“I don’t have shoes that will fit you.”
She gasped and narrowed her gaze. “Women don’t wear shoes.”
The man frowned and shook his head. “Do you need help?”
Help? He couldn’t help her. He needed to know the truth. Maybe then he would see that there was no helping her. “They will kill me if they find me.”
3
The hair on the back of Q’s neck stood on end. “Kill you?”
She nodded. “No one has ever escaped the dirt. I don’t know why I did it, but I couldn’t stay put. Maybe I’m possessed by demons.”
“I don’t know about demon possession, but I think you need help. Why would anyone want to kill you?”
She glanced over her shoulder again. “They put me in the dirt this morning at sunrise. I waited until I knew they were gone and climbed out. So I have tomorrow and then the next day. But then they’ll find that I left. I can’t stay here. It’s too close.”
“We could call the police.”
She shook her head violently. “No. Never the police.” She backed away and looked like she was about to run. If she took off, he could lose her, and she wouldn’t last long out here without supplies.
“Okay, no police. How about a hotel? You could take a shower, get clean, and we can eat some real food.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t live here?”
He shook his head. “No. I live close to San Diego.”
“I don’t know what that is. I just can’t be close to here. They’ll find me, and they will kill me. I have to go.”
She started to walk off, and he moved to block her. He held up his hands, trying to placate her. Spooking her wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he also didn’t want her to walk off and get lost.
“Listen, let me pack up my equipment, and we’ll find a hotel. You can get clean, and then we can find a place for you to go.”
She narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. “You really don’t live here?”
“No, I really don’t. My name is Quentin, but my friends call me Q. What’s your name?”
She waited a few seconds before replying. “They call me Leonard’s third because I’m his third daughter. My mother used to call me Flora.”
He bristled at her name. He was called Q because of his work with explosives, and his name started with that letter. People thought it was a funny reference to the movies, not because they wanted to dehumanize him.
“Flora, that’s a nice name. I like it.”
“Thank you.”
“Let me get you a shirt. It should cover you up. My sweats will be too big, but maybe a pair of shorts will fit well enough until we stop by a store and get you some clothes.”
He grabbed his rucksack and pulled out a blue T-shirt that fit him well. She pulled it on and it fell to her mid-thigh. It made her look very young. His stomach clenched.
“How old are you?”
“My twenty-one celebration is tomorrow so I’ve been on earth twenty-one years. That’s why they buried me.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. There was something very wrong, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. “I don’t understand why they would do that.”
“The three-day ceremony is used to purify women before marriage. They bury us to make us clean. If we live, we’re clean,but if we die, we’re demons. I’ve also been buried overnight as a punishment because I do bad things.”
He shook his head, wondering what the hell type of family she lived with. He’d never heard anything so disturbing as what she was saying. “That’s crazy. I’m sorry, but that is one hundred percent wrong. You did the best thing by running.” He started grabbing his things and packing them away. He had planned to stay until he had to go home, but if what she said was close to true, the men hunting her would probably try to kill him, too.
