Page 5 of Keeping Lilith

Lilith staggered over to the cot and collapsed on it. So many thoughts zoomed through her mind, and she couldn’t focus on a single one.

What did this mean for her?

Was she free again?

Did she want to be free?

Yes…maybe.

A knock, followed by the creak of the door opening, had her looking up, although she didn’t need to know who’d be standing in the doorway. She’d been expecting him ever since she saw him standing just outside Staunton’s office.

How ironic that the cause of one of her many humiliations in life was witness to yet another one.

Was Julian laughing at her, knowing that she’d been suckered into joining another cult after already escaping one? One that he’d been deeply involved in.

Did he think that because it had happened to her again, he could manipulate her to do his bidding this time around?

“Are you okay, Lilith?” Could she trust his question, or was he using it to fish out information from her so he could manipulate it in a way that benefited him?

“Go away.”

Way to sound petulant.

Who cared if she sounded petulant? Julian needed to keep his distance.

“Do you want to stay here?” he asked, surprising her. Why wasn’t he demanding she give him answers? After all, he’d done that plenty of times when they had been members of the Freedom and Love cult.

“Sure.” No, she didn’t want to stay living in squalor now that she didn’t have to. But where else could she go?

Wait, she’d been down this road before. She’d seen the buses as she’d been running back to her hut. The Feds would putall the women and children on them to ferry them away to be questioned about what they’d experienced. They would then be required to stay at whatever place they’d driven them to, until family members had been contacted, and they could be collected by them. Or, like Lilith, whose parents hadn’t cared what happened to her. They’d been devastated that the life they’d known had been ruined. In the end, she’d been left to fend for herself with a bag of second-hand clothes and a nominal amount of cash to “get started,” the authorities said, and ushered out the door.

That was the past, and this was now. No way was she going to fall for their offers of help again. She would make her own way. While it wasn’t a lot, she still had some money in her bank account. If it was still open. Would someone flag it as suspicious if there’d been no activity on it for a year?

It wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t flagged. She didn’t have her identification. It had been taken from her by Staunton when she’d arrived.

Ugh, she’d have to ask for help, but she sure as heck wouldn’t be asking Julian. She’d find that Irish guy and see if he could get her what she needed, and then she’d make her own way away from this dump.

All through her chaotic thought processes, Julian stood silently at the door, not inside and blocking it, but outside and just to the side, so he could see in, but she could leave if she wanted to.

Interesting.

Why wasn’t he preventing her from leaving without his permission?

But wait. Something about him was different. The scruffy beard was gone, and his dark blonde hair was shorter than the last time she’d seen him. He wore a vest like the one Irish had. The lanyard around his neck had a laminated card hanging fromit. Even from where she sat, she could make out the lettersFBIon the card.

Julian worked for the FBI? How was that even possible? Didn’t they recruit people out of college?

“Why are you here?” she asked. “Are you really an FBI agent, or is it a trick to lure me back to Freedom and Love?”

Lilith didn’t know why she added the last bit. Freedom and Love had been disbanded, but Julian hadn’t been there. He could’ve started it up again.

She reached up and squeezed the bridge of her nose, welcoming the slight sting of pain. Everything seemed so overly inflated in her mind.

“May I come in?”

She dropped her hand, her mouth hanging open. “What?”

Julian waved his arm at the interior of her place. “I asked if it was okay to come in. If you’d prefer me to stay here, I will.”

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