Page 30 of Before the Storm
None of those women or children had choices. They were prisoners, even the ones who promoted the church. Believed in its teachings.
Because they were brainwashed.
That was no way to live.
In that moment, it felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She couldn’t bear the responsibility. It couldn’t be on her to come forward. One woman had left when Janelle had been maybe fourteen. This woman, Audrey, escaped with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Tara, who was ordered to marry an older man.
They told their story.
Nothing happened.
Except Tara came back.
It was the strangest thing. Tara showed up one day without her mother. There were no televisions in the compounds, so no one knew what the mom was telling the outside world. But Janelle’s dad—and Tara—told everyone that the mom had kidnapped her and the girl found her way home.
That girl looked freshly battered and beaten.
For weeks.
She married that older man, and Janelle watched Tara become a shell. She only spoke if spoken too. She walked through the compound with her head down and her hands clasped. She became the epitome of respect. The example for how all women should behave.
Seen, not heard.
Tara looked as though she was the most miserable young girl on the planet.
Janelle got to spend a little time with her and finally got her to speak about her mother and what happened.
It wasn’t the same tale that the elders had told. No. The elders’ security had found her and her mother—something that Janelle didn’t even know existed—and Tara was snatched up right away.
Fear crawled across her spine. She quickly glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see her father’s army. All she saw wasthe darkness surrounding Phoenix’s empty house. She turned, keeping her focus on the light of the moon dancing across the waters. It was peaceful. Warm. Comforting.
Even in the wake of the horror and death that Tara had told.
That made her father—and his church—murderers.
At first, Janelle didn’t believe Tara. While Janelle had been struggling with her dad and his teachings, she had yet to be married off and she hadn’t suffered. She didn’t like the changes that were being put into place. Everyone wearing the same clothes. The girls having to wear their hair the same way and not being allowed to cut it. They had never had televisions, but they had some access to the outside world.
That was all cut off now.
No influences.
No trips with the adults to the grocery store or anywhere.
Janelle wondered if Tara missed her mother and made up the story. Or, as her father had decided, Tara was being tempted by the devil. Janelle gripped the railing and sucked in a deep breath. Tara had been beaten into submission. When Janelle left, that woman had birthed three children and almost never spoke, except to her kids and her husband. She did exactly what she was told. She’d once again become a model sister wife.
Only, that’s not what plural marriage was all about. At least not what Janelle remembers had been taught and what she’d seen when she was four and five years old.
Or what she’d seen along the way when she stayed in one community where five families practiced plural marriage. That had been an interesting place to stay.
She set her glass on the small table and wiggled her fingers. She needed to purge this insane thinking. The thoughts stemmed from guilt because she’d been unable to stand up for herself and in the process potentially prevent it from happening to someone else in the future.
But she’d been a coward when she ran.
And she still was.
Jason and Anne Marie were paying it forward by getting people out. They didn’t force anyone. They offered assistance to those who wanted it when they were ready. Once Janelle got out, she realized that her dad knew exactly who Jason and Anne Marie were. That he was prepared for them and others like them. It was a weird feeling to know that her dad was willing to go to war with the outside world, not with words like he professed, but with guns.
And worse.
