Lost

by Laura K. Curtis

  Of course, there was the creepy thing Owen had intimated about her not being happy if she left. She shivered, and Jake dropped her hand to slide an arm across her shoulders. Pulling her close, he pressed a kiss to her temple.

  “You okay?” he murmured in her ear, and she nodded.

  Other people were clustered into small groups here and there, taking advantage of the free time to socialize, even to flirt. Tara pointed out David, the man who’d returned after leaving the Chosen, and she and Jake circulated among the various groups until they could approach him without being obvious. He was standing with Aurora and Mary, so Tara let them make the introductions.

  “You left for a while, right?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah.” The man shifted, his eyes quickly surveying the area. They lit for a minute on Jonas and Joy, who stood talking a few yards away.

  “What made you come back?”

  David shrugged. “Wasn’t much out there. I thought I’d be happier. I was wrong.”

  “Was it hard? Coming back?” Tara did her best to keep the question from sounding too desperate.

  “That trip to the desert with Aaron, yeah, it pretty much sucked.”

  “What did you see? I mean, did you commune with the Powers? Did they touch you?” Aurora’s innocent face lit with curiosity.

  “Touch me?” His laugh was bitter. “I guess you could call it that. Felt more like a whipping. I thought I might die out there. With the fasting and the drinking of the herbs. But I came back. And when I did, I felt better again. More like myself than I had after I left.”

  “Harsh,” Jake observed.

  “Yeah. I guess the message is that you don’t turn your back on the Powers.”

  “Why would you want to?” asked Aurora, just as Jonas and Joy sauntered up to their little group.

  “I guess I felt like I needed a change. But it’s out of my system now.” His eyes flicked to Joy and then to Jonas.

  “Lives change,” Joy said placidly. “People grow and in the peace of our community they sometimes forget how little the Outside has to offer. They think there was some lack in themselves that has now been cured and they can be happy Outside. It doesn’t take too long for them to remember why they prefer living here.” She tucked a few loose strands of her salt-and-pepper hair back behind her ears.

  “Have you ever tried leaving to see whether it suited you?” Jake asked her.

  “I had my time Away. Once I came here, I knew I’d found my place.”

  “But you’ve been here how long?”

  “Twenty-eight years.”

  “So you were just a kid. Aren’t you even curious about what the world looks like now? So much has changed.”

  “I get what I want right here. I don’t need to look outward. You will see. You just need to let yourself adjust.”

  “I suppose. I admit, it seems foreign to me. Not even to go into town for a day or two at a time.”

  “I’ve sold flowers at the market. Gone in to buy supplies. It’s not as if I am unaware of how things are done Outside, but I would not want to live there.”

  “Well, that makes sense.”

  “I told you, Jacob,” Tara said. “You just need to give it some time.”

  He looked down at her, his gray eyes hooded and lazy. “You know I’d do anything for you, baby. You just gotta let me move at my own pace.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Having each other will make the transition smoother,” Joy said. “Serena is well adjusted to the Chosen. She visited with Pearl before signing up herself, and she’s lived among us for more than a month, so she can help you with any issues that may arise.” She cocked her head and looked at him as one might an odd, inexplicable animal. “But you cannot let the Fear drilled into you Outside ruin your life among the Chosen. We know what is out there; we just don’t let the fear of it oppress us.”

  “I know the bad stuff, but there’s some good stuff, too. Don’t you miss . . . I don’t know . . . chocolate?”

  “For the first few weeks it’s hard. After that, you don’t even notice. What do you miss most, Jacob?”

  “Computers. I mean real ones, not like building websites, which is nice, but the rush of beating a game that’s been programmed to beat me. Solving the final puzzle and gaining the treasure, beating the speediest guy on the track and taking home the trophy. That kind of thing.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you that none of those things are real? The treasure, the trophy?”

  He flashed a grin that—even though it wasn’t aimed in her direction—weakened Tara’s knees.

  “Nah. I just like to win. I don’t care about the prize.”

  “You’re not in competition with anyone here,” Jonas said. “The Chosen work together. In harmony.”

  Except when they don’t. Tara desperately wanted to punch him. Jake must have felt her tension, because his thumb began making slow, lazy circles on her neck.

  “Well, right now, I figure I’m in competition with everyone else in the world trying to sell organic products like ours. It gives me a goal—to make our website so rocking that keeping up with the orders will be tough.

  “And speaking of that, do you guys have a camera? We need to get better product photographs as well as some shots of the greenhouses and the orchards and stuff. People love to see how things they are considering buying are made. Plus we should really start a blog. You know, “what’s happening in the gardens of the Chosen” or the like that would have weekly pictures of what was coming up, what was being harvested, things like that. Keep people coming back.”

  “I believe there is one in the Leader’s office,” said Jonas. “I’ll ask him whether you can use it to improve the website.”

  “I have a pretty good one on my cell phone,” Jake said. “If he doesn’t want me to use the one from his office. But I gave that up when I came here, so you guys would have to dig it out.”

  “All cell phones are donated out for recycling,” Jonas said.

  “Oh. Then the camera it is.” Jake shrugged, but Tara didn’t believe his casual response any more than she believed the cell phones turned in by all who took the oath of the Chosen were sent out of the compound. Certainly not without being thoroughly mined for any and all information first.

  “There is one other thing I miss,” Jake said, tugging Tara even closer. “And if you don’t mind, I think my new bride and I are going to go remind ourselves what it is.”

  Tara felt her face flame, but it was obviously the right thing to say, as the others virtually pushed them away.

  • • •

  WHEN THEY RETURNED to their cabin, Jake proceeded to climb on the bed and search for cameras while Tara harassed him about his paranoia.

  “The government has drones the size of cockroaches. You don’t know who might be spying on us,” he said, poking into a shadowy corner. He came away with spider webs on his fingers and grimaced.

  “The government isn’t interested in you anymore, if they ever were. You’re a member of the Chosen. They don’t even know where you are.” She was about to launch into the part of the script where she extolled the virtues of the community over life Outside when she heard a sound from the bathroom. Without considering the consequences, she wrenched the door open.

  On the floor, Bea sat curled into a ball, her arms around her knees, rocking slightly.

  “Bea! What’s the matter?” Tara looked over her shoulder. “Get Caleb.” Jake took off and Tara lowered herself carefully to the floor beside Bea, making no quick moves that might startle the girl. “Is it the baby?”

  A shudder rippled through Bea’s body, but she shook her head.

  They hadn’t checked the bathroom for listening devices, so Tara got up and turned on the shower full hot. Steam would also cloak any cameras in the room, though she sincerely hoped Owen hadn’t stooped so low
as to put them in the bathrooms.

  “You need to get warm,” she said loudly. “Breathe in the steam slowly and see if it helps.”

  Moments later, Jake and Kevin burst in. Kevin dropped to the floor immediately and took Bea into his arms. “Hey, now,” he said gently. “What’s this?”

  Bea shook her head.

  Tara leaned close. “With the shower going, no one outside this room will know what you say. You’re safe here, with us.”

  “They always know,” Bea whispered. “They know everything.” She stared at the shower, then fixed her gaze on Tara. “You should get out. Now.” She looked up at Kevin. “All three of you. You’re good people. You don’t belong here.”

  “You’re a good person, too,” Kevin assured her.

  “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

  “What you’ve done—what you’ve been made to do—isn’t who you are,” Tara assured her.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Fat tears rolled down Bea’s pale cheeks. “I can’t ever leave.”

  “Why not, honey?” Kevin stroked Bea’s hair, wiping it away from her face.

  “He filmed it.” Bea’s voice was tiny, so frail and far away it took a minute for her words to penetrate, but when they did, Tara’s stomach revolted and a rush of pure rage sliced through her. “He put it on the Internet. Millions of people have seen it.”

  “None of that matters,” Kevin said. His tone was gentle, but in his eyes Tara saw fury warring with devastation. Clearly, he cared for the woman the Leader had “given” him. “If you’re scared of people recognizing you, you can get plastic surgery. A little change here, a little change there, and no one will ever know you’re the same person.”

  “That’s expensive. If I left, I’d have no money, nothing. I’d be alone. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “You wouldn’t be alone. And I have money. I’d get you the plastic surgery.”

  “Why?”

  “I—”

  Tara took pity on Kevin’s inability to speak. Here, now, wasn’t the time to try to explain his feelings. Perhaps he hadn’t even thought them through himself. “I wish we didn’t need to ask this, to bring up something so painful again,” she said to Bea, “but how do you know about the videotaping and the Internet? Did Jonas tell you?”

  Bea looked from one to the other, searching each of their faces from the haven of Kevin’s arms. Whatever she saw gave her the courage to tell her story.

  “He came for me one Sunday. Said he wanted a quilt for his room and would I come look at the bed, the decorations? I shouldn’t have gone. He always made me feel strange. But he’s one of the favorites of the Leader, one of the apostles. When we went to his house, he offered me a cup of tea.”

  Bea paused and Kevin pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  Behind Tara’s back, Jake shifted position slightly so he could take her hand. Tara twined their fingers together and held on.

  “I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up n-naked in his b-bed.” Tears dripped steadily down Bea’s face, but lost in the past she didn’t notice them. “He had a l-laptop. And he showed me the s-site. Where men paid to watch me. There were c-close-ups of my f-face. I was d-doing th-things . . . ” She broke down completely, and Kevin rocked her and stroked her hair and murmured in her ear.

  “So you s-see,” she said when she’d regained a modicum of control, “it wasn’t exactly rape. I did those things.”

  “It was rape,” Kevin growled. “Exactly. Precisely. And that rat fuck bastard will pay for it.”

  But Bea wasn’t hearing him. “And you don’t have to stay with me,” she said. “I’ll understand if you want me to go.”

  Tara watched Kevin’s biceps bunch beneath his T-shirt as he held Bea in place. Simultaneously, she felt Jake squeeze her hand.

  “Do you want to leave me, sweetheart?” Kevin asked.

  “No, but—”

  “I think we get along pretty well.”

  “But we haven’t even—”

  “Plenty of time for that. I wouldn’t expect you to be interested living here where you have to see that rat fuck every day.”

  “Bea,” Tara jumped in before Kevin’s understandable fury could lead them off track, “can you tell us how you came to join the Chosen, and about your life here before?”

  “And your real name,” Kevin added. “I don’t want to think of you with the name these assholes assigned you.”

  Was that why Jake never referred to her as Serena? “Baby,” “babe,” “sweetheart”; always endearments, never a name.

  “Elizabeth,” Bea said. “Elizabeth Addison. My mother called me Lizzie. There was only ever me and her. I never knew my father. She got sick—breast cancer—and I dropped out of college my sophomore year to take care of her. It took her three years to die, but she did despite the fact that I used every penny we had to try to keep her alive. So I was alone, broke, and without any skills or a degree.

  “I heard about the Chosen in a grief support group. A guy was considering coming out here because he thought being closer to the land might help him heal, but he was afraid it was just running from his grief rather than dealing with it. But he had ties I didn’t—a job, a family—so I didn’t care whether it was just running or not; I took off the next day and hitched out here.

  “It was hard at first, but I adjusted. And I did feel better, I missed my mother, but the pain seemed . . . distant, less pressing, I guess is the best way to describe it. Not so all-consuming. I felt secure for the first time since she got sick. And then . . . ”

  “And then Jonas raped you and took it all away.” There was murder in Kevin’s voice.

  “Elizabeth, was the video the only reason you stayed?” Jake asked.

  “What the fuck kind of question is that!” Kevin half turned his body as if to protect Elizabeth from Jake.

  “Chill!” Jake hissed. “And keep your damned voice down. We’re all on the same side here.” He raised his voice. “I know pregnancy is a personal thing, but it’s not like I’m asking about your sex life.” He paused, then returned to his careful whisper. “Look, something more than threats is keeping people here, and killing them when they leave. Your partner wasn’t the only one.”

  “Partner?” Elizabeth’s head came up and she looked around, her tear-filled gaze coming to rest on Tara. “You’re police?”

  “Law enforcement,” Jake confirmed. “Different branches.”

  “No wonder,” Elizabeth breathed.

  “No wonder?”

  “This afternoon, when you were out, the Leader called me into his office. I was so scared. You asked me why I stayed. Well, there was the video. But I was also just kind of dead inside. I didn’t do chores or anything for days. Didn’t even eat or drink, just huddled into a ball in my bunk. But Deborah, who runs the infirmary, kept after me with soup and tea and vitamins. Day in and day out, soup and tea and vitamins. And eventually it seemed like escape or even suicide was more effort that it was worth, more effort than just getting back to work. After all, work had saved me before.

  “And then, when I found out I was pregnant—” She sat up straighter and squared her shoulders. “Well, then I did try to kill myself. I stole a knife from the dining hall and tried to cut my wrists. But one of my bunkmates found me in the bathroom, and Deborah bandaged me up and it all started again. Soup and tea and vitamins. Because,” her lips twisted bitterly, “I might not matter, but children are ‘blessings of the Powers,’ and I couldn’t damage myself without damaging that baby.

  “I was in the infirmary for almost a month, and I was never left alone. Not ever. Eventually, the numbness came back, and I just went back to doing what I was told. It was easier than fighting.”

  She looked up at Kevin. “And then they gave me to you. And I was terrified. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She frowned. “Why did they do that?”

  “At a guess,” Jake said, “to separate you from the rest of the group in case you said anything about what had happened to you. You’d be less likely to confide in a man.”

  “Especially me,” Kevin agreed. He held out his arm, and Tara noticed a crude tattoo drawn inside his forearm. “My cover. Two years for domestic assault. When I came here, I wouldn’t give them a name, wouldn’t tell them anything about myself, but I left enough information for them to find it out if they wanted to. Apparently, they did.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “For the past, I don’t know, month or so, I’ve been feeling pretty good again. But when the Leader called me into his office, all the stuff I’d managed to push away came back. We sat there in his office drinking tea, and he said—” she shuddered. “He asked me whether I liked living with you.”

  “And do you?” Kevin asked.

  Elizabeth nodded again. “And he said he didn’t like to dissolve unions, but that another man had expressed an interest in me.”

  “Jonas,” Kevin growled.

  “He didn’t say, but I knew who he meant. He told me this other man might be a better fit for me because he—the Leader—wasn’t sure I’d truly devoted myself to the will of the Powers as I should, and that I might need a man more established in his service than you are. Or I could prove my dedication and stay here, with you.”

  “What did he want you to do?” asked Jake.

  “I am supposed to keep an eye on you two. He didn’t think your purification had taken. I’m supposed to befriend Serena, teach her to quilt, that sort of thing. Try to listen in on your conversations. Be sure you are truly dedicated to the Powers and the Chosen.”

  “Spy on us.” Tara’s mouth tasted sour. At least it meant Owen had probably removed electronic bugs from their bedroom—if he had those, he wouldn’t need human ears.

  “I didn’t want to, but—”

  A knock at the door of Jake and Tara’s side cut her off. Jake pressed a finger to his lips and went to answer it.

  Chapter Seven