CHAPTER SIX Luke

Large white bed sheets fluttered in the breeze after the sisters hung them in the warm spring air. From a distance, you could imagine them as sails on a sailboat or butterflies dancing across a lake. I'd never seen an ocean but enjoyed reading books about sailing and discovering faraway places. Places I'd probably never see.

Franklin spent much of his sermons warning us about those imagined places, where most of us only dreamed we could venture to. To the younger men of our group, they seemed fantastical, almost tantalizing in the way he described them. According to Franklin, they were filled with sin and debauchery, two things a young man could certainly fantasize about while living in our grim world.

I released a long sigh and turned back to the barn, hesitating to go back inside with the weather so nice, but I had work to complete. After one more look at the rolling hills surrounding our community, I stepped into the darkness of the barn's interior.

The massive barn was old yet sturdy. It had weathered decades of dry and exhausting heat, followed by freezing winters on the high plains of Central Oregon. Rain was scarce on the east side of the Cascade mountains that bisected Oregon as they headed north through Washington, going as far north as Canada, but years of heat and freezing temperatures still did a number on wooden structures.

Arid and parched, the land around Madras was desolate and devoid of most plant life. Scrub and tumbleweeds ruled the non-irrigated portions of the ranch, while fertile irrigated patches grew valuable grasses and hay that we sold to farms for their livestock.

The women of our community planted vegetable gardens during spring and canned the assortment for our winter food stockpiles. Some neighboring farms grew marijuana for hemp as well. Franklin had shot down that idea when the elders suggested marijuana as a profitable crop for us, proclaiming hemp to be one more sinful product created by the outsiders.

We kept milk cows for our own consumption, and contrary to what the townsfolk imagined, we used tractors to harvest the hay we grew. I was currently busy bucking the stalls for the few horses we kept to round up the milk cows when necessary. The work was hot as heck in the summers and comfortable enough to not sweat in the season we were currently in, spring.

I allowed my eyes the time to adjust to the dark interior of the barn after stepping in, listening for animal sounds and other distracting noises. There were none today. All was quiet, and I hated the reality something fierce. Quiet allowed my mind to wander and conjure up awful visions. The barn haunted my dreams and terrified me at night while I lay quietly in my bunk bed, my brother above me in his.

"Calm down, Luke," I whispered, jerking my head around as I explored the corners of the barn.

I pinned my eyes to the ladder that led to the loft, where hundreds of bales of hay would soon be stored. The bales were brought up on the same rope that had bound me so many times. Memories of my recent teen years tore at my brain as I battled to keep the recollections at bay.

The ladder brought back mental images and fear because it represented the access to a place that haunted me every day. Franklin had demanded I go up to the loft with him many times, or he'd catch me off guard when I'd be working there, unfortunately for me, concealing us from the outside.

I shivered and felt the tension locking my neck in place. The feeling I feared the most, the one that was so terrifying whenever it crept over me, was knocking on the door I used to shut my mind off. The smallest memory could set me off like it had at the bakery when the handsome stranger returned.

I never knew when a panic attack would hit and cause my anxiety to overload my senses, rendering me helpless to fight back. I'd felt powerless far too many times and the man responsible liked finding me here, in the barn, in that state of mind, alone.

I felt the panic rising. "You can't hide, Luke," my inner voice reminded me. "You did bad things and now you're going to pay for them. Knock-knock. I'm back."

I focused on the partially open door, my avenue to escape, but I needed to remain still and fight the need to run from the alarm. The pulse in my temples was deafening, the feeling of dread rising, my eyes darting around as I fought a war I'd fought for the past five years.

"You'll never get away from him. And now he wants David. Your sweet little brother is next."

I staggered for the wooden rail of a stall and held tightly, bending over as my world spun around. I needed to run from this horror show but knew I couldn't. My mother and little brother were helpless without me, and I was in no condition to protect them. I couldn't protect myself, and the reality of my situation had found me again, alone, and in the place where my abuse had begun.

"Where you going to go, Luke?"The voice spoke, squeezing my heart like a vise grip. "He'll find you. He always finds you."

I ran away once. I was sixteen then, and the assaults were getting more frequent, so I ran as hard and as fast as I could, ending up in the woodshed of a neighboring farm. I hid there for two days until hunger overcame me, so I snuck into the neighbor's house thinking they were away at the time.

The wife was home, and she'd made quite a ruckus when she confronted me in front of their refrigerator foraging for food. Her husband drove me home after she called him. They were sympathetic but afraid of where I'd come from, so they dumped me at the gate outside the compound. That was the last time I'd run.

The gigantic interior space of the barn continued closing in on me like it was a matchbox, dark clouds of terror occupying my mind. Lately, the attacks had become more frequent, leaving me exhausted from fighting him off. I was afraid when trying to sleep. Afraid when encountering triggers. Afraid of being afraid. The anxiety lived within my flesh walls, while the ranch walls were becoming inescapable.

I ran blindly, stumbling and breathing hysterically, as I sought the refuge of safety just beyond the giant barn doors. I had to get out and into the daylight once again, just like ten minutes before. The sails of fresh sheets would comfort me again. Fresh air, space to breathe, safety, all of it mere steps away. But then a large shadow filled much of the open doorway in front of me, seizing my heart and cutting off my path to freedom.

"I thought I might find you here," the voice of my abuser spoke. Franklin pointed toward the ladder. "Let us check out the loft together, Luke."

His words, voice, and intention triggered a warning that set off a familiar response. A circle of light in my vision narrowed to a pinhole until it vanished completely. I went into myself. Into a quiet place. The place that sheltered me from the coming storm. The only place that allowed me to survive him. It was time to travel.