White Diamonds by K. Lyn

from the stranger, having been taught not to trust outsiders.  What Nash noticed was the exhaustion in her young face.  The girl looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.
    “I should go,” she started, but Nash stood up to block her.
    “Why don’t you stay?  What were you starting to tell me at the door?”
    Analeigh looked down and spoke so softly that Nash barely heard her.  “It’s the movie.  You’re one of us and I need to know what happens to you.”
    Nash was confused.  What did she mean, he was one of them?  Then he got it.  “I’m just playing a part in a movie.  You know that, right?”  He turned to look at her, but she continued to look down at the floor.
    “But I’m not,” she said.
    “I can’t say how it turns out, Analeigh.  I don’t know.  I read the script from day to day and act the part.  I’ll be right back,” he said, returning with a pillow and blanket.  “Stay the night, Analeigh, right here.  Hands off, I swear.”  He smiled, but Analeigh’s face was blank.
    Nash knelt down and untied Analeigh’s shoes when he noticed her threadbare socks and scratched feet.  Analeigh quickly withdrew her feet and hid them underneath the blanket so Nash could see no more.  His heart went out to her.  He moved away to give her some space, but Analeigh held tightly to the blanket.  “Can you talk about it?”  Nash sat down on the floor and listened as she told her story.
    “I left when I was sixteen.  I wanted to leave when I was fourteen but I thought I should be an adult first.”  Nash hardly thought that sixteen placed her in the adult arena, but given the world she had been raised in, he wasn’t surprised to hear her take on it.  “They wanted me to stay and marry the prophet, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him touching me.  My best friend was married to the prophet and she told me that he hit her, and the sex was…”  Her voice trailed off, fearing she had said too much.
    “Take your time.  I swear I won’t hurt you.”
    Analeigh took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  “When I was sixteen I ran away, but they found me and forced me back.  I was never married to the prophet, but he took me to ‘the Temple bed’ and made me…”  Tears began to fall from her eyes and she buried her face in the pillow that Nash had given her.
    He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until the pain went away, but he knew that would frighten her.  “How old are you now, Analeigh?”
    Slowly lifting her head, she whispered, “Eighteen.”  The tears flowed endlessly and Nash offered her a box of tissues.  She wiped her face and continued.  “I was picked up in Idaho, but I lied to the authorities.  I told them my parents were dead and I had nowhere to go.  They sent me to a foster family, but when I turned eighteen I left.  They were good to me, my foster family, but I always feared the prophet’s people finding me.”
    She was gasping for air when she finished talking, and Nash very slowly put his hand on hers.  “You’re okay now, Analeigh.”
    “But..I..have..nowhere..to..go,” she said.  “I have no money or belongings.”
    Nash was silent.  Everything he had read was true.  He hadn’t doubted its validity, but hearing firsthand accounts was almost too much to bear.  Analeigh laid her head back down, but she didn’t move her hand away from Nash.
    “Where do you live now, Analeigh?”
    “In the Davie Village.  One of the restaurant owners lets me stay with him and his wife.”
    “Are you staying there now?”
    “I haven’t been there since your movie began.  I don’t want to get them in trouble.”
    No one could do a thing to her now that she was eighteen, but Nash knew the young woman had been brainwashed.  The reality was that no one was looking for her.  She was one of a million young girls available to the men who followed the prophet.  Nash took his hand from where it lay on Analeigh’s hand and slowly smoothed her long