We drove another couple of miles, until I saw the rundown motel on the left. I pulled in, got out of the truck and moved around to the passenger door. I opened it and took Harmony’s hand. Her fingers shook in mine as she got out of the truck. She looked all around her. “Are we here? Is this where we are going for help?”

I shook my head and reached for the drugstore bag in the bed of the truck. “One stop first, then we’ll go.”

Harmony nodded and tried to smile. She was so goddamn brave. And she trusted me. She trusted me completely. Fuck, I had done nothing to deserve it. Soon she’d no doubt fucking hate me too.

I knew I was on borrowed time.

I held Harmony’s hand in mine as we went to the motel office. I almost punched the pimply kid at the reception desk when his stupid eyes wouldn’t move off Harmony’s face. Possessiveness wrapped around me, boiling my blood. He was lucky I was in a hurry or he’d have been eating his teeth for supper. Snatching the keys from his hand, I led Harmony back outside and down to the room.

It was a shithole, but we weren’t there to sleep. I shut the door behind us and turned on a lamp. Harmony gasped as the shitty furnishings came into view. I was just about to tell her that we only needed an hour at most here, when she said, “This is a most beautiful room.” Harmony turned to me with shining eyes. “You have brought me here, Rider? To a room with a bed and a bathroom?”

She walked to the bed and pressed down on the mattress with her hand before sitting down. Her chin lifted and she smiled so fucking big that it was almost brighter than the lamp beside me. “It is so soft,” she said happily, a light giggle bubbling from her throat. “And it has linen.”

I stood like a fucking mute watching her, my now-wife gushing over a shitty bed and faded over-starched sheets. What she had truly been through all her life, at the hands of my family, of me, hit home.

We had robbed her of any form of joy, of something as simple as a damn bed. She’d had nothing. Nothing but hatred and judgment flung her way. Raped, abused . . . denied basic human rights.

I deserved to die. All of us who were responsible for making that her norm deserved to fucking die.

“Rider?” I blinked away the red mist that had descended over my eyes. Harmony was still smiling at me. I needed her to keep that smile. I would ensure by the end of tonight that smile never left her beautiful face again.

“Come,” I rasped, my voice thick with emotion. I walked toward the tiny bathroom and emptied the contents of the bag onto the faded white countertop. Harmony was a statue in the doorway, watching my every move. Her eyes dropped to the hair dye on the counter.

“We need to change how you look,” I said, picking up the box. “So if my brother and the disciple guards come looking, he won’t recognize you.”

Harmony studied me for a long while, before she slowly nodded her head and tentatively walked into the bathroom. I took the garland of flowers from her head, and released the two braids that held back the front sections of her hair. They fell in loose waves around her face.

Harmony’s smile hadn’t returned as we began to work the dye through her long blond hair. She stood still, facing the mirror, as I applied it to her hair, but her suspicious eyes never left mine. As the dye darkened her light hair to a midnight shade of black, I stood mesmerized, watching it change her appearance.

Harmony took a shower, washing off both the remnants of our wedding joining and the dye. She dressed, and I dried her hair. When the final strand was dry, I stood behind Harmony and swallowed. I stayed that way for too many minutes to count.

I snapped myself out my stupor and turned her by her shoulders. “Look up, baby.” Harmony’s shoulders sagged, and my mouth turned dry as I lifted my finger to each of her eyes and removed her contact lenses.

I looked at my wife, and I staggered back in disbelief. Forcing myself to gain some semblance of composure, I walked back to where she stood, completely still. I saw the unshed tears shining in her eyes.

“Brother Stephen told you . . . about me . . . ?” she whispered. It wasn’t really a question. It wasn’t a statement. It was a shocked realization that I knew everything about her.

Taking her wrist in my hand, I lifted it, and with a wet face towel I wiped off the impressive makeup on her wrist . . .

A tattoo. A tattoo I had seen only three times before, the name and numbers of a passage of scripture: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”