Into the Fire Read online

  Her veins turned to ice as her gaze skipped from bare wall to floor to bare wall, the stoked fireplace, the lantern hanging from the ceiling—her mind lurching away from the brown stains on cement, from the things she was too terrified to truly see.

  But she knew.

  Of course, she knew.

  Hadn’t she cared for Dakota a dozen times at Sister Rosemarie’s side? Hadn’t she seen the stripes scarring Maddox’s back? She knew, but she didn’t want to know.

  Her brain couldn’t handle the knowing.

  Someone moaned in the center of the room. Jacob was bent over the girl—Dakota. This was happening to Dakota. Her blouse was ripped, the tank top beneath torn, her shoulders and back bare.

  Jacob held her face-down against the tall table with one hand, bracing his body against her to keep her in place. With his other hand, he pressed something against the bare skin of her upper back over her left shoulder blade.

  A lit, red-hot cigar.

  Eden screamed.

  Startled, Jacob whipped toward her. His beautiful, angelic face contorted in rage. “Get out!”

  “Stop!” she begged him. “Please stop!”

  “You don’t belong here. Get the hell out!”

  Eden kept her gaze pinned on her brother. Fear and dread and confusion tangled in her gut. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew. She knew in the deepest part of herself that this shouldn’t be happening.

  In the corner of her eye, she saw Dakota wrench free of Jacob’s distracted grip. She rolled off the table and stumbled to the floor. She crouched, gasping and trembling.

  “I’ll—I’ll tell Father,” Eden said, but her voice was weak and hesitant. She was scared, and Jacob knew it. Her threat was an empty one.

  “Be careful, sister, what you say.” He took a step toward her, bristling with hostility. “Blasphemy is a grave sin.”

  “I’m…I’m not…” Eden stammered.

  Behind him, Dakota rose to her feet. “You can’t do this.”

  Jacob sneered. “I can do whatever the hell I want.”

  Dakota lunged at Jacob. For a second, Eden thought she was going to shove him from behind, but instead she seized the hunting knife from its sheath at his belt and sprang backward, out of his reach.

  She pointed the knife at him. “Stay back!”

  Jacob barely acknowledged her. “Put the knife down, little girl.”

  “You aren’t giving Eden to the Prophet. I won’t let you.”

  He only laughed. “And what’re you going to do about it?”

  “I’ll…” Dakota’s wild gaze darted around the room, searching for an escape. There wasn’t one, not with Jacob between her and the door. Her eyes returned to Jacob. There was something frantic but resolute in her expression. “I’ll take her myself. We’ll leave.”

  “And what makes you think we’ll ever let her go?” He turned back to Eden and gestured at the door. A shadow flitted behind his eyes, a flash of something cold and dangerous. “Get out of here. You don’t want to see what happens next. I’ll deal with you later, after I tell Father and the Prophet what you’ve done.”

  His words were meant to fill her with shame and terror. They did.

  “Don’t move, Eden,” Dakota said, the huge knife gripped in both hands. “We’re going. Both of us. Tonight.”

  Jacob paid her little attention. She was just a girl, bred to submit and serve. Jacob didn’t even see her. Not really. Just like he barely saw Eden.

  “Leave or suffer the consequences of disobedience, sister,” Jacob spat, more furious than she’d ever seen him, his face red, his eyes bulging. “Or you know what? Maybe you both need to relearn your place.”

  Eden froze in indecision. Her gaze darted between her brother and her friend. She didn’t understand what was happening. The words they spoke were a jumbled confusion in her head. She was only twelve. She didn’t understand it.

  But she did understand fear. She understood orders.

  She moved toward the door.

  “Let us both go,” Dakota said. “No one needs to know.”

  “Never.”

  “I’d rather die than stay here.”

  “That can be arranged.” Jacob took a menacing step toward Dakota, flexing his hands into fists. He didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need one. He towered over Eden and Dakota, strong and powerful and deadly.

  He was right. He could do whatever he wanted to. An expectant, almost rapturous look transformed his face, a hard anticipation flashing in his eyes—he intended to enjoy every second of it.

  Time slowed. Everything happened in awful slow motion.

  Dakota let out a cry like a wounded animal and charged Jacob. He raised his hands in a defensive gesture, surprise registering on his face as he realized too late that she was attacking him.

  She raised the knife, plunged it into his stomach, and wrenched it out.

  Jacob groaned and staggered back. He looked down at himself, stunned, and pressed his hands against the wound. Dark red blood leaked between his fingers.

  “No!” Eden cried.

  Jacob was her brother. She loved him. She’d been raised since birth to adore and obey every man in her family. Instinctively, she ran to protect him.

  Dakota’s expression contorted in a rictus of panic, fear, and desperation. Maybe she saw Eden, maybe she didn’t. Maybe in that moment she didn’t care about anything but ending the threat standing between her and the door.

  Without a sound, she lunged at him again, the blade flashing as she lashed out, the razor-sharp point ripping across his chest, tearing into flesh. Her arm fell back and surged forward, stabbing him again.

  Eden heard nothing but the thunder of her pulse in her ears, felt only the ice-cold rush of fear through every cell of her body, had no thoughts in her head but stop, stop, stop.

  She flung herself in front of her brother.

  An excruciating pain seared across her throat. She fell against Jacob. His chest stuck wetly to her back.

  Dakota froze, weapon half-raised. She released the knife. It clattered to the floor.

  Jacob collapsed and lay still.

  Eden collapsed on top of him, sliding sideways, both hands clasping at her neck. It was so slippery. That was her first thought. So slippery. Her finger sliding in the slick blood.

  She couldn’t get a good grip, couldn’t stop it from leaking out.

  A throbbing, pulsing agony filled her whole body.

  “Eden!” Dakota screamed from far away. “Eden!”

  Dakota fell to her knees beside her. She ripped off her blouse, already unbuttoned, and wrapped the fabric tightly around Eden’s neck. She tied it in a clumsy knot. “Hold it tight, okay? Don’t let go.”

  Stars danced across her vision. Eden opened her mouth. A wet, gurgling sound came out. Help me! she wanted to say. Don’t let me die. I don’t want to die.

  “I’m getting you out of here! Just hold on!”

  The door to the mercy room burst open.

  25

  Eden

  Through bleary eyes, Eden watched Maddox open the door and enter the mercy room.

  His face went slack as he took in the blood sprayed across the floor, the knife, his brother’s crumpled form.

  “What did you do?” he asked, horrified.

  Dakota knelt on the floor next to Eden, pressing the fabric against her neck. Her gaze darted to the bloody knife lying a few feet away. She closed her own fingers over Eden’s, making sure Eden was holding tight. “What I had to do.”

  She stood on shaky legs and faced Maddox. Her arms and chest were spattered with blood, both Jacob’s and Eden’s.

  “Is…is he…dead?” Maddox’s voice filled with despair.

  Dakota glanced down at Jacob’s body and grimaced. She raised her gaze to Maddox and lifted her chin defiantly, her eyes flashing, fierce and resolute. “Yes.”

  “You…you killed him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You know what
they’re going to do to her. You were right there. All the crap that goes on here, all the horrible things they’ve done to me…to you…what they’ve done to us…” She sucked in a deep breath. “Not to her, you understand? I won’t let it happen to her.”

  Eden’s vision swam in and out of focus. Sounds faded, then returned. She felt the hard cement on her back, smelled the metallic scent of her own blood, tasted the copper on the back of her tongue.

  Maddox took a step toward Dakota.

  Dakota dove for the knife. She grabbed it and came up in a crouch, her eyes wild. “Don’t make me do this! I don’t want to do this.”

  “I trusted you!”

  She stood over Jacob’s body like a bloody, avenging angel. Eden blinked. Her mind was filling with fog, her vision shimmering. It was still Dakota. But maybe the angels would be coming for them soon, to take them both to Heaven…

  “Just turn around and go away, Maddox,” she said. “Walk away. That’s all you have to do.”

  He stared at her—anger, grief, and betrayal shadowing his eyes. Conflicted, his hands balled into fists at his sides. For a moment, Eden thought maybe Maddox would kill them both. Maybe it would be a blessing, an end to the pain.

  Maddox stepped out of the way. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  Dakota dropped the knife. She crouched beside Eden to lift her to her feet. “I know.”

  And then everything faded away for good—the mercy room, Jacob’s body, Maddox’s tortured face, the blood everywhere.

  Eden could only recall snatches of their frantic escape: the airboat ride, the struggle through the woods, finding Ezra’s place, collapsing on the shed floor. The next thing Eden remembered was swimming up from deep unconsciousness, awakening on Ezra’s leather couch to a fiery pain in her throat and the inability to speak.

  Now she was back at Ezra’s in the middle of the Everglades, kneeling with the grass tickling her knees, hammer in one hand, a pile of nail boards at her feet, the unrelenting heat of the sun beating down on her head and shoulders.

  Dakota faced her, guilt and remorse etched across her features. “I could’ve stopped. Jacob wasn’t a threat to us anymore after that first attack. I could’ve grabbed you and run. But I didn’t. I was so angry. So many years and years of abuse and pain and humiliation…

  “I…I wanted to kill him, Eden,” Dakota said dully. “I lost control. I was so focused on killing him that I didn’t think about consequences or repercussions or anyone or anything except what I wanted. I didn’t think about you. I didn’t remember that you were there until you stepped in front of him.

  “My arm was already moving, I couldn’t stop myself…I couldn’t stop…” She took a deep, ragged breath. “I stabbed you, Eden. And you can’t say it was an accident, because I chose to keep going. I chose to murder Jacob when I didn’t have to. I nearly killed you. You have that scar because of me. You lost your voice because of me.”

  Instinctively, Eden’s fingers rose to the ridge of scar tissue at her throat. It was true, everything Dakota said.

  But at the same time, it wasn’t.

  Once, she would’ve hated Dakota for what she’d done. For hurting her, for killing Jacob, for stealing her from what remained of her family and the only life she’d ever known.

  But that wasn’t fair. Things weren’t black and white. There was another side to the story.

  She’d lived outside the compound for three years. First with Ezra, then with her foster parents Jorge and Gabriella, two people who’d shown her what life could be like, who truly loved her.

  She’d experienced enough of life to recognize the truth from lies.

  She couldn’t be a confused, frightened kid anymore. She had to grow up, to see reality for what it was. She couldn’t cling to the rosy, idealized image of her childhood and family—which she knew in her heart of hearts hadn’t been real in the first place.

  Jacob, the golden-haired charmer, was a secret sadist. Something ugly had lived inside him, something bad and rotting.

  It was inside Maddox, too. And it lurked inside her father, inside the Prophet, and inside everyone who chose to cut themselves off from the world, feeding on hatred and contempt but calling it by another name.

  It didn’t matter how it disguised its true nature—evil was evil. And sometimes, evil wasn’t the thing you thought it was.

  Sometimes, people had to do bad things to survive. That didn’t make them bad or evil. Those who chose to hurt and control others because they could, because it gave them power over the powerless—that was evil.

  Maybe Eden couldn’t speak because of Dakota’s actions, but she was alive and free because of her. At the compound, she may have been able to speak, but she hadn’t had a voice.

  Now, she did.

  “I would never try to hurt you,” Dakota whispered, tears in her eyes. “Never, ever.”

  Eden stood. She dropped the hammer in the grass and ran to Dakota. She wrapped her arms around her, buried her head against Dakota’s chest, and took in the strong, steady beat of her sister’s heart.

  26

  Shay

  “How are you doing?” Hawthorne asked.

  “Good,” Shay answered automatically, forcing a brightness into her voice she didn’t feel.

  “Don’t give me that B.S. Not a single person in the entire country is ‘good’ right now.” Hawthorne leaned forward and gave a slight shake of his head. “How are you really doing?”

  She swirled her French fry in a glob of ketchup but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. Normally she loved food, but she hadn’t had much of an appetite in weeks. She was exhausted, weary to her very bones.

  Surrounded by so much suffering and death, it was nearly impossible to summon the positive energy she usually thrived on. Instead of healing people, she was working an enormous morgue, putting band-aids on gushing wounds and waiting for people to die.

  She’d worked back-to-back eighteen-hour shifts, barely eating or sleeping, until Hawthorne had forcibly pulled her away for a bit of respite and a hot meal at the Chili’s in Concourse G at the Miami International Airport.

  She dropped the fry and pushed her plate away, leaving half a grilled chicken sandwich. She was grateful she had food at all—she’d seen the reports coming in from towns and cities full of grocery stores with barren shelves. And now there were curfews and martial law to go along with the hunger, grief, and desperation.

  “I’m sorry again for skipping out on you yesterday,” she said again.

  “Never mind that.” Hawthorne was looking intently at her. Even tired, Trey Hawthorne was still incredibly handsome. He was 6’4, with a lean, athletic body and warm brown skin to go with his chiseled cheekbones, intelligent dark eyes, and wide disarming smile. “You’re not okay.”

  Shay gave a resigned sigh, tucked her thick, springy curls behind her ears, and adjusted her glasses. “This morning, I sat next to a four-year-old boy whose mother had just died a horrific death from acute radiation sickness. His father never made it to the EOC. The kid has nowhere to go. No family to claim him.”

  “I’m so sorry. What will happen to him?”

  “I don’t know. DCF—Department of Children and Families—sent someone to pick him up a few hours ago. The social worker said they’re overwhelmed with orphans. They don’t have enough foster or group homes functioning…”

  She inhaled sharply to keep her emotions at bay. If she fell apart, it would be that much harder to put herself back together. “He’ll probably have to go to the FEMA camps, like everyone else. He’ll end up helpless, completely alone, and traumatized for life.”

  Sometimes the suffering and heartbreak just became too much.

  “I’m really sorry, Shay,” Hawthorne said quietly.

  “And I have this friend, Nicole. I’m really worried about her.” After the shift Shay had finished for her yesterday, Nicole had returned to work, but she’d barely spoken to Shay. The woman did her work mechanically, a numbed blank look on he
r face, her eyes dulled.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Shay had seen that look before, in her father during his dark times. It was a look of hopelessness, of despair. Despondency. “She’s depressed. Honestly, I’m seeing a lot of that. People have this look…it’s like they’re not really there anymore. They’re still alive, but they’ve already given up, you know?”

  “The psychological toll. It’s not something people talk a lot about, but the mental health fallout from this is going to be horrendous.”

  Shay nodded. Memories of her father flooded in, painful memories she didn’t want to think about right now.

  “How are your friends in the Everglades?” Hawthorne asked, to distract her.

  “At least they’re doing good. I talked to Julio last night. They’re at the cabin, though they had to fight some bad guys to make it.”

  Hawthorne smiled. “I bet they did just fine. Logan and Dakota know how to handle themselves.”

  “They’re survivors. And good people.” She already missed them, especially Julio’s steady, calm nature. And she would love Dakota forever for saving her life.

  She was grateful they had the satellite phone to communicate, especially since regular cell phones were crap right now.

  Dozens of cell towers were damaged. Websites took forever to load, if they even did. The servers were located in major metropolitan cities, many of them hot zones of rubble or evacuated ghost cities.

  At least there were a few news channels still reporting. The TV screen over the bar ran a constant barrage of horrifying images—footage of massive grave sites, highways crammed with stalled cars and the refuse of thousands of stranded refugees, aid workers combing through rubble, hospitals crammed with dying radiation patients, and armed soldiers and military vehicles rolling through American streets, enforcing martial law.

  Hawthorne saw her watching and cleared his throat. “I got a little something for you.” He pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and handed it across the table. “I can’t tell you how I scored it. That’s a state secret.”