there if you want.”
“What about you?” Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear it.
“What about me?” I shrug. “I’m good.” I snag the bag of jerky and take a piece. “The rest is all you.”
I go into the bathroom and wet a washcloth under warm water, wring it out, and bring it out to her. She’s nibbling with
small, careful, dainty movements on a Snickers bar. There’s a little dab of chocolate at the corner of her mouth; it’s fucking
adorable, for some reason.
I grab the chair from the desk and bring it over between the beds. Show her the washcloth. “I’m gonna clean you up. Is that
okay?”
She rests the half-eaten candy bar on her lap, her silvery-gray eyes searching me. “Okay.”
She goes still—preternaturally so. Barely breathing. Her fists are clenched so hard her knuckles are white. Her hair has
come loose from the braid, strands trailing down to frame her face, catching on crusted patches of blood. Her chin trembles—
she’s battling abject terror.
I sink back in the chair. “Hey, Naomi. Breathe. Take a deep breath for me.”
She sucks in a shuddering breath.
“Now. Unclench a little. As much as you can. I’m gonna—I’m just gonna move your hair a little…” I use the tip of my
middle finger to scrape the tendril of her auburn hair back and tuck it behind her ear, barely brushing her skin; she’s shaking all
over. “See? Not gonna hurt you.”
Her eyes lift to mine. They’re wet with unshed tears. “Okay,” she whispers.
I use the washcloth to dab, brush, and wipe at the bloodstains on her face, using as much gentility as I possess. “There.
Better.” I toss the washcloth onto the nightstand between the beds. “Can I check your nose?”
She swallows hard. Hesitates, and then nods.
I prod gently at her nose and find evidence of prior breaks—adding fuel to the inferno of my fury. “It’s not broken. You’re
right.” I gesture at her midsection. “How are the ribs?”
“They hurt,” she whispers. “But I’ll be okay. I’m used to it.”
“Not any-fucking-more,” I snarl, lurching off the chair and snatching the washcloth.
The sudden violence of my tone and my movements sends Naomi scrambling away from me, curling up in a tiny ball against
the pillows and headboard, tears of terror trickling down her cheeks, whimpers escaping her clenched teeth.
I halt, hissing out a breath through my teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I clench my fists and bury the fury, breathing slowly to
find the calm I need to deal with this poor, battered, broken woman. “I’m not mad. Or, not at you, at least. I’m sorry for scaring
you.”
Arms wrapped around her knees, she peers at me over her kneecaps. Slowly, she unfolds. I don’t move, barely dare to
breathe. She lets her shoulders drop down from her ears, fists unclenching. Sniffling, she blinks. Then, moving gingerly, as if
I’m going to snatch it away, she picks up the candy bar from where she’d dropped it on the bed. She watches me for a moment,
as if waiting for me to scold her, and then resumes nibbling on the chocolate.
I toss the washcloth on the floor near the tub, take a long piss, wash my hands. When I emerge, Naomi has finished the
candy bar; she’s folded the wrapper neatly and is holding it.
“You want something else?” I ask, throwing myself onto my bed and snagging the Doritos and a Gatorade.
“I…” she glances at the drink in my hand. “I’m a little thirsty.”
Cracking open the bottle and then twisting the cap back tight, I roll to my side and stretch across the gap to hand it to her. I
toss a bag of kettle corn popcorn onto her lap. “Try that.”
She opens the bag with that same delicacy, plucks a single kernel in her slender fingers, and pops it into her mouth. A tiny
smile lights up her face, not much more than a tilting of the corners of her mouth. “It’s very good. Thank you, Silas.”
“No problem, Naomi.”
She eats the bag pretty quickly, which tells me she’s probably hungrier than she’s letting on. Her eyes look heavy, though.
Exhausted.
I pile the rest of the food on the table between the beds. “I’m gonna get some rest.” I lift the Glock in gesture and put it
under my pillow. “I sleep light.” I gesture at the door. “Anyone comes through that door, they gotta deal with me, yeah?”
She nods, eyes wide. “I understand.”
I soften my voice, my face. “I’m saying you’re safe, Naomi. No one will ever hurt you again.”
“You don’t know my father.”
“And you don’t know me.” I grab the remote for the TV and toss it to her. “You can watch TV if you want. Won’t bother
me.”
I lay down and toss an arm over my eyes. Exhaustion pulls at me, but the continued silence tells me something’s up. I glance
at her—she’s holding the remote like she did the gun, earlier: in both hands, like a foreign, unfamiliar object.
“What’s the problem? Don’t like TV?”
She shrugs. “We don’t have one at home.”
 “For real?”
“There are no TVs on the compound at all. The only computer is in Papa’s office at the barracks. There’s a big screen and
projector in the common room at the barracks, but only the men are allowed to watch anything on it.”
“Women aren’t allowed to watch TV?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No.”
“What are you allowed to do?” I ask.
She only shrugs. “What we’re told to do.” A thick, hard swallow. “Clean. Cook. Laundry. Serve the men.”
She’s my daughter. My property. Her father’s words echo in my head. She was treated like chattel.
Fuck.
Rage boils inside me, and I have to breathe through it or I’ll put my fist through the goddamn wall.
Once I’ve gotten ahold of my fury, I turn over and look at her. “Hey.”
She meets my gaze, hers wary, frightened, closed off. “Yes sir?” She blinks, sighing. “Yes?”
“That’s over with, for you. Never again.”
She shakes her head.
“We’re gonna do a little exercise. You down?”
She just stares at me. “What?”
“I’m gonna tell you to do something. And you’re not gonna do it. You’re gonna say, ‘Go fuck yourself, Silas.’”
Another shake of her head. “I…I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Let’s try.” I clear my throat. “Naomi, give me the remote.”
Immediately, she proffers it to me. “Yes sir.”
“Bzzzzzttt.” I make a loud buzzer sound. “Nope. Try again.”
She jumps at the buzzer sound and fumbles the remote. “I’m sorry.”
I laugh. “What are you apologizing for? The only time you ever apologize is if you fucked up. Did you fuck up?”
She goes still. “I don’t know.”
“Naomi, did you fuck up?” I keep my voice low, calm, quiet.
“N-no?”
“No, you didn’t. So don’t apologize.”
“Yes, sir.”
I laugh again. “Sir. This ain’t the fuckin’ Marine Corps, honey. I ain’t a superior officer. Don’t call me sir.”
“It’s…it’s habit, Silas.” She fiddles with the remote buttons.
“I know it is. And I’m gonna help you break it.” I wiggle my fingers at the remote. “Now. Gimme that.”
She stares at me for a long beat, and then, shaking all over, she licks her lips. “N-no?”
I grin. “Good! That was good.” I point at the TV. “Now, find something to watch, if you want. Or don’t. Take a shower.
Sleep. Do whatever you want.”
“How…how do I turn it on?” She asks, her tone so hesitant and frightened it makes my heart bleed.
I sit up and reach across the space, put my hand over hers, and push the power button. “Like that.” The brush of my hand
against hers causes her to suck in a sharp breath and go still again. “Sorry. I said I wouldn’t touch you.” I point at the channel
button, careful to not make contact this time. “Push that one to change the channel. The one with the V-O-L on it makes it louder
or quieter.”
“I see.” A pause. “And I…I can watch…anything?”
I almost laugh, because the disbelief in her voice is…adorable and painful at the same time. “Yeah, babe. Anything you
want, for as long as you want.”
I get comfortable again, arm over my eyes. I hear flicks and snatches as she flips through channels slowly, sometimes
watching something for a few seconds or minutes before flipping again. Game show, cooking show, sports highlights—murder
documentary, nature doc, late-night infomercial—around and around. I’m almost asleep when she settles on a nature doc.
David Attenborough’s voice narrates the mating ritual of a particular type of lizard or something.

WHEN I WAKE UP , NAOMI IS GONE.

At first, I feel a note of panic—would she have left? Could someone have gotten in and taken her without waking me up?
The first is possible, the second…not so much.
But then I realize the comforter has been removed from the bed. I find her in the tub, cocooned in the blanket. Seeking
shelter. Safety.
God, what hell has she been through that she feels safer in a tub than in a bed?
Tear tracks stain her cheeks—-she fell asleep crying.
 That fills me with equal parts rage and a desire—absurd, ridiculous, and bizarre—to wipe those tears away.
I dress quietly and head out to the lobby. The continental breakfast is in full swing—the hotel is pretty busy, so the lobby is
crowded. I wait in line and pile two plates high with fresh fruit, sausage links, bacon, scrambled eggs, a pair of waffles, toast,
a bagel, and a few donut holes. Instead of trying to pretend I’m a waiter, I take the plates back to our room, leave them on the
bed, and go back down for two big Styrofoam cups of coffee and a cold bottle of orange juice.
When I get back to the room a second time, Naomi is awake and has neatly remade both beds…without so much as touching
anything on the plates.
“You don’t need to make the beds, Naomi. They pay people to do that.” I hand her one of the cups of coffee. “This one has
shit in it.” At the puzzled looks she gives me, I laugh. “Cream and sugar. Not, like, actual shit.”
She almost smiles at that. “Oh.” She glances at the food. “You must be very hungry.”
I snort. “My buddy Chance might be able to eat all that, but no way in fuck I could.” I hand her a fork and a plate. “Dig in.”
She blinks. “For me?”
It’s my turn to look puzzled. “Um…yeah? It’s breakfast.” I laugh. “You grew up under a rock, huh?” I can’t help another
laugh. “You’re like an alien, or someone from another time period.” I gesture at the door. “There’s a buffet down in the lobby. I
just got a little of everything.”
She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, facing me—knees together, posture perfect, staring down at the food as if
overwhelmed.
“What? Not hungry?” I ask, around a mouthful of eggs.
She glances at me, shaking her head. “No, I am. I just…” She trails off.
“What?” I set my fork down.
“I haven’t had food I didn’t cook in…well…since I was five years old.”
“You’ve been cooking since you were five?”
“Mama died when I was eleven.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs.
I set my plate down. Moving slowly, I sit beside her. Not touching, but close. She goes still, frozen, panting in fear.
“Breathe. Slow it down. Not gonna hurt you.”
She slows her breathing.
I take her plate from her, and the fork. I’ve got absolutely no fucking clue what’s come over me, what I’m doing right now. I
don’t question it, though. Just let instinct operate.
“You like eggs?” I ask.
She nods, a gentle dip of her chin. “Yes,” she whispers.
I scoop eggs onto the fork. Bring it to her mouth. “Here.”
She swallows hard, silver storm-cloud eyes on me. Then, she opens her mouth around the fork, teeth clicking quietly on the
tines. I wait till she’s chewed and swallowed, then feed her more eggs.
“Sausage or bacon?”
“Bacon?”
“You sure about that?” I tease. “You don’t sound sure.”
She bites her lower lip, almost smiling. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Ever dip it in syrup?” She shakes her head, so I snag my plate with the waffles, dip the bacon in the pool of maple syrup,
and feed it to her.
Her eyes widen. “Mmm. That’s wonderful.”
Syrup drips down her chin—before I can think about it, I’m wiping at it with my thumb, causing her to suck in a terrified
breath, shying away.
I freeze. “Sorry—I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.” I pop my thumb in my mouth and lick away the sweet droplet of syrup.
“That…” she blinks at me. “That was on my face.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”
“You…you ate it.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re…feeding me.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with you, Naomi. So, I’m just…” Another shrug. “I don’t
know.”
She’s so beautiful—the angles and planes of her face, the curve of her jawline and plump lips with the perfect Cupid’s
Bow, those deep quicksilver eyes.
 I use the fork to cut a bite of waffle and put it to her lips. She accepts it, eyes closing as she chews, licks her lips. Keeping
movements slow and careful, I feed her bites of everything. I watch her closely, and when her eyes fix on something on the
plates, I give her that—a wedge of apple, a slice of orange, a strawberry, and some blueberries; a bite of bagel smeared
liberally with cream cheese.
She eats a shocking amount of food. Then, when I have a bite of waffle in motion toward her mouth, she touches my wrist
with two fingers. “I’m full.”
I eat the bite, gesturing at both nearly empty plates. “Guess you were hungry, huh?”
She blinks rapidly. “I ate all that?” Her eyes go to me, to plates, and then well with tears as she goes perfectly, utterly still.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes, voice shaking. “I’m sorry.”
I set the fork down and pivot to face her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. Take a breath. You’re okay. It’s okay.”
She shakes all over. “I ate all your food. I’m selfish.” A tear trickles down her cheek, squeezed out of her tightly shut eyes.
“I’m sorry, Silas.”
I want to take her in my arms. I don’t. Moving slowly, telegraphing my intentions as clearly as possible, I wipe the lone tear
away. “None of that, now,” I say, keeping my voice as gentle as it can be. “You’re fine.” I wipe another tear away. “Can you
open your eyes for me?”
She opens them, gingerly; they’re silver stained wet, like fresh concrete after a hard rain.
“Do I seem upset to you?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No s—no.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m not.” I take a bite of bacon. “There’s all the food I can eat down in the lobby. All I gotta do is go get
more.”
“But…” she trails off, letting out a sigh. “Why did you feed me like that, Silas?”
“You want the truth?” I ask, after finishing the bagel.
“Yes, please.” She dips a finger in the syrup and licks; it’s a cute little move that some base, caveman part of me finds way,
way too sexy.
I clamp down hard on that thought—the very last thing this girl needs is me acting like an out-of-control horn-dog.
Absolutely the fuck not. Keep a lid on it, I tell myself.
“Because you’ve been abused, used, controlled, and owned your whole life. I guess I just wanted…” I shrug. “I dunno. I
wanted to prove that not everyone is like that. I’m not like that.”
She ducks her head. “I see.”
I finish off the food in silence and then sip my coffee. She’s motionless—thinking, if I can read her at all.
“What are you thinking?” I ask. “If you feel like sharing, that is.”
“What’s going to happen to me, now?” Her voice is faint and fearful. “I’m not your problem. I can’t—I don’t want you to
get hurt because of me.”
“Well, that’s my decision to make, isn’t it? If I want to tangle with your Pops, then that’s what I’m gonna do.” I force the
rage down. “As to what’s gonna happen to you? I don’t know. I can take you back, if that’s what you want, although I’ll be
honest and say I really don’t like that idea.”
“No. Please, Silas, no. Please no. I’ll do anything. Just—please, don’t make me go back.” She grabs my arm in both hands,
her grip vise-like, desperation shaking her voice, tears welling. “Please.”
I cover her hands with mine. “Hey, hey, relax—I shouldn’t have said it like that. That was my fault—I’m a dumbass.” She’s
shaking like a leaf and hyperventilating. “Breathe, okay? Breathe in nice and slow, let it out slow. There you go. No one is
making you go anywhere. You never have to go back. Never. Okay? You’ve got my word on that. It’s a promise.”
She nods, closing her eyes and letting a long sigh out. “Okay—okay.”
“Now. What my stupid ass should have said is that you’ve got a few options, so what’s gonna happen next is up to you. You
got any family anywhere other than back there in that hellhole you ran away from?”
“No,” she murmurs. “There’s no one. At least, not that I know of.”
“Well, then.” I think. “I can take you to a women’s shelter somewhere.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s…it’s a place where women escaping abusive relationships can go to be safe and protected and start over,” I explain.
“Or, you can just…ride with me.”
“Where are you going?” She asks.
“I dunno. Nowhere. Eventually, I’ll end up back in Vegas, where I live and work.”
Her gaze is curious. “What kind of work do you do?”
“Security at a nightclub.”
“I…” she drops her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know what to do, Silas. I don’t…the compound is all I’ve ever known.”
“You wanna just stick with me for a while?” I offer; she’s still holding onto my arm with both hands, although her death
grip has loosened to a gentle hold.
 She nods. “Could I? Please?”
“Of course.” I glance down at her bare feet. “We’re gonna have to get you some shoes, at least, though.”
She looks down at her toes. “Yes, that would probably be prudent.”
I smile. “Then it’s settled.” I take the plates and my now-empty cup of coffee. “I’m gonna go down and get more food. If
you want some privacy, I’ll eat down there.”
“Privacy?” She asks, sounding genuinely perplexed. “For what?”
“Use the bathroom? Take a shower?”
“Oh. A shower would be nice.”
“You’ve never stayed in a hotel before, I assume?” I ask, and receive the negative head-shake I was expecting. “Figured.
Come on, I’ll show you a few things.”
I pull the hair dryer out of the bag from under the sink. “The shampoo and all that stuff is complimentary. Means it’s free for
you to use as much as you want. You can stay in the shower as long as you want. Use all the hot water. I’ll come back in thirty
minutes and check on you. Okay?”
She nods. “Thank you.”
I just smile. “Nothing to thank me for, honey. Like I said, take your time. Relax.”
I slip my Glock at the small of my back and drape my shirt over it, then pause in the doorway. “Naomi?”
She’s facing away from me, fingers tugging her long thick auburn hair out of the braid; she turns to face me. “Yes, Silas?”
“You’re safe now. You’re free. Try to remind yourself of that. Okay?”
Her eyes shimmer. “Thank you. I won’t ever be able to thank you enough for what you’re doing for me, Silas. I mean that. I
owe you my life.”
I let the door close and move to stand in front of her. My hands itch to cup her lovely face, to feel the softness of her skin. I
don’t.
“You don’t owe me shit, Naomi. Not a damn thing.”
“Are you helping me because of your mother?” She gazes up at me, her silver eyes soft and searching.
I feel my molars grinding, feel a tumultuous wildfire of unprocessed emotions roiling inside me. “That’s part of it, yeah.”
“But not all of it.” She says this while gazing at me with an inscrutable expression, twisting the hair tie in her fingers.
“No.”
It seems like she wants to say more, ask another question; her mouth opens, closes, and then she turns away from me with a
soft sigh.
I want to tell her it’s her—that there’s something about her driving my actions. The words dissolve in my mouth and leave a
bittersweet aftertaste.
if only
 Naomi

T he door clicks closed behind Silas, and for the first time in my entire life, I’m alone and safe and free. I take a moment to
simply breathe in the sensation. Enjoy it. Something light and effervescent wells up in the pit of my stomach—as if I
could simply float away. It’s a lightness in my spirit.
I feel a smile tugging at my lips, laughter bubbling up inside me. I’m alone. I’m safe. I’m free.
I spread my arms out like wings and spin in a slow circle, head tipped back, eyes closed. Just because I can. I let a small
giggle escape—just because I can. No one will hit me or yell at me for being too loud, for feeling a moment of happiness.
I was not allowed joy; Papa made sure of that. If I laughed, he would find a way to cut me down. If I found something I
enjoyed, he would take it, or ruin it. By the time I was thirteen, I had mostly stopped trying to find joy in life. The sole
exception is Mama’s guitar, but that’s lost to me, now.
The idea of a shower pulls me into the bathroom. I was allowed to bathe, but hot water was strictly rationed for everyone
and usually turned off in my case. What will it be like to stand under a stream of hot water for as long as I want?
Time to find out—I’m so excited my hands shake. I twist the knob to turn on the hot water, and the nozzle head spurts,
sputters, and then sprays. Within seconds, steam begins to unfurl from the many thin streams of water.
I remove my clothing and place them on the bed, and return naked to the bathroom.
I examine myself in the mirror: Unbound, my hair falls nearly to my waist—I was not allowed to cut any more than an inch
off of it at any time, because Papa believed women are meant to have long hair; my breasts are fairly large for my otherwise
slender frame; bruises mark my skin in varying stages of healing, a palm-sized yellow-green one on my left hip, a dark purple-
and-blue one the size of a grapefruit beneath my left breast, and a myriad of smaller ones on my thighs and hips. I twist to see
as much of my back as possible; more bruises cover my shoulders, back, and bottom. Long, thin, keloid stripes scar across my
shoulders and backside, from the times when Papa decided merely beating me senseless wasn’t good enough—he frequently
whipped me with a length of extension cord.
No more.
No more bruises.
No more scars. No more broken ribs, no more bloody noses or black eyes.
I put a hand under the spray and add some cold water, check again, add a bit more, and then step into the shower, tugging
the curtain closed with a zinging rasp of the rings across the rod. The hot water beats on my back and shoulders, and I can’t
stop a moan from scraping past my teeth. Goodness, it feels so good. For a while, I just stand there and luxuriate in the hot
water. Turn to let it stream onto my front, on my face. I soak my hair and then wash it with the shampoo, rinse it, wash it again,
rinse again, and then work the conditioner in from the ends to the roots. While the conditioner sets, I lather a clean washcloth
with the shower gel and scrub my skin—some of the bruises still ache, others don’t. My ribs feel a good bit better today, but I
know from experience moving and breathing will cause pain for a couple more days.
Freedom, however, does wonders for healing.
I rinse my hair and let the suds swirl down the drain. Making the water hotter, as hot as I can stand it, I once more just let it
beat down on my body, letting the heat soak into my muscles.
Finally, when the water begins to run cool, I shut the spray off and towel myself dry. The small bathroom is wreathed with
steam. I wrap the towel around my torso and then flip my hair forward, twisting it into another towel to make a turban—I
always feel connected to Mama when I put my hair up like this. Some of my strongest memories of her are, for some reason, of
her just out of the shower, hair up in a turban, droplets dotting her bare shoulders. I remember sitting on the floor just outside
the bathroom watching her rub lotion onto her legs as steam skirled and whorled around her, flitting against the mirror and
receding as the cooler air from the hallway battled the humidity of the bathroom.
Like Mama used to, I put my foot up on the closed toilet lid and rub the complimentary lotion on my legs, from hip to arch
of my foot—having the luxury and liberty of something as simple as putting on lotion feels so bizarre and amazing that I fight
back tears of joy and gratitude.
In fact…
 I allow myself to put lotion on everywhere. I use as much as I want. My skin feels so soft, and I smell good. I feel good—
bruised ribs aside.
I have no idea how long I’ve been in the bathroom, and you know what? It doesn’t matter. Silas won’t yell at me for being
selfish, for taking too long.
Silas won’t yell at me at all.
I put aside thoughts of my savior—it’s too complicated; he’s too complicated. I’m not ready. Right now, I just want to enjoy
the feeling of being alone, safe, and free.
I pull the towel out of my hair and let my long, heavy locks hang down my back. I need a hairbrush, but a search of the
bathroom drawers produces nothing. Oh well. Maybe Silas will be able to find one for me. It would require asking him, and
the prospect of doing so leaves me shaking so hard I have to discard the idea. It’s too frightening.
I hang both towels over the shower rod and then head into the bedroom to dress.
I’m about to step into my underwear when I hear a mechanical whir and click—and then the squeak of the hinges as the
door opens. Panic freezes me in place, my underwear clutched in white-knuckled fists.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
Silas enters the room, eyes on the smartphone in his hand, the other tucking his room keycard into his back pocket. I know I
should cover myself, but fear and habit keep me paralyzed.
He halts just inside the room, clicks a button on the side of the device, and slips it into his hip pocket. Looks up.
Sees me.
His eyes widen. A heartbeat. A second. His gaze sears my flesh, raking down my body. I see a complex mixture of emotions
cross his face—it’s brief, a flurry of expressions here and gone before his face shuts down.
The first thing I see is male appreciation: lust, as his eyes take in my naked breasts, hips, and privates. But then he sees the
bruises and his jaw tightens. Rage contorts his features. His hands clench into fists.
“Turn around, Naomi.” His voice is low, rough, shaking with fury.
I can’t. I can’t obey. I can’t move. I’m not breathing. Tears fill my eyes and trickle down my cheek, runneling along my jaw
and dripping off my chin.
He seems to realize I’m paralyzed. He moves past me, behind me, and I feel his gaze on my back. I don’t think he’s
appreciating my female figure, however.
“Fuck.” It’s growled. “Fuck. I’ll kill them both, vow be damned.”
I feel a breath of cool air swirl over my bare skin, hear his tread. My every muscle is tensed so hard it hurts. My lungs burn
from the lack of oxygen.
Something drapes over my shoulders. “Arms in, honey.” His voice is downright tender.
I can’t obey him. I want to. I just can’t. A whimper peels out of me, soft, shrill, pathetic, terrified.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You’re okay. I’m sorry I walked in on you, Naomi. I should have knocked first. I wasn’t thinking.”
I barely hear him—it’s the second time he’s apologized to me. I can’t process such a bizarre thing, a man apologizing to me.
“Can you put your arm in for me, Naomi?” He’s still behind me.
It’s a robe. He’s put a robe on me.
I try to obey him, try to make my arm move, but the paralysis won’t release me. “I—” a shuddering breath scorches my
lungs, and I squeeze my eyes shut, tears flowing. “Can’t. I can’t.” It’s all I can manage.
“Okay, that’s okay.” He moves around in front of me. His eyes are green. Summer grass, oak leaves in the sunlight. They
remain on mine as he oh-so-gently helps me put my arm through the sleeve, and then the other. Without taking his eyes off mine,
he closes the robe and ties the belt.
When I’m covered, he turns away and paces across the room, shaking his hands as if to dispel the fury radiating from every
line of his body. Yet, one hand clenches into a fist, almost on its own, it seems like. He swings his fist toward the wall as if to
smash a hole in the wall, but pulls back at the last moment, touching his knuckles to the wall in an effigy of a punch.
“I hope you understand I’m not angry at you, Naomi,” he murmurs.
I can’t summon words. The paralysis is slowly fading, but I’m still caught up in the grip of the panic.
He turns back to me, comes to stand in front of me. He takes both of my small hands in his large ones. “I’m sorry I walked
in on you.” His green eyes pierce mine; he’s waiting for my reply.
“It—it’s okay, Silas.” It comes in a ragged whisper.
“It’s not. I should have knocked.” He lets out a sigh. “I keep fucking this up with you. I just…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Why are you angry?” I look down at my hands, clasped gently in his.
The touch of his skin is like electricity. I should be panicking at being touched by him, but I’m not. If anything, the gentility
in the way he touches me is comforting.
“I’m not angry.”
It seems like he’s angry, but I can’t bring myself to argue with him. I also can’t decide what to say, so I end up just staring
up at him.
 My goodness, he’s handsome. The green of his eyes is mesmerizing, contrasting with the copper of his hair. His jawline is
rugged and powerful, sharp. His lips are full and soft-looking.
He meets my awkward stare and seems to misinterpret it as an accusation of disbelief. “It’s not anger, Naomi, and it’s not
directed at you.”
“I don’t understand. You almost punched the wall.”
He shakes his head, letting go of my hands to scrub his fingers through his hair. “Pissed off is just kind of my default setting,
I guess. Most of the shit I feel tends to end up looking like anger even if it’s not.”
“Why are you so angry all the time?” The question, intrusive and probing, pops out of me unbidden. I drop my eyes and step
back, chin dropping to my chest as instinctual worry takes over. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have
asked.”
“You’re allowed to ask me questions, Naomi. I’m not gonna get angry at you for asking me shit.” He stretches out on a bed
—my bed; I find myself, unexpectedly, sitting on the edge of the bed near his feet. “Life, that’s why I’m angry all the time. Life
has just taught me to be angry.” He looks at me thoughtfully. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
“I’m not angry,” I tell him, “I’m afraid.”
“Fear tends to manifest as anger, especially in men,” he says.
“What are you afraid of?” Where is this curiosity coming from? Where is the bravery coming from to ask this big, strong
man with very clear evidence that he’s a killer?
He doesn’t answer right away. “Failure. Seeing innocent people get hurt when I could prevent it.” A long pause. “Letting
anyone get close enough to me to break my heart.”
I hear “again” in his tone, even if he doesn’t actually say it.
“You’ve been hurt.” I search his eyes, his face, and see a flash of something cross his features—something dark and
complex.
“Yes.” A beat. “And you? What are you afraid of?”
“My father. Jerry.” I take my eyes from his, fiddling anxiously with the edges of the robe. “Never being free of them.”
I look at him again. Something about him sets me at ease.
I find the courage to speak another truth. “I’m afraid you’ll…that you’ll…that you won’t want to help me anymore. That I’ll
have to go back.”
His eyes flash with ferocity, twin green flames in his sun-tanned skin. He sits up and moves to the edge of the bed beside
me. Moving slowly, he gathers my hands in his. “Look at me, please.”
I lift my eyes to his.
“That will never, ever happen,” he says. One of his hands lifts, drifts toward my face. Tucks a damp strand of hair behind
my ear; my whole being trembles at the tender touch…but not with fear. “I swear on my mother’s soul that neither your father
nor Jerry nor anyone else will ever hurt you again.”
“You can’t promise that,” I whisper.
“Yes, I can.” He holds both of my hands in one of his, and his other curls at my nape, cupping with gentle strength; it should
terrify me, that touch, that gesture. It doesn’t, somehow. “I won’t let it happen.”
“Silas,” I protest.
He speaks over me. “I don’t mean no one will ever hurt your feelings or piss you off, or that you won’t ever fall and break
your ass, or bump your head. I mean no one will ever abuse you again. You’ve been a victim of abuse your whole life, from
what you’ve told me. Well, babe, not any fucking more. You’re with me, now. Fuckin’ no one is ever gonna hurt you again,
Naomi. Not fuckin’ anyone.”
“Okay,” I whisper, shaken to my core. “I believe you.”
“Good,” he murmurs.
I lick my lips, summoning courage. “Silas…may I ask you a question?”
“Course,” he grunts.
“What did you mean?” I swallow hard, licking my lips again, seeking the courage to question him—to ask a question, when
doing so has always, historically, resulted in a beating. “You said…you said you would kill them both, vow be damned.”
He turns away from me. Scrubs his hand through his hair. Sighs, a short sharp exhalation. “I’m not a good man, Naomi. I’m
dangerous. I’m violent—violence is all I’ve ever known. I grew up not entirely unlike you, in some ways. My father was
viciously abusive. Mostly to our mom, but if we drew his attention or got in the way, he’d kick the absolute hell out of us. I’m
talking broken bones, and not just ribs.”
My heart squeezes. “I’m so sorry, Silas.”
He turns back to me. Offers me a small smile. “If anyone can get it, you can, I guess, huh?” A roll of his shoulders. “My
brother Saxon and I ran away. Ended up working for an organized crime syndicate out of Boston. Big-time stuff. From violence
to violence, right? Only at that point it was me doing the hurting.”
“Who did you hurt?” I ask.
 “No one innocent. Not that it matters. People who owed money. Snitches. Anyone who was a threat to the organization.” He
pauses, and his gaze is distant, seeing not me or now, but the past. “I was way too damn good at it. Eventually, I got promoted
to a position where I wasn’t hurting people, not with violence. I was selling…goods and services, you could say. And I was
even better at that. But it’s a violent world, and no one is exempt from danger.”
I listen, rapt. I get the sense this is something he doesn’t talk about frequently, and I feel honored that he is trusting me with
it.
“It’s a long, shitty story, how I got from there to here, and I don’t really wanna get into it all now. Not that I don’t trust you
with it, I just…”
“You don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to, Silas. I was only curious as to what kind of a vow you took. It’s none
of my business.”
“Cliff notes version is that Sax and I got into trouble with the organization. Bad shit happened, and we had to escape. Get
away from the bosses and the enforcers. Which, I don’t know how much you know about that shit, but it ain’t easy. They’ve got
fingers in a lot of pies, and eyes everywhere.” He pauses, thinking about what to say. “My current boss is a weird, enigmatic
sort of guy. I’ve never actually met him… He’s got a shitload of money and a weird sense of philanthropy. He owns the club I
work in—but it’s not just a nightclub. I live there. The guys I work with all live there, too. And those guys aren’t just my
coworkers, they’re…brothers. I mean, I’ve got two biological brothers, and they both live and work there, too. But the other
guys, we’re as close as brothers.”
“My father’s men say similar things about the others in their squads.”
“It goes deeper than being squad mates. All the other guys, they’re like me. They’ve been through trauma. Like, the worst
kinds of hell. We all should be dead. People want us dead. We’re all violent. We’re all killers. As a condition of our
employment and residence at the club, we all took a vow that we’d put the brotherhood above all else, and that we would
never take another human life again.”
He regards me for a moment, and then unbuttons his shirt. Peels it off. Displays the inside of his right bicep. Inscribed on
the flesh and muscle is a tattoo—a stylized arrow, like a cave painting of an arrow in thick dark black ink; the arrow is broken
in half at the center line, each half angled down and away from the other.
I reach out, my hand acting without a direct command from my consciousness—I touch the tattoo. It’s not just ink on skin—
it’s a brand. Raised flesh, seared and healed, and then tattooed over.
“It symbolizes my vow—my allegiance to the brotherhood, and my vow to never kill anyone again.”
“Oh,” I breathe. “Did it hurt a lot?”
He laughs. “I mean, yeah. It hurt like a bitch. But compared to other shit I’ve been through, it wasn’t too bad. I chose it, and
it has meaning, you know? Getting your ribs smashed in because you got a B in AP Calculus? Not as meaningful. Just shitty.”
I blink at him. Frown. “But Silas…why would you break that vow? Certainly not on my account.”
He sighs, frustrated. “I was pissed. I don’t think I actually would break it. I want to. There’s not much I want more right
now than to hunt down your father and that so-called husband of yours and kill them slowly and painfully, with my bare
goddamn hands.” He’s snarling by the end of the speech, eyes sparking with fury. “I was reacting to seeing…” He gestures at
me. “All that shit. The bruises. The fucking scars from being whipped like a motherfucking animal.”
“I don’t think there are many who would treat even an animal the way my father treated me.” My voice is barely above a
whisper. It feels daring to speak such a sentiment out loud.
He’s in front of me, mere inches away. His green eyes blaze with an inferno of emotions, searching me. Fixing on the
bruises around my eyes. Tracing the contours of my face. The fury morphs into something else, something I can’t fathom, can’t
register, can’t identify.
Something soft.
Personal.
Almost intimate.
But it can’t be for me—because of me.
He can’t look at me that way. Not me.
It’s too much.
I duck my head, breaking our gazes. I feel his palm against my cheek—my lungs seize in my chest. My body goes rigid,
anticipating pain, when in fact his touch is exquisitely gentle.
“Naomi. Can you look at me?” It’s not a command. His voice is a rough, soft murmur.
I drag my eyes up to his. That intimate, searing stare drills into me the moment I meet his gaze. “Don’t look at me like that,
Silas. Please.”
“Like what?” His palm remains, barely grazing my cheek. Electric fire races through me, centered on that point of contact.
“How am I looking at you, honey?”
Honey.
It hurts. It’s not real. He doesn’t mean it. It’s not for me—it’s just how he talks to women. I’m not special.
 I shake my head—I can’t answer that. There are no words within me for how he’s looking at me.
“Naomi—”
“Do you have a comb? Or a brush?” I blurt. “For my hair. It’s…it’s tangled. Please?”
He holds my gaze for another long, silent beat, and then nods. “I’ll get you something.”
He turns away and is gone in an instant, the door sliding slowly closed with a soft click.
The moment I’m alone, I collapse backward, the paralysis flooding out of me, leaving me limp. I hit the edge of the bed and
slide to my bottom on the floor.
A tear slides down my cheek.
If only I could believe it could be for me—the way he looks at me. The gentle way he touches me. The tenderness in his
voice, when all else about him is so hard and sharp and rough and powerful.
If only.
the curse
 Silas

I ’m a fucking coward.
I used the excuse of finding her a brush to escape that stupid too-small room. To escape her.
The hurt in her eyes. The pain. The fear.
Asking for the simplest thing requires visible, immense courage on her part. Asking me a simple question. Being near me.
She’s been brutalized, conditioned by constant pain and fear into being as obedient and invisible as possible. To not want.
To not need. Never ask. Never question. Head down, eyes averted.
Worse than an animal.
I don’t have the words to encapsulate it. I only know that it fills me with a blind, violent, unreasoning rage. It makes me feel
like I could rip the world apart with my bare hands, brick by brick, stick by stick, until there’s nothing but ashes.
I want to shelter her. Hold her in my arms. Kiss her until the bruises and scars fade.
Fuck, she’s so beautiful.
I reach the lobby and find the little area where they sell necessities, and buy a brush. Take my time going back up—take the
stairs, to buy time.
To get the vision of her naked body out of my head.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It won’t leave.
It’s seared onto my brain, burned into my consciousness.
First, the male response—her body. Fuck. Lithe. Lean. Slender and elegant. Sleek and slim in the thighs and waist and
shoulders, with surprisingly generous curves at her hips and breasts. She’s underfed, though. Almost frail—malnourished.
Bruised, scarred. And yet, still stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful.
And then….those scars. Thick keloid stripes on her shoulders, back, buttocks, and upper thighs. I’m not sure what she was
whipped with, but it permanently marked her. How could you do that to another human, let alone your own fucking daughter?
How could you hate someone, anyone, that much? How could you hate your own daughter that much?
But then…how could my father do to me and my brothers and my mother the evil, hateful, awful things he did?
My father was a vicious, heartless, alcoholic bastard. He was beaten by his father, and my grandfather I assume was beaten
as well. One of those generational curses. My father was a drunk—he never hit us when he was sober, but he was rarely sober
at home—he saved that for work.
The scars on Naomi’s body, never mind the ones on her soul, were put there because of hate.
I want to boil that man alive. It wouldn’t be me killing him—it would be the boiling water. I almost smile at that—I know
better. I can almost hear Inez’s voice: You can’t get by on a technicality, Silas.
I pause outside our room.
I don’t know what to do. With her. With myself. Where do I go? Where do I take her? I can no more leave her somewhere
alone and terrified of her own shadow and utterly defenseless than I could betray my brothers.
It’s just not in me.
There’s only one thing I can do.
I dial a number and put the phone to my ear, pacing down the hallway. It rings twice. “Silas.” Inez’s voice is smooth and
cold, as always. “How is Boston?”
“I don’t know. I’m not there anymore.”
She’s not surprised, judging by her tone. “I assumed as much. Where are you?”
“I don’t know. West Virginia, maybe?”
A silence. “How long will you require?”
“Not sure.”
“What’s her name?”
This gets a laugh out of me. “How do you know there’s a her?”
 She snorts. “Come now, Silas, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence.”
“Naomi Ibsen.” I know all Inez needs is the name.
I hear typing, and endure the silence; after a while, Inez tells me what she’s found. “Daughter of Buddy and Deanna Ibsen;
Deanna is deceased…as of April 2009.” Another pause; she’s reading. “Buddy Ibsen. Quite a character, it seems. Served in
Desert Storm, several TODs. Decorated. Seems like he turned anti-government somewhere along the line. Runs a militia out of
West Virginia, although militia seems like an inaccurate term—it’s more of a paramilitary contracting firm, like a miniature,
less polished version of Blackwater. They’re not always on the right side of things—situations or the law. Ibsen—Buddy, I
mean—is wanted in several states for a variety of violent crimes and possession of illegal firearms. Looks like there are
several cases open tying him to suspicious deaths, mostly connected to off-book punitive actions on behalf of corporations
wishing to make someone disappear or shut up. He gets hired to disappear people, it seems like.” Another pause. “He’s a bad
character, Silas.”
“Well, I rescued his daughter from him. And from some character named Jerry, never heard a last name. Sounds like he
might be an arms dealer or something. Her husband, not that she had a choice in the matter.”
Typing, and then a breathed curse. “Now there’s a real motherfucker. Gerald Kushner. Served with Buddy in the Army.
Yeah, he’s wanted not just domestically by the ATF for a laundry list of shit, but by Interpol.” A sigh. “And when you say you
rescued her…”
“She was barefoot on the side of the road, beat to shit, in the middle of the night and the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, running
away. Or trying to. So I picked her up. Ran into her dad, our ol’ pal Buddy. I may have shot out his tire.”
A long, irritated sigh. “You threw a rock at a hornet’s nest, Silas.”
“Yeah, Naomi seemed to think he’s dangerous.”
“He is. He has men, weapons, and connections. He presents like an off-grid, anti-government, Doomsday prepper, but that’s
more of a front than reality.” Inez clicks her tongue thoughtfully. “Worse news for you, however, is that I’ve been picking up
chatter out of Boston.”
“Fuck.”
“You were spotted.”
“Fuck, fuck, and double fuck.” I clench a fist so hard my fingers, forearm, and bicep ache. “What kind of chatter?”
“Your previous employers are activating a retrieval unit.”
“Retrieval unit? The fuck does that mean? They didn’t have retrieval units when I was with them. They had hit men.”
“Well, I think they want to talk to you before they kill you.”
“Goddammit.”
“Yeah. So you’ve got Buddy Ibsen and Gerald Kushner who want you dead, and your former employers hunting you. And
you’ve got an innocent civilian woman in your care.”
“More than innocent, Inez. He…Buddy Ibsen…” I struggle to stay calm, to formulate a sentence. “He’s a fucking monster.”
“The most logical thing to do would be to either leave her somewhere with some money or send her back to her dad.”
“I’ll shoot myself in the fucking head before I do that, Inez. I’d sooner rip out my fucking fingernails.”
“Have you ever had your fingernails ripped out?” she asks, almost conversationally.
“Yeah,” I growl. “Once. A couple of them.”
“It’s quite a party, isn’t it?” Inez sighs yet again. “Very well. What do you need?”
“I’m not sure. Cash, for sure. Probably a different vehicle.”
“Do you want me to send your brothers to back you up?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve triangulated your location. You’re near the Ohio-West Virginia border. Get to Cincinnati. Call me when you’re there,
and I’ll have someone meet you.”
“Realistically, can this Ibsen guy actually track me down? Like, for real?”
“Yes, he can. He’s well-financed—I can’t say by whom without more digging, but it doesn’t really matter. The point is he
has friends with deep pockets, which means he absolutely can hire someone with the skills to find you.”
“Well shit.”
“Indeed, Silas. For now, get moving. Get to Cincinnati, stay alive, and don’t break your vow.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Yes, you would.”
I laugh. “I already have,” I growl. “You don’t know what he did to her, Inez. You’d want to kill him too.”
“I can imagine, Silas.”
“No, you can’t.”
“With all due respect,” her tone goes hard and icy. “Yes…I fucking can. I don’t have to imagine, either. I know. Firsthand.”
“I can’t see anyone doing to you what he did to her, Inez.”
“That’s because you only know this version of me. You didn’t know me…before—before our mutual employer found me.”
A pause; her voice is warmer and more hesitant than I’ve ever heard. “I was the first, you know.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Of course not.” A deep, tense silence. “Bring her in, Silas. Show her what real family is like.”
“Yes ma’am.” I clear my throat of the thick clog of emotion. “I’d better go.”
“Yes, you had better. Be careful.”
“Will do.”
“Contact me when you reach Cincinnati. I’ll direct you from there.”
“Got it. Thanks, Inez. Talk soon.”
“Yes. Goodbye.”
I tuck the phone back into my dress slacks. First things first, I need something to wear other than this damn suit, and Naomi
needs shoes, at the very least.
I go back to our room and unlock the door, push it open a few inches. “You good, Naomi?”
“I’m dressed, yes,” comes her reply; her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her.
She’s sitting at the foot of the bed, on the edge. Knees together, feet together. Bolt upright, perfect posture. Head ducked,
eyes down. Waiting. Her hair is wet and tangled, falling to her mid-back.
I rip the packaging away from the brush, which gets her attention.
“You got me a brush.” She sounds both surprised and pleased.
It’s a fucking hairbrush.
Instead of handing it to her, I climb onto the bed behind her and spread my thighs around her hips in a V, framing her.
She tenses. “Wh—what are you doing?”
“Relax.”
“Silas, I—” she’s panting, about to hyperventilate.
I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Slow your breathing. I won’t hurt you.”
She sucks in a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. She’s still rock-hard with tension, however.
I gather a handful of cool damp hair and pull the brush through it. Fall back in time, to when I was a preteen kid, gangly,
sensitive, and thought my mom was the best person on the planet. I pull the brush through Naomi’s hair gently, slowly, smoothly.
When I hit a snag, I hold her hair so it won’t yank at her scalp as I work the brush through it.
I try to stop it, but I can’t. The melody bubbles up, out of me, unbidden. It’s some old song. Mom used to hum it when she
brushed her hair. I’d sit in her room with her. She’d be fresh out of the shower, draped in an expensive silk robe, brushing her
long red hair, humming this song. I don’t know what it’s called, I don’t know if it has lyrics. I just know it’s….part of me.
I hum Mom’s song, and I brush Naomi’s hair.
“What…” her voice catches. She clears her throat and tries again, barely above a whisper. “Silas…what are you doing?”
“Brushing your hair.”
“I can do it.”
“Obviously.” I go back to humming.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Why, then?”
“Dunno. I want to.”
“Silas…”
I glide my hand down her hair, to her shoulder. “Want me to stop? I will. Say the word, honey.”
She’s cast a spell on me; that’s the only plausible explanation for how I am with her. Otherwise, it makes no sense.
I don’t call girls honey. I don’t talk to them in that soft voice—not anyone, not ever. Never heard that tone come out of me
till Naomi. I don’t brush hair. I don’t…I don’t care for people. I care about people—my brothers, the other Broken Arrows.
Inez…I care about them. But I don’t care for them.
I don’t know what I’m doing. But I also know I can’t stop. Won’t stop.
“Don’t stop.” I can barely hear her, even this close. My chest is to her back. Her hips press against my thighs. “Please.”
So, I brush her hair. When all the tangles are out, I keep brushing.
“How long do you want me to brush your hair, Mom?”
“Until it shines, Si.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head to clear it of the memories. I don’t mean to, but I inhale her scent: shampoo,
soap, wet hair, skin—woman. My skin tightens around my bones, my lungs clutch closed; my cock tries to unfurl against my
zipper, prevented painfully from doing so fully; I’m dizzy with the perfume of her natural scent. For a moment, I’m burning
alive with the temptation to pull her against me and tug open her robe and slide my lips across her delicate skin, kiss her
bruises, lap my tongue against her pert, taut pink nipples and small pale areolae which tip her heavy, pointed, upturned breasts.
I’m devoured by the urge to lay her on the mattress and spread her limbs open, nudge her slender thighs apart and lick the slick
seam of her sleek sex.
Fuck.
 My hands shake like crisp orange leaves in a long autumn wind as I deposit the brush on her lap and roll away. My
movements are jerky, slow, and uncoordinated. I can’t breathe.
I stomp across the small room to the door and only pause briefly as I wrench the knob and jerk the door open. “We’re
leaving once you’re dressed.”
I can feel her confusion. “Silas, did I…” Not just confusion: hurt.
I let out a harsh, rasping sigh. “No, Naomi. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You just…you suddenly seem…” her voice drops to a whisper, fear and uncertainty painting her words. “Angry.”
“Not at you.” I can’t turn to look at her.
Can’t let her see how she affects me. She doesn’t need my desire for her. It’s the last thing on the planet she can handle. My
cock throbs painfully in my slacks, but I don’t dare adjust myself.
A long silence writhes between us.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “For whatever I did.”
I make a growling groaning sound that’s not quite a laugh or a sigh. “You didn’t do anything, Naomi.” I try to bite back the
words, but they wiggle past my teeth anyway. “I did. I shouldn’t have…” I snap my jaw closed on the rest. “I’ll wait just
outside the room.”
“Okay, Silas.”
Damn it, damn it, damn it. She sounds hurt. Confused. And resigned to both.
I close the door with me on the other side of it, panting from the effort of resisting the need to turn and take her in my arms
and taste her lips until she’s breathless.
What the fuck is wrong with me? What curse has this woman cast on me?
never going back
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 Boone spent his time in farming, working at the forge, and
hunting; but he liked hunting best, and was never so happy as in the
thick forest alone with his gun. He often went on long hunting trips,
returning with bear’s meat, venison, bear’s oil, and furs, the last to
be sold for other things needed at home.

Fig. 56. Pineville Gap, where the Cumberland River passes

Pineville Mountain a Few Miles beyond Cumberland Gap
In 1767 Boone and one or two friends made a hunting tour into
Kentucky, though they did not know they were so far west as that. As
they were kept there by heavy snows, they camped at a “salt lick”
and lived by shooting the buffaloes and other animals that came to
get the salt.
The hunters returned to their homes in the spring and did not go
out until 1769. Meantime John Finley was peddling in that south
land, and one day surprised Boone, and himself, too, by knocking at
the door of Boone’s cabin. He made the hardy pioneer a long visit,
and in the spring, having talked it all over many times, they set out
for Kentucky.
They crossed the Blue Ridge and the Great Valley and came to
Cumberland Gap. This was Boone’s first journey to the great pass. It
is pleasant now to stand in the gap at the top of the pass and think of
the time when Boone with his hunting friends made their way up
from the east and went happily down through the woods to the
strange country on the west.
At one time they were taken by Indians, who plundered their
camp and stole all their furs. Most of the party were discouraged and
went back to the settlements, but Boone and one companion were
angry at their loss and determined to stay and make it good. This
was like Boone, who knew nothing of fear, and who did not easily
give up what he wanted to do.
He made several trips to Kentucky and greatly liked the new
country. At length, having decided to take his family with him and
make his home there, he became the leader of the pioneers that
went out under the Transylvania Company, as it was called.
They built a fort and founded a place named Boonesborough,
after the great hunter. But he was much more than a hunter, being
now a military commander and doing surveying also for people who
were taking up tracts of new land. Houses and forts were built,
forests were cleared, and crops were raised. Such was the
beginning of the state of Kentucky.
It was not all simple and pleasant work, however. In 1768, the
year before Daniel Boone and John Finley went through the
Cumberland Gap, a great company of Indians had gathered at Fort
Stanwix, which we remember from the battle of Oriskany, and by a
treaty had given to the English the rights to the Kentucky region. But
the powerful Cherokees of the southern mountains were not at Fort
Stanwix, and they had something to say about the settlement of
Kentucky lands. So Boone called them together at a great meeting
on the Watauga river, and bought the Kentucky forests from them.
This was the time when an old chief said to Boone, “Brother, we
have given you a fine land, but I believe you will have much trouble
settling it.” The old Indian was right,—they did have much trouble.
Cabins were burnt, and settlers were slain with gun and tomahawk,
but Boone and many others with him would admit no failure. People
began to pour in through the Cumberland Gap, until more forests
were cleared, the towns grew larger, and the Indians, who do not like
to fight in the open country, drew back to the woods and the
mountains.
Boone marked out the trail which was afterwards known as the
Wilderness road. It had also been known as Boone’s trail, Kentucky
road, Virginia road, and Caintuck Hog road. A man who went out
with Boone in one of his expeditions to Kentucky kept a diary, and in
it he gives the names of some of the new settlers. One of these was
Abraham Hanks, who was Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather. It was no
easy journey that these men made to Kentucky, and no easy life that
they found when they got there, but they planted the first American
state beyond the mountains, and the rough pioneers who lived in
cabins and ate pork, pumpkins, and corn bread were the ancestors
of some of our most famous men.
The Wilderness road has never been a good one, and is no
more than any other byroad through a rough country to-day.
Sometimes the early travelers, who always went in companies for
safety, would be too tired to go on until they had stopped to rest and
to get cheer by singing hymns and saying prayers. But they made
the best of it, for they knew that they were going to a fine country,
which would repay them for their sufferings.
 Fig. 57. Cornfield near Cumberland Gap
Boone and five other men were once in camp by a stream, and
were lucky enough to have with them the story of Gulliver’s Travels.
One of the young men, who had been hearing the book read by the
camp fire, came in one night bearing a couple of scalps that he had
taken from a pair of savages. He told his friends that “he had been
that day to Lulbegrud and had killed two Brobdingnags in their
capital.” The stream near which it happened is still called Lulbegrud
creek. These wilderness men made the best of things, and though
they worked hard and fought often, they were a cheerful and happy
company. They were not spoiled by having too many luxuries, and
they did not think that the world owed them a living without any effort
on their part.
Beginning about the time of the Declaration of Independence,
many people found the way to Kentucky by the Great Valley, the
Cumberland Gap, and the Wilderness road. When fifteen years had
gone by there were seventy thousand people in Kentucky, along the
Ohio river. Not all had come by the gap, for some had sailed down
the river; but they all helped to plant the new state.
Moreover in fighting off the Indians from their own cabins and
cornfields they had protected the frontiers of Virginia and others of
the older states, so that Kentucky was a kind of advance guard
beyond the mountains, and led the way for Ohio, Indiana,
Tennessee, and other great states in the West and South.
Down in the heart of Kentucky, by the Ohio river, is a land long
known as the Kentucky Blue Grass region. The “blue grass,” as it is
called, grows luxuriantly here, as do grain and tobacco, for the soils,
made by the wasting of limestone, are rich and fertile. Wherever the
soil and climate are good, crops are large and the people thrive.
They have enough to eat and plenty to sell, and thus they can have
good homes, many comforts, books, and education.
If the pioneers had had to settle in the high, rough, eastern parts
of Kentucky, it would not have been worth while to suffer so much to
get there; but they were on the way to the Blue Grass country. Even
before the coming of the white man there were open lands which,
perhaps by Indian fires, had lost their cover of trees. Such lands are
often called prairies. These prairies, however, were not so flat as
those of Illinois, and they were bordered by groves and forests.
There were fine streams everywhere, and near by was the great
Ohio, ready to serve as a highway toward Philadelphia or New
Orleans.
 Fig. 58. Kentucky Blue Grass
The Wilderness road came out on the river at the falls of the
Ohio, and here, as we have learned, a city began to spring up, partly
because of the falls and partly because of the Blue Grass region
lying back of it. In this region we find the state capital, and here,
along the roads, may be seen old mansions belonging to well-to-do
descendants of the plucky men who came in by the Wilderness road
or steered their flatboats down the Ohio.
If we go back to Cumberland Gap, we shall see that many things
have happened since Boone’s time. In the pass and on the Pinnacle,
a thousand feet above on the north, are ridges of earth, which show
where busy shovels threw up defenses in the Civil War; for armies
passed this way between Kentucky and the valley of Tennessee, and
made the gap an important point to be seized and held.
The road through the gap is still about as bad a path as one
could find. Near it on the east side of the mountains is yet to be seen
a furnace of rough stones, built in those early days for smelting iron.
But there is little else to remind us of that far-off time. To-day you
may, if you choose, pass the mountains without climbing through the
gap, for trains go roaring through a tunnel a mile long, while the echo
of the screaming whistles rolls along the mountain sides.
 Fig. 59. Three States
Monument, Cumberland Gap

On the flat grounds just inside the gap is Middlesboro, a town of

several thousand people, with wide streets and well-built shops and
houses. Only a few miles away are coal mines from which thousands
of tons of coal are dug, and this is one reason why the railroads are
here. There are endless stores of fuel under these highlands, and
men are breaking into the wilderness as fast as they can.
But if we climb through the gap as Boone did, or ride a horse to
the Pinnacle, we may look out upon the wonderful valley below,
stretching off to the foot of the Great Smoky mountains, whose
rugged tops carry our eyes far over into North Carolina. Or we may
turn the other way and follow Boone’s trail to the Blue Grass. Down
in the gap is a rough, weather-beaten pillar of limestone about three
feet high and leaning as the picture shows (Fig. 59). It is almost, but
not quite, where three states come together, for it is here, at the
Cumberland Gap, that the corners of Virginia and Kentucky meet on
the edge of Tennessee.
 CHAPTER XIII
FRONTIER SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN

Not long before the Revolution began some treacherous whites

in the western country had murdered the whole family of the friendly
Indian chief, Logan. This aroused the tribes and led to war. A piece
of flat land runs out between the two streams where the Great
Kanawha river joins the Ohio, in what is now West Virginia. Here, on
a day early in October, 1774, twelve hundred frontiersmen were
gathered under the command of an officer named Andrew Lewis.
These backwoods soldiers were attacked by a thousand of the
bravest Indian warriors, commanded by Cornstalk, a Shawnee chief.
It was a fierce struggle and both sides lost many men, but the
pioneers held their ground, and the red men, when they had had
enough fighting, went away. This battle at Point Pleasant finished
what is sometimes known as Lord Dunmore’s War, so called
because it was carried on under Lord Dunmore, the last governor
that the English king sent out to Virginia.
The successful white men were now free to go down the Ohio
river and settle on the Kentucky lands. Among the patriots fighting
for their frontier homes were our old friends James Robertson and
John Sevier of Watauga, and another young man, Isaac Shelby. We
are to hear again about all these, for they were men likely to be
found whenever something important was to be done.
The Great Kanawha is the same stream that we have called the
New river where it crosses the Great Valley in Virginia. We are
learning how many great rivers help to make up the Ohio, and what
an important region the Ohio valley was to the young country east of
the mountains.
 The settlements of which we have just read were all south of the
Ohio river, for north of the river the Americans did not possess the
land. This means that the country which now makes up the states of
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois was in foreign hands. The people were
largely French and Indians, but they were governed by the British.
In order to defeat the Americans, the British, in all the years of
the Revolutionary War, were stirring up the Indian tribes against the
patriots. Just as St. Leger had Indian allies in New York, so British
agents bribed the Indians of the West and South to fight and make
as much trouble as possible.
George Rogers Clark was a young Virginian who had gone out
to Kentucky, which then belonged to the mother state. He heard that
Colonel Henry Hamilton, who commanded the British at Detroit, was
persuading the Indians of that region to attack the frontier. He set out
for Virginia, saw Patrick Henry, the governor, Thomas Jefferson, and
other leading men, and gained permission to gather an army. This
was in 1777, the year of Oriskany and Saratoga. He spent the winter
enlisting soldiers, gathering his forces at Pittsburg.
Late the next spring they went in boats down the Ohio to the
point where the muddy waters of the Mississippi come in from the
north. This alone was a journey of a thousand miles.
 Fig. 60. George Rogers Clark
Up the Mississippi from that place was Kaskaskia, on the Illinois
side. It is now a very small village, but it is the oldest town on the
Mississippi river and was the first capital of Illinois. In the time of the
Revolution it was governed by the British, although most of the
people were French. Clark and his little army soon seized the place
and made the people promise obedience to the new government.
There was another important old place called Vincennes, on the
Wabash river, in what is now Indiana.
When Colonel Hamilton heard what Clark was doing he led an
army of five hundred men, many of whom were Indians, from Detroit
to Vincennes. It took them more than two months to make the
journey. Clark sent some of his men with boats and provisions and
cannon down the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and up the Wabash. He,
with most of his little force, went across the prairie. It was a winter
march and they had to wade through flood waters for a part of the
way.
He found the food and the guns and soon captured Hamilton and
his army. This was the last of British government between the Ohio
river and the Great Lakes. At the close of the war the American
messengers, who were in Paris arranging for peace, could say that
they already had possession of all the land this side of the
Mississippi, so no excuse was left for the British to claim it. In this
way one frontier soldier saved several great states for his country.
The frontiersmen had beaten Cornstalk at Point Pleasant in
1774. Clark had won the prairie country five years later; and the next
year, 1780, saw the great victory of Kings Mountain.
Lord Cornwallis was now chief general of the British. He had
conquered the southern colonies, the Carolinas and Georgia. Two of
his officers, Tarleton and Ferguson, were brave and active
commanders, and they were running over the country east of the
mountains keeping the patriots down. Ferguson gathered together
many American Tories and drilled them to march and fight.
 Fig. 61. On the French Broad, between Asheville and
Knoxville
The Watauga men, just over the mountains to the west, were
loyal patriots. Ferguson heard of them and sent them a stormy
message. He told them to keep still or he would come over and
scatter them and hang their leading men.
They were not used to talk of this kind and they determined to
teach Ferguson a lesson. Isaac Shelby rode in hot haste from his
home to John Sevier’s log house on the Nolichucky river. When he
arrived he found all the neighbors there; for Sevier had made a
barbecue, and there was to be a big horse race, with running and
wrestling matches. Shelby took Sevier off by himself and told him
about Ferguson. They agreed to call together the mountain men and
go over the Great Smokies to punish the British general.
On September 25, 1780, they came together at Sycamore
Shoals on the Watauga river. Almost everybody was there, women
and children as well as men. Four hundred sturdy men came from
Virginia under William and Arthur Campbell. These two leaders and
most of the men in the valley were sons of old Scotch Covenanters,
and they were determined to win. A stern Presbyterian minister, the
Reverend Samuel Doak, was there. He had as much fight in him as
any of them, and as they stood in their rough hunter’s garb he called
upon God for help, preaching to them from the words, “The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon.”
They set out at once through the mountains, driving beef cattle
for part of their food supply, and every man armed with rifle,
tomahawk, and scalping knife. Roosevelt says there was not a
bayonet or a tent in their army. The trail was stony and steep, and in
the higher mountains they found snow. They marched as quickly as
they could, for they wanted to catch Ferguson before Cornwallis
could send more soldiers to help him.
On the way several hundred men from North Carolina, under
Benjamin Cleveland, joined them. They had appointed no
commander when they started, but on the march they chose one of
the Campbells from Virginia.
When Ferguson found that they were pursuing him and that he
must fight, he took up a strong position on Kings Mountain, in the
northwest corner of South Carolina. This hill was well chosen, for it
stood by itself and on one side was too steep for a force to climb.
Ferguson called his foes a “swarm of backwoodsmen,” but he
knew that they could fight, or he would not have posted his own
army with so much care. He felt sure of success, however, and
thought that Heaven itself could hardly drive him off that hill.
As the patriot leaders drew near the British camp they saw that
many of their men were too weary to overtake the swift and wary
Ferguson, should he try to get away. So they picked out about half of
the force, nearly a thousand mounted men. These men rode all
night, and the next day approached the hill. Those who had lost their
horses on the way hurried on afoot and arrived in time to fight. When
close at hand the riders tied their horses in the woods, and the little
army advanced to the attack on foot.
They moved up the three sides of the hill. Ferguson was famous
for his bayonet charges, and the patriots had no bayonets. So when
the British rushed down on the center of the advancing line the
mountaineers gave way and the enemy pursued them down the hill.
Then the backwoodsmen on the flanks rushed in and poured shot
into the backs of the British. Turning to meet these new foes, the
regulars were again chased up the hill and shot by the men who had
fled from their bayonets. Thus shrewd tactics took the place of
weapons. At length the gallant Ferguson was killed, the white flag
was hoisted, and the firing stopped. Many British were slain, and all
the rest, save a very few who escaped in the confusion, were made
prisoners.

Fig. 62. John Sevier

It was a wonderful victory for the men from the valley. They had
come from a region of which Cornwallis had hardly dreamed, and
they had destroyed one of his armies and killed one of his best
commanders. The battle turned the tide of the Revolution in the
South, but the victors hurried back as quickly as they had come.
They were not fitted for a long campaign, and, besides, they had left
their homes dangerously open to attacks from savages. It was,
however, the one battle of the Revolution against white foes alone
that was planned, fought, and won by the men of the frontier.
 As soon as John Sevier returned to the valley he found plenty of
Indian fighting to do. He was skilled in this, and with the Watauga
men, who called him “Chucky Jack” and were devoted to him, he
was a terror to the red men of the southern mountains. He knew all
their tricks and how to give them back what he called “Indian play.”
At one time he took a band of his followers and made a daring ride
into the wildest of the Great Smokies, to attack some hostile tribes.
He burned their villages, destroyed their corn, killed and captured
some of their warriors, and got away before they could gather their
greater numbers to crush him.
We must not forget James Robertson, who all this time was
doing his part of the farming and the fighting and the planning for the
new settlements. Already the Watauga country began to have too
many people and was too thickly settled to suit his temper, and he
was thinking much about the wilderness beyond, near the lower part
of the Cumberland river. In a great bend on the south bank of that
stream he founded Nashborough in 1779, naming it in honor of
Oliver Nash, governor of North Carolina. Five years later it became
Nashville, and now we do not need to explain where it was.
Robertson went out by the Cumberland Gap, but soon left
Boone’s road and went toward the west, following the trails. When
he and his followers reached the place and decided upon it as
suitable for settlement, they planted a field of corn, to have
something to depend on for food later.
The next autumn a large party of settlers went out to
Nashborough. Robertson’s family went with them. They did not go
through the woods, but took boats to go down the Tennessee river.
Their course led them along the Tennessee to the Ohio, then up the
Ohio a few miles to the mouth of the Cumberland, and up the
Cumberland to their new home. They had a long, dangerous voyage,
and some of the party were killed, for the savages fired on them from
the banks.
One of the boats, carrying twenty-eight grown people and
children, had a number of cases of smallpox on board. The Indians
attacked this boat and killed or captured the four sick travelers. For
their deed the savages were badly punished, for they took the
disease, which soon spread widely among the tribes.
For a long time after Nashville was begun the pioneers had
fierce encounters with the Indians, and in spite of all their care many
lives were lost. Robertson was the strong man of the place, and was
rewarded with the confidence of the people.
When Tennessee became a state he helped to make its
constitution. He was a member of the state Senate in 1798, and lived
long enough to keep some of the Indians from helping the British in
the War of 1812. He died in 1814.

Fig. 63. James

Robertson

He was brave, and willing to endure hardship, discomfort, and

suffering in a good cause. He went alone over the snows to
Kentucky to get powder, and returned in time to save the little town
from destruction. The Indians killed his own son, but he would not
give up the settlement. Plain man though he was, he gained honor
from the men of his time, and wrote his name on the pages of
American history.
We must learn a little more of Isaac Shelby, whom we have seen
fighting hard at Point Pleasant and Kings Mountain. He was born in
the Great Valley, at Hagerstown. When he was twenty-one years old
he moved to Tennessee and then across to Kentucky. He fought in
the Revolution in other battles besides that of Kings Mountain, and
before he went to Kentucky he had helped to make laws in the
legislature of North Carolina.

Fig. 64. Sevier

Monument, Knoxville

It is rather strange to read that Kentucky was made a “county” of

Virginia. This was in 1776. In 1792, largely through Shelby’s efforts,
Kentucky was separated from Virginia and became a state by itself.
It was the first state beyond the mountains, being four years older
than Tennessee and eleven years ahead of Ohio.
Isaac Shelby was the first governor of Kentucky, from 1792 to
1796, and years later he was governor again. He fought in the War
of 1812, and his name is preserved in Shelbyville, a town of
Kentucky. The Blue Grass region has been called the “dark and
bloody ground” from the strifes of the red tribes and the troublous
days of the first settlers, but Shelby lived to see it the center of a
prosperous state.
 Fig. 65. Old Statehouse at
Knoxville

John Sevier, too, had more honors than those of a noble soldier.
In front of the courthouse at Knoxville is a plain stone monument
raised in his memory (Fig. 64), and down a side street is an old
dwelling, said to be an early statehouse of the commonwealth which
is still associated with his name. In 1785 the state of “Franklin” was
organized and named in honor of the illustrious Benjamin; but North
Carolina, being heartily opposed to the whole proceeding, put an end
to it without delay. Sevier, as governor of the would-be state, was
imprisoned, but escaped, to the delight of his own people, who were
always loyal to him. They sent him to Congress in a few years and in
1796 made him the first governor of Tennessee. He enjoyed many
honors until his death in 1815, which came soon after that of his
more quiet friend, James Robertson. Both of these wilderness men
had much to do with planting the American flag between the
Appalachian mountains and the Mississippi river.
 CHAPTER XIV
CITIES OF THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS

In the old days it took the traveler weeks to go from

Pennsylvania or the Potomac river to the valley of east Tennessee.
He might camp in the woods, living on the few provisions he could
carry and on what he could shoot in the forest, or he might share the
humble homes of chance settlers on the way.
Now he enters a vestibuled train and is rolled over a smooth iron
road along the streams and between the mountains. Starting one
day, he will find when he wakes the next morning that the sun is
rising over the Great Smokies, while around him are the rich rolling
fields that border the Tennessee river.
If the traveler wishes to see the land and learn what men have
done in a hundred years, he will leave the train at Knoxville. A
carriage or an electric car will carry him between blocks of fine
buildings to a modern hotel, where he will find food and bed and
places to read, write, rest, or do business, as he likes. Around him is
a busy city stretching up and down its many hills. Before long he will
wander down to the banks of the Tennessee river and see the boats
tied at the wharf, or he will cross the great bridge to the hills beyond
and look back over the city.
 Fig. 66. Street in Knoxville
On those hilltops are pits dug in the woods, and some veteran of
the Union or the Confederate army will tell him that these are
ammunition pits. The old soldier will point across to where Fort
Sanders stood, and will describe those days in 1863 when
Longstreet came up and laid siege to the town, which was
garrisoned by Burnside and his army.
Our traveler need do little more than cross the great bridge at
Knoxville to find quarries of marble; and if he goes up and down for a
few miles, he will see rich deposits of this stone. It is prized because
it shows many colors,—cream, yellow, brown, red, pink, and blue.
The colors often run into each other in curious and fantastic ways,
and the slabs and blocks when polished are beautiful indeed. These