Page 22 of Kings Fear No One
“The Leader has requested your presence, Believer Teysha.”
Tension pulses in the silence. It’s palpable as Logan squares his jaw and turns his back to enter the cabin, checking out of the situation. I’m confused and aching, pulled away by Xavier a second later.
“You’ll be spending the night,” he says, squeezing my arm tight. “And if he dismisses you, you’ll be in my quarters.”
I twist in his grasp, checking over my shoulder.
Logan never looks back.
I’m hot and exhausted, laying in the grass. My empty fruit basket sits beside me. The others browse the fruit bushels in search of good pieces they can fill their baskets with. Should the guards return from their break, I’ll take my punishment.
I’ve learned that there’s nothing I can do to prevent it from happening. It doesn’t matter if I behave myself or if I act out, because the result is the same. I’m called upon and used in ways that have broken my spirit.
By the Leader. By Mandy. By the guards.
There’s no escaping the depravity they inflict upon me and the others.
I pray and pray and it makes no difference. I’ve cried and gotten down on my knees to beg, only to be beaten or struck with a cane.
How do you keep faith when evil continues to win?
I’m not sure of the answer anymore. I’m barely even sure of my existence. After months of captivity, the life I once lived feels so far away…
“Get up,” snarls Xavier. He’s strode up, and I hardly flinched.
I wasn’t present enough to see him.
He kicks at my side. “I said get the hell up. You’re coming with me.”
The others watch on as I’m marched out of sight. We leave the field, and he takes me behind one of the cabins. He’s rutting away, his breath hot against my skin and hands bruising my breasts, when the commotion erupts. There’s a harrowing scream that booms across the flat land. Then the rumble of an engine and screech of tires doing overtime.
Is someone fleeing the property?
Xavier shoves me away in his haste to fasten his pants. I’ve wandered in his wake, hoping to catch a glimpse of what’s going on. A second longer and I would’ve missed what I do see—the rundown Chevy pickup truck that’s used for the laundry rams into the wired fence and speeds off to freedom.
Logan.
7
LOGAN
Have you ever imagined what hell on earth would be like?
I never needed to… ’til I had to live it.
For the first two days I’m in the infirmary, I’m out cold. I don’t know up from down, down from up. You could’ve asked me my government name and I couldn’t tell you. I’m somewhere in limbo being tortured by the last things I saw. The last things I heard.
A squeak of mattress springs.
Groans of pleasure.
Desperate sobs for mercy.
I wake with pressure welled up in my chest. I’m unable to speak, my throat swollen and thick. My vision clears, at least partially, to a face smirking down at me.
The Leader’s clothed again. His white-blond hair hangs over the shoulders of his robes. His lips spread as soon as he sees I’m up. “Believer Logan, I’m pleased to see you’ve regained consciousness after all.”
I bare my teeth, overcome by hatred.
