Ronan
I lead her to where I’m parked at the calm, leisurely pace of a man who has everything under control.
It’s all performance. Inside my skull, I’m screaming.
What the fuck did I just do?
I married a barefoot, traumatized nineteen-year-old cult member I’ve known for less than ten minutes, and I married her in a dirt yard next to a whipping post while a man with a leather whip stood three feet away waiting to flay her back open.
Behind us, one hundred-plus cult members watch as one of their own leaves with a stranger. Buford’s gaze is a drill bit between my shoulder blades. I don’t turn around.
I hit the key fob, and the locks of my Audi chirp. Prudence jolts at the sound.
“It’s the car. The lock.” I keep my voice even. Calm. The same tone I use with skittish investors and hostile politicians. “Here.”
I open the passenger door and step aside so she can get in.
She doesn’t move. She’s fixed on the interior—the leather seats, the dashboard, the digital display—as if I’ve opened a portal to another dimension. Her lips part, but no words come out.
Then I notice how she’s clutching both halves of her torn shift together with white-knuckled fists, one hand at the neckline, the other at the waist.
“Hold on.” I reach to undo my belt buckle and slide the leather free from the first loops.
She goes rigid.
Every muscle in her body locks. Her chin drops to her chest. Her shoulders curl inward, rounding her spine, and she turns her body a quarter-rotation—not to run, not to shield herself, but to present her back.
I stop with the belt half-drawn through the loops.
She’s positioning herself for a blow.
The practiced, automatic precision of her posture guts me. This isn’t panic. She’s done this before—turned her back, dropped her head, prepared herself for punishment. Her body performs it without consulting her brain. The way a soldier drops to the ground at a loud noise. Muscle memory.
For three seconds, I stand in the gravel holding a half-drawn belt, unable to breathe.
“Prudence.” Her name comes out rougher than I intend. I clear my throat and try again. “Prudence. Look at me.”
She doesn’t lift her head.
“I’m not going to hit you. Ever. Not with anything at all. The belt is for your dress,” I say, pronouncing each word with care. “To hold it together. So you don’t have to use your hands.” I pull the leather free from the last loop and hold it out between us, flat across both palms, as non-threateningly as I know how. “That’s all it’s for. Nothing else.”
She lifts her head by degrees. Her eyes find the belt, then my hands, then my face. I watch her process.
“You can do it yourself. Or I can help—your call.”
She takes the belt from my hands. Her fingers brush mine, and the contact again sends a jolt through me. The same thing I feel every time we touch. It’s electric and unsettling.
She threads the leather around her waist. Her hands shake, but she manages the buckle on the third attempt, cinching the shift into something that will stay closed. It looks absurd—a shapeless gray dress the texture of burlap held together by a two-hundred-dollar Italian leather belt—but it works. She can move her arms.
“Good,” I say. “Now get in.”
She climbs into the passenger seat with cautious, deliberate movements.
I close the door and round to the driver’s side.
As I turn the ignition and the engine purrs to life, she grabs the edge of her seat with both hands. Her eyes go round.
This situation is surreal. All of it.
