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“I need more than that, Zoriah,” he says softly.

“Yes. Can you help me get clean?” I ask. “I feel like I should definitely look for a new job, though.”

“Why’s that? Sick of me already?” He asks playfully as he kneels beside the tub.

“You’ve seen me naked, Roman,” I say. “You are having to clean my gross body because I’m too weak.”

“Zoriah,” he says, gently laying his hand on my forearm. “When you are ready, I want you to come back to work if you want to. If you don’t, I’ll give you the best recommendation. Why do you keep thinking I’m going to fire you?”

“I’m so used to losing people that I’m just waiting for you to leave too,” I admit.

“Oh, Riah,” he says with a sweet smile. “You’ll never be able to escape me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You mean it? You’re not just saying that because I’m too weak for you to make me leave?” I ask.

“I mean it,” he chuckles and pulls his phone out of his jeans pocket. “Relax for a second and let me call Corbin.”

“Mmkay,” I sigh.

He taps around and places the call on speaker when it starts ringing. “Hey. Any update? Dad got sick again, so we stopped for a minute.”

“I have her here with me,” Roman says.

“What? I will fucking kill you if you’re joking,” Corbin snaps.

“I’m not. She must have been close by. She ran here,” Roman explains. “She’s in the bath right now.”

“Oh, thank God. Is she okay? Is she hurt?”

“Uhhhh….” Roman says.

“Roman. Is she hurt?”

“They branded her lower back, but that is her only physical injury,” Roman says. “I’ll explain when you get here. Jim okay?”

“Shit. Okay. Yeah, he just needs to sleep, but he refuses. He’s a bit out of it right now, but he’s listening,” Corbin says. “We are almost there.”

“Okay. Shut the gate behind you. I’m going to lock the property down. No way she ran far, so they’re close,” Roman says.

“Got it. Pulling through now. I’ll just get out and hit the emergency shutdown. Ben is passed out, but I’ll wake him when I get up there.”

“Glad he’s resting. See you soon,” he says before ending the call.

“Dad is drunk, isn’t he?” I ask.

“He is not,” Roman says as he pulls my braids loose and starts washing. “He hasn’t had anything to drink since Friday. He’s detoxing, and it’s brutal on someone who has been drinking that long.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I close my eyes as Roman gently cleans my body.

He starts with my face before working his way down my neck and arms. The bubbles keep me concealed, but I don’t care at this point.

I just want to be clean so I can lie down and sleep.

The only sleep I’ve had was when I passed out from being forced to come too much, but that only lasted a few minutes.

I fucking crave to feel the way Huxley made me feel.

I know it’s possible with someone other than him, and I want it again.

I want to heal more, though. I want to rest and find a rhythm in my life again.

Roman is gentle as he cleans my chest, but I scream and try to escape the tub when the door slams open. Roman grabs me before I can get out and settles me. “Could you not do that?” Roman snaps.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” Corbin says. I turn into Roman crying, but one voice flips me back to that little girl I was when Dad found me pinned under my dead mother.

“Daddy,” I sob as he grabs me and pulls me to his chest. Pain rips through my soul as I cling to him and sob hysterically.

“I’ve got you. I’m right here, baby. You’re safe,” he says softly as he holds me.

“Why… That’s a lot of blood,” Corbin says as he kneels down beside Dad. He takes over hugging me as soon as Dad lets go.

“She slit some guy’s throat to get away,” Roman says as he pulls me away from Corbin to keep cleaning me.

“Damn, girl,” Ben laughs.

“Was Huxley… Did he hurt you?” Corbin asks.

“No,” I say. “He was there, and he was made to… do things… but… He was hurt too. He’s not there because he wants to be. He was trying to help Haley, but she’s a psycho bitch. I’m going to fucking kill her. That dumb fucking cunt…”

“Slow down and breathe,” Corbin interrupts. “Start from the beginning.”

“Okay,” I sigh. “I got home from work and took a shower. She was banging on my door, so I let her in. She was wearing some weird cult bullshit. It just wasn’t her.

I had not heard from her in about three weeks, but we were supposed to go to some bar that was opening up.

She called me out of nowhere, and I agreed to go…

She wanted me to go to church with her. I told her no, but she basically said that I didn’t have a choice and she wanted to do this the easy way…

that’s when Richard and Huxley came in. Huxley just stood there, but Richard choked me until I passed out.

I tried to send a message to Roman, but I didn’t get a chance to…

I woke up a while later in a room… I learned really fast to shut the fuck up. ”

“You don’t have to give details,” Corbin says. “Not unless you actually want to.”

“I do want to. I know better than to bottle it up,” I say.

“Just go slowly,” Dad says.

“So… I guess I’ll start with who the psychos are,” I say.

“Doug Peters is the leader. Haley essentially gave me to him as a sacrifice so she could find enlightenment and rid herself of sin, I guess. From what I gathered, she was not willingly there at first, but it only took getting raped by her father for her to enjoy it, I guess… Their belief is that all pleasure belongs to God, and the way to serve is to give your pleasure to God. Some act as conduits, so when they are branded with that symbol, they are a direct line to God. They are used, and the entire premise is to come as much as possible to give God that pleasure… I was their newest sacrifice, but Huxley said there were other people there in the other rooms. I think basically all of them are used like that. They do offerings where, for seventy-two hours, men will rotate through the room by the hour… They do whatever they want for an hour without causing injury…”

“Jesus Christ…” Roman says.

“Mmm. Yeah. He was nowhere near this hell,” I frown.

“Doug raped me orally right after I woke up. Haley and Pamela took my clothes off, wiped my body down with holy water, or something, and my hair was braided. I was taken into a bigger room where everyone was sitting. I was put on this altar so I was bent over and tied to it. Doug made Haley ‘ready her sacrifice’, which was me, which just consisted of her assaulting me and forcing me to, uh… yeah. So, then Doug raped me. That was some ritualistic marriage ceremony. I passed out. I was then taken back to a room with just a table.”

“What the fuck!?” Ben says.

“This is… far worse than I thought,” Corbin admits.

“It gets worse,” I say. It feels like a weight lifting off me to dump what happened out of my brain.

“I woke up, and I was tied to that table with my arms above my head, and my legs were… I was very… accessible. Doug made Huxley first. I could tell right away that he wanted no part of it. When it was just him and me, I panicked. He calmed me down and explained that he had no choice, or they would kill him. He was nearly hysterical because he couldn’t…

He was struggling a lot. We kind of kept each other calm. ”

“He’s been through a lot with his dad,” Corbin says.

“Yeah… and with Doug,” I say. The more I talk, the easier it gets, so I keep going. “There was a whole wall of sex toys in there, so he… used that to his advantage… Eventually, he was able to get there so he could start.”

“I’m not sure what to say about that,” Corbin admits. “I want to be angry at him.”

“He didn’t hurt me. At all,” I say. “He was very gentle with me… well…”

“Yeah. Yeah. We got it,” Corbin laughs, making me smile. “Go on.”

“After, I freaked out because I knew it meant he had to leave and someone else would come in. He promised me he would get me out of there. He helped me meditate for a while until it was time for him to leave,” I explain.

“He went to leave, but… Doug and Richard came in. I knew right away when Richard untied me, and I saw Doug was behind Hux… I knew he was going to hurt him… They had him say how many times I had an orgasm. When they made me answer, the answers were different. My number was higher than his, so they said that he owed God an orgasm.”

“Poor guy…” Roman says. “This whole situation is humiliating for both of you, I’m sure.”