A mute, foundling girl hides from her pursuers with the help of a reluctant recluse. The two of them have nothing in common except deep emotional scars. Who is she? How did she end up unconscious and scantily clothed on Evan's isolated property? Why...
Caleb blocking my way angered me. Before I could break from his grasp, he spoke to me in a voice barely above a whisper, I guessed, so Sophie wouldn't hear. "I'm aware of this punishment being carried out among some of our stricter Amish congregations. It's a harsh form of discipline meant to humble a woman who is consistently and willfully disobedient."
I raised my voice. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"She doesn't want to see you, Evan. She's ashamed."
I shoved Caleb aside. "Get out of my way." Crossing into the room, I looked for a light switch before remembering there was no power. "Sophie?"
Movement on the floor in the corner.
I stepped her way.
She cowered there in a fetal position, clothed in an Amish dress, her hands covering her face and head.
"What happened, Sophie? Did they beat you?"
I tried moving her arms, but she resisted and tried kicking me.
"Hey, stop that. Sophie, no matter what they've done, I will never think less of you." I couldn't say the same about her captors. If I suspected she'd been sexually abused, I'd be hard pressed to stop myself from killing them all.
I took hold of her wrists. She resisted at first. As she fought, my hands brushed against her tear-soaked face. After a while, she surrendered and allowed me to move her arms away. I didn't think there would be enough light for me to see bruises.
The light was good enough.
She had no bruises. She suffered worse.
The bastards had taken her beautiful, long, red mane of hair and shaved her completely bald.
Caleb found a hoodie among the things in the women's bedroom and handed it to Sophie. I helped her into it and raised the hood over her head. She wouldn't look at me and tucked her chin against her shoulder, withdrawn.
Next, Caleb grabbed the comforter from the bed and wrapped her in it. "I'm sorry this happened to you, Sophie. These men, these..." The next words he said were in Dutch. From the heat in his tone, I understood the adjectives used to describe Titus and his sons were not complimentary.
When he reverted back to English, he continued addressing Sophie. "They are pretenders. They are not Amish. My friends and I are not like them. You understand that, right?"
Sophie said nothing.
I cleared my throat. "I'm sure she gets that."
He stood aside and allowed me to wrap an arm around her. "C'mon, Sophie. Let's go home."
I guided her as we descended the staircase and walked out the door.
Sophie kept her gaze to the ground and wouldn't acknowledge her rescuers, the group of young men who cast curious glances her way and stood around guarding Titus and his family.
Suddenly, I realized I had left my truck at the entrance to their lane. It was too far for traumatized Sophie to walk. I turned to Caleb. "Can you give us a lift in your buggy?"
"Of course." He hesitated and studied Titus and his family. He shouted to his cohorts. "I'll be back in a minute. Then we'll finish this."
He looked at Sophie. "My friends and I will see to it these pretenders will never bother you again."
I didn't like the young man's expression. "Hold on. As much as I'd like to see them disappear forever, I don't want you and your friends to do anything you'll regret. You don't want that on your conscience. Not to mention, you're too young to spend the rest of your lives in prison for murder."
The young man smiled. Now that I was more relaxed since Sophie was safe, I could see Caleb was a handsome young devil. "Who said anything about murder? Don't you know we Amish are non-violent?"
"Yeah, but how are you going to make them disappear? How can you guarantee they won't cause any more trouble?"
Caleb rubbed his hands together. "Trust Amish justice."
Whatever that meant. Sophie squeezed my hand. I took it as a signal she was down with whatever Caleb and his boys had planned.
"Well, okay. Please, be careful. Oh, and thank you." I looked at the assembled young men. "Thanks to all of you."
They said nothing, but I noticed several nods.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
What do think Caleb and crew will do to Titus and his sons?
