The Maiden (The Cloister Trilogy 1)

“She’s in the bathroom.” I ease my door open and they hurry into the hallway.

Sarah hesitates and grabs my hand. “Tell me if you change your mind.”

“I will.” I glance at the bathroom door. “Hurry.”

She darts away, and I close my door, then lean against it. My heart is pounding, and I stand there for a while, listening for trouble. None comes, and before long, I hear the Spinner walking along the dormitory corridor, the wooden boards groaning quietly at intervals.

I return to my bed and pull the covers over my face. Like a burial shroud, it gives me a measure of peace, the sense of finally being alone, of blissful isolation.

The three of them will try to escape. I couldn’t miss the determination in Sarah’s eyes. The feeling of being an animal with its leg caught in a trap, but still thinking it can get free if it only pulls hard enough. It’s not until it bleeds out that it realizes the trap is forever.

Chapter 15

Adam

She sits in the front row with the rest of the Maidens, her head bowed as my father drones on about how all females in the church should be in “perfect obedience” to their husbands at all times. If a wife is having marital issues, personal problems, or so much as a runny nose, it is because she is not in perfect obedience.

The women in the crowd nod along, though some of them—the ones who wear sunglasses more often than not—keep their heads bowed. After all, according to the Prophet, their black eyes and concussions are due to their own faults as wives.

He still preaches the perfect obedience doctrine, even after one member of the congregation forced his pregnant wife to stand outside on the coldest night of the year. “If you are in perfect obedience, you will not be harmed,” he’d told her before going to sleep in their warm bed.

The next morning, she’d lost four toes to frostbite and the baby from the trauma. This was, naturally, her own fault for not being in perfect obedience. At least that’s what my father and the rest of the savages in this building would argue.

“… and the wife shall be blessed. The book of Ephesians tells us, ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.’ There is no ‘except when you don’t feel like it’ in there. Can I get an amen?”

A deeply male rumble of “Amen” rolls through the crowd.

“It doesn’t say ‘obey only when it suits you.’ It doesn’t say ‘obey unless you have a headache.’ The scripture is quite clear on what is required of a wife.”

“Amen.” The crowd affirms the Prophet.

I don’t give two shits what these sheep believe, as long as they pay their tithes on time. My eyes are drawn back to Delilah, her face hidden from me. But I can recall it easily, just like the rest of her. My cock stirs, awakening at the thought of her spread out beneath me, the way her breath hitched as I stroked her tits. It was an act of acute control not to take one of her nipples in my mouth, to finally taste the pale, warm skin that taunts me even now.

Noah walks up beside me, both of us hidden by the stage curtain as my father gets deeper and deeper into the pit of misogyny that leaves his congregation slobbering for more.

“We got a job tonight.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“What?” I intend to spend my evening with Delilah, teasing her until she begs me to eat her pussy.

“Enforcement.”

“Fuck.” I sigh. “Who?”

“We got word that a couple of the deacons have been talking about starting something new. Taking off with a handful of followers. They’ve been doubting the Prophet in secret meetings.”

“How many?”

“No more than twenty.”

“Who’s the ringleader? Davis?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Gut feeling.” I peer into the crowd and stare at one of the Heavenly police officers, Lieutenant Chris Davis. I’ve never spoken to him, but something in his bearing, the way he doesn’t show the deference required for the Prophet—all of it has pinged on my radar a time or two. He’s one of our newest deacons, a lower cog in the Heavenly machine that keeps everything running smoothly. But now he’s out of rhythm. It’s my job to make the necessary adjustments to keep this operation singing.

I’m up for it. “Jump him after Dad’s finished blowing smoke?”

“Yeah.”

I glance at my brother. Usually, he might scold me for a negative reference to our father where others might hear. This time, though, he’s stone-faced. My father’s easy condemnation of Noah’s pet Gregory seems to have wised him up a bit. Or maybe he’s just tired of trying to fix me when I’m too far gone.

We stay at the edge of the stage for a few more minutes, my gaze always drawn back to Delilah. No veil today, her hair is roped up into a prim bun at the crown of her head, just like all the others. As if she can feel my stare, she lifts her head slightly, her eyes glinting as she looks right at me.