She closed her eyes briefly, terrified to look up, but knowing she had to. A thousand plans were formulated and then discarded. Duncan Caine. He always made her feel so powerless. His punishments were the worst. He was enforcer to one of the branches of the cult the Reverend RJ had started. The Reverend and Caine were cousins and cut from the same depraved, sick cloth.

She swallowed hard, desperate not to give him the satisfaction of being sick all over his polished boots. She was not going back with him. She’d told the police all along to look for Caine, that he was still alive, but they assured her he was killed in a shoot-out with the police when they’d raided the farm and arrested several key members of the cult.

This man had crawled through her bedroom window in the middle of the night with her parents right down the hall. He’d held a knife to her little sister’s throat and told her he’d kill her sister if she didn’t come with him. She’d gone, and she was grateful she didn’t struggle. Caine’s men surrounded her home, ready to murder her parents, her older brothers and her little sister. She’d gone quietly with him to protect her family.

She’d been eight years old and her life had changed forever. She’d been beaten, starved and raped, forced to “marry” Caine and become his “wife.” The one saving grace had been the farm. He’d forced her to work from sunup to sunset, and she’d loved every second of her hands in the soil, coaxing the plants to grow. She could forget her life and pretend she was a girl on a farm with no endless nights of hell to worry about.

Caine and the other cult members had learned that with her working the farm, they prospered. That didn’t stop the beatings or the cruelty; if anything, Caine wanted her cowed and completely under his thumb. He’d dug a hole in the ground and forced her into it several times after beating her senseless. The problem he found with the punishment was that she healed fast and didn’t seem to mind being in the ground with the soil all around her. So he’d found a metal box, and when he was especially drunk and feeling mean, he would force her into it.

“Did you really think anyone could keep you from me? Your betrayal has brought God’s wrath down on you and you will be punished. I’ve searched for you, a cheating, betraying wife. Jezebel. God sent me to save you in spite of yourself.”