Cherished: The Mountain Man's Babies(20)

“Open the door, Cherish,” he bellows.

The tears sting my eyes but I’m not crying for him. It’s the fate of my children that worries me.

"How did you find me?” I ask through the door. “How did you know I was here?"

He laughs, kicking open the door and pushing me aside. When he pulls out a gun, holding it much too close to me, I know the worst is yet to come. The other men I recognize create a circle around me and I don’t move.

James has just got his family back. George can’t take his flesh and blood. Our children were born from something beautiful, and I won’t allow them to go somewhere so wicked.

"That stupid boy, coming back and looking for you. Dumb enough to mention it in town. Dumber still to come back to the compound. He thought we were all gone, but like hell we were. Of course, Luke has people watching the place. James doesn’t seem to understand the game he's playing."

"You followed him to find me?"

George shakes his head. "I got a call yesterday afternoon from these friends of mine at the compound." George looks at the men with him. "Telling me the boy was looking for you."

"Where were you? Did you go to Montana?" I ask.

"Think I'm going to tell you that? Like I could trust you with that information after you betrayed me?"

"If I betrayed you once, why would you trust me? Why would you force me to—"

"Because the Lord gave you to me. There is no question about where you belong. You belong in my house. In my bed. As my wife. Not with some piece of shit boy who thinks he's a man. I paid for you––you’re mine."

I shake my head, wiping my eyes with the palm of my hand. Refusing to cry over George’s words.

His words try to break me, but I've already been broken and beyond that, I'm already rising again. I’m a phoenix, born from the ashes of his own making and I’m not going to stand here and walk across fire for George.

No.

The only person I'm going to go to the flames for is James.

For our babies.

But not George. Not now, not ever.

"I'm not coming with you. You can't make me."

George laughs in my face, his breath as sour as it ever was. His hair gray and his body week. But he's holding a gun.

And I'm only holding my heart.

He has the power to kill me. And after what they did to James, I don't doubt they’ll do it if they see fit.

But they will not take my children.

I can be strong. I can be strong.

I am strong.

"I will make you do as I say. You’re coming back to the compound and you're going to be taught a lesson."

"Don't do this, “I beg. “I'll never love you."

"No one is talking about love. We are talking about the Lord’s will. You are mine, dammit. And in God’s name alone I claim you as such."

I'm shaking now, my hands trembling, my bare legs threatening to collapse.

I will not fall.

I will not.

The gun is to my head, and the babies must sense my fear because they start crying, all of them at once.

The babies. My precious lambs. Hollering like wolves in the night.

"These babies aren't coming with us," George says with disgust, the spittle from his mouth flying. "I knew they were never mine. But I wasn't going to say anything around the other sister-wives."

His words prove to me what a coward he is. What cowards all these men are. Paying for young virgins, and claiming it’s God's will.

"Then you already know. You know I don't love you."

"I already told you, this isn't about love. This is about what is right. And you are rightfully my property."

I'm glad he realizes the babies aren't his. I don't want them to come in that van with me. Because if they do, I don't know if they will ever come back.

I couldn't bear that, to have them ripped from their father.

"Just take me then," I tell him, falling to his feet. This time I let myself fall because it's my one chance of saving the babies from this cult.

George pulls me up by my hands, dragging me from the cabin. Slamming the door. Shoving me in the van.

And then, before I can stop what's happening, we’re pulling out of the driveway, a blindfold is wrapped around my eyes, my wrists bound by rough rope. The tires peel out, spraying mud behind them, and carry us down the mountain.

My heart. My heart.

I thought it had broken so many times before but I didn't know what heartbreak was.

My babies. My James. They are my everything.

I have none of them.

This is worse than death.

This life I'm being led to is worse than it was in the past. Now they are going to make me pay.

James barely made it out alive when they punished him.

I don't know if my fate will be better or be worse.





Chapter Fourteen