To the Ends of the Earth (Stripped 5)

Leader Allen sent my brother to terrorize the girls who worked for Ivan, threatening Candy so she’d come back to Harmony Hills. That plan backfired because Ivan had already fallen in love with her. His protection was fierce and brutal—resulting in Leader Allen’s death. If anyone can protect Delilah, it’s Ivan Tabakov. “We can’t stay there forever.”

“Not forever. Only until your brother is caught.”

If my brother is caught, he’ll be put on trial. He’ll be found guilty. He’s hurt people in the name of God. I know he deserves to be punished, but I’m still the product of my upbringing. I don’t want to be the one to do it.

Delilah’s little fist. Her dark curls. I’ll do anything to protect her. And my brother won’t rest until he finds me. Until he brings her back into the fold, the lost lamb.

Then I understand why Luca’s really here. “You want to use me as bait.”

It’s a relief, after thinking he would force me. I shouldn’t feel even the smallest pang of disappointment.

His jaw tightens. “Your brother went after the girls at the club. He went after Candy. Tabakov won’t rest until he’s been found.”

“I’ll do it,” I whisper.

“I won’t let you get hurt,” he says, his voice hard.

He can’t promise that, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep. The deep isn’t really Alaska. It comes from the Hebrew word for chaos, for confusion. For the restless motion of waves. If there’s one thing you learn from the Bible, it’s metaphor.

The chaos continues until God creates the earth. The story is meant to tell us God’s power, his might, but all I ever thought, as a little girl in a dirt-floor room, is that something existed before him.

The darkness was here first.

Chapter Eight

That’s how I end up at Mrs. Lawson’s door again empty-handed. Luca stands a few yards back, watching to make sure no one from the Last Stop comes around. It makes me shiver to imagine those bodies—how many were there? They’ll be hard by now, lying on the pavement. When will someone find them? It might not be until tomorrow at ten when the cook opens for lunch.

There’s a move in the white lace. I’m sure Mrs. Lawson sees Luca. There’s a longer pause before she opens the door. Her eyes narrow as she glances over my shoulder.

Luca normally looks terrifying, but with those bruises, the blood, it’s an especially scary sight.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Lawson.”

Her harrumph says she knows what she knows. “Come inside, child.”

As soon as she shuts the door, she turns the deadbolt. “I’m calling the police. Don’t matter what he takes from your place or if he trashes it. You and the child are both inside here, and he’s not coming inside. Not without meeting the side of my baseball bat.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek, and she blinks in surprise.

She’ll be one of the few things I’ll miss about Alaska. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

He’s not going to hurt Delilah, which is the important thing. What he does to me alone, in the dark, when I’m his bait…that might hurt. Not the kind of pain he has now, from being hit and kicked. The kind inside you, in places you don’t know about until they’re rubbed raw.

The hallway is still dark, the door still open.

Delilah’s still asleep, her dark curls stark against her curved cheek.

I pull her warm body into my arms, cuddling her close. She makes a sound almost like a squeak before nuzzling her face against me. She wears the warmest wool nightgown I could find in preparation for these little walks, her hands and feet covered with the same thick material. It helps even inside the apartments, where cracks in the insulation make it impossible to keep warm.

Mrs. Lawson blocks the doorway. “I’m not gonna see you again, am I?”

I can’t ever come back here, even if I escape Luca again. “I’ll miss you.”

She shakes her head. “If you ever need to run away from that man outside, you call me first.”

My tears prick. When I imagined running all those years in Harmony Hills, I never thought anyone would help me. They told me stories about the sin outside. That didn’t scare me half as much as the calloused disregard. We were a community, they said. We took care of our own.