The firelight throws everyone's faces in shadows so even though I've been living with these people for months they all look like strangers. Isaac is next to me, preaching what sounds like a well-rehearsed sermon for outlanders. The children have already tied the older couple to crosses and raised them up so they stand above even the tallest stalks of corn. The old man lolls his head around, blood dripping from his face onto the kids standing below him. It doesn't seem to annoy them, only feed the passion they have for He Who Walks Behind the Rows. The woman, on the other hand, still hasn't moved since being thrown around by Malachi. She hangs limply from the cross, her gray hair hanging loosely around her face. Her modern clothes look almost foreign to me now. All wool and rough farm dresses, I envy her machine made cotton dress.

Isaac finishes his sermon and I feel his hand on the middle of my back urging me forward through the crowd of children and I can't remember how to move. I don't want to be anywhere near these blood thirsty monsters. My mind keeps drifting back to the car abandoned on the road with that poor child in it. I can't leave her there for long, but how will I find time to help her escape?

"Mahlah, we have to leave the sacrifices to He Who Walks Behind the Rows," Isaac whispers sharply in my ear and I move towards the white church, all the children Gatlin following me. Since when did I become a core part of this cult?

Isaac and I sit inside the chapel, the rest of the citizens have gone home but I doubt they are asleep. I saw their faces, they were alive with the fire and the blood. They'll be awake until the early hours with adrenaline in their veins.

I won't sleep either, my head is full of memories made fresh and that child's big eyes staring at me like I was their last hope in this world and I probably am. While I sat quietly in a pew in the middle of the little chapel, Isaac whirled around. He paced to the window, staring out before chiding himself for peeking and walking away and starting the whole affair over again. He was all movement and thrill and I couldn't even pretend to be as excited as he was. He murdered those people out there, not directly not like I…

I'm no better than him am I? Rachel's face flashes in my head, as well as the look on Isaac's face when her blood hit his skin. Gatlin has swallowed me hole, there will be no retribution for Jesse in this world not while she wears her farm dress and listens to the likes of Isaac. But what choice do I have?

"Mahlah," Isaac says quickly, leaning on my pew and getting too close than I care to be right now. "Mahlah, would you like to pick up where we left off?"

"What?" I asked, unable to put together his meaning.

"Before the Outlanders, we were…" his words trail off and his lips ram into mine. His hands dart to my waist and pull me out of the pew to hug me close and I feel like I'm being crushed to death. Like the walls of the chapel are suddenly only big enough for me to breath and soon there will be no room for that either. I yank myself away, unable to keep my act up for Isaac. He looks hurt but I am too disgusted to care. My skin crawls and my lips have his spit on them. My heart is beating a million miles a minute and I just want to go home.

But that was never an option, was it?

"Mahlah? What is it?" he asks, his voice bordering on hurt and angry.

"I… it's… it's not right for us to… we need to marry first," I stumble out. The idea had sprouted in my head in that very moment and I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner.

"Oh, but of course. I am so sorry, I should have known better," Isaac mutters, suddenly blaming himself for even suggesting it- which takes at least that resentment off my shoulders. "It's just I was so.. you're so… I'm sorry."

I give him a tiny smile, the only one I can muster up in this moment. My fingers grab at the fabric of my dress, fiddling with the coarse material. "It's… okay."

"I'll leave you to your nightly prayers then," he says, starting for his room in the back of the church.

"Thank you Isaac, sleep well" I say, feeling quite proud of my diversion.

"Oh I won't sleep at all, I have to plan our wedding for tomorrow!" he says, grinning wildly at me before vanishing behind the white door.

While the idea of marriage makes my tiny corn supper flip around in my stomach, Isaac was so consumed with planning he left me all by my lonesome. He's slipping.

Darting out of the church I sneak into the corn field and head towards the road. The torches are still burning bright and they help lead me to the car stuck on the side of the road. I couldn't risk taking a torch but now I regret it. The car is drenched in darkness and I can hardly find my way to the door handle, but when my fingers do hit it I wrench it open and whisper a "hello?"

I can see some movement and then big eyes reflecting the moon look up at me.

"Hi, hey it's me, Jesse," I say trying to plot out this girl's escape plan while also trying to make her feel safe.

"I'm scared," she whispers in such a tiny voice my heartbreaks.

"I… I know, but I'm going to get you out of here," I say. "What's your name?"

"Cora," she says and I immediately etch the name in my brain as not to forget it. Jesse has weaved in and out of my memory in my time here but I will not forget this girl's name. Never.

"Cora, listen to everything I'm about to say. I have a plan for getting you out of Gatlin."

"And you too?"

I stop to look at her, my eyes adjusting to the dim moonlight. I would tell her the truth but that would only scare her more. She needs some hope right now, I know I need some that's for sure.

"Me too."