Page 4

4

Nash

As Adam focuses his anger on Maren for being stupid enough to bring a new recruit here because she wanted to get some before handing her over to us like she’s supposed to, I watch out the window while a car speeds away from the farmhouse. I didn’t see anyone but us and Maren with that chick upstairs, but someone must have been hiding downstairs.

I stare at the driver, trying to memorize her face in case she shows up again, but she’s too far away for me to make out her features. She has light brown hair that reminds me of that girl I liked in high school. It’s odd that I should notice that since most of the time the way a person’s hair looks doesn’t make much of an impression on me.

“What the fuck are you looking at, man?” Adam snaps at me. “A little help here would be nice.”

He’s such a dick. As if handling a woman who weighs no more than a buck twenty is work. It’s not like the other one is giving him any hassle anymore since he knocked her out. He’s as big as I am, and I could carry both of them out of this house with their arms and legs flailing the whole time.

I slowly turn around and look down at him sprawled out on the floor with Maren slapping her hands off his chest. How hard would it be to simply pin her arms above her head to calm her down? Maybe if he didn’t make everything a fucking hassle this wouldn’t happen to him.

“Which one do you need help with?” I ask and then chuckle. “The unconscious one or the one doing her own idiotic version of shadowboxing?”

Angry, like always, he shoves Maren into the wall before standing up. “Take this bitch. I’ll handle the other one.”

He grabs the unconscious blond girl and throws her over his shoulder before storming past me. Her head bounces off the doorframe, but he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care and keeps walking to the stairs.

Maren sobs in the corner, so I slowly approach her to avoid upsetting her even more. She stares at me with madness in her dark eyes, looking like a wild animal someone made the mistake of trapping.

Great. Just what I need today.

“Calm down,” I say as I stop in front of her. “There’s no need to freak out. You know we have to go back to the farm. Just take it easy, and we’ll be fine.”

She shakes her head as she wipes the tears and mascara that have run down her face. “I don’t trust you. I saw you beat the hell out of someone in the great room the other day.”

I nod since she’s right. I did have to punish someone, but it’s not like I was beating on a woman like her. The guy was nearly my size and had to be at least six feet tall, so I wasn’t exactly picking on a helpless victim. Anyway, he broke the rules and knew what would happen when he did. I was just the one who had to impose the penalty.

“Well, I don’t plan to beat the hell out of you, Maren. Just behave and we’ll do fine.”

After taking a deep breath in and letting it out in a rush, she pulls her knees to her chest. “What about him? Something tells me he isn’t thinking the same way.”

I shrug because she’s not wrong. Adam is always up for inflicting pain on people. Male or female, adult or child, if he can take out his rage on someone, he’s a happy guy. Thank God he’s rarely given permission. He’s likely to get grief for the way he acted toward Maren today, but he doesn’t care about that.

“Let me handle him. I just need you to come with us. Keep quiet and don’t fight, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t step out of line, okay?”

Looking around for Adam, I’m happy he seems to be waiting in the car. I don’t need his bullshit for being kind to her. Just because he doesn’t have a nice bone in his body doesn’t mean I have to be an asshole to anyone.

Our job is to get her back to the farm. Nobody instructed me to use violence to do it. We’re guards for The Golden Light. That doesn’t mean we have to go around hurting everyone.

Maren continues to shake her head. “I don’t trust you.”

I crouch down and look her directly in the eyes. “I don’t care. I have a job to do. I need to bring you back so you can find The Golden Light again. It’s that simple. I have no interest in hurting you, but if I can’t get you to come peacefully, I’ll do what I have to. So what’s it going to be?”

“He’s going to punish me,” she says in a trembling voice.

Unsure who she means, I ask, “Adam? I just told you if you don’t fight me I won’t do a thing. He won’t either.”

Barely loud enough for me to hear, she answers, “No. Micah.”

I blow the air out of my lungs. “Probably. You knew the rules when you joined The Golden Light, Maren.”

She lowers her head to her chest so it’s even harder to hear what she says. “I just wanted to spend some time with her. We have a connection. Why can’t he understand that?”

This is not a conversation I want to have. I know why Micah doesn’t allow group members to leave the farm to be together. She does too. She just doesn’t want to admit it. It’s not like he ever makes his opinion a secret, especially when it comes to members doing things without his permission. She didn’t ask to be with that girl, so she broke the rules. It’s that simple. Why she wants to draw this out and make things worse is beyond me.

“Come on. It’s time to go. If we keep Adam waiting any longer, he’s going to come up here, and then we’ll both have to deal with what he does to you.”

I stand up and extend my hand to help her up, but she refuses to take it. Instead, she pushes herself up on her own, backing away from me when she gets up on her feet.

She makes her way to the hallway as I follow her, but when we begin walking down the stairs, she stops midway, shaking her head again. Jesus, this woman is a goddamned hassle. She agreed to the rules when she joined us, yet now she wants to act like she’s fucking surprised she’s in trouble.

Maybe I should just let Adam deal with her.

“Keep moving, Maren.”

Looking back at me, she starts to cry. “I don’t want to go into the box. Please tell Micah I wasn’t bad for you. He might not put me in there.”

She’s confused if she thinks anything I say will help her. I’m just one of his guards. Nothing more. As for the box, that’s where his favorite punishment happens, so she’s going in. She should just accept it and deal instead of dragging her feet like this.

But since she’s going to be a pain in the ass if I make her see the truth, I force a smile and say, “I will.”

That seems to put her at ease, and she begins walking down the stairs again. By the time we reach the first floor, I’m tired of doing this with her and almost ready to just throw her over my shoulder like Adam did with that other girl to expedite things.

As we walk through the house toward the back door, she mumbles, “I loved living in this house. It was left to me by my grandfather.”

Behind her, I say, “And now it’s Micah’s.”

She glances back at me and nods. Maren knows the rules. To be a part of The Golden Light, you have to sign over anything you own to Micah. He knows best how to manage everyone’s possessions, especially since they never fail to make people think of life outside the group. She heard all of this the day she joined, so I don’t understand why she’s acting like this now.

When we reach the kitchen, she stares straight ahead and whispers, “Please tell him I never stopped believing.”

I don’t respond, so she turns around and looks up at me with a sadness in her eyes that hits me in the center of my chest. “Will you? Please?”

Answering with a nod, I expect her to keep walking, but she stops like she’s waiting for me to tell her I will do as she wants. Since we need to get moving, I reluctantly answer her, even though I have no intention of getting in the middle of this mess.

“Sure. I will.”

Relief seems to wash over her, and although she has nothing to be happy about at this moment, she gives me a tiny smile. “Thank you.”

Personally, all I can think of is how relieved I’ll be when we finally get in the car. At least then I’ll know she’s accepted what’s going to happen.

When we step out onto the porch, the heat of the day hits me like a brick wall. Summer in the mid-Atlantic is always steamy, but this is stifling. Thank God I don’t have to do anything physical today. I don’t think I have it in me.

No wonder Maren’s terrified of the box. It’s going to be over a hundred and ten degrees in there.

Her foot hits the first step on the way down to the yard, and in an instant, she’s off like a shot across the grass before I even realize what she’s doing. Damnit! And here I thought she understood how this had to go.

I watch her run like a madwoman for about ten seconds before breaking into a sprint to go after her. Sweat pours down the sides of my face because of the heat and humidity, but there’s no way I’m going back to the farm without her. I’m not going to suffer because she’s lost her goddamned mind.

“Maren! Don’t make it worse than it already is. Stop right now!” I call out, but she keeps running.

Son of a bitch! She’s going to be lucky if I don’t let that fucker Adam handle this when I finally get a hold of her.

From around the side of the house, I see him come bolting past me and know this isn’t going to end well. I yell to her to stop once more, but it’s no use.

This is out of my control now.

A moment later, I watch Adam take out his piece and my heart sinks. He’s going to say we were justified in doing it, but Micah isn’t going to be happy about her dying.

“Adam! We can catch her,” I yell to him, but it’s like he can’t hear me. “Just get her and put the gun away!”

My words get lost in the heavy air that’s making it hard for me to keep running, and a second later, the sound of a gunshot pierces the silence. Maren drops to the ground like a hundred pound sack of dirt. I keep running because I don’t know what he’ll do to her if he gets to her first. My heart slams into my chest and my thigh muscles feel like they’re going to explode from under the skin, but I have to beat him to where she lies.

Thankfully, his passion for inflicting pain evaporates once he sees her go down, and I blow by him. When I reach her, I know she’s dead. I still crouch down to check her pulse because something inside me says that’s what I’m supposed to do.

My fingers press against her neck, but I feel nothing. Not even a faint heartbeat to cling to for a few moments.

Behind me, Adam grunts out, “Serves her right. Fucking bitch. Scoop her ass up and take her to the car.”

The sight of Maren lying there lifeless turns my stomach. Even though I’ve killed before, something about seeing her dead in the green grass with the bright sun shining down on her feels wrong.

Slowly, I turn around as bile inches up into my throat. Adam looks particularly pleased with himself, which pisses me off more. I want to smack that smug smile off his face right now.

“You do it. You killed her.”

As I begin to walk away toward the car, I hear him grumble something, so I spin around to face him. “What? If you have something to say, say it or shut the fuck up.”

I don’t know where this anger is coming from, but if he wants to push me on this, he’s going to be surprised. Adam stares at me in shock, probably confused because I’ve never pushed back against anything he’s ever told me to do, despite the fact that he’s not my superior, and I see in his expression that he understands he’s standing just on the line. If he wants to step over that line, he better be ready for what’s coming at him.

Like a fever breaking, he laughs and shrugs. “Fine. I don’t care. It’s not like it’s a lot of work for me to carry her to the car. Whatever.”

He lifts her in his arms, and her lifeless head flops over his bicep. Her eyes are still open, and it’s like she’s staring into my soul and silently indicting me for letting this happen to her. I look away and start for the car, sick and tired of this fucking day already.

Adam returns to barking out orders, but I’m not listening. All I can hear is Maren’s soft voice in my head asking me to tell Micah she never stopped believing.