footsteps came to a halt. She could feel his stare boring down at her. Kandace didn’t think she could go through with this. She almost opened her eyes. Almost screamed, tried to run, something. Her muscles tightened, primed for flight, but then his arms were scooping her up, and she willed herself to go limp again, to allow her body to be carried from the room.
Oh yes, she had been chosen.
The man carried her down the narrow flight of attic stairs. The lights in the hallways had either been turned back on or had never been extinguished. She didn’t dare crack her eyes. Kandace tried to pay attention to where the man turned, which hallways he took, which set of steps he went down so she knew where she was. The second floor, she knew that. A room on the west side at the end of a hall. This room must face the chapel.
The man used his foot to kick the door very softly, three quick taps, and then it was pulled open and he carried her through. The light dimmed behind her eyelids, and the smell of incense met her nose. Was this supposed to be some strange extension of the religious ritual they’d attended earlier? Possibly. Was that how they justified it? She was laid gently on something soft. A bed. Her blood turned to cement in her veins.
“What’s he doing here?”
He? Who is he?
“He always kicks up such a fuss over that ugly little girl being taken away,” Ms. Wykes murmured. “Good thing he loves the chocolate cake so much. Ignore him. Or don’t. You enjoy an audience on occasion, am I right?” There was dark humor in her voice and Kandace’s stomach rolled.
“You may leave now,” the man said. His voice was deep and smooth. Commanding.
“She must be prayed over first,” Ms. Wykes said. “So that her filth does not pass to you. Instead, may you cleanse her wickedness. May she be blessed. May your wife be blessed as well.” His wife? Was that what this was? Kandace and the other girls were useful as a means to relieve the wifely “burden” of other women considered more worthy? Cold metal touched her forehead—a crucifix? That silver one with the gemstones she carried everywhere?—as Ms. Wykes murmured a prayer under her breath, her voice reedy and thin. Panic rose within Kandace but she remained still.
“Don’t leave marks. And do not rouse her,” Ms. Wykes said before her footsteps could be heard moving toward the door. A moment later it shut behind her with a quiet click.
Kandace heard the soft sounds of clothing dropping to the floor and her stomach curdled even more. Run! I can’t do this. But if she let them know she was conscious now, what would they do? They couldn’t possibly risk something like this getting out. She thought of the three young women, their children locked in the basement, even now. What had happened to those women? Had they really left their children here? Or was it something far worse?
Her nightgown was yanked upward and it took all of Kandace’s courage not to cry out with fear and anger and distress.
This man, this stranger was using her unconscious—or so he believed—body to do with as he pleased. She screamed inside her mind. A shudder ran through her veins.
She didn’t expect the slap. The cry of pain and shock came unbidden. She let out a garbled moan, and let her head fall heavily to the side. The man’s breathing sped up. She could hear the sound of his hand working on his own flesh. The violence had excited him, as had her cry.
He slapped her again, but more softly this time. “That’s right,” he grunted. “Take it, you little whore.”
Kandace’s head was turned to the side, so the man didn’t see the tear that rolled from her eye and was soaked up by the bedding beneath her.
He climbed on top of her, his breath moist and heavy as he panted into her neck, calling her vile names as he rubbed his flesh against her. Kandace thought of all the men she’d let use her. She thought of the men she herself had used. She’d never been very discriminating. The things the man was calling her, they were true, weren’t they? Her mother had told her they were. Kandace herself had never denied it. What did this matter? It was for an end.