PROLOGUE
IF SHE’D KNOWN the vital act of breathing could be so excruciating, Delilah might have thought twice about her actions.
No.
That wasn’t true.
Despite the chilly temperature, stomach-cramping hunger, days of isolation, and the fists that had pummeled her, she’d do it again because she refused to get pregnant by that man.
Nothing in the world could make her conceive his child willingly.
Her husband.
The man she’d never wanted to marry, but who cared what she had in mind for her own life?
No one.
Delilah huffed out a self-deprecating laugh, which turned into a wince when a shock of fire streaked across her chest.
“Ohhh,” she groaned, as she attempted to settle into a more bearable position on the hard floor of an abandoned shed at the very back of her community’s property.
The fact she’d been successful in deceiving her husband for such a long time was a miracle in itself. For two years, her ruse had flown under the radar. For the seven hundred and fifty-two days she’d been married to a man more than three times her age, she’d managed to sneak a birth control pill down her throat.
She’d never missed a dose.
Never.
Members of their sheltered, brainwashed community pitied her husband, Roger. When he walked by, whispers trailed him, as did side glances and head shakes. As the man who’d married the girl considered by many in the compound to be the most desired, he should have been strutting like the prize rooster. She was the first of their founder’s daughters, slated to produce near-royal children for years to come. Progeny with her father’s founding blood who would one day lead the community with the same iron fist and deluded ideals her father currently did.
Unfortunately for old Roger, her tendency to be defiant, obstinate, and vocal in her opinions often overshadowed her reputation as a young fertile prize.
Especially those opinions which went against the values of their people. Nearly everything she believed in or desired flouted what she’d been taught.
She did not believe the world would end in her lifetime.
She did not believe they’d make use of the hundred-person bomb shelter the community members had spent nearly three decades building and stocking.
She did not believe they needed to form an army, prepared to rise up during the inevitable violent degradation of society.
She could not understand why the community leaders taught hatred and intense distrust of everyone with a lifestyle different from theirs.
She absolutely did not believe young children needed hours of physical and military training daily, followed by hard labor farming or working in their sewing shop.
No one questioned. No one had an independent thought. Every man, woman, and child she lived with seemed perfectly content to exist in their sheltered, fear-fueled world.
Everyone except her, which had made for a difficult upbringing. The majority of her belief system came from her mother, who’d whispered tales of a life away from the community. One where women had free choice, men respected those they loved, and children spent their days playing frivolous games and laughing. Delilah loved those lessons disguised as stories, and when her mother had disappeared years ago, she’d kept them alive in her mind and with her actions, which led to many punishments. As a teen, she’d rebelled against the idea of military training, she’d vocally expressed her disinterest in an arranged marriage, and she’d flat out refused to work at times. None of it had ended well for her, but no matter how many beatings and punishments she’d endured, her desire for a different life persisted.
Poor Roger had been saddled with the black sheep, but she was young, pretty enough, and would provide numerous healthy offspring he could mold into little clones of himself.
Or so everyone had thought.
They had no idea that when she was in town on errands, she’d been sneaking off to meet up with a woman she’d encountered by chance years ago. The woman who worked at a Planned Parenthood. The very same woman who’d provided her the oral contraceptives when Delilah spilled her story in a fit of hysterics after finding out she’d be marrying a sixty-two-year-old man at the tender age of nineteen.
Actually, eighteen years and eleven months.
When she’d been thirteen, Delilah vowed she’d never bring a child into the world. At least not while living in the para-military community where she’d been raised. And since she’d had no hope of leaving, she’d pretty much resigned herself to the fact she’d never reproduce. Not that it mattered. The compound had so many children, it was practically overrun. She’d had a hand raising kids since she was in the single digits herself.
Roger, we all thought she’d give you many strapping sons and precious daughters to carry on her father’s legacy. How could this have happened? She’s so pretty.
How many times had she heard a version of the sentiment?
Because that’s how it worked.