Page 26 of Broken Highway (Cult Boys #1)

NOAH

When I think too much about Kevin, I dream of him.

All it takes is to say his name or even think of his name, and he appears when I sleep. Just one thought is enough to be too much.

I know it’s a dream because I’ve walked the same walk a hundred times, up the concrete stairs in the middle of the concrete jungle, but not before one final talk with Mother.

I look out the tinted window of the limousine and see an endless wall of skyscrapers and towers.

Millions of people in this city and they all look the same, carry themselves the same, and walk the same walk to the same boring jobs.

People aren’t happy here and if they think they are, they’re just lying to themselves.

The same way Mother lies to herself. The same way she lies to me.

“You do whatever it takes to make him happy,” Mother says to me, as cold as ever.

Her permed, color-treated hair is a relic of the nineties. It’s the same hairstyle she’s been sporting since my earliest memories and is about fifteen years out of fashion. Her eyes are covered with oversized dark shades and she’s dressed for a funeral in a black pencil skirt and black brimmed hat.

The funeral? The final nail in the coffin of my innocence.

“What if I don’t want this life?” I ask.

But she’s a stubborn woman. She places a hand on my thigh. “You’re not old enough to know the kind of life you want. The life in front of us—” She inhales softly and corrects herself. “The life in front of you is one everybody else could only ever dream of.”

“Getting railed by an old man doesn’t seem like hitting the jackpot to me.”

She removes her shades and holds them in one hand as she shoots me an icy glare.

Her face contorts, going through the phases of mimicking concern and landing on faux empathy.

“This isn’t forever, Noah. Someday, he’ll grow tired of you.

He’ll stop watching you out of the corner of his eyes.

The day will come when you can be gone for days and he won’t bat an eye.

Have your fun then.” She places the sunglasses back over her eyes.

“But for now, it’s time to get to work.”

I relent to my fate, pop the door open, and climb out of the limousine. I’d heard summers in the city were miserable, but I’m unprepared for the stench that assaults me as a breeze tunnels down the never-ending street.

Up ahead, my destiny awaits.

Kevin waits at the entrance. A face is finally put to name.

He’s fifty-two but looks a good ten years younger.

He’s well built, filling out the white button-up shirt tucked neatly into gray slacks.

Pretending to want somebody, to love somebody, is a much easier pill to swallow when they don’t look like the slobs back at the trailer park.

Can’t get much worse than a beer-bellied man with broken welfare glasses trading food stamps for five minutes with me.

Those men never owned me, though. At most, I was rented by the hour.

This man before me, a prominent figure in New York Society, isn’t renting me. The contract is all but signed, sealed, and forever. A year from now, on my eighteenth birthday, he’ll officially take me as his and he’ll own me.

I eye the bustling sidewalks on either side of me and ponder the idea of running away and starting a new life.

It’s an impossible dream. The only skill I have is using the body I’ve been blessed with.

The only other real option is taking to the streets, but if I’m going to be a whore, I might as well be getting something out of it.

I hear the whirring of the window behind me and peer over my shoulder. Mother has taken my seat in the back of the limousine .

“Make him wear a condom until you have a ring on your finger,” she says with the same tone a caring mother tells her precious child to have a good first day of school.

Kevin offers a hand to me as I reach the final concrete step on the stoop. Every time I have this dream, I take his hand because the past can’t be changed. I’m stuck living the things done to me on a loop. It’s why I never sleep well.

My fingers graze over his, the friction of the inevitable drawing us together like magnets.

But I stop, my own words haunting me. What if this isn’t the life I want?

The visage of who he was shapeshifts into who he eventually becomes—a hollow shell of a human both in mind and body as the cancer eats away at his youth. And then he’s back to his younger self in a flash.

I twist on my feet to find the limousine is long gone, taking Mother with it. Without her looking over my shoulder, I’m free to make my own decisions. I don’t even look back at Kevin as I refuse his hand, his twisted sense of love, and every shitty thing he ever did to me.

And I walk away. Every step I take is like marching toward absolution.

Freeing myself from the ghosts of Mother and Kevin.

Giving myself the grace I should have given myself so long ago.

Forgiving myself for the things I let other people do to me.

Walking away from my ghosts does nothing to change the past, but it fills me with a sense of permission to live again.

I search through the bustling sidewalks of the city.

Search for Seven’s face in a crowd of people, but I’m surrounded by hundreds who all look the same.

My search intensifies as I find myself running, pushing my way through the crowds.

The faster I find him, the faster I can tell him the words I haven’t been able to say.

Thunder crashes, ripping through the sky as the sun takes shelter behind a glistening tower of glass. The darkness above steals my attention, and I find myself looking upward as a night sky falls over the cityscape.

And then a stabbing pain in my upper arm.

Blood seeps through a slash in my arm, staining the white cotton of my shirt.

I spin in a quick circle, searching for my attacker, and come face to face with Kevin.

He stands before me. Eyes permanently closed and his arms drawn over each other like a dead man lying upright in a casket.

I awake in a sweaty panic, reaching out for Seven but he’s not there.

A familiar pain burns my upper arm. I glance over just as an empty needle is removed.

Whatever it was filled with is now in my body.

An arm clenches around my throat from behind, and I’m dragged back into the hard seat of the wooden pew.

On the chancel, Seven climbs into a pair of underwear while a man with a black hood holds a gun to the back of his head.

And I don’t know if it’s the strong arm cutting off circulation or whatever they injected me with, but I feel my eyes grow heavy and slip away.

My head thumps as my eyes peel open. I’m in a cold, damp place with stone walls and floors, iron bars, and a toilet buzzing with flies.

There’s a stench of musk and urine. The only source of light comes from a hole in the wall of a makeshift prison cell on the opposite side of the hall.

I groan as I sit up, my entire body tense from whatever happened since I’ve been asleep.

I cradle my head in my hands, praying for relief from pain and grogginess. The last thing I remember is waking up at the run-down church and now, somehow, I’m in a fucking run-down prison.

“I was starting to think you were dead,” a woman’s voice stirs from behind.

My neck cracks as I turn to her. She sits on the other side of the iron bars, leaning her head against the wall. Her face is covered in dirt and she’s sporting a black eye and a busted lip. Her white floral blouse is just as dirty, looking as if it hasn’t been washed in months.

“Was I not breathing?” I ask sarcastically.

“It’s a figure of speech, but it’s not like I haven’t seen dead people breathe before. So many of us have been dead for years. And just look at us, breathing.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to stop you right there. I’m not a fan of riddles. They irritate me.”

She shifts her gaze to me. “Did you come to watch the big show?”

“Yeah, I figured I’d just mosey on down to the cult farm and take a gander.”

“What kind of person knows a place is a cult and goes anyway?”

“I’m also not a fan of questions.”

“Sorry.” She chuckles under her breath. “We’re not really allowed to ask questions around here. So, when we meet strangers, sometimes we can be overbearing.”

That sounds fucking familiar. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before…”

“Why are you here, then?”

“Got involved with the wrong guy.”

“You’re the other guy?” She shuffles forward, bracing her hands around the prison bars. “You came here with Seven?”

“Yeah, know him?”

“He’s my brother.”

That makes a whole lot of sense. Both share the same inquisitive nature. Both have the same sharp features, the same puppyish look in their eyes. Looking at her makes my heart twist because I fucking miss my little irritating puppy.

“Tell me,” she commands. “Is he okay?”

I answer with a shrug. “The last time I saw him, he had a gun to his head, but from my very limited understanding of you crazy people, I think he’s safe for now. Don’t know how long he’ll be safe, but they were hellbent on making sure his irritating ass came back in one piece.”

“You have to get out of here before the sun goes down three nights from now.”

“Thanks for the tip. The next time the guard lets me out to take a piss, I’ll just slip right on out.”

She reaches through the bars and grabs me by my shirt. “You need to find Seven and get out of here before it’s too late. Once Ascension begins, everyone in this compound is going to die.”

I scoot back, away from her grasp. “Everyone keeps using that word, and I have no idea what it fucking means.”

“We’re all going to meet our maker.”

“In your perverse ass heads, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“That’s why we’re doing it.” She bows her head and swallows nervously. Lets out a silent sigh. “I need you to find Seven and give him this note.” She passes a piece of paper through the iron bars. It’s been folded about twenty times so that it’s the size of a quarter. “He’ll know what to do.”

I wag the note in the air. “If you’re so certain Ascension is a bad thing, then why don’t you try to rescue your brother yourself?”

“Because I need to distract my husband long enough to keep my?—”

She jerks her head sideways as sunlight cascades down the stairs at the end of the hall. A man stomps down the stairs in combat boots and makes his way to the sister’s cell. He retrieves a ring of keys from the side of his fatigues. They jangle loudly as he sorts through them.

“Time to go.” He twists a key into the lock and swings the gate open. “Your husband is waiting for his dinner.”

She forces the fakest fucking smile I’ve ever seen. There’s no way the man’s buying this shit. She rises to her feet and follows the man out of the cell. As he’s occupied closing the gate, she looks over her shoulder and mouths to me, “Find Seven.”

And again, I have no clue how she expects me to do that.

Besides, all I can think about right now is what a piece of shit this Silas is.

That he’d imprison his wife and only let her out to ensure he doesn’t go to bed hungry or god-forbid have to fend for himself.

I suppose that’s the least of his moral shortcomings considering what’s coming.

Ascension.

Can’t make heads or tails of it. Can’t decipher if it’s something real or just another boogeyman.

There’s a reason I’ve never gotten myself mixed up in this religious shit.

It never ends well for anyone involved. Whether I believe it’s real doesn’t change reality.

The reality being that everyone on this compound is going to die in three days.

And I gotta say, from the sounds of it, most of these people are taking a direct flight to hell. Heaven ain’t letting these crazies through the gates.

I wait for a few minutes after the door at the top of the stairs closes, taking the sunshine with it, before unfolding the handwritten note and reading it.

Seven,

I’m sorry we were born into this life. I’m sorry I never took you away from this place.

I’m sorry I believed in Magnus. I’m sorry I married Silas after he took your rightful spot as the future of this place.

I imagine things would be much different if you stood at the helm, but we can’t go back. We can’t change the past.

I need you to know I didn’t give you up. Silas Jr. had mentioned in passing I had recently talked to uncle Seven. I tried to obscure the truth but Silas found the burner phone.

My complicity in the evils of this place has tainted me as a sister, as a friend, and as a mother.

When Ascension comes, I’ll stand at Silas’ side.

You escaped this place once and I have faith you can do it again.

An unshakable faith if for no other reason than I need you to take Silas Jr. far away from this place.

My last act in this world will not be one of repentance, as I’ve fooled Silas to believe. It’ll be one of defiance. You can’t save me. I don’t even want to be saved. So, please, I beg of you, as your older sister, do as I say.

No questions.

I’ll love and miss you forever,

Senya