“You’re the one I’d burn everything down for.”
I looked away, speechless.
“But I’m only willing to do that if you tell me what I need to know.”
He stepped back, offering me his hand, and I took it, allowing him to walk me back to the couch.
I tucked my legs under me, resting my back against the armrest, and closed my eyes. Drawing in a long breath, I was ready to spill my demons and surrender to the darkness haunting me.
“What do you want to know?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“How old are you?” His immediate question surprised me.
I’d expected it to be something more serious.
Something that cut me open deeper.
“I don’t know,” I said, embarrassed by my answer. “Myofficialrecords say twenty-two, so that’s what I use. I was born at home. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two. My public records and mother can corroborate this.”
I cracked an easy smile.
“How’d you escape your father’s cult?”
I glanced away, wishing I’d never agreed to this.
“Hey.” Enzo kept his tone soft. “I promise, I’m the last person to judge you.”
I didn’t answer him.
“All right.” He ran his hands through his still-damp hair. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about his cult.”
Enzo was smart in his interrogation technique. This was easier to start with than what I’d done.
I cleared my throat once, twice, three times because the words felt glued there. “My father started the cult when I was a baby. Somehow, he and my mother convinced people through the power of my father’s words that he was some holy prophet when, in fact, he was the opposite.”
“How was he the opposite?” Enzo asked.
“He killed followers who tried to leave or those he suspected had become disloyal, then buried them on the compound.” My gaze drifted away from him to the record player. “Sometimes he’d give me a shovel and force me to help him pile the dirt over them.”
Enzo reached out to clamp my chin in his palm and slowly drew my gaze back to him.
“As I got older, he got worse,” I continued. “More violent. A few members managed to escape and went to the police. Someone tipped him off that the feds were coming to raid the compound. And …”
My mouth shut, and I could no longer speak.
Enzo grabbed both my hands in his, holding them together in front of us.
“And then what, Blair?” he asked lowly.
“And then we all had to burn.”
And in an instant, my mind went back there.
“Into the chapel! Into the chapel!” my father yelled, waving his arms and rushing us toward the small building like we were cattle and a storm was brewing.
His followers crammed through the narrow entrance, and theold wood creaked under our feet. I stepped in with the others, near the back, where I always stayed, and watched him through a crack between standing bodies.
