Ruby didn't tell her father she'd found the bodies in the pool house. She also didn't tell him her real thoughts about anything at all after that day. She'd walked on glass around him, wary, always knowing he had everything but her best interest in mind and all right with that fact so long as he gave her space. At first, he required only simple tasks of her, like helping clear out the rooms of furniture and decor so he could sell as much as possible. She asked few questions, and Daddy seemed to prefer that, he leaving during the daylight hours and returning with food in the evenings, she staying indoors as he'd requested so as not to be seen and questioned. Their existence carried on quietly for a few weeks before Ruby found herself becoming quite bored. Her father had quickly sold the televisions as well as nearly all the furniture. The girl didn't understand the man's endgame, what exactly he was trying to do, but she refrained from conversation as much as possible. She was fed, wasn't she? She slept in a warm house with a pillow and blanket (the box springs and mattresses and bed frames had been picked up in pieces over several days), and she had a toilet and shower. Best of all, still, was that she was left to herself during the days, and the pool was there, even if Daddy hadn't been properly cleaning it.

Ruby took it upon herself to scoop debris out of the water, to try to keep it clean, so that she could swim during the day. The bodies in the poolhouse had most likely disappeared; Ruby figured as much only because the smell had gone, but she'd not garnered the stomach to visually confirm. The plants around the pool had been meticulously cared for, and in order to fill the time, Ruby looked through all of them, kept them watered, and in general decided she'd do her best to keep them alive and happy. She enjoyed finding critters amongst the succulent leaves and exotic flowers: caterpillars and lizards, birds and spiders.

It was strange that no one came to the door, ever. Without saying as much, Ruby knew this wasn't really her father's house, and she wondered how he'd gotten away with it. But she didn't wonder it enough to ask and risk Daddy's anger, especially not until she was ready to leave.

Because she was going to leave, eventually. Of course her father didn't know it, but there was no way Ruby could stay. Things were starting to get pretty dull, and he'd tried to get her to begin reading the Bible (though he had yet to specify what this "work" was that God had chosen them for), and there was, of course, Damien.

Of course.

There'd aways be Damien.

In all her hours of wandering about the nearly empty house, nothing to do but look at a Bible or go out in the backyard and swim or garden, Ruby thought of Damien. Most of the time, she wasn't even consciously thinking of him but was instead just subtly aware that he hovered always just beneath the surface of her more immediate thoughts. Damien had become a sort of foundation for her, the bedrock upon which she'd placed the precarious pillars upholding her frail hopes. What was life—her life or any life—but a dull book whose pages were being lethargically turned by a disinterested reader? So many blocks of sameness contrarily moving too quickly toward a future void of glimmer. Was existence solely fueling the shell-of-a-body so that it could keep stumbling along the path to its inevitable end? Yes, though Ruby had no words to express such ineffable thoughts, she felt the futility of her being. She'd felt it before Whit had gone, before Mama had stopped caring about her, before Damien had tried to kill her, and she felt it even more, now, being with Daddy in this awful limbo. The only tiny bit of sparkle in an otherwise interminable nothing was the hope of one day being with Damien. Everything else was just pretend.

Ruby didn't know how exactly she was going to find Damien or what she'd do when she did find him. She knew only that it would happen, one day, and that when she did finally get him within reach of her hands, she'd never, ever let go, even if, with his hands, he chose to extinguish her life.

It was somewhere around one o'clock in the afternoon. Ruby had done all she could think to do outside. She'd come back in and found herself daydreaming about that night in the motel again. She'd had all the time in the world to think about her first time, to romanticize it, to make it more important, more delicate, more loving. Somehow, Ruby couldn't quite remember the part about crying in the bath, about the way she'd hurt after. She remembered only that he'd touched her, that she'd been under him looking up into his gorgeous face, that he'd chosen her to get so deeply close with. That she'd satisfied him, been enough for him, at least in that moment. He'd said he loved her, hadn't he? Yes, she thought he had. She was sure of it.

She was lying on the carpet of an empty bedroom, fingers at work on herself, trying to remember every inch of Damien as she said his name over and over, when the front door unexpectedly slammed shut.

Ruby flipped over onto her stomach, frustrated to throw away her nearly-victorious efforts. "Hello?"

Daddy suddenly walked through the open doorway. Startled to death, the girl scrambled up onto her knees.

The man paused, slivered his eyes, evaluated his daughter. "What's that you're doing in here?"

"Nothing, Daddy. Just resting."

"Then why do you look like a caught rabbit?"

Sure she was red as a cherry, Ruby swallowed her spit and sputtered, "It's n-nothing. I—you just startled me, is all." She smoothed her skirt, not realizing it was run up a bit high, and licked her dry lips. "Um, why're you home, Daddy? I didn't think you'd be here until night. That's all. I thought maybe some stranger came in the house."

Relenting, the man dropped a huge plastic shopping bag onto the floor. "Came home to pick up that ugly painting, that one from the motel. Got a buyer for it." He barked a laugh. "You know who it is? Know who wants that ugly clown thing?"

"Who, Daddy?"

"That old pervert off by your Mama's house. What'd kids call him—Boner Bill. That's it. Fine by me, I suppose, long as he's paying for it."

Ruby was surprised to hear her Daddy call Bill Taylor by the young peoples' neighborhood epithet, but she was more curious about the bag he'd just plopped on the carpet. She didn't want to reach for it until he gave permission so instead widened her eyes upward in anticipation.

"Got you your own Bible, girl," he said after a moment, much to her disappointment. "Thought you might want to start making notes in it."

She'd been using her Daddy's Bible, seen his hundreds of scribbles and highlights all throughout the text.

"Thanks," she said, trying to sound sincere.

"Here's a highlighter, too." He tossed a bright yellow marker next to the thick tome.

Ruby sighed inwardly. She wished she could tell her father she had zero interet in reading the Bible or any other religious bits or pieces.

"Listen, girl," the man said, seeming to have listened in on her thoughts, "you don't have to believe it to make use of it."

She looked up at him. "Sir?"

"Ruby Rouge, there're things you need to learn about people."

Daddy surprised her by lowering himself to sit next to her. Ruby scootched back a bit, more out of fear he'd sense what she'd been up to than anything else. But then she realized how ridiculous that notion was and forced herself to inch back toward her father.

The man put a thick hand on the floor, leaned on it. Ruby noted the curling black hairs on his knuckles. "People are stupid," he said softly, almost conspiratorialy. "Many, many of them believe all the things written in the good book, but the truth is, Ruby, none of them quite understand what it means. They believe all that nonsense without even comprehending it. And we—yes, we—can use that for ourselves, see? The secret is this, girl: the words in this book can be turned or rerouted any whichway we want. We only have to make them work for us, and people will believe we got the right message. The sublime message, if you will. You understand what I'm saying?"

Ruby looked at the index finger her father tapped against his temple. She wasn't sure she had any idea what he meant, but she nodded all the same.

"You and I, we're meant for bigger things, my girl. I've known it for a long time. I—" He stopped himself, caught his daughter's eye. She in turn waited for him to continue, but when he didn't, the silence fell awkwardly around them. "Well, you'll see what I mean sometime soon." Daddy slowly got back to his feet, brushed his hands off on his pants as if he'd been sitting in sand. "I've got to get that painting. Oh, and I also picked up your other things. The few belongings you had, when you left your Mama's. Thought you might want just a couple bits of your own, since I've cleared the place out. Now I've got to go out again. Everything's gonna change soon, you hear? So you start getting your Bible learning tight, understand?"

"I understand, Daddy."

He nodded, nearly smiled but instead grimaced. "Good girl. I knew I could count on you. My Ruby, ready to go."

The man turned and left the room, and his daughter felt the vey atmosphere lighten. She had no idea what he'd meant about "the few belongings" she had; she'd not had anything with her at the motel. Crawling over to the plastic bag, Ruby tipped and dumped it. A massive youth Bible fell out first, followed by the sleeping bag and pillow and blankets she'd had out at her and Damien's meeting place in the hills. Smaller items scattered afterward, including a lighter, a switchblade, a few items of clothing, and another book. Missing were the folding chair and cooking utensils and sharp and blunt objects, but Ruby figured her Daddy hadn't been able to fit them or hadn't wanted her to have them.

Something hollowed within her. How had her father . . . how had he known about her and Damien's meeting place? He'd been there? The thought deeply disturbed her. Daddy had expressed his dislike of Damien. Had he gone there to hurt her love? And if so . . . had he succeeded?

Ruby's breathing shallowed. She heard her father rummaging about somewhere wtihin the house, likely the door leading from the kitchen into the garage, where he'd kept artifacts to sell. There was no way she could ask that man about Damien; why, even mentioning the boy's name could stoke the flames of her father's ire, and they'd been getting along so well, as of late. Oh, Ruby didn't know what to think, but she surely didn't appreciate missing information.

As she sat on her knees, tangled in her confusion, Ruby suddenly took note of the book that'd tumbled from the bag. Not the Bible—she knew what that was. It was another book, and if Ruby knew anything, it was that she'd most definitely not brought any reading material with her from her Mama's house. Flipping the paperback, she recognized the much-loved dog-eared pages and crinkled cover of Damien's book, the one he was always poring through, the one that distracted him eternally, to the point where she'd grown utterly annoyed with his absorption. The name of it was funny, lots of vowels—A's and E's, an I. She didn't know how to pronounce it. The thing looked ancient, some old warrior sort of people on its cover. Still, it was his. His hands had been all over it; his eyes had read and reread the words; his tongue had likely sounded out the names; his thoughts had been wrapped in it like a fly caught up in a web. For those reasons, Ruby loved it. Adored it. Cherished it. This would be her Bible. This strange book. Damien would surely miss it, never knowing all along it'd be in her possession! He'd be absolutely torn up, and she'd be the one holding on to what'd done the tearing.

She had to know.

Jumping to her feet, Ruby snatched the lighter, clutched the book to her heart, and trotted out into the hall, then into the kitchen. "Daddy!"

She hadn't expected him to be right there. In fact she nearly ran into him when she entered.

"What do you want? I have to get going."

How could she ask without arousing suspicion? "I—uh, thank you," she started. "For getting my things, I mean."

"Oh. Well, it was all right." He appeared ill at ease with her appreciation.

"I'm just surprised, is all," Ruby blurted, following as her daddy edged toward the door. "I didn't know you knew where it'd be, that's—" the man stopped suddenly, and she did bump into him, this time. Backing up, awkward, the girl finished, "—all. That's . . . all." She looked up at him, embarrassed.

Daddy narrowed his black, glittering eyes at her, hmm'd.

The girl's breath caught.

"I didn't see that boy, if that's what you're after, and good thing, or he'd have had me to answer to. You forget about him now, you here? We've got this work to do, and I'll have no childish distractions."

Ruby nodded, concerned only at her father's admittance he hadn't seen Damien. "I know, sir. I understand. Thank you, still."

The girl didn't wait for any sort of response. She skipped from the hall toward a door leading downstairs, into an unfinished basement. It was where her Daddy had been sleeping, but it was also where a strange room was, a room with a shallow circular pit. Daddy had been spending time reworking that area, tiling the pit, saying he was going to fill it and make a sort of well. None of that mattered much to Ruby. What she really wanted was to get into another small room in the back of the basement, a storage area accessed through a crooked wooden door hanging aslant on its hinges. Surely this was where the previous owners had stored old holiday decorations and tubs of out-grown clothing and paint cans, junk that no one looked at except maybe once a year. Daddy had cleaned out much of it, but the space was dusty and dark and filled with cobwebs, and Ruby had found a special spot back in there, a niche in the wall, where a strange small door opened into a floor drain beneath a staircase.

On her knees, the girl crawled into the dark space, flicking a flame from the lighter as she did so. How happy she was to have it, to have no more need to sneak Daddy's keychain flashlight in the middle of the night.

Back, back into the corner she crawled, and there, Ruby stopped. In front of her, on a piece of plywood she'd found in the basement, was a crudely drawn image of the man she loved, his long dark hair around his stoic features, as best as she'd been able to recreate them with her limited drawing materials. His name was chalked across the walls, along the floor, and parts of Ruby were with him: she'd pasted some of her hair as a border around his portrait, used her fingers to paint some of her first womanly blood across his lips and eyes and neck (she'd begun her cycles, but she'd as of yet been hesitant to tell her father and had managed with some old cleaning rags). She drew nearer Damien's likeness, kissed his poorly drawn face, licked it, rubbed her cheek across it. Nothing would take her from him. Nothing. She would be with him again, no matter how long it took. She would bring him to her. She had something he wanted, now, something he valued.

Damien Jensen belonged with her. She'd wait as long as necessary. She'd coax him like a flash of light in the dark. She'd lure him in.

Ruby would be nothing at all if not patient.