Page 1 of Love Me in the Dark

1

LEONA

Peering out the window over my cot, I scan the grounds surrounding the bunkhouse. Moonlight glints off razor wire just about as far as the eye can see from this position. The sight of it makes my blood run cold, and my self-hatred heats up until it’s about to boil over.

I can’t believe I ever saw this place as a sanctuary.

It’s painfully quiet at this time of night, with the only sound coming from the compound, the occasional crunch of boots as the guard on duty makes his rounds. I never thought to ask why armed guards were patrolling what’s supposed to be a peaceful, religious community. I was so glad to have a bed and a hot meal; I overlooked the red flags that were so obviously waving around by the end of my first day here.

From the window of my room, I have a view of the wide dirt road cutting through the heart of the compound. It leads down to the main gates and up to the house where Rebecca and her son, William, live. They’re probably sleeping in there right now. I have to believe they are. People like them can sleep peacefully and comfortably because they are the ones with all the power.They make the rules and can change them whenever they feel like it. No warning and no mercy.

I hope Rebecca is asleep now. It’s past midnight, and there’s a church service in the morning. I imagine she’s resting up before standing in front of her congregation and looking out over a sea of faces with that hard, glittering look she gets in her eyes.

At first, I used to sit up a little straighter when she started looking in my direction. I wanted her to notice me. I wanted her to see how hard I was trying to prove I belonged here. Like she didn’t make a mistake by picking me up off the street and bringing me to New Haven. I wanted her to… be proud of me, I guess.

Now, straining my ears for even the slightest sound outside, I want nothing more than to escape. To never, ever come back here.

I didn’t feel this strongly until a week ago, the day after my eighteenth birthday. Sure, I was starting to get a funny feeling before then. Just a little. Like something was off. You don’t survive on the streets without honing your instincts. Mine have been driving me crazy.

Like, why are the men around here vaguely creepy all the time? They’re always looking at me, all of them, and I know I’m not making it up in my head. Because I’m not the only one they look at. I’ve caught them watching the girls working in the gardens, staring at them from behind while they’re on their hands and knees pulling weeds.

I wasn’t raised super religious, but that doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t they, like, fight against lust?

Because that’s definitely the sort of thing Rebecca talks about during services. How we should all be good—pure. We’re all soldiers for the Lord. And we’re going to go out into the world and convince others to join us because ours is the true way.

It makes me shudder when I think of her pulling me up to the front of the room so I could testify to how desperate and awful my life was before she found me. At the time, a couple of months after I came here, I was happy to do it. I stood up there and said all the things she told me to say. How I owed my life to New Haven, to God’s mercy, all of that.

The worst part is, I sort of believed it then. I even convinced myself that maybe if Mom had been more pious, she might still be alive. That it was her fault she died. I was that twisted up.

I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean it.It’s amazing what you can get a kid to believe when they’re starving and broke, with nowhere to live. Nowhere to even take a shower. When you’re in that desperate of a place, you’ll do anything to stay out of it for as long as you can.

The bag on the cot that’s been my bed for the past year holds only the things I brought with me: a couple pairs of jeans, T-shirts, and a toothbrush. The basics, in other words, but at least I can say it all belongs to me. The few things I still possess from my old life. I always kept them under the cot, out of sight, afraid somebody would take them away from me. Because once you’re here, you’re supposed to let all of that other stuff go. The past. You’re supposed to be washed clean, ready for a new future.

But Mom bought me those clothes. Mom did my laundry for me and folded it when it was all clean. They’re all I have left of her presence in my life. I wasn’t about to give them up for anything.

I will have to go back to living on the street, but frankly, I would rather do that than stay here another night.

Because when I told Rebecca I was thinking about leaving a week ago, it was like I flipped a switch in her head. She was always stern, sort of cold, talking about love and acceptance but looking at people like she was judging them. The sort of person you want to impress not because you love them and want themto be proud but because you want to avoid them punishing you—like the kids who’ve been forced to skip meals for the stupidest little infractions.

She commands through fear. I realized that a few months ago, when everything started to look different. It was like I was seeing her through new eyes.

But her refusal—flat, cold, spoken like a judgment to which there could be no argument—opened my eyes wide. Like that one last piece of the puzzle fell in place, and I finally saw the whole picture.

Because why do you keep somebody from leaving a place like this unless there’s something you’re hiding?

“That is out of the question,” she said, almost with a laugh in her voice. “This is where you belong. With us. We are your family now. There’s no leaving family.”

That was when I started seeing the fences and the armed guards through different eyes. They’re not here to keep us safe from the outside world, the way Rebecca and her son and the so-called elders want us to think.

They exist to keep us inside. A reminder of what happens when you decide for yourself.

And once I saw that everything else was crystal clear. Like how we’re all forced to go to those strange church services, even if we’re sick, we have to go. And on the way in, the two men by the door count everybody—I finally figured out that was their way to make sure we were all where we needed to be. Everybody present and accounted for.

And dressed the way we’re supposed to dress. If you’re a man, you can get away with a lot.

If you’re a woman? I’m almost ashamed I didn’t think anything of it at first. I wanted to make excuses, to make it add up in my head. I mean, it didn’t seem like a huge sacrifice to not wear underwear. It wasn’t like they wanted us to be naked.

It’s enough to make me ashamed of myself. I hope Mom isn’t ashamed of me, looking down from where she is. I have to believe she’s there because I need somebody watching over me as I try to do this. I need to believe I’m going to get through it.