Page 51 of Rescued By the Operative
There he is. The Prophet.
“The orange jumpsuit really brings out your eyes,” I tell him.
The old man sits on the bottom bunk of the small, rustic but cozy cabin, staring daggers at all of us. He’s got a chain tying his ankles together. One hand is handcuffed to a wooden rail at the foot of the bunk. “I want my lawyer.”
Ennis laughs. “Boy, did your kind let Georgie have a lawyer before shutting her up in a concrete box?”
He says nothing, but casts his gaze around the room, seemingly remembering all our faces. His frame is smaller than I imagined. His cheeks are sunken, and his hair is oily and thin. He doesn’t look at all like someone who could command an army of polygamists.
“Now I know he looks pathetic,” Dani starts. “But he’s been getting better than three-hots-and-a-cot since he came to stay with us.”
“Isn’t that right, old man?” Ennis says.
“You will be punished in the afterlife,” he croaks, a thin smile on his sallow face. “For taking what’s mine.”
The sound of his voice makes my blood run cold.
For the first time, it occurs to me that he might not survive the trial. And wouldn’t that be a bitch, if he didn’t get what he deserves in this life?
“They’re human beings and they don’t belong to anyone, least of all you,” I say.
“They were my flock. And you ravaged that flock,” the old man says.
“Don’t listen to him. All he does is talk crazy,” Ennis says.
“But God will forgive you. We’re all God’s children,” Orlyn says. “As you know, children struggle with obedience. We all must listen to what God is telling us. We have to keep working for the greater good. But God will not forgive you for tainting his chosen people. He won’t forgive you for sullying innocent women and turning them against his people.”
“Sure, sure,” Dani says. “Here, eat your lunch, now. We have to keep your strength up.”
It’s beyond me how anyone would let someone be in charge who preaches misogynistic gibberish. I stopped trying to understand people a long time ago.
The man can’t refuse a hot meal that’s better than what he’s getting at the jail, and better than whatever crap he’d been eating while in exile.
When he’s finished, he looks up at Dani with anger. “What are you doing? Put that away?”
I turn to Dani, who’s been recording Orlyn the whole time.
She pauses the video and says, “I’ll put it away once you tell your men that you’re OK. That you’re being treated nicely, and that your captors are demanding ten thousand dollars.”
“A she devil whore cannot put words in my mouth,” Orlyn says. “You are beneath me, Jezebel.”
The unexpected sound of Dani racking her lever-action rifle makes us all stand back. She points the barrel at The Prophet’s face.
“How about we let the .22 put words in your greasy mouth, then? Words like ‘ouch’ and ‘oh god, you shot me in the penis,’ and ‘please let me die’?”
Dani is scary when she’s pissed.
And I think Ennis might be in love.
I think Orlyn will comply with this home video now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nelly
I’m not ready for how I feel when Olivia, Louisa, Goldie, and Georgeann are reunited with their mothers, siblings, extended family, and friends.
The reunion in the barn dredges up a lot of old feelings about my late grandmother, and even deeper, forever-buried feelings about my mother. She took off with her dealer shortly after I was born. I never knew her, and I never plan on having any kind of reunion with her.