Ben (The Sherwood)

“Easy, Heath,” Dad warned him, rolling his eyes.

He made no remark as he followed Lilah out the front door, letting the screen door slam shut in his wake. I don’t know how my child managed to sleep through the entire fiasco of this evening, but she had.

“This should be interesting,” Dad remarked, rubbing his hand across his face. He was tired.

Merci took Disa’s hands. It was their turn to leave as soon as Heath left the driveway, I gathered from AJ watching out the front door. Then Dad would be following AJ.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Merci declared.

Disa tugged her into her arms. “I don’t want you to leave. I just got you back.” They held each other until AJ told them it was time to go.

“Now,” he repeated himself when nobody moved.

“AJ let them say goodbye,” Dad said.

“What if he comes looking for them tonight?” He appealed to Dad.

Dad patted his shoulder forgetting about his gunshot wound. AJ almost went to his knees in pain. “Sorry son.”

“Now,” he croaked.

“It will be morning at least, before he can track down Ben. Merci told us she didn’t know who he was to tell Elder Ron anything when he came home from the park asking her questions. Most likely he only knows he is a Hatfield, if he has that much information.”

“I would feel better knowing they were both far away from here,” AJ replied.

“Fine,” Disa snapped at him. “Go,” she told her sister. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

Seth led Merci outside to AJ’s truck while Disa stepped closer to me. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” AJ told me. I nodded at him. Then I tugged Disa into my side. I knew that she was crying. This nightmare was just beginning, and I didn’t like having no control over the game.

Chapter 16

Five days passed, and nothing occurred. We were on pins and needles waiting for something, anything to happen. I expected Elder Ron to show up at my doorstep looking for Merci. Every morning I took Disa and Asia to Mom’s house. Every evening I picked them up. If she was working for Dad, he or Seth took her with him to the pub and brought her home to me.

She felt like a prisoner and she didn’t like it. I was feeding Asia at three a.m. on Saturday when Disa and Seth arrived home from work together.

I could tell the moment they arrived something was wrong. I was rocking my daughter in the recliner. Asia had sucked down about half of her bottle. Seth went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. Disa plopped down on the sofa nearest to me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Your dad doesn’t want me to work anymore.”

“Why?” I took the bottle from Asia and put her on my shoulder to burp her.

I didn’t need Disa to work. It wasn’t important to me, but it was to her. She had worked hard for her independence. This confinement was taking a toll on her so Dad asking her to not work was going to make it worse.

“Elder Ron and his guards showed up tonight.”

“Shit. Seth take Asia for me.” I needed to hold Disa. I thought she needed me. If she didn’t I needed her.

He sat his beer down on the coffee table and took my daughter cooing to her. He walked the floor, patting her back. I slipped onto my knees at Disa’s feet, oblivious to Seth being in the room with us.

I cupped Disa’s face between my palms. “What happened?”

“Nothing at all. It’s a game to him. He was there to unnerve me,” she replied. She laid her head in the crook of my neck. “I hate what he did to her and to Lilah, Ben. I had heard rumors of the things that went on in Elder Ron’s house.”

I slid up onto the couch beside her and held her in my arms. Disa talked. She needed to talk about this now. Things she had held inside her for so long.

She used words like prestigious being picked by Elder Ron. The other girls her age at the compound we