Then, from across the room, she lifts her head and finds me. A smile breaks across her face—radiant, open, aimed at me with a certainty that makes my pulse stutter.
The realization doesn’t arrive gradually. It doesn’t build or creep or dawn on me in stages. It detonates. I am falling in love with my wife.
The intensity of my feelings for her terrifies me. But what scares me more is a dangerous truth that I’ve been avoiding.
Clive Buford let her go too easily. HisFlockmight see him as a holy man, but I know better. He’s a conniving con man who I doubt has a moral bone in his entire body.
He gave up Prudence without much resistance. He’ll try to get her back, I’m certain of it.
The only question is when and how.
I take another drink and fix my eyes back on my wife—luminous, laughing, alive—and make a silent vow.
Whatever he tries, I’ll be ready.
No one will take her from me. Not the cult, not her conditioning, not Satan himself.
She’s mine.
Chapter 13
Prudence
“I have never tasted chocolate,” I answer, and both women stare at me as though I have announced I’ve never breathed oxygen.
Nora recovers first. She reaches across the small table where the three of us have claimed a corner of the private room and squeezes my wrist. “We’re fixing that. Tonight.” She cups her hands around the sides of her mouth and hollers, “Lorcan,”
Lorcan materializes so fast I wonder if he was hovering. “Ladies. What’s the 9-1-1?”
“We need chocolate,” Nora says. “The best you have.”
He vanishes and returns in under a minute with a small plate bearing three dark squares and a dusting of something gold. “Belgian. Seventy percent cacao. You’re welcome.” He sets the plate down with a flourish and winks at me. “Life-changing.”
I pick up the smallest piece and place it on my tongue.
My eyes close without my permission. The flavor is rich and deep—a bitterness that dissolves into sweetness and spreads across the roof of my mouth and down my throat like warm honey. My lips press together, holding the taste inside.
When I open my eyes, Saoirse is grinning. “That’s the face. That’s the ‘first chocolate’ face.”
“It’s wonderful,” I whisper. I reach for the second piece, then pull my hand back.Greed is?—
No. I stop the thought before it finishes forming. Ronan told me I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I take the second piece and let it melt on my tongue.
“So,” Saoirse says, propping her chin on her fist, “tell us about you. All we know is that you two married fast and he’s walking around looking like a man who won the lottery.”
The question is warm, not an interrogation. No pressure.
I set my hands in my lap and consider what to say about the Enclave. All my life, I had thought it was Zion—a place of hope and salvation—and that we in the Flock were the righteous followers of God’s holy word. Yet, here, today, I find my previous beliefs no longer hold true.
“I was raised in a religious community,” I say. “We called ourselves the Children of Light. I lived there from birth until…” I pause, counting days. “Eight days ago.”
Nora’s hand finds mine again under the table.
“We grew our own food. Made our own clothing. We had no electricity, no telephones, no automobiles. I did not know what a television was until Ronan showed me one six days ago.”
Saoirse’s expression doesn’t shift into pity. It shifts into recognition—a tightening around her eyes, a nod so small I might have imagined it.
“Were you allowed to leave?” Saoirse asks.
