Chapter Eleven
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Jena closed the door. She wasn’t about to take all the outfits Megan had bought for her. She went to the closet and brought out the clothes she’d been wearing the day she’d met Matt and Sean.
The last few days with the two Texans had been the best in her life. That’s why this was so hard. Looking at them around their kitchen table sipping beer felt so right. She belonged here—with them. But it just couldn’t be.
I don’t want my hell to be their hell. They have no idea what Carl is capable of. I do.
I must do what is best. Oh God, this is so hard. I love them. I love them with my whole being. I wish there was another way, but I know Carl would kill them. I simply can’t let that happen. I must go. There is no other answer. Please, God, help me. I can’t bring myself to do this without your help.
There was a quick knock at the door and Matt and Sean walked in.
“We’re here.” Matt grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Baby, what’s wrong? We’re here for you. For Kimmie. For your mom. You’re not alone anymore.”
Sean caressed her cheeks and gently wiped her eyes. “You are the family we never had.”
“What do you mean the family you never had?” She saw pain in both their eyes that broke her heart.
“Sean and I have known each other all our lives,” Matt told her. “He’s like a brother to me.”
“Same here.” Sean nodded. “We are brothers. After all we’ve been through, no two men could be tighter than we are. Our parents were involved in a cult.”
That revelation shocked her.
“That’s putting it mildly, bro.” Matt turned to her. The intense seriousness in his demeanor was something she hadn’t seen before. “They were completely lost to this creepy guy who called himself The Enlightened One.”
“He also went by Reverend William Mayfield but he made his followers call him Brother,” Sean added.
“Do you mean the same Brother Willie who was the leader of the group in Belco, Mississippi?” She’d read about the cult leader in a sociology class at MIT.
“The one and only,” Sean said. “I was born in the commune. My parents were with the asshole from the very beginning.”
“My parents came later. About two years before the FBI raid.” Matt was calm, as if what he was telling her was as common as a hot summer day in Texas. But it wasn’t common. Far from it. “Willie thought he was the embodiment of God on earth. As kids, we had to kneel to him whenever he came in the room.”
She wanted to hold them both. “Everything I read about the man said he was a monster.”
“On every level, Jena.” Matt sighed. “My sister was only three. They never found her remains in the fire. For a long time I held onto the dream that Carrie was alive. When I was at the CIA, I used every resource I could to find her.” He closed his eyes. “She’s gone. I have to accept that.”
“I’m so sorry.” Jena put her arm around him. “I thought everyone died that day except the cult leader.”
Matt’s tone hardened. “We’re the only survivors besides that fucker. The authorities kept our names out of the papers. We were taken into protective custody and eventually were farmed out to an orphanage.”
“How did you two get out of the compound before it burned down?”
“When the shooting started, Matt and I ran into Willie’s office, still thinking the bastard could do something miraculous to save us and our parents.” Sean’s voice was steady, but she could tell the memories he and Matt were sharing held great pain. “The asshole was gone. At first, I thought he’d vanished back into heaven. The damn lying fucker had brainwashed all of us. Matt found the trap door to a secret tunnel.”
“We crawled back to get our parents and my sister to tell them about the escape route,” Matt continued. “That’s when we saw all the parents, including ours, shooting not at the agents outside, but at one another.”
“Children were killed first.” Sean lowered his head.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“My dad spotted me and aimed his gun at my head. That’s when some of the women set fire to the drapes using gasoline. A spark hit my dad’s shirt before he could fire his gun. Matt and I ran back to Willie’s office and scrambled down the tunnel.”
Matt looked at her with unblinking eyes. “Thirty-seven adults died and twelve children.”
She wept for them, for their suffering, for the loss of their innocence. She could see the men they’d become, but in her mind’s eye she saw the two boys, about Kimmie’s age, clutching each other as their insane parents went up in flames. She’d been older when her dad had died in the car crash. She remembered standing on the track watching his vehicle’s fiery explosion. In a strange way, what she shared with Matt and Sean, losing their parents in fire, deepened her connection to them.
She kissed them, again and again, through teary eyes. They knew pain. Deep pain. What she had with them now was unbreakable. Leaving them and Destiny was no longer possible.