Page 17 of Take Me to Church
Simon shoots me a smirk. “Why? You got plans?”
I focus on the task at hand, grabbing my guitar from its stand and sliding it into the velvet case. “Not just me.”
I fill them in on what happened in the lot as we break down and load up, packing everything into the box truck we use to haul our equipment from gig to gig.
“I’m guessing you want to take the first shift.” Simon tosses me the keys to his pickup. “Just don’t get blood on the interior.”
I tip my head at him, grateful for his offer. “Thanks.”
Tate has been pretty quiet through my whole explanation and I’m not surprised when he hangs back as Simon climbs into the box truck’s cab.
“You sure you want to dig into this again?”
We’ve clashed with Rodney and the rest of The Horseman in the past, but that was before. Back when we were still more similar to them than I’d like to admit. My brothers and I have come a long way since then. More than a few have settled down and gotten married. We’ve started businesses and families. Have homes and savings accounts. Our lives are completely different now. We have what we never believed would be ours and I wouldn’t risk that for just anything.
But Lydia is different. She’s always been different. She needs someone on her side. Someone looking out for her. That’s why I couldn’t stop myself from protecting her fifteen years ago and I can’t stop myself from protecting her now.
“I’m not going to fucking feed her to the wolves.”
And that’s what it would be. Lydia’s known bad men. The kind who believe access to a woman’s body is their right simply because she’s their wife. Men who think women are beneath them. Should be subservient. That they must obey. That they can never have the final say in anything that happens in their own lives because that is a right God bestowed upon only those with a dick swinging between their legs.
No matter how small it may be.
But Rodney is a different kind of bad. He doesn’t hide his evil behind scripture or faith.
He doesn’t hide it at all.
“I didn’t say you need to let her deal with this alone.” Tate moves closer, keeping his voice low. “But if you do this, you will drag us all in with you.” He points to the center of his chest. “Idon’t mind. You know I’m with you every step of the way.” He swings his arm in the direction of the box truck. “Simon too. We all agreed this was what we would fight for.” Tate drops his arm to his side. “But everyone else didn’t.”
To be fair, we didn’t give them the chance.
Tate, Simon, and I bonded from the start. Our pasts are similar and vastly different from the rest of the men we call our brothers. We didn’t grow up wondering where our next meal would come from. We didn’t watch our parents chase down their next high. We didn’t move from rundown hotel to rundown hotel until the government stepped in under the guise of making our lives better, only to send us off to places so much worse.
But we did grow up afraid. We did grow up powerless to change our lives.
And we ended up in the same place. Alone on the streets. Cast out. Abandoned.
Alone.
“You don’t have to tell them everything, but they deserve to at least know what’s going on with Rodney.” Tate meets my gaze. “And if this goes tits up, we're going to need all the help we can get.”
7
LYDIA
“HAVE YOU HEARD anything from Myra?” Piper props one hip against the counter in our two-bedroom townhouse, scooping up a pile of cereal from the bowl she has balanced on one hand before shoving it into her mouth.
I shake my head. “Nothing.” I drop my butt down to the second-hand couch where we spend our days off, binge watching Netflix, and go to work putting on my shoes. “Her phone just goes straight to voicemail, so I’m pretty sure it’s turned off.”
“I just don’t get how there are still people living like that.” Piper shovels in another bite of her afternoon breakfast. “Do they not know women have been able to vote since nineteen-twenty and equality is a fucking thing?”
I’ve explained my upbringing to Piper countless times, but she still can’t seem to wrap her head around the fact there are still groups where women are treated as possessions. Manipulated into believing they have some sort of importance in the hierarchy of the saved.
But it’s all bullshit.
Every bit of the rhetoric they spew is carefully crafted by men who are terrified of women gaining any sort of power or strength. Men like my father. Men like Myra’s husband—that one is especially ironic considering he’s a district attorney and his career should be built on ensuring fairness.
“They know.” I finish lacing up my Vans and stand. “They just don’t care.”
