Chapter 13

Patricia Flanagan

The sun warms my back as Kim and I lean against the fence of the compound, watching the kids run wild and free across the soft spring prairie grass. I look for Annie while Kim looks for Roy. Our babies. The ones who came from our own bodies, fathers unknown.

I sigh as I spot the dark-haired boy screaming and laughing to the left. The children run in throngs, happy as can be, unaware of the hell we've bore them into. A small flock of women have been assigned as watchers, essentially babysitters who work for free, one of which is me. Kim is a forager, but she usually doesn't head out until late noon so she likes to join me.

We watch a cluster of women as they herd the children before breaking off into groups and whispering amongst themselves like Kim and I are doing now. They all look like costumed actresses playing a part in some yesteryear show that takes place on a prairie. At first, Kim and I were both one hundred percent behind the mandatory ankle-length skirts and the billowy blouses, but once we realized we would live in these clothes until they turned into rags, they sort of lost their appeal.

"He's over by the tents," I say, careful not to point him out. If anyone knew what we were doing, we could end up in Nightshade. A fate worse than death because death doesn't allow for torment.

I glance up at the house that sits crooked on the hill. The House of Horror as Kim and I have grown to call it.

Malcolm insists Nightshade is an organic being that the universe sent to protect us all. But at the end of the day, it's a dilapidated mansion that was left to him by his ailing mother.

I did my research before I got sucked in by the undertow.

I suppose he could have called it Hell House, but that would have been far too literal. The real reason he calls it Nightshade is because the select few luminaries that are privileged enough to reside in it are only allowed in after dark.

In fact, only Malcolm, his wife Patty, and the supreme leader are inside at all hours. They claim Nightshade cleanses itself during the day with the sun's purifying rays as do we, and that's why every last member of Paradise is mandated to be out in the fields during the day, each assigned to a chore ranging from menial tasks to hard labor. They save the latter for those whose minds are still full of darkness, claiming physical labor brings you closer to the light.

I scan the field for Annie.

No sign yet.

She just turned four. Roy is three.

An entire sea of pregnant women sit to the right on quilts made by some of the members. They're to spend the duration of their terms lounging and being served by the rest of us. It sounds like heaven, but it was a special kind of hell for both Kim and me. I wanted to walk, to run, to explore nature, but all I was allowed to do was sit on that damn glorified towel and wait for my next sour meal.

Once the babies were born, we weren't allowed to nurse our own biological child. It's highly encouraged that we forget who we gave birth to and love all of the children here in Paradise as if we had pushed them from our loins.

But a mother never forgets.

The tents in the distance catch my eye once again. When I first saw them, it reminded me of a ragtag circus. They seemed wholesome, and most of them are, but the dusty, faded, navy tents near the woods are anything but.

Both Kim and I arrived in Ironwood Springs at the same time. We grew up in Kansas City together, lifelong friends from opposite sides of the track. My father ran a mortgage company that garnered him millions. My mother ran the social circles and that garnered her a million fake friends. She never cared for me from the get-go, starting with the way I looked. My features were a little too large, a little too drawn-out. She insisted on plastic surgery, new friends, and an elite Ivy League college for grad school. She got none of the above. And when my father passed away, I got zero inheritance as revenge.

"I know what you're thinking." Kim butts her shoulder to mine, and I steal the moment to take in her sweet scent. Kim has always held the scent of home to me. "It's going to take a lot more than sunshine to heal that hovel from all that ails it." She nods to Nightshade and we share a laugh.

It's true. The house may be supersized, but it's seen its glory days. The siding is dirty, the shutters are falling off their hinges, half the windows are boarded up, and the porch has a hole in it that's been covered with plywood, which is currently held down with bricks.

"I hope to never walk through that door," I say as a shiver rides through me. "I'm shocked it hasn't swallowed Malcolm and Patty alive. I think it eats souls for breakfast."

A dark cloud covers the sun for a moment. It seems appropriate since just looking at Nightshade has darkened our mood. Both Kim and I have heard the screams emanating from inside those walls at night. They try to tell us it's coyotes, but we know better. Someone once said it was coming from the blue tents, that pleasure sounded a lot like pain, but we all but rolled our eyes at that one.

A roar comes from our right as Crazy Jim runs through, looking like a scraggly version of Santa Claus, if Santa was demon-possessed. Jim is the epitome of a homeless drunk, with a long scraggly beard, bloodshot eyes, every blood vessel is broken on his face, and he staggers and screams wherever he goes. Since there isn't any liquor allowed on the premises, we think he has a roster of psychiatric illnesses starting with auditory and visual hallucinations. We're guessing he's somewhere in his sixties and will drop dead eventually. All of us will, seeing how undernourished we are.

Of course, he's not the only one allowed to hallucinate around here.

My eyes drift back to those blue tents.

At first, Kim and I were intrigued by the idea of the polyamorous relationships that Paradise boasted of. But that's when we thought we could pick and choose our poison. As it turns out, women are to be submissive to their husbands. And once we were inaugurated into Paradise, all men became our husbands, all women our sisters. In the beginning, we spent every night in those disgusting blue dungeons. We average three nights a week at best now, and even that is three nights too many.

Malcolm and Patty are smart, though. They sensed the disdain coming from the women early on. A little after we arrived, all those years ago, they introduced what they dubbed as the mood farm. Opposed from the actual farm, which has never produced anything decent, the mood farm is a hothouse that exclusively grows marijuana. You can smoke all you want, but it needs to be done in a blue tent with your lover for the night. There's always a catch in Paradise.

"Here." Kim pulls something from the pocket of her skirt and slides it my way. "A granola bar. I found a bunch at the bottom of a trash bag. Someone must have been clearing out their cupboards or backpack. It's kind of smushed, but I'm sure it's still good."

"Oh my gosh, thank you," I say, carefully slipping the silver-wrapped treasure into my pocket. Having food outside of the bounty tent is strictly forbidden. All of the food here at Paradise is provided via foragers like Kim, and then the so-called chefs turn their findings into something palatable—although the palatable part is yet to happen.

When asked, Malcolm and Patty will tell you that the food the foragers receive is from the abundance that the supermarkets can't turn away.

Once, I heard Malcolm say that he had an in with a local restaurant supply store and that a lot of our food came from that vendor. But Kim assured me that both are bald-faced lies.

The foragers are nothing more than a group of us who go out nightly and scavenge the dumpsters behind every restaurant, grocery store, and even the garbage cans of tract homes as of late. Kim says the best finds have often come from the wealthier neighborhoods they've hit. The lead forager has access to three vans and they pile in like sardines each night to do their work. There are twenty foragers as of right now, and according to Kim, they've been sworn to secrecy on how they acquire the provisions for us. She says there was a ceremony and that it was bad, but she wouldn't elaborate on the details. But I know how bad bad can be.

A part of our initiation here was to offer the supreme leader our pledge for life that we are willing to live and die for him and would never leave Paradise. We abandoned our friends and family, and Paradise quickly filled the void for us. A clean slate. A do-over at life. We were so eager to be here, so eager to please. At least in the beginning.

But it didn't matter. They wanted collateral to prove that we wouldn't run. A sex tape is made of each and every one of us. It's a private issue between us and a small group of others—the videographer and the participants. Once the Judicial Court, consisting of Malcolm, Patty, and the always enigmatic supreme leader, has viewed the material and deemed it humiliating enough for the participants, we're enabled to go on with the full seven sacraments of initiation.

I glance down at my torso where the scar of the final sacrament lies.

"Have you seen Jennifer?" Kim whispers, breaking my spell, and just like that, my heart begins to race for what lies ahead.

"I'm sure she's out here somewhere. She's probably with Missy and Annie."

Jennifer is our best friend. We may not have grown up with her like we have with each other, but we trust her with our lives. She and I were pregnant at the same time and her daughter Missy is best friends with my Annie—or best sisters as they're allowed to be called.

Last week, Jennifer was brutally raped and beaten. But because it happened inside the bounds of the blue tents, it never made it to the Judicial Court. Instead, it was deemed sacred.

As punishment for reporting it, Jennifer was to spend a honeymoon period of forty-eight hours with her attacker, a brute of a man named Archer.

It turns out, Archer has a penchant for rough sex that's led more sisters to the infirmary than any other physical activity put together. And that was the final straw. We've let them take away our children, our bodies, and our will, but in the end they still didn't have us—not the real us that we buried deep inside once we set foot on Paradise soil. After that horrific incident, the three of us banded together, like real sisters struggling for the next breath to survive.

The plan is that in just a few hours, Kim, Jennifer, and I will pick up our children and take off in the night. On foot. With no money, no food, no water. Thankfully, the Colorado nights have grown increasingly warmer. If we walk all night, we should stumble upon some sort of civilization, and then we're counting on the milk of human kindness to take us all the way home—wherever that may be now.

Kim says a women's shelter is our only hope. I say we head to the nearest sheriff's station posthaste.

I glance over at those blue tents and glare at them as if they were Malcolm and Patty themselves.

Kim clutches onto my arm. "Here she comes." Her voice spikes with glee as we spot Jennifer heading this way, her long dark hair blowing in the breeze exposing the purple welts still visible on her face. I once heard Malcolm instructing the men never to touch a woman's face because it hides no secrets. He said a woman could be taught a lesson on the lower half and he aroused a laugh from them because of it.

"Jennifer," I pant out her name with a smile and a wave. Her lavender dress is heavily stained and tattered on one side. Her lips are still misshapen from the beating. Jennifer was lured from Utah with promises of quantum success and enlightenment. And ironically, she looks like nothing but a shadow of her former self, successful at horror, enlightened by way of a man's fist.

She's been so dead inside after that horrible so-called honeymoon. It's a wonder she can stand. Her legs are black and blue and her right ankle is the size of a water balloon.

"It's here. It's time," I say just below a whisper as she comes in close.

"It is time," she says with her eyes staring vacantly ahead.

I'm about to ask what's the matter, what's happened, when I spot Malcolm and Patty headed this way in her wake. And on their heels are three of Malcolm's strongmen, all with stone-cold expressions that promise nothing but trouble.

My blood runs cold.

"Sister Kim, Sister Trish," Malcolm addresses us while Patty stands smugly by his side with her hair braided down her back, her pushed-in nose and downturned smile looking disapprovingly at us.

Patty once accused me of lusting after her husband in a manner that was frowned upon here at Paradise. I did no such thing. But Malcolm has dragged me to the blue tents far more than any other man here has. The lust is all one-sided. I'm positive Annie is his. They share the same dark eyes. Although in Malcolm's, there's wickedness buried in them, and with Annie's, there's just love and light. We think Patty is barren, seeing that she's never had a child and clearly Malcolm is able. Which would explain Patty's disdain for me. Of course, she denies it. But it's there as plain as that potato sitting in the middle of her face.

Malcolm nods. "It's come to our attention that you had plans to leave Paradise this evening."

My heart stops beating. My adrenaline kicks in, fight-or-flight, but the men must sense it because they take a forceful step forward, assuring us we won't get far.

"Don't try to deny it," Patty snips. "Jennifer told us every last ridiculous detail." Her eyes flit between us, her face red with rage. "Kim, you'll be coming with us to Nightshade. We have a special program that will help you realize the height from which you've fallen. You'll be back in the fold in no time." Her eyes dart to mine, a dark smile curving on her lips. "Trish, we're going to take a different approach with you. Archer is hungry for another honeymoon and we thought you'd make a wonderful pairing. I have a locked suite in the back house for the two of you. Simon and Prich will take you there right away."

"No," I say in a panic. The locked house in the back is nothing short of a torture chamber, one without escape. "You can't do this to me. He's a monster. I'll be lucky if I get out of there alive. Open your eyes. Look what he did to Jennifer."

The taller gentleman grabs ahold of Kim's arm and all but pushes her toward Nightshade while the other two grab ahold of me as I bite, kick, and scream.

"It didn't have to be this way." Malcolm motions to the men, and soon I'm on the ground.

One of them lands a strip of duct tape over my lips, and the other binds my feet and wrists. A hood is hoisted over my head, and the next thing I know, I'm being carried to my doom.

At this point, death would be a welcome friend.

But I have a feeling that luxury is far out of reach.