The girl released another sob, her frail shoulders hunched over. “I found you,” she whispered brokenly, through her tears. “I really found you.”
Mae looked back, questions evident in her eyes. Lilah joined Mae, and crouched down to meet the young girl’s eyes. “Do you have a name?”
The girl seemed to steady her breathing, and said quietly, “Sarai. My name is Sarai.”
Lilah smiled gently. “Sarai, can you tell us what has happened. Where you have come from?”
Sarai straightened, wincing as she moved her legs. Without her speaking a word, I knew she had been violated. I felt like screaming out loud. She was a child. That awful place had hurt another child.
“I… I have come from New Zion. I managed to escape.” Sarai closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, then met Lilah’s eyes, and said, “They kept hurting us. They kept doing things to us. Bad things.” I fought back nausea as she spoke, knowing the feeling all too well. “Some of the girls had spoken about the Cursed Sisters that had escaped. Many of the girls talk of how you got away… and when… when… when they hurt me… hurt us tonight, we ran too.”
Lilah swallowed and asked, “Who is we, Sarai?”
Sarai’s face scrunched in pain and another sob escaped her throat. “My friends. But… but they got caught at the gate. They did not tell the guards I was there, in hiding. They helped me to get free. I have been travelling for hours. Someone helped bring me here. A stranger, someone that saw me lost on a road somewhere…” Sarai broke down again.
Lilah got to her feet, and looked at Mae. “Mae?”
But before Mae could speak, Ky said, “Are y’all believing this shit?”
Lilah’s wide eyes went to her husband. “Ky! Please.” Sarai, at Ky’s harsh tone, curled into herself further, her scratched and swollen ankles appearing under her dress.
“What? A bitch from the cult turns up in the middle of the fucking night and no one is thinking this could be a fucking set up? The cult that definitely wants us all fucking dead.” He turned to Styx. “Tell me I’m not alone in this, brother?”
Styx signed something and Mae shook her head. “She is terrified, baby. I get what you are saying. I understand that you are wary, but look at her. Anyone can see she is petrified.”
I followed Mae’s finger to Sarai who was huddled on the ground. Her pretty face was pale and her body shook with fear. Mae’s breathing hitched, and looking to Styx, she said, “That was me. I was this girl. I was this girl running to escape that hell.” Mae stepped to Styx and ran her finger down his face. “The girl you saved.” Mae shook her head and dropped her eyes. “We cannot leave her. She needs our help. I cannot send her away.”
Styx tipped his head back, then staring at his wife, signed something back.
Mae straightened her shoulders, and said, “We need to get her cleaned up. She needs food and a doctor. I think she has been raped.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I heard Ky snap, but I could not take my eyes off the young girl. She was bruised, beaten and broken… I knew exactly how she felt.
Styx signed something to Tank and he pulled out his cell. “Where do I get the doc to go?”
Lilah lifted her hand. “Our cabin. She can stay with us.”
“What?” Ky bit out, anger in his voice.
Lilah faced Ky. “Maddie lives with Mae. There is no room. We have plenty, and…” Lilah’s words trailed off and she took a deep breath. “Ky you do not understand. You do not understand what life is like in that commune as a young girl. How brave she is to leave that life, and at her age. She—” Lilah’s words stopped as Ky pulled her to his chest.
“Fuck, Li. Fine. She comes with us. Just don’t fucking do it to yourself. Don’t fucking go back to those thoughts.”
Lilah broke from Ky, and she and Mae approached Sarai, helping her to her feet. I did not move. And when she cried out from the pain between her legs, I thought my legs would give way.
They had hurt her.
Hurt her as they did us.
Mae and Lilah walked Sarai back to Ky’s truck. I followed behind, Flame by my side. Flame and Styx jumped into the bed of the truck, and in minutes we were pulling into