Creed (13 page)

I glanced at Joseph. He was standing there silent, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line. No wonder he seemed to get me. He was living my life. My old life. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would’ve laughed at the irony. Here I was, away on a weekend where I was supposed to be celebrating my anniversary with Luke, and instead I was trapped in a hellhole with a delusional man, at the mercy of his equally damaged son.

Elijah took my stunned silence as assent and ran his hand down the side of my face, lingering on my cheek before tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. I’d think the gesture fatherly, almost soothing, had it not been for the crazy shit he’d just unloaded on me.

“Now that we have that settled,
Rebekah
, let’s get you cleaned up and introduced to your new family.” He walked over to the dresser and sifted through the top drawer, taking a few items out. He held them up, judging them for size, then swapped them for a smaller, matching set.

They were plain, nothing more than a long all-white skirt and a shirt that covered everything from wrist to chin. Clean and neatly folded, there was not a single color to be found.

Elijah dropped them onto the bed and pulled a bottle from his pocket. “The polish needs to come off your nails,” he said as he placed the nail polish remover on the dresser. “Your makeup is pretty much worn off, but you should give your face a good scrub anyway. Then fix your hair. Nothing fancy. A plain braid down the middle will do fine.”

I watched as he assembled all the necessary items—a bar of soap, a black hair tie, a scratchy white towel not big enough to cover much of anything, and a pair of beige clogs.

“That basin there is filled with water,” Elijah said, gesturing to the glass bowl on the dresser. “Give the clothes you are wearing, undergarments included, to Joseph. He’ll burn them along with any trace of your former life. This is a new beginning for you, Rebekah, your chance at a better life. I can guarantee you an eternity of peace and happiness. Embrace your new self. Embrace me.”

I nodded and forced a smile to my face. I wasn’t consenting to anything, and I had no intention of relinquishing my jeans and bra to anyone. But I wanted him out of the room, and agreeing to wash up and change seemed like the quickest way to do that. Once he was gone, I was going to get out of here. Clothes, nail polish, underwear and all.

“And once I’m changed?” I asked, trying to figure out how much time I had.

“I will introduce you to your new family, to my followers. They are excited to meet you.”

“I bet they are,” I mumbled under my breath.

Joseph brought a finger up to his lips, warning me to stay quiet. Too late. Elijah heard me and was already turning around.

“You say something?” he asked.

I doubted he wanted an answer. It seemed more like a challenge than anything else, but I responded nonetheless. “No, not a thing.”

“Good. I’ll leave these with you,” he said, gesturing to the documents outlining my fictional past. “I think you will find it quite thorough, but if you have any questions, you ask me.
Only
me. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Joseph will stay here with you while you prepare. We had a bit of a chat after he brought you to me this morning, didn’t we, son?” Elijah turned to Joseph, who nodded. “I’m quite sure he no longer needs to be reminded of his duties within the community.”

I looked at Joseph, wondering what Elijah was talking about, why his use of the word “chat” made me nauseated.

“And welcome home, Rebekah.”

EIGHTEEN

I crept over to the door and listened, holding my tongue until his footsteps faded away. Then I let loose on Joseph

I wanted answers. I wouldn’t let up until I knew where he was holding Luke and Mike. I wanted to know when Elijah ate. When he slept. When he went to the bathroom. I needed to know every last detail of his schedule so I could sneak away without him noticing.

“Where are they?” I hissed, my body vibrating with a lethal mix of fear and rage. “Tell me right now where Luke and Mike are or so help me God I’ll—”

I went to smack Joseph, to punch him, to do whatever it would take to drag the truth out of him, but he caught me, trapping my wrists against his chest with his hands. “Dee, don’t,” he whispered softly. “You can get angry with me all you want, but I’d lose that tone before you speak to my father again.”

Joseph was in no position to give me advice; it was his fault I was here in the first place. And I’d speak to his father any way I pleased. “Are you out of your mind?” I screamed. “Who gave you the—”

He held up a hand for me to stop. Instinctively, I shut up and looked at the door. It was closed; no jingling knob, no footsteps, and no muffled voices on the other side.

I slowed my breathing and refocused on my goal rather than my building rage. “Where is Luke? What did you do to him?” I asked again.

“Why can’t you trust me on this? I told you, they’re fine.”

“Trust you? Are you kidding me?”

I picked up the pile of clothes his father had left for me and threw them at Joseph. “You kidnapped me, drained half my blood, and then bartered me away as your father’s bride in some sick attempt to save your sister. I don’t know about you, but where I come from, that doesn’t breed trust. Now where are Luke and Mike?”

“They’re locked in the shed,” he quickly said, his mind obviously on something else. “And what do you mean, ‘bartered you away’ to my father?”

“In the shed. The one we were hiding out in? The Livor?” I asked, running through the layout of that dark, ten-by-ten-foot structure in my head. I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was one in the afternoon. If I was calculating right, then they’d been there five, maybe six hours tops. Not enough time to starve or become dehydrated, but plenty of time to lose their minds. I hadn’t thought to check the thickness of the walls, but Luke was strong, and Mike had one set of lungs and a nasty temper to go with it.

What little hope I’d managed to hang onto faded the instant Joseph started talking. “I turned the irrigation pump on before I left. Nobody will hear them over that noise. And believe me, that’s a good thing. You don’t want them found by anyone around here anyway.”

I shrugged off his words. Luke was used to tackling two-hundred-pound kids on the football field. Mike too. That old shed with its scratched-up walls was no match for them.

“And where did you get the idea that I’d give you to my father in exchange for my sister?” Joseph asked, repeating his original question. He looked confused, maybe even a bit offended.

I turned away from him, annoyed. If he was too stupid to figure that one out, then I wasn’t going to help. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“I meant what I said earlier, Dee.”

“Isn’t it
Rebekah
now? And you said a lot of things, most of them lies,” I fired back.

“I never lied to you,” he yelled.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it—his profession of innocence was so damn absurd it was funny.

“I. Didn’t.” He took a step closer and stared down at me. I swallowed hard and stepped back, kept right on going until my knees hit the mattress, forcing me to sit down.

Joseph saw the flicker of panic cross my face and backed up. “I promise I won’t hurt you,
Dee
,” he said placing extra emphasis on my name. “But please, slow down and listen to me for a minute.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, deliberately keeping his attention on me as the white of his undershirt came into view. There was a slowness to his movements and a barely audible wince of pain under his breath. I scooted farther away from him, confused. I had no clue what was going on, but the more-than-obvious pain on Joseph’s face told me one thing for sure. Joseph wasn’t planning on hurting me, not in that way anyway.

“You think you’ve had a tough time here? That my father has treated you badly? You haven’t seen half of what he can do,” Joseph warned.

He turned around and lifted his undershirt up over his head. The fabric caught in spots, the thin white cotton adhering itself to the weeping wounds. Red welts marked his back, each one strategically placed to hit more flesh than bone. I knew exactly what they were, my mind flashing back to the black leather belt my father was so fond of wearing. There’d been no “chat” that morning, no peaceful reminder to fall back in line. Elijah had beaten him with a belt.

My dad only hit me with a belt once, and it was a long time ago. But I remembered it well, still cringed whenever Luke took his belt off. Joseph might hurt now, but if memory served me right, those marks would sting like hell the second day, when the slightest of movements would force them to crack and re-open.

“He did that to you?” I asked.

It wasn’t a question, but Joseph nodded anyway.

“He tried to get you to tell him where they are, didn’t he?” I asked, and Joseph shrugged. “Why didn’t you tell him? Why would you let him do that to you in order to protect Luke and Mike?”

I couldn’t wrap my brain around any of this. We’d downright refused to come in here willingly and save his sister. Yet Joseph had taken a beating to protect them, to protect me. That made absolutely no sense.

“I was raised in this. I’ve been hit more times than you can imagine. Don’t worry,” he said with a weak smile. “I won’t break. If he starts in on me again about where they are, I won’t give into the pain. I figured you would, so … ”

No, I wouldn’t. I hadn’t yet. I didn’t break during the thirteen years I lived with my father, or when the girls in the group home taught me my place. And I definitely wasn’t planning on breaking now.

But Joseph had no way of knowing that.

“I know what you must think of me. But try to remember, I never had a choice in any of this. Nothing here is as black and white as it seems, Dee. You can’t simply decide you want to leave one day and get up and go. It doesn’t work that way.”

“That’s not true,” I argued.

“You’re an idiot if you think that,” Joseph replied. “My mom and I planned our escape for over a year. We hid all of our tracks, and he
still
found out. If you want to get out of here, then we have to play his game for now. Let him think he’s won, buy me some time to figure something out … a way that gets all of us away from him.”

When he said “all,” he didn’t just mean us and Luke and Mike. He meant Eden too. That would take time, and time was the one thing I didn’t have. “How long do I have to play along?” I asked.

Joseph ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Luke was pretty clear about not helping me save my sister, but I’d stake my life on the fact that he’ll come in here to get you.”

“And?”

“Well, I’m banking on that—not only for Eden’s life and mine, but for yours too.”

I shook my head. If that was his plan—waiting on Luke to come to me—then he was dumber than I thought. I had no intention of sitting around here, dressing up and playing Elijah’s bride. I was outta here, with or without Joseph and his precious Eden.

But for the first time since I’d met Joseph, it felt like I had leverage, something I could use to force his hand. Luke.

NINETEEN

“Let’s go get them now,” I said. Luke could help; he
would
help. “If it makes you feel better, I promise we’ll come back for Eden. You have my word.”

“We can’t. Not yet. We need to give my father some time to let his guard down.”

“How long?” I asked again. In my mind, right now was the perfect time. I couldn’t shake the vision of Luke and Mike locked in that shed, screaming with no one around to hear them. Freezing as the temperature dropped with nightfall, huddled into each other, hungry and tired but unwilling to sleep. The image was terrifying, but like staring at the wreckage of a deadly crash, I couldn’t seem to pull away.

“Dee,” Joseph said, shaking me. I hadn’t realized he was trying to get my attention. I was too lost in my living nightmare to even hear him speak.

I looked up and met his stare, pleading with him to take my side and go get them now. “They don’t have any food or water. It’s freezing out. They’ll—”

“No they won’t,” Joseph interrupted. “I’ve survived out there a lot longer.”

He took my hand and led me over to the chair, then picked up the papers outlining my new life and laid them on the dresser for me to see.

I stared down at the papers, the words blurring into one giant black spot. I went to say something, to argue my case for leaving right now, when he put his fingers to my lips, stopping me.

“Trust me, Dee, please. Play along for a little while. Like I said, once he lets his guard down, we can take Eden and slip out.”

Somewhere in this messed-up conversation, I’d come to the terrifying conclusion that I might have to give up control. Maybe Joseph was right—sometimes you had to place your faith in the untrustworthy to survive.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Memorize this,” he said. “If you don’t, none of us have a chance.”

I glanced at the papers, scanning for the information that seemed to be the most important. If I’d had a month, maybe I could’ve memorized it all. But less than a few hours wasn’t nearly enough time.