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6. Teysha

6

TEYSHA

The Leader expects to be woken up by his wife pleasuring him. Accustomed to the routine, I do as requested. He rips the sheet from over my head and grins down at me.

"You have such a talented tongue, sweetheart," he says. His hand finds my knotted hair and he strokes me like you'd pet a kitten. "No wonder you have become my favorite."

The door springs open, and in breezes Mandy, swathed in a silky floral robe. She's in the middle of braiding her long, flaming hair. Sun wrinkles crease onto her face when she lays eyes on the bed and realizes what she's walked in on.

"I always love coming across a wife pleasing my husband. Is this why you haven't requested me in almost a week, Leader?"

He chuckles, caressing my hair.

I'm supposed to keep pleasuring him. I'm supposed to pretend I'm not being talked about in the most degrading ways. My eyes squeeze shut and I fill my mouth with him, squashing down the nausea that rises up .

Recent times have made me learn how.

I've had to adapt in order to keep going. Keep counting the days.

I'm able to close my eyes and disappear into my head long enough for it to be over, repeating prayers to God. I'm still able to feel what's being done to my body and the velvety texture of the Leader's penis or taste the salty, slimy flavor of his seed.

But none of it registers.

Except when his name's spoken.

"You sound jealous, my lovely wife."

"I'm bitter you took away my stallion."

"Believer Logan required disciplinary action," the Leader says. His hand's stilled on the back of my head.

"But a week in the infirmary? I'm sure he wasn't that insolent."

"What warning have I given about questioning your husband?"

"Of course, Leader. I didn't mean?—"

"Perhaps," he snaps, "you would be requested more often if your countenance was pleasant. Believer Teysha knows how to be pleasant, don't you, sweetheart?"

My eyes roll open to his twisted grin, and I breathe through the sickness. I give him the pleasantness he's asking for, nodding in obedience, then I finish him off. His fingers screw shut in my knotted hair, and he spills in my mouth.

Mandy's dropped into the cushiony chair by the bed and propped her legs up on the armrests. "I can be pleasant too," she coos. "When I am pleasured. Come here, sweetheart."

I have barely recovered from my nausea after swallowing the Leader's release. He nudges me toward her.

"Go on, sweetheart. Give her what she asks. "

I wish I could say it's the first time they've requested me together. It's only once that Mandy demands I perform on her because her ‘stallion's' not around.

But the Leader meant what he said when he told me I'm the new favorite. I'm the latest toy they've decided to play with 'til they grow bored or break me and then move onto something else.

Like they broke Logan. Mandy's stallion.

My husband.

I sigh as I kneel before Mandy and count the days 'til I see him again.

Once the Leader learns he can use me to make Mandy jealous, it's a trick he pulls often. He doesn't let me return to the cabin. He demands I sleep in his bed. He keeps me at his side like an obedient pet while he sits at the dining room table and feasts on the meals the believers prepare for him.

Rarely am I fortunate enough to be given even a crumb of what he eats. In his view, the privilege is in the fact that I'm allowed to be in his presence for so long.

"You are my most special believer, sweetheart," he tells me. "Better than all the rest. The most beautiful and loyal. So obedient."

My skin crawls listening to him, though I keep my true feelings from showing on my face.

I busy myself instead with staring around the dining room, taking in the antiquated striped wallpaper and the portraits nailed to the wall. Many are generic art pieces of landscapes painted in watercolors. But there's one framed photograph in particular that stands out to me.

"Boulder," I blurt out. "The church in Boulder. "

The Leader's lip quirks slightly. He sips from his goblet, then gives a nod. "That is right. It is a very special place. Tell me, Believer Teysha. How do you recognize it?"

I'm about to answer earnestly when I clamp my mouth shut. The less he and the rest of the Chosen Saints know about me, the better. They don't need to know that my family once attended that church before it closed down several years ago. They don't need any information that could lead them back to Mama, Papa and Grandma Renae…

I glance one last time at the photograph taken of the church, showcasing its gorgeous spire roof and large cross on the front. Then I put on a fake smile that feigns innocence.

"I've seen it in pictures before," I say. "It's a beautiful church."

"Yes, it is. As beautiful as you are, sweetheart."

He holds my gaze for a beat that becomes uncomfortable and makes my stomach churn. We're interrupted only by a shriek coming from the hall. Mandy has knocked a bowl out of a believer's hands and begun screaming in their face.

"When I ask for a bowl of nuts, I expect no peanuts, you insolent sack of bones!" she screeches. She smacks the woman hard enough to leave a red imprint on her cheek. "Do you realize what you could've done? I'm deathly allergic! Try that again and I will cut off those clumsy fingers of yours!"

I sit, silently unnerved by what I'm hearing. The Leader listens as though bored by what he hears. He reaches over to stroke my hair, his long, spindly fingers slipping down to grip my chin.

"She is angry," he explains. "I have not called upon her in days. She feels threatened. "

"T-threatened," I eke out. "By… by who?"

" You , Believer Teysha. I am sure she will find an excuse to punish you. Which is why you must behave yourself. Continue to be obedient and please me… and she may meet her end before you do."

I rack my brain for how I'm supposed to respond to such a grim warning. He seems to think it's supposed to make me feel better. Instead, I'm simply reminded of how horrible these people are. The Leader and his Saints. Mandy.

It's as this fear threads through me that I make a mistake I shouldn't.

"Believer Logan… will he be returning?" I murmur. "Mandy called upon him regularly. Maybe that is?—"

"If you should ever ask about him again, you will come to regret it," the Leader snaps, grimacing. "Do not concern yourself with what happened to him. Concern yourself with pleasuring your leader. Me ."

The nod I give is a defeated one, my heart dying a little bit more inside my chest. I sit at his side for the rest of his meal, returning to my head, where I can search for comfort. In my prayers. In old memories.

But most of all, in the man who is my husband, who I hope comes back to me soon…

Logan's still bruised and swollen when he returns from his stay at the infirmary. The others in the cabin avert their eyes so as not to be accused of staring. He's hardened and grizzled when he steps through the door, more closed off than ever before. He strides to his bunkbed, picks up his rag and pair of workman boots, and he sets to cleaning.

No one dares address him .

I'm the only one who doesn't resume what they were doing. I've sat up in my bunk, a breathlessness in my lungs.

He looks the same but so different.

Logan… but half shattered in pieces.

Blood-red and plum-purple bruises decorate his face. His lips haven't finished closing up. The gash above his left eye still partially obstructs his vision.

Wounds he received after he took a beating trying to protect me.

An ache ebbs away inside my chest. I'm drawn to him and his pain. I'm consumed by a need to somehow ease it.

Logan scrubs harder at his cracked leather boots as if he doesn't hear me walk up.

"Thank god you're alright," I mutter. "I was wor?—"

"Yeah, thank god. It might've turned out bad."

His biting sarcasm makes me frown. "I didn't mean to offend?—"

"The only thing that offended me was you thinking I wanted you to come over here."

"Oh… I… okay…" I stammer out, completely confused. My skin prickles like I've been struck as I turn toward my bunk.

He's… angry with me. He must blame me for what happened to him.

Over the next few days, every time I approach Logan, I'm met with scorn. I'm dismissed with hardly a glance. He sends me away like I hadn't once sought safety in him. As if his words whispered into my ear hadn't gotten me through things that would've otherwise broke me.

I'm a stranger to him. Worse than a stranger. Some kind of enemy.

"Logan, will you please look at me?"

I sound pitiful as I find him one evening behind the cabin. He's filling up his canteen at the spigot. We're far away from anyone else who might intervene.

He snaps the cap back onto his canteen and steps around me. His gaze falls anywhere but on me. I'm invisible as he pushes past and starts for the cabin.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I croak, following after him.

We round the corner of the cabin and almost collide with Xavier. He holds out a warning hand, his other clutching the rifle against his shoulder.

"The Leader has requested your presence, Believer Teysha."

Tension pulses in the silence. It's palpable as Logan squares his jaw and turns his back to enter the cabin, checking out of the situation. I'm confused and aching, pulled away by Xavier a second later.

"You'll be spending the night," he says, squeezing my arm tight. "And if he dismisses you, you'll be in my quarters."

I twist in his grasp, checking over my shoulder.

Logan never looks back.

I'm hot and exhausted, laying in the grass. My empty fruit basket sits beside me. The others browse the fruit bushels in search of good pieces they can fill their baskets with. Should the guards return from their break, I'll take my punishment.

I've learned that there's nothing I can do to prevent it from happening. It doesn't matter if I behave myself or if I act out, because the result is the same. I'm called upon and used in ways that have broken my spirit.

By the Leader. By Mandy. By the guards .

There's no escaping the depravity they inflict upon me and the others.

I pray and pray and it makes no difference. I've cried and gotten down on my knees to beg, only to be beaten or struck with a cane.

How do you keep faith when evil continues to win?

I'm not sure of the answer anymore. I'm barely even sure of my existence. After months of captivity, the life I once lived feels so far away…

"Get up," snarls Xavier. He's strode up, and I hardly flinched.

I wasn't present enough to see him.

He kicks at my side. "I said get the hell up. You're coming with me."

The others watch on as I'm marched out of sight. We leave the field, and he takes me behind one of the cabins. He's rutting away, his breath hot against my skin and hands bruising my breasts, when the commotion erupts. There's a harrowing scream that booms across the flat land. Then the rumble of an engine and screech of tires doing overtime.

Is someone fleeing the property?

Xavier shoves me away in his haste to fasten his pants. I've wandered in his wake, hoping to catch a glimpse of what's going on. A second longer and I would've missed what I do see—the rundown Chevy pickup truck that's used for the laundry rams into the wired fence and speeds off to freedom.

Logan.

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