I’m not Nova. I’m not a sacrifice. I’m a person.
Swiping at my eyes, I realize how wrong I am.
I was a person. Now, unless I can run more than twenty miles before dawn, I’m nothing.
The day Zeke took me, I was planning on eighteen. But that was after months of marathon training. I haven’t run a step since. I’ve lost so much weight. The meals here are small. Bland. Some days, I can barely force them down.
But every night, I pace the room for hours, do sit-ups until I want to vomit, and go through a series of post-running stretches to keep myself in shape.
I’ll need a miracle to make it off the flock’s lands. But I have to try.
First step? Get out of this room.
I’ve picked the lock every night for the past week. I can do it no matter how hard I’m crying. Or how dark it is on the new moon.
Interior door locks have six pins. Six steps closer to freedom. Or…the start of it.
The first is easy. Two and three are more difficult. Four, five, and six click into place, and the door opens a crack. The brief moment of joy is shattered by a loud creak from the hinges.
Shit.
Zeke is going to come running down the hall any second. I should shut the door and get in bed. But this cold, moonless night is my best chance. So I count to sixty.
The house is still utterly silent.
I skip the third and eighth stairs—the ones with loose boards—and slip out into the frigid night. I’d give anything for my running shoes. Or my sports bra. But all I have is a simple, white cotton dress, a light gray sweater, and hand-me-down work boots with thin socks. I’ll be lucky if I don’t freeze to death before I make it past the first hill.
I press myself to the back wall of the house and try to quiet my breathing. When my heart stops pounding, I peer around the corner.
Four lookout towers topped with tiny shacks surround the main part of the compound. Zeke is so paranoid about security, they’re manned twenty-four hours a day. But with the biting cold, the sentries will—hopefully—be huddled in front of the space heaters inside. If any of them see me, I’m done for. Zeke will send me back to the box, and I doubt there will be anything of Grace left when I come out again.
I’m almost to the edge of the cluster of houses when voices drift over the air.
Shit.
Zeke has a strict curfew for his flock. The morning bells go off at six a.m. Everyone works. From feeding the cows and chickens to planting and picking crops in the greenhouses, cooking, cleaning…even the children have assigned chores. So by eight p.m., no one but the sentries are supposed to be outside their homes.
Ducking behind a small shed, I hold my breath.
“Prophet wants this next shipment ready to go by the end of the week,” Malone says.
“He wants a lot of things. That don’t mean they’re possible,” the other man grumbles. “We’re short thirty-two firin’ pins, eighteen slide rails, and a hundred trigger assemblies. Unless tomorrow’s delivery truck has some new 3D printers on it, we’re buzzard bait.”
Malone mutters something under his breath, then asks, “You got enough people to run overnight til Friday?”
“Not unless Prophet lets another three brothers in on the flock’s side business. I’m gonna light a fire under the night shift, but that’ll only get us so far.”
“I’ll talk to him, Brother Nolan. Brother Joshua can be trusted. Brother George as well. I’ll need to make sure Sister Johanna doesn’t say a word to the other wives, but I can help out starting tomorrow.”
The men move out of earshot. Holy shit. Firing pins and trigger assemblies? The flock is manufacturing guns? Here? Why?
Some Waco-type standoff? Zeke is certainly paranoid enough. No. Malone said they were shipping them somewhere.
For months, I’ve wondered how Zeke affords this place. Sure, the couple hundred people here all work the land. The women sew and mend clothing. Solar panels cover every roof top. But farm equipment breaks down. Plumbing fails. Storms uproot trees. No one’s spinning cotton or wool for clothing. Or mining copper for wiring.
From my window, I’ve seen trucks coming and going from time to time, but they stop so far away, I’ve never gotten a good look at what’s inside them.
Is this how they make their money? Guns?
