Sparrows & Sacrifice

by Nellie K Neves

  As the final woman finished that morning, Harmony called us for lunch. I sat near Genesis and Harmony as women and children filtered in to our makeshift table. When enough conversation had picked up around me, I took a chance and turned to Genesis.

  “What’s going on?”

  She didn’t pause in her eating, and I wondered if she’d heard me.

  “Liam says there’s a job in the morning.” Her eyes remained forward to make it look as though she was focused on something else. “They do this before big events, get the women happy to keep the rebellious men compliant.”

  Harmony, ever the spiller of secrets, said, “It used to be like this all the time. Not over the top like this, but happy.”

  Her voice trailed off and her final word hovered around us, unable to find a host.

  Ryder had mentioned a job. I’d seen the blueprints in Cyrus’ office. It had to be the same. Guilt rushed back as I helped the others clean the dishes. I’d enjoyed the bribe. Once more, I hadn’t seen what was right in front of me. I was a pawn being used to manipulate Ryder.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The women broke into cabin groups after lunch and Fern hurried us down a side trail. We neared Willow’s cabin, but I held back. I’d never intended to return. The blood on my skirt came alive and screamed for retribution.

  “I know Willow made a few other pieces,” Fern faltered, “before she transitioned.”

  It was the first crack I’d seen since the initial moment in the garden. Denial was a powerful drug.

  The cabin looked the same, but I felt the matriarch’s absence. Fern pulled skirts from a box, pastel pink, royal blue, and a soft mint.

  “Fern, these belong to the girls in the house.” Harmony wagged a finger at her. “You know we can’t wear these.”

  Genesis snatched the mint green skirt and her lips tightened in thought.

  “It’s one night.”

  River snatched the pastel pink.

  “It’s a celebration day. And they have too many already.”

  The excuse satisfied Harmony, and the pilfered goods were distributed before we moved back to our cabin. For well over an hour, I sat patiently as the others primped, content to watch. Because of my job, I’d learned the skills, but I’d never been one for makeup and fussing.

  But my cabin mates took it to another level. Beauty constructed from complicated braids or twists and crowns, weaving patterns of hair that ran into each other, dipping and diving up and over the next with ribbons and flowers tucked into every crack or crevice. Harmony finally noticed me, tucked back on Fern’s bunk, hair combed, but still wet and straight. Damp circles formed on my thin linen top.

  “Sparrow, you need to do your hair for your man.”

  Genesis laughed to herself as I pulled a face at Harmony’s words.

  “I don’t know how.”

  The floodgates opened after only a second of hesitation. A rush of femininity surged to seize me. Words and exclamation, shouts and ideas swirled as fast as their fingers looped and pulled at my hair. I’d always hated it when men compared the chaos of women talking to hens cackling. But after seeing a henhouse firsthand, and hearing the squabble buzzing around my head, it made more sense than I wanted to admit.

  It took four women and at least forty-five minutes before they declared me finished. Harmony bent and dug beneath her bunk for the final element. She handed me a creamy long sleeve top, something to hide my scars for the night.

  The cabin went electric with energy, buzzing with excitement. While my nerves told me to remain cautious for the night’s events, it couldn’t be all bad with the way they were acting. We stepped out into the chilled air. To my surprise, a group of men waited for us. A few had wild flowers, obviously picked in haste because the dirt clumps still clung to the roots. At second glance, I noted other women locked in the embrace of their men. Even more shocking, I saw three other couples kissing. No retribution in sight.

  A sharp squeal broke my concentration. Harmony knocked me aside. Her feet thumped hard down the path until she slammed into Gabe, nearly knocking him to the ground. Liam scooped Genesis into his arms and spun her around until they fell into a mess of laughter and kissing.

  The sun barely crested the horizon. It had to be nearly November. The days were shorter. The light of the sunset warmed my back and lit my hair. Out of the corners of my vision, a flare of sunlight blinded me for a moment. As my vision cleared, I saw him walking toward me, one hand stuffed in his pocket, the other carrying a single wild daisy.

  Ryder waited until he was close enough for only me to hear. “Hey there, Huckleberry.”

  His gaze dropped once to take in what I wore, but quickly rose and settled on my face. He tried to speak, but it ended in a soft smile. A gap cropped up between his lips, as if he were trying to breathe, but had forgotten how. I noted his dilated pupils, a sign of attraction, fright, or deception, and I smiled because I knew which of the lot had caused it.

  “You’re beautiful,” he managed after a moment.

  “You’re looking pretty sharp as well.”

  I recognized the khaki hiking pants, though they were cleaner than I’d last seen them, but the blue dress shirt was new. He noted my expression and pulled at the collar.

  “Left over from Gabe’s corporate life.”

  “It’s nice.”

  He reached out for my hand, but I pulled back, instantly afraid of punishment. Ryder persisted and caught my fingers, drawing me near.

  “Tonight is different.”

  He closed our distance and slipped the daisy behind my ear with a kiss to my cheek.

  “But why?”

  “The job,” he said as if it explained everything. He paused, trying to play it off as though he was swept up in the moment, but I recognized the way he bit his lip and held his breath. He was smothering what he wanted to say.

  “We leave in the morning at first light.”

  I hushed my voice and crushed the space between us out of fear. “It’s a bank robbery. You can’t go. I saw the plans. It’s too dangerous—”

  Ryder’s palm wrapped around my jaw. My voice cut short as I felt the pressure of his thumb against my lips.

  “I know. You have to trust me.”

  Normally, the phrase would have triggered panic and flight response, but there in the safety of his arms, I felt only peace.

  “What’s the plan tonight?”

  Slightly reddening, Ryder refused to look at me. “Liam says these are good nights. The children are in bed. There’s food and music and even dancing. These are the sanctioned nights they talk about.”

  I caught his bashful demeanor like an airborne illness. “What? Is this a date?”

  A teasing, derisive laugh rumbled in his chest, before he said, “No, our first date isn’t going to be at a cult’s campfire. I have something more traditional planned when we get out of here.”

  A thought broke into my mind and shattered everything else.

  “Sky. I mean Tasha. Will she be here?” I hurried on before he could stop me. “We could talk to her, arrange her escape, at least get her…” My voice slowed to a stop as his head began to shake.

  “Cyrus doesn’t come to these. He’s deep in planning which means the women are stuck in the house as well.” His lips snaked up. “He says he needs their help.”

  I didn’t have the stomach to ask him what it meant, or why he’d made the face.

  The other couples began to disappear up the path. Golden rays tinged the high grasses, sparkling and glinting light as skirts rustled their length with the slightest pressure. Iris held back, the only woman left. Moonlight pressed against her legs, sleepy with a full belly and rosy cheeks from what I feared was a fever. I expected Iris to watch us with jealousy, or disgust, but her daggers flew over the happy couples and sunk deep into the siding of the house that glowered down on her.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It wasn’t hard to notice Ryder stealing glances at me as we walked hand in hand to the center clear
ing. He’d improved since our last meeting. I couldn’t pinpoint it, except there was more of him and less of what Eden’s Haven had cultured.

  The fire hardly glimmered in the distance. As we approached, Raife stood nearby, the long rifle still clutched in his grip, but his other arm wrapped around Fern, lost in her affection. His contradictory nature perked my curiosity. Willow had told me he hadn’t always been an abusive, power-hungry brute. For a moment, I felt sorry for him. His fingers dug into his wife’s back, his mouth formed her real name in a tender gasp between kisses, and the conflict within him raged. Always torn between devotion to a woman and his loyalty to Cyrus’ power, Raife played the victim as well as the abuser.

  Without breaking for a breath, he tossed two logs into the flames. The collision released an explosion of glittering sparks. Sweeping her off her feet without a word to anyone else, they disappeared into the reaching fingers of ever-spreading night.

  Ryder watched them as well, but with no trace of the pity or sympathy I’d found. The head guard had caused Ryder more pain than he could forgive. Still, I felt his relief spread as the last traces of Raife faded away. A couple of men rolled stumps to the fire. Guitars, buckets, and a banjo glinted in the glowing firelight as the makeshift band made ready.

  Gabe and two other men threw more logs on the fire, releasing a new shower of sparks. That same energy I’d felt with the women electrified the air, not just happiness, but joy amplified by laughter and the freedom to act without reprisal.

  The guitars tuned and odd scales of swerving, plucking, sliding strains filled the air. I braced myself for an onslaught of memories from the Rockin’ B, but the memories never came. Ryder claimed a stump for the two of us, enough space if I allowed his arm around my waist to hold me steady. Anxiety rattled in my chest, but not fear. Anxiety spurred me to action, to do something to stop the awful churning and spinning feeling within my gut, but without fear, what would end it? What drove my mind into such a frenzy that I could barely breathe?

  My eyes fell on Ryder’s hand. His fingertips traced the length of mine.

  It was him.

  He’d caused it.

  Anxiety gripped him as well, marked by fervid twitches and the careful caution he employed.

  But the fear wasn’t gone, not completely. It raged in fury in my next breath.

  Fear of being with him.

  Fear of losing him.

  Fear that I might actually love him, because if the churning in my stomach and the ache in my arms weren’t from love, then what could cause such a wonderful misery?

  Harmony bounced by, a ray of sunshine darting on Gabe’s arm as she passed bread to the couples. Ryder’s hand moved away from me and some of the anxiety faded, though not all. I did my best to watch the others. Ryder had charged me with being able to decipher the innocent from the guilty, and I still doubted my abilities. Even worse, Ryder distracted me from the task.

  The fire grew and hardly a shadow remained on his face, strong angular lines, those adorable pinched out ears and the full bottom lip I couldn’t help but watch with perfect fascination. His face twisted toward mine, but I stared away, shoving part of the roll in my mouth to give it some sort of alibi. He chuckled at my antics, but it was all part of a game I hadn’t played in ages, if ever at all.

  I didn’t know how to proceed. I always had a plan, some end result I wanted, but, there next to him, he was all I wanted and it troubled me.

  “I still don’t understand the point of this.” I let myself fall forward, my elbows resting on my knees, face cradled in my palms, horribly unladylike by my Aunt Stella’s standard. “They think they can get you all hyped up and maybe you’ll forget everything that’s happened here?”

  Instead of correcting my posture, Ryder joined me, mimicking my position until I felt his face to the left of mine.

  “I had this history teacher in high school. He told us that before this aboriginal tribe used to go out hunting for an elephant or mammoth or whatever,” his grin cracked at his own exaggeration, “they’d build a big fire and play loud music with drums and dance around until they felt invincible. They were strung so high on adrenaline they’d fight anything, even if it killed them.”

  A few of the couples paired off in a dance. They traded partners, spun, traded again, almost as if they were cogs and gears in a machine, but elegant. Ryder’s words took on a poignant pain as I watched them.

  “I guess,” his voice brought my attention back to him, “there’s something about looking into the eyes of a beautiful woman that makes you feel invincible. It makes you think you can do crazy things.”

  The scar on my face burned beneath his scrutiny. I had to look away. I couldn’t claim beauty anymore. I’d dismiss any flattery on his part as lies. Yet, as he eased closer, I thought perhaps he could see something beneath the scars. For the first time in my life of covert living, maybe someone finally saw—me.

  “What do you say, Lindy? Dance my last dance with me?”

  I turned back. His hand stretched toward me. Stammering spilled from my mouth as though I couldn’t get the excuses out fast enough.

  “I can’t—you know I can’t—I mean we don’t even know what they’re—”

  But he caught my hand, and nothing silenced me like his strong assurance.

  “That’s half the fun, Huckleberry.” His smile lit me on fire, glowing, burning and withering under its control. “Besides, your last dance is a memory I’d like to erase.”

  Between the spinning and hand offs, the laughing and Ryder catching me in his arms once more, between all the jubilant chaos that encompassed whatever the people at Eden’s Haven had named dancing, I felt a few more knots slip loose that had tied Ryder and Dallas together in my mind.

  Chapter 29

  We ate together.

  Such a small act, and yet it strengthened me in ways I didn’t comprehend. Ryder’s assessment of the other men rang true. Gabe, Liam, Remi, and Abram seemed to be the closest to Ryder, with inside jokes that sent them into fits of laughter so intense the rest of us could only stare on in confusion. There was no deception that I could see, in fact the scene felt so typical of real life that occasionally I had to remind myself that we were still at Eden’s Haven and not camping as friends.

  There were others though, Thomas, glaring from the darkness, a young girl sandwiched uncomfortably beside him, and another Ryder called Nick. Nick guarded the weapons. Return a weapon without cleaning it—punishment. Return a weapon late—punishment. Look at Nick wrong—punishment. It was clear by the scowl and the way he still shoved Ryder around that he didn’t approve of the festivities.

  “When the time comes,” Liam whispered, “Nick will get what he deserves.”

  It wasn’t the first I’d heard of the rebellion. Veiled references cropped up in conversation, but with no indication of when. My heart raced as I wondered if it would happen before the job in the morning. Surely Ryder would tell me but…

  His arm slipped along my lower back, his face dipped into the crook of my shoulder, breath slow and easy as if there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

  “Let’s leave lover boy to his woman.” Liam’s words barely registered as they left us after dinner. All I heard was Ryder’s breath, mine matching in rhythm and cadence, the fear and the glow intensifying with every moment he held me. When I thought my body might break under the pressure, my whisper cracked the tension between us.

  “What?”

  He’d made suppression an art. Ryder could withhold volumes of text deep in his chest while always letting me know it was there if I wanted to pull it free. But I didn’t know if I wanted it or not. Responsibility for the knowledge attached to what he had to say. If I knew it, I had to be accountable.

  “It meant a lot to me,” he remained close enough that I saw the dark flecks of black in the irises of his eyes, “the things you told me in the woods. I know that wasn’t easy, but it meant a lot to me.”

  The mere mention of that day made me cower back,
but his arm held me steady and near.

  “I meant it.”

  “I know.”

  The dancing resumed. The music sprang to life, an eclectic blend of noise that somehow became beautiful through the chaos. Ryder wanted to say something. He needed to tell me something, but he kept it locked up.

  “You haven’t kissed me tonight.” The words fell out before I could stop them, and it was his turn to pull away.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about us and,” he ran his free hand over his hair, “I’ve noticed something.” His tongue traced his teeth as he thought about the words. “I’m always ahead of you, yanking you along. From that very first night, I was throwing myself at you and you were trying to get your job done. You think I’d learn, but I keep doing it, desperate acts to try to get your attention, to let you know how much I care about you.” He snickered at a private thought. “I’m like that kid who jumps off the garage to show a girl how tough he is, but he breaks his wrist and cries in front of her.”

  A memory, not a story. Ryder had long since been the boy who craved to be noticed, ached to be loved, and I, like every other person in his life, had continually disappointed him.

  “I’m letting you catch up for once. I can’t expect you to feel what I’m feeling when I keep trapping you in parking lots while you’re bleeding to death and expecting answers. I’m still waiting on that maybe, but this time I’m actually waiting.”

  I wanted to ask him about Sleuth28, whether he had created an alter ego to talk to me. I wanted to assure him that the feelings were real, even if he’d pulled me into them. I wanted to kiss him, to fall into his arms and tell him he was everything I ever needed. But all I managed was, “Thank you.”

  The night and his mouth tensed, as if it wasn’t what either had wanted, but he kept his promise anyway.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked after a moment.