Page 16 of Bronco

“In a delivery van?” I can hear the incredulousness in her tone. “You’ve lost your ever-loving mind!”

“Can you think of anything better?” I challenge. “We both need to get out of here. Do you want what happened to us to happen to Olive?”

Erica shifts her gaze. Long in thought, she eventually meets my eyes again. “I don’t want to get caught and be punished. If we do, they’ll take Olive away.”

“They’re too in love with their own egos to think we’ll ever stray. Besides, I’ve been acting like a good little wife now for ages.”

Erica regards me with suspicion. “You have?”

I huff slightly. “I love how you always think the worst of me.”

“I don’t think the worst of you, but Vince is fully aware of your schemes, as are the rest of the village.”

“Do you honestly like being a prisoner here?” I whisper. “Erica, you can’t tell me this is how you thought life would be. We can both admit that my brother and Vince went too far in this thing, now they think they’re some kind of Messiahs to the masses.”

“Shh!” She looks around the empty garden as if someone could stumble upon us. All the men are at work or at the ministry.

“Nobody can hear us!”

“You don’t know that,” she mouths.

I can’t say I blame Erica for being paranoid. After twelve years of living in the compound, shit kinda gets to you. When my brother became a minister in the church, the power went to his head. He’s always been controlling and has looked upon me with disdain. I truly think that he brought me here after our dad left to dump me so I’d become someone else’s problem. Then he got friendly with Vince and the rest is history.

I also know she’s talking about Sara and Jude; Steven’s other two wives. Yes, the men in our village can take as many wives as they like, and we’re supposed to put up with them putting their hands on us whenever they feel like it. Steven has never beaten Erica to within an inch of her life like Vince has done to me, but he has slapped her around. He thinks because he hits her withan open hand it’s not abuse. I fucking hate him, but I hate Vince more.

I hold Erica’s shoulders. “Listen to me. Things are only going to get worse. I was promised to Vince at fifteen! I was a fucking child, and we know full well what happens to girls in this fucking place. Olive is ten now,” I say. “It won’t be long before she’ll be sacrificed to some old geriatric and forced to marry just like we were. There are more women than men in this shit hole for a reason.”

She stares at me, her face draining as she takes in my words. Surely, she’s thought about this before? It isn’t like she’s incapable of doing the math.

When Vince took me and Steven in, I thought he was a good guy. He always had a kind hand and words to match, complimenting me and making sure I never went without. He’s fifteen years older than me, an old man in my eyes, but especially when I was fourteen years old at the time we joined. I was forced to marry him at sixteen.Sixteen!I suppose I should’ve been grateful that I wasn’t any younger. Of course, it was what the Good Lord wanted from us. The fact I couldn’t fall pregnant, however, that was a huge problem and still is. I’m all but shunned and Vince has done everything, including beating the living shit out of me, trying to get me to produce an heir. I’ve always been his favorite wife; my sister wives Becky, Anne and Linda all have children. I guess the Lord just isn’t ready to bless our marriage. The more the years rolled on, the more I realized exactly how lucky I was to not fall pregnant. I’ve had two miscarriages, and they were no picnic, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that it isn’t meant to be. If I do ever have a child, it won’t be with him. He makes my skin crawl.

Erica chews on her bottom lip. “I don’t want that for my daughter.” Her face grows redder as she speaks, her anger bubbling. “She’s a child, just like you were.”

“It doesn’t matter about that.” I brush it off. If I think about the injustices that were done to me over the time I’ve been here, I’d never leave my own house. Somewhere deep inside, I know there’s a better life out there for me. “He will get what’s coming to him, they all will. This isn’t God’s plan: it’stheirplan.”

She nods. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn't get us out of this, but I’ll admit that I’m afraid.”

I clutch her hands. “Now’s our chance. We can’t let this slip away.”

The delivery van comes into the village once a month, along with other delivery trucks for bigger items like hay for the animals and feed. Vince and Steven organize all the supplies with several of the other ministers. We have no shops and no contact with the outside world. Nobody has a phone or any technology. It’s like the Mormons and the Amish gave birth to a baby and that’s where we find ourselves. We’re literal prisoners.

We’re the outcasts because we both have spirit. That’s another thing the hierarchy doesn't like about women; opinions don’t matter. You’re here to cook, clean and reproduce. We’re not even allowed books unless they’re approved by the church.

I screw my eyes shut, my anger just as robust as Erica’s. We both want to leave so badly.

“There you are!” We both jump as we hear Sara call over the wall.

What the heck is she doing here?

“Sara.” I fold my arms over my chest. I don’t mind Sara, but loathe Jude. If she was the one to catch us out here, innocently watering the garden, she’d be running off to our husbands to make up lies about us. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” It is my home, after all. My sister wives are out assisting some of the other women with the weekend festivities over Easter. It keeps them out of my hair for a bit while I pretend to be helping out at home getting the baked goods ready.

“I was just trying to find Erica.” She smiles a little tightly, she’s afraid of me and for good reason. I fight back, and she of all people knows that I’ll smack her in the face if she ever touches me or says a bad word in front of my face.

“What for?” Erica puts her hands on her hips. “I’m foraging with my sister for the decorating table. I said I’d be back after lunchtime.”

“Steven needs you.”

Erica is very good at hiding the panic from her face. “Whatever for?”

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