Escape from Eden (13 page)

“Mia?” Thaddeus said, noticing my uncertainty. “It’s time.”

“Yes,” I whispered. I watched Gabriel and Juanita disappear into the dark room.

“Come along.” Thaddeus started toward me, reaching to take my arm.

I flinched away. The backs of my calves hit the chair.

“I’m coming,” I said, although my legs were beginning to shake almost uncontrollably.

The storm outside swirled around the cottage as violently as my thoughts. I was about to find answers, possibly clues to how I could escape from Edenton. I had no reason to feel nervous. I should have been excited, curious. But something about this didn’t feel right. Who was that man who served us the drinks? Why hadn’t I ever seen him before? Why would Gabriel assume the drinks were poisoned?

“Mia,” Thaddeus said my name with a hint of a threat. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing.” I forced a smile. My lips, suddenly parched, stretched painfully. “Just anxious about my first Circle. I’m trying to savor the moment, I guess.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. But the hour grows late.” His long arm swung toward the door. “Please,” he said.

I walked to the door and glanced at the couch. The book Thaddeus had been reading sat face up, its red cover shiny.

The Art of War.

War? The Church of the Promised Land didn’t believe in war. We were taught that violence can’t lead to peace.

But I couldn’t let myself be distracted by that now, so I stepped over the threshold as quickly as I could, then stopped. Light from behind me illuminated only a few feet into the room.

“Down the hall, Mia,” Thaddeus said from behind me.

“Hall?” I asked.

My eyes adjusted to the dark. What I thought was a room was actually a small antechamber with another door on the other side. I stepped toward it, quickly, because if I didn’t move fast, I’d turn and run the other way. My feet moved quietly over the floor, my hands grazing the walls in the narrow hall. A low light winked at what looked like the other end. I moved faster. The light disappeared, a shadow moving before it.

“Hello,” I called out.

“Mia,” I heard Thaddeus say from behind me and I darted forward.

I tripped, hands going down to brace myself. I fell, pain shooting up my arms, a sharp ache in my knees as I hit the floor. In the blackness, I heard a groan. A familiar voice. Gabriel? I reached back and felt skin, an arm. A shadow moved ahead of me and light stretched out from the other end of the hall, shining on Gabriel’s prone body, sprawled on the floor. I’d tripped over Gabriel. And next to him was another body.

“Juanita?” I whispered.

My arm stung as if pricked by a needle. I tried to scramble to my feet but they slipped out from under me. I needed to scream, call for help. I opened my mouth to yell. I tasted blood on my tongue. A fog descended over my eyes. I succumbed to the shadows, and they swallowed me whole.

I heard music. Real music. Pounding, beat-driven, pulsing. So loud the bass traveled down my spine, though my limbs, and over my skin in throbbing waves. I jumped and danced and howled like an animal. Wind whipped my hair and cool water droplets hit my face. I wasn’t sure if it was the rain sheeting outside the gazebo or the water flowing from the fountain in the center, but I didn’t care. I was alive. The music was alive. The crowd dancing around me was alive.

I twirled in a circle, looking down at my dress swirling out around me. Green, or was it blue? I blinked to focus my eyes and moved a little closer to one of the flickering lanterns hanging from the underside of the roof. Green. A soft, bay leaf green.

“Mia!” Juanita danced toward me, her hair a free-flowing, curling mass over her bare shoulders. She wore bright red, the neckline top low and bouncing loosely over her chest. She grabbed my cheeks in her palms. “This is amazing!” she yelled over the music.

Juanita was right. It was amazing.

“And you look so pretty,” she said taking strands of my hair in her fingers. It curled at the ends, the light-brown color shining in the low lights.

“So do you!” I smiled.

I pulled away from her and let the music, the crowd, envelop me. Lights blurred at the edges of my vision. Faces shimmered in and out of focus. People writhed around me, bumping my shoulders, making me laugh. It was as if I could feel the music on my tongue–deep, dark, sensual flavors like cherry, chocolate, and coconut. I sensed every part of my body–my hair brushing my back, my calves tensing and aching, air cooling the skin under my arms. All I wanted to do was feel.

“I never want this to end!” Juanita said close to my ear, causing me to jump. I’d forgotten she was there.

“Me neither!” I yelled back to her.

We danced. I twirled my arms around me, throwing off the heat from the people around us that clung to my skin. I lifted my hands above the heads of the crowd to feel the cool night.

Through the bodies moving to the music, I saw Gabriel leaning against one of the gazebo’s pillars. He wore a black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. A woman I didn’t recognize pawed at his arm with a predatory gaze, but his eyes were fixed on me. Shoving off the pillar, he dismissed the woman with a shrug of his shoulder and negotiated the crowd. My entire body flushed as he approached and I stopped dancing, even as the other people jostled me.

“Hi,” I said to him.

“Hi,” he said back. His eyes were dark, pupils swallowing up the gradient color of his irises. “You’re a good dancer.”

“You’re nice to say that,” I said, words slurring as I said them. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning foolishly, but I couldn’t keep my mouth from slowly curling upward.

“No, Mia. I’m not nice.” He took my hand and tugged me against his chest. “I’m not nice at all.” My grin faded as we began to move, slowly, dancing as he looked down at me with glittering dark eyes.

I should have felt nerves coursing through me. I’d never danced with a boy before, let alone someone like Gabriel, but a hum of excitement lit my insides. My body was loose, my mind unencumbered by doubt or worry. I was light and free and alive and—to my surprise—happy.

Over Gabriel’s shoulder, a few feet away, a large man stood stiffly among the dancers, scanning the crowd. His face was familiar, but I couldn’t place it, as if I’d dreamed about him long ago. The man called someone over, someone I couldn’t see. Then Gabriel spun me around and backed me up against a column. Rain splattered my shoulders, my back. The thin material of the dress offered no protection.

The dress. A thought bubbled up to the surface of my euphoria. Where did I get this dress?

The way Gabriel gazed down at me, fierce with craving, washed the question from my mind.

“You know what else you’re good at?” he asked me.

I leaned toward him. “I hear I’m a killer baker.”

We laughed, although inside I knew it wasn’t funny. It was cruel, and I would never joke about the eleven who’d died. Gabriel wouldn’t either. But we couldn’t seem to help ourselves.

His laugh died down first. He held me with an unreadable look.

I went still and said, “What else am I good at?”

“Kissing,” he said as he leaned down. His mouth crushed mine. The memory of his kiss in the jungle rushed back like water storming the shore. This kiss was different. It was fervent instead of fake, passionate instead of pretend. I was hot, and cold, and shivering, and sweating. I curled my fingers into his shirt, tugging him against me with such strength I was sure the material would tear. I wanted him closer.

Abruptly, he jerked away and tried to catch his breath. “Let’s go someplace else.”

“Someplace else?” I repeated.

I glanced around. I didn’t think I knew where I was to begin with. Before I could ask, say anything really, Gabriel grabbed my hand and towed me through the crowd. We dashed down the gazebo’s steps and into the rain. The droplets were cool as they dripped onto my heated skin. I tilted my head back and let the water moisten my face. I’d never had this sensation of buoyancy before, like I’d been weighted down by guilt and shame my whole life, then all that was cut away and I was finally free.

Gabriel yanked me into a tiny hut on the beach. Diamond-like droplets of rain beaded our skin, our clothes, our hair. Sand spilled over the tops of my shoes. It was cool and damp. We collapsed onto a tufted lounge, buttons digging into my back. It was dark in there, but light still hit his glassy eyes as he brought his face close to mine.

“What the hell am I doing?” he asked himself, eyebrows knitting together.

“Kissing me, again,” I answered.

“Yeah. Again,” he said with an intense, swift heat.

All I saw was his face, in perfect focus. Everything else fell away into a blur of nothingness. One tiny rivulet of rain traveled down his cheek from his damp hair, and over his lips. I reached a finger up and caught a droplet before it fell from his bottom lip. And, with an erotic boldness I didn’t recognize, I drew the wetness over my own lips.

Gabriel grumbled a curse, and kissed me. Colors and sparks burst behind my eyes and I swayed, almost falling back, but he caught me. I knotted my fists in his shirt, to keep myself from toppling off the lounge, but also from sheer, absolute need. His fingers lingered on my waist, playing with the curve of my hip, then the tied sash at my waist. We kissed for either minutes, or hours, I wasn’t sure. I had no sense of time, only sensation.

Things began to change. The passion inside me gave way to a droning pain gnawing in my head. I drew back and leaned my head against a wall behind me. Gabriel saw it as an invitation to trail kisses down my neck, and I let him, unwilling to give up the warmth of his mouth.

For a moment, everything was almost unrecognizable. The stripes on the ceiling above me vibrated in the dim, winking light. Or was it the breeze snapping the fabric back and forth? Lines shifted and jumped, shaking with a nauseating vibration. Waves pounded the shore and in the noise of it all I heard Gabriel whisper my name, over and over.

“Stop!”

The word crashed down from above. I squinted up to see Thaddeus towering over us, eyes fixed on where my body touched Gabriel’s. His nostrils flared with an uncharacteristic anger, and the pain in my head grew worse.

Gabriel laughed, an infectious laugh. And I would have joined him if Thaddeus’s ominous expression didn’t frighten me so much.

When Thaddeus grabbed us by our arms, lifting us both with inhuman strength, and tore us apart with a violent jolt, Gabriel sobered. He tried to rip his arm from Thaddeus’s grip, but failed.

“You two are coming with me,” Thaddeus growled.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Gabriel said in a slow, low voice. “We’re staying right here.”

“Where is here?” I asked and watched as confusion washed over Gabriel’s features.

In that moment, shock rattled me and the blurred beauty of everything melted away, as if condensation had been swiped from a mirror. How did we get here from Edenton? I reached back in my memory and couldn’t remember anything after dinner service.

Thaddeus dragged us from the hut, and I saw where we were: in that strange little town Gabriel and I had seen from the cliff, not two miles from Edenton. We’d approached it from the beach, dotted with identical red-and-white striped beach huts. The gazebo sat in the cul-de-sac, and through the crowd I could see the fountain bubbling in the center. Bordering the street were new and sleek buildings, so different from the homey cottages in Edenton. Parked around the cul-de-sac were futuristic cars.

The little resort brimmed with people, dancing, swaying, hanging onto one another, even in the rain. Unidentifiable faces filled the crowd and I remembered Juanita. Somewhere out there. Who was she with? Was she now as scared as I was?

Thaddeus shifted Gabriel in front of him, and me behind, to wedge our way through the crowd and past a few cars. Heat still rose off the hood of one, vaporizing the rain into swirling steam. I marveled at the beauty of it, then caught the choking scent of smoke and coughed.

“Why are you doing this?” Gabriel asked Thaddeus. “What did we do?”

“You were to stay away from her,” Thaddeus barked.

“You expect me to stay away from her? How, Thaddeus, when we’re partying together, and both of us look this damn good?”

I looked down at myself. Where did I get this dress? The front wrapped over my chest in a V. A belt, the same color and fabric as the dress, was tied at my waist. The sleeves were short, capped over my shoulders in ruffles. It was green, pretty, and simple.

“You’re right,” I said, almost dreamily, “We do look damn good.”

Gabriel threw a covetous look over his shoulder. “Damn right,” he said.

“Shut up, both of you.”

Thaddeus shoved him forward onto a footpath leading to one of the buildings on the other side of the street and dragged me along behind. My limbs were losing their lightness, the echo of the music pulsing in my muscles fading away. But even as I tried to recall the exhilaration of the dancing and the kiss, nausea quivered in my stomach.

“Thaddeus?” I called. “I’m feeling a little sick.”

He didn’t answer, only swung open a door and pushed Gabriel through it. He tugged me along behind him and deposited me on a seat. I shielded my eyes from the brightness of the room. My stomach churned and I slumped back with a moan.

“Get her a glass of water or something,” Gabriel said to Thaddeus.

I heard heavy footsteps rush over tile, and a thud.

“Do not order me about, boy, understand me?” Thaddeus boomed, sending a dull ache through my head.

I kept my hand over my eyes and leaned my elbow against my knee. Beneath my feet, the floor began to spin.

I heard the creaking sound of a door opening, and Thaddeus’s voice. “Do not leave this room. Do not go near Mia. You two have caused enough problems tonight with your disappearing act.” And the door closed with a click.

I swallowed down another nauseous wave. “Gabriel?”

“Yeah?” I heard him rasp from the other side of the room.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I said softly.