Into the Light (The Light, #1)(84)

I don’t know what to do. I’m scared and need help. I just found this thread. I’m hoping someone will see this and know what to do. No one believes me, but I swear it’s true.



I lost over a year of my life to a cult. I’m afraid if I name them, they’ll hurt me. I just want people to know that this is real and it can happen to anyone.



During the year I was held captive, I watched people come willingly into this community. I wasn’t one of them, though I thought I was. Let me explain. One day I woke up and I was someone else, someone everyone knew, a follower of this group and of a man. I couldn’t remember anything prior to my waking. For some reason my mind played tricks on me. I was obviously the one with the issues. Everyone else knew me.



They told me I was married. I had no proof otherwise. My husband was abusive, yet I had no option but to be obedient. His behavior was accepted by everyone around me. It was the way the entire community lived. We all had jobs and requirements. I still don’t know exactly what I did; I helped to package things. I worked on an assembly line, and all I saw were plain boxes going into bigger plain boxes. Ten hours a day I did that. I wasn’t alone; everyone did something. The thing that’s hard to explain was that we all did it willingly. We weren’t paid, but we had food and shelter and friends. I accepted my life, until one day, when I was instructed to tell a new follower that she wasn’t new, that she belonged with us that I began to see. My husband told me it was our leader’s will and an honor to do his work. That was when my questions came back.



I wasn’t the woman they said I was. They’d done the same thing to me.



I know that if they find me, they’ll kill me. I just know it. Leaving wasn’t an option. There were select chosen members who decided the fate of others. I didn’t know them well, but if they considered me a threat, I’m sure I’d be eliminated—banished.



As soon as I got away, I told the police my story. They said I was crazy.



Before I disappeared, I had a drug problem. The police said that what I described was impossible. They said I’d hallucinated, and if I pursued my claims, they’d have me institutionalized.



Help! I want to tell my story. Someone please help me.



I wanted to comment, in hopes MistiLace92 would respond. Unfortunately, the comment thread had been closed.

As soon as I got to WCJB the next day, I contacted a friend with an affinity for everything computers. It took him all of fifteen minutes to track down the IP address for MistiLace92’s post. It originated from a public library in Columbia Falls, Montana. I called the Columbia Falls Police Department. It transferred me to three different people. Finally I was informed that there weren’t records of a Misti or anyone else filing a report with such claims. I sent the comment and IP information to their e-mail address; minutes later I received a response claiming the IP address was incorrect. My friend swore it wasn’t.

I asked if there could possibly be a cult nearby. They told me no. A search for Misti Lace came up empty for that area; however, I found a Misti Lacey on the national registry of missing persons. Unfortunately, Misti Lacey’s only living relative, her mother, was now deceased. I’d hit another dead end.

I wasn’t sure if my interest in MistiLace92 was connected to my interest in Mindy, but whatever the reason, for the previous few nights, her story had haunted my dreams.

As I drove toward the coffee shop I still wondered: if MistiLace92 was really Misti Lacey, why was she still on the registry of missing persons? Her post had been made over a year ago.

Shouldn’t she be found?





CHAPTER 25


Sara


As I lay on my side, wrapped in Jacob’s embrace with his bare chest against my back, the skin-to-skin contact seemed right, yet I couldn’t shake the unfamiliarity of his stare. With our legs slightly bent, I caressed his arms and wondered about the blue eyes from my dreams. Maybe that was all they had been, a dream. I sighed and nuzzled my cheek against the pillow.

“You’ve been quiet since we came back from the community. Do you have something you want to say?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

Closing my eyes, in the dark of the bedroom, forced the tear teetering on my lid to fall to the pillow below. Shaking my head, I said, “No, Jacob. I’m not sure of anything.”

We’d just made love and I was crying, not exactly what a husband wanted from his wife. There hadn’t been anything wrong with the sex—it was fine, just different from the previous night.

Now that I could see, everything was different.

Jacob pulled me closer, and his breath skirted across my hair. “Whether you remember it, or you’ve recently relearned it, tell me what Father Gabriel says about a wife’s thoughts.”

I exhaled. “Just like everything else, they belong to you, but,” I added, “I’m not keeping anything from you. I really don’t know how to say what I’m thinking. Honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m thinking.” As more tears silently fell to the pillow, I tried to still my shudders, not wanting Jacob to know I was crying. When he didn’t respond, I swallowed and went on. “I wanted to remember your face. Why can’t I remember? Will I ever have a past?”