“Sooner would be better…than later,” he breathed.
She kissed his neck, held him tighter. “You’re never satisfied.”
He must’ve known she hadn’t found a way out or anything that might help them, because he drifted off to sleep again without making any attempt to move.
Rachel lay in the tomblike silence, holding him with a desperation she’d never experienced before, listening to the water drip, wherever it was, and praying. Again. She’d realized something about herself in the past few hours. She and God weren’t enemies. Maybe her faith wasn’t like her father’s—but it was every bit as real.
31
Rachel was awakened by someone crying. At first she thought it was a dream or the echo of her own sobs. Had Nate died? Maybe so. She didn’t see how he’d hung on this long. Maybe he’d died and she’d cried herself to sleep or been crying in her sleep.
But that couldn’t be. Nate was in her arms, and he was still breathing. So who else was down here? And why hadn’t whoever it was responded when she called out earlier?
Trying to slip away without disturbing Nate, she crawled to the edge of her cell. It was a woman. But which woman? Martha? Sarah? Courtney? Someone else?
“Who is it?” she called.
The crying stopped. Then an unsteady voice said, “Martha?”
Rachel could tell by the speaker’s uncertainty that this was considered an unlikely guess.
“It’s Rachel Mott.” She used her fake last name because she knew that was the only one anyone from Paradise would recognize.
“Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“You—you’re locked up, too?”
“I’m in a cell with my husband. Who are you?”
“Sarah. I met you at the party, remember?”
Rachel grabbed the bars of her cell as if she could get closer. She wanted to see Sarah, wanted to find out what condition she was in. “Where’s Martha?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice broke. “I think they killed her. They were doing such awful things to her. I—I don’t know how she could survive it. She wasn’t moving when it was over. I saw her lying there, on the altar….” She sniffed, then cried some more. “There was blood.”
Rachel recalled that fragment she’d heard from Ethan when he was on the landing. I could’ve gone on all night, especially when she started to beg. That’s when I spread her legs and rammed that— Wincing, she tried to block out those words and what they’d meant for Martha. “How long have you been down here?”
“I don’t know. I just…I just woke up. They must’ve given me something. Wait, yes, I know they did.” She seemed to recover a bit. “I remember. After what they did, I was hysterical. Beside myself. Couldn’t quit screaming or crying. Dominic gave me a shot. He said it would make me sleep. I think he felt sorry for me.”
“Not sorry enough to let you go.”
“No.”
“Did he rape you?”
“Not me.”
“Martha, then?”
“Yes. Him and the rest of them.”
Was that what she had to look forward to? Gang rape? And what did the Covenanters have in store for Nate?
“But Dominic wasn’t as cruel as the others,” she added.
“That doesn’t make him a friend.”
There was no response.
“What kind of shape are you in?” Rachel asked.
“I’m bruised and sore. That’s all. And hungry.”
“What about Courtney?”
“I haven’t seen her since I’ve been down here.”
“But you saw her before?”
“Not recently. She was in Paradise for a while. Probably longer than Ethan admitted to anyone who came here looking for her. But all I really know is that we accepted her, and then she was gone.”
Gone…and yet she hadn’t shown up at home. What had Ethan done to her?
Suddenly, there were other noises. The creak of a door some distance away. Footsteps. Light reached the dark corners of the pit and, eventually, two men passed Rachel’s cell, carrying a limp body. The shadows made it difficult to recognize anyone, but the men moved as if familiar with the pit and its cages, and Rachel could hear keys jingling.
“Martha!” Sarah cried.
Martha didn’t respond, but Rachel hadn’t expected her to. She was obviously unconscious. The men who’d brought her didn’t speak, either. They laid her in a separate cell, closed the door with a clang and rattled it to make sure it was locked. Then they passed Rachel once again on their way out.
“Dominic? Dominic, wait!” Sarah called.
He didn’t even pause. “I’ve done all I can for you, Sister Sarah.”
“What about Martha? Is she dead?”
“No.”
“Why’d you take her away?”
“She was hemorrhaging. But I got the bleeding stopped.” He sounded tired. “I did everything I could for her. Try to get some sleep.”
“Dominic?” Rachel called. She’d met him at the dinner she and Nate had attended in the Enlightenment Hall with all the Brethren.
He came to a halt. “What the— Is someone else down here?” As he and his companion walked up to the bars of her cell, she recognized the man who was with him, too. It was Joshua Cooley.
“My husband,” she said. “He—he’s bleeding to death. Will you help him? Please? I’ll do anything, anything at all.”
“I can’t.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s almost morning. If Bart catches me interfering—”
“It’s not as if you’d be letting him escape,” she argued. “You’d just be doing what doctors are trained to do, what they’re supposed to do. You’d be saving his life. Please.”
He shook his head and would’ve left if Joshua hadn’t stopped him. They murmured to each other. Then Dominic returned to her cell and, with a sigh, opened it with a key on the ring he carried.
Rachel wanted to fly at him the moment he opened the door. Her first impulse was to kick and claw her way to freedom. She didn’t trust these men much more than she trusted Ethan or Bart. But she knew that if she didn’t succeed in escaping—maybe even if she did—her actions would guarantee Nate’s death. She’d told them she’d do anything if they’d save him, and she meant it.
“Get back in the corner,” Joshua warned, and she scrambled to obey.