“Hey, how’d things go today?”
Leo and I were pushing the last mini chopper onto Digger’s trailer when Rivet appeared beside me. “Hey man, better than yesterday, that’s for sure,” I told him as I strapped the bike down and checked to make sure it was tight before jumping off the side and onto the ground. I embraced Rivet with a handshake and a pat on the back, Leo coming around to do the same. “You guys about to head out?”
Most of the booths had closed up already and were clearing out. We were one of the last, and I was glad for this trip to be fucking over already with the exception of the ten-hour ride home tomorrow. I think we were all hoping that we would leave the drama behind in Dallas and it wouldn’t follow us home, but given that Skylar had practically made her family look like idiots and Deacon was housing a runaway teenager, I wasn’t exactly convinced we were out of the shit yet. But I was proud as fuck of her.
Skylar had stayed within eyesight of the club booth the entire day, helping sell merchandise and running the riding track. She’d left early with Skins and Blizzard to pick up donations from some businesses around Dallas that wanted to participate in the fundraiser, but didn’t have the time or resources to come out with their own booths. We had a banner which advertised their businesses, and in return at the end of the event, they paid a donation which we added to what we’d raised.
“Yeah, we’re on our way out, but I wanted to come over and have a chat with you first and introduce you to someone,” Rivet said, gesturing to a young woman who was standing behind him. She stepped forward with a gentle smile. “Boys this is Ally, a friend of the club.”
She waved, and I dipped my head. “Nice to meet you,” I said before looking back at Rivet with a raised eyebrow. “So what’s the deal?”
“I wanted to give you a heads up to what you’re dealing with when it comes to the Colony,” he said, gaining my attention and making me stand a little straighter. “There’s a lot more to these guys, far more than even Skylar knows, that’s why I wanted to talk to you while she wasn’t around. Sometimes the truth can be kind of confronting.”
I scrubbed at my face. Skylar was already struggling with what had happened yesterday, her brother had brought back all these fears and emotions she’d spent years pretending didn’t exist. I’d seen her almost leap out of her skin on more than one occasion, simply when someone brushed past her or tapped her on the shoulder. She was scared, and I honestly didn’t blame her.
I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Let me guess, these guys aren’t just a little on the crazy side?”
Ally shook her head. “They’re a lot on the crazy side,” she responded, confirming my suspicions. “I was part of a polygamist cult not unlike the Colony. I got out around eight years ago with my best friend, and since then we’ve been helping other girls and women escape that life and help them find new homes.”
“This is bigger than I thought it was,” Leo murmured, taking a seat on the edge of the trailer behind us. “I mean, I’ve seen these things on the news before, but never really paid a lot of attention.”
Ally smiled sadly. “And unfortunately, that’s how these people are able to keep doing what they’re doing. The men who run these places are sick, they actually need mental evaluations because they actually believe what they’re saying. They believe they’re hearing the word of their god, and he’s telling him to do these sick and twisted things… like marrying little girls and abusing their wives and children.”
I ground my teeth. The more Ally talked, the angrier I got. I didn’t want to hear anymore, but I knew that this was important. I couldn’t let these assholes get away with what they were doing, or what they had already done to Sky. She had spent the last six years forcing her memories of her childhood into the back of her mind, never really dealing with what she’d been through. That wasn’t fucking healthy. Now it was back in full force and hitting her from all sides. There would be a point where she would have to face what happened to her and find a way to work through it. Right now, though, she was just doing what she was accustom to—pretending it wasn’t there.
“I brought Ally here to give you some info on the Colony, given she’s helped a few girls from there to get out and start new,” Rivet said with some sadness in his tone. “I’m telling you now, man, it ain’t pretty.”
Inhaling deeply, I squared my shoulders and tried to put myself into a place where I wouldn’t let what she was about to tell me take over and send me into a haze.
Ally shifted from one foot to the other nervously, as she watched me try to deal with my self-control. “You care about her a lot?” she asked, the question innocent but extremely loaded.
Why did this shit make me so upset?
Was it because I was a firm believer in a man never laying his hands on a woman, or was it because these fuckers had put their hands on one woman in particular?
“Just explain,” I growled, not wanting to even touch the question when I had no fucking idea myself.
Ally nodded. “I’ve had two girls from the Colony referred to me after they ran. Women’s shelters and places like that where they usually end up, often recommend they come see me because of the resources I have with families and places willing to take them in and give them jobs so they can start new lives.”
I rolled my shoulders impatiently, trying not to look like I was being rude. The girl was good, she was doing work that not a lot of people would even know about. But all I wanted to know was, what the hell we were dealing with and whether Skylar was in trouble.
“The girls, they couldn’t have been more different.” My ears perked up, and I stood a little straighter. “One had grown up there, she was around nineteen, had been married to her second cousin a few months before and just decided she was done. The other…” Ally shook her head and looked at Rivet who gestured for her to keep going. She took a deep breath and turned her gaze back to me. “The other girl, she was a foster kid from California who had been having trouble with her foster family. She was spending a lot of time drinking and partying and one day was introduced to this guy who, I guess, offered her an escape.”
“There’s a punchline here isn’t there,” Leo said, watching Ally intently, his eyes narrowed as though he was expecting the worst.
He would be right.
“He drugged her, and she wound up shackled in a house, the man there claiming he had bought her and now owned her.” Ally’s voice was scratchy, and I could tell even though she knew the story, it was still one that had a huge impact on her and her emotions. “She was there for months, raped continuously, beaten when she would try to fight back. Eventually, she realized that the man gave her more freedom the more obedient she was.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I cursed, scrubbing at my face as if I must be imagining this shit. I knew there were some fucking crazy people out there but this… my brain couldn’t even compute. “She got out, though?”
“The more submissive she was, the more he started to allow her to do things. He would take her to the Colony church gatherings, he would allow her into the kitchen to cook for him. Eventually, she got pregnant, and he took her into town to see the Colony doctor,” Ally explained. “They sent her to the bathroom to take a pregnancy test, and she climbed out the window. She hid out until it was dark and then made her way to the highway and caught a ride with a trucker until they hit a major city and she went to the police.”
“And did they do anything?” Leo asked, sitting forward as if excited to hear that this guy had been thrown in jail for life.
Ally’s grimace told me that it wasn’t the case at all. “Twelve hours after she ran, they searched the house, there was no evidence, and everyone they interviewed told the cops she had been there willingly, and they were a perfectly happy couple.”
My stomach turned. I wanted to punch someone. “If your purpose was to piss me off, congrats, you win. Otherwise, I need to know exactly what you’re trying to tell me here.”