Someone Else is Watching

Prologue

"Can't you see that we'll die if we dont get the hell out of here?"

"We wont, Jewel," Lizzie whispered.  "Mordecai would never let anything happen to us.  Not to us."  Her voice changed to a singsong kind of coo.  "No, he wouldnt.  Not to his own baby, would he sunshine? No."  She sat cuddling her newborn daughter in the rocking chair Mordecai Young, "the reverend," had brought into their quarters.

They no longer had to room in the barracks with the other so-called Young Believers.  Mordecai Young had moved his special girls into the spacious attic of the main house, where he could be closer to them.

"Lizzie, youre being stupid.  Your forgetting the plan."  Jewel paced the length of the large room, growing more and more agitated. "And it was working so damn well."

Lizzie looked at her and for a moment Jewel thought she saw the sharp mind and clear eyes of the girl her friend had been six months ago.  "It was," Lizzie said.  "We made him believe we loved him, didn't we? And it worked."

It had worked.  Mordecai had made them his right hands.  They had access to the house.  They ate better.  He never hit them anymore.

"But, Jewel, I'm not acting anymore.  I love him."

"He's a criminal.  Jesus, Lizzie, he takes in runaways and makes us into slaves.  He has armed guards and those dogs of his patrolling the compound in case any of us try to leave.  We're fenced in, fed all the drugs he can slip into our food to keep us complacent while we listen to his sermons and cultivate his crops.  And you've seen the weapons room.  He's got more firepower than the freaking NAtional Guard down there!"

Unmoved by Jewel's impassioned speech, Lizzie stroked a forefinger along her baby's whisper-soft cheek.  "He's my daughter's father."

"He's a drug dealer with the Messiah complex, Lizzie.  And this is no place for a baby."  She moved closer, ran a palm over Sunny's silken baby hair.  " We have to get out--- for her sake."