Page 193 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

I feel strange to be here in my jeans and tight t-shirt. It looked normal back in the mirror at Phoenix’s mansion, but out here, I’m practically in another dimension. I almost wish I’d changed before coming.

But it’s too late for that. No point in denying that the real world has morphed me forever.

I keep my head down as I slip down the backroads into the west side of the commune where my parents’ house sits.

Everything looks familiar and yet, it’s like I’m seeing everything with new eyes.

The modest houses are fenced in. It’s merely a land marker because the fences are so low that they don’t keep anything out. Every single property has an elaborate vegetable garden. Some have chicken coops. The other livestock is run by the farmers whose homes are located in the east wing of the commune.

Long clotheslines dripping with pure white garments string along the sides of the houses, swaying in the wind. I use them like camouflage as I pick my way towards the only home I ever really knew.

But even though I’m careful, even though I wait long enough between every sprint to make sure there are no unwelcome witnesses, I still can’t help feeling like there are eyes on me. Eyes expecting me. Eyes waiting for me to cross the final distance.

I pause at the corner of one house. Motion through the window catches my eye. I shouldn’t be surprised to recognize the person—after all, I grew up here, there aren’t that many of us living in the Sanctuary, and I haven’t been gone that long—but I do.

Macy Grey. She and I had been friends, what feels like a lifetime ago. We were born only days apart and spent our entire lives growing up two doors down from one another.

We’d drifted apart after she’d gotten married five years earlier to one of the junior pastors. Sixteen years old and she was already desperate to “start her life.” To be a mother, a wife. To take her place in the fabric of the community.

She’d visited me the week before my wedding with a basket of handmade sugar cookies and told me I was the luckiest girl in the world.

Father Josiah will bring you much happiness,she’d murmured.And many sons, I’m sure.

I shudder at the suddenly recalled memory. How much else have I allowed myself to forget?

I stand there, caught in the past, for a long time. Too long. Macy turns suddenly. I leap out of sight but I wonder if she caught me.

Shivering, I turn and continue down the gravel path. Then, when I round the corner, I see it…

The house I grew up in.

The house of my parents.

The house with answers to the questions that have been burning in my brain since the night I ran.

How could you? How could we?

It looks terrible. I notice the patchy roof and broken windowsills as I walk up to the porch and knock on the door three times.

“Hold on!” My father’s voice. Brusque and gravelly, filled with preemptive impatience.

I’m barely able to take a calming breath before the door’s thrown open and I’m confronted with the man himself.

He’s lost a lot of weight. And that’s saying something, considering he had always been a lean, wiry man. His cheeks and nose stand out all the more prominently.

He’s lost almost all his hair, too. The last few faint threads of salt-and-pepper that wisp to the sides of his temples.

“Heavens protect us,” he whispers. Then he raises his voice. “Mary!”

I flinch when I hear my mother’s footsteps hurrying towards the door. “If it’s Jedediah Collins coming to collect, tell him we—”

She stops short when she sees me standing on the threshold. Her palm lands over her heart and her skin goes ghostly pale like she’s about to faint.

The whole time, I just stand there silently.

Mom has changed, too. But she’s gone the opposite of Dad. Where he’s wasting away, she’s thickening, mostly around her hips and ankles. She looks like the extra weight is a burden on her soul. At least her blonde hair is mostly intact, still curly and bright. Everything else about her looks worn-down and gray.

“Elyssa…?” she whispers, coming forward. “Is that you?”

---