Escape from Eden (9 page)

The cracking of fallen leaves grew louder. I curled myself into Gabriel as he pulled me closer. We held our breath. Between us sweat gathered, our shirts growing wet and slick.

I heard a crackle of static on the other side of the tree—it sounded like a radio—and a man’s voice I didn’t recognize said, “I’m heading back to base. My shift was done ten minutes ago. Over.”

A thready voice on the other end said, “Grizz can’t make it out for another twenty. He’s on assignment for the Reverend. Over.”

The man let out a guttural sigh. “Screw Grizz. I’m heading back to H.Q.” I heard a high-pitched noise and a click. He’d turned off his radio.

Gabriel and I clutched each other, listening intently to the heavy footsteps thudding away. Even when we couldn’t hear him any longer, we didn’t move. Eventually, we breathed evenly, and Gabriel detached my arms from his waist. He took one step back, out of the shaft of light that had lit his face. I couldn’t see his expression.

“You want to keep going?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to sound like I was wavering.

But the guard spooked me. Scaling a wall of rock, sliding down a muddy embankment, picking my way through the jungle at night–challenging but not impossible. Getting caught with so many strikes against me? Nightmare.

“All right,” Gabriel said. “Let’s move.”

He took off through the jungle and I tried to keep up. My wet jeans didn’t make it easy. I kept my eyes on my feet, avoiding fallen branches and slithering things. I’d worn my heavy boots, hoping to avoid a little thing like a venomous snakebite.

I crashed into Gabriel’s back. He’d stopped a few feet before the edge of the trees. Pain shot through my nose and I landed hard on my tailbone.

“Jesus,” he said, kneeling down next to me. “You trying to tackle me? I know I’m irresistible, but really, control yourself, Ricci.”

He pulled up the hem of his T-shirt and brought it to my face. In the low light, I saw the taut skin on his stomach, the waistband of his jeans pulling lower to reveal more swirling lines. Another tattoo—right above his—

“Eyes up,” he said.

I looked up and saw that he was smirking.

“Bloody nose,” he said and put his shirt to rights. “You okay?”

“Okay enough,” I mumbled, trying to ignore my throbbing face, and the feverish embarrassment.

“Okay enough to keep going? Or do you want to head back?”

“Keep going.”

“I could carry you the rest of the way.”

I stood. “I don’t need you to carry me.”

“Piggyback?”

“No.”

He followed me, standing up, and grinned. “You sure?”

“Yeah, Gabriel. I just fell. I’m not feeble.”

He eyes raked over me, that curl still on his lips. I wanted to shrink beneath his scrutiny. “Nope, you’re not that,” he finally said. “Let’s go.”

We trudged closer and closer to the twinkling lights. When we reached the edge of the little town, the jungle ended and we were met with a carpet of fine grass. We stood at the tree line, crouched low in the shadows. We’d approached from the side of the town and now that I was closer, I could see I’d been right before. It was less like a town and more like a very exclusive beach resort. A long road stretched out into the distance, cutting through the jungle. It was lined with tall streetlights and, in the grass beside it, spikes that would pierce tires instantly. What was the point of the spikes? To keep animals out? To keep the cars from driving into the jungle? As I’d seen from the bluff, the road led to the buildings, which faced the beach some fifty yards away.

“We need to get closer,” I whispered.

“Between the buildings,” he said. “There isn’t much light. Less likely we’ll be seen. Stay low and follow me.”

He scooted out from under the trees, hunched down, and took off toward the closest building. I followed. The grass was slippery and wet. My feet slid from under me as I ran and I landed on my hands and knees in a circle of light thrown by a floodlight at the corner of the building. I glanced up to see Gabriel make it safely between the two closest buildings. He waved me over and I scrambled to my feet, dashing to join him in the shadows. Gabriel’s hand found mine and we inched our way down the dark alley, ducking under windows, toward the front of the buildings where they faced the beach.

We peered around the corner of the building. From where we stood, we could see a large gazebo in the center of a cul-de-sac, a tinkling fountain in the middle. Flowers bloomed everywhere. Even in Edenton, where flowers bordered houses and pathways, I’d hadn’t seen—or smelled—these kinds of flowers. In the flickering light thrown by burning torches at the columns of the gazebo, the colors of the flowers were as vibrant as if they were in daylight. The same torches lit a path leading from the gazebo out to the beach. Points of dancing light dotted the sand, torches standing like soldiers next to the beach huts we’d seen from the ridge. It was then I noticed it wasn’t a full circle, but a half-circle driveway in front of the buildings.

Light flooded my vision. Gabriel’s hands on my shoulders pushed me to the ground. When I looked back up, I realized the light came from car headlights on the road from the jungle.

The car stopped in front of one of the buildings. A man got out of the car. It was shiny and rounded, like a U.F.O. in one of the rare cartoons I’d seen when I was little. Not like any car I’d ever seen personally. I only saw Jeeps and delivery trucks in Edenton. The man opened the passenger’s side door and a woman stepped out, dressed in a sleek, close-fitting dress. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders, falling over her face in flirty waves. A sparkly clip cinched part of her hair at the nape of her neck. I couldn’t see the detail at this distance, but I knew it must be beautiful because of the way it caught the light. That hair clip mesmerized me with how it glittered. The man led her into the building through a frosted glass door with a shiny chrome handle. The door shut behind them silently.

“Let’s go over there,” I whispered to Gabriel, “and check out the building they went into.”

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. “This way.”

Instead of heading toward the driveway, Gabriel turned and dashed down the alley between the buildings. I tried to keep up. He was fast. We clambered along the perimeter of the buildings’ backyards, all fenced in with tall stone walls, at least seven or eight feet high. Plants and flowers fringed above the fence line. All the backyards glowed with a beautiful, liquid aqua-blue light, the humid air amplifying the effect.

“I think it’s this one,” Gabriel said, pointing to the building at the far corner lot.

We ran over to it, dodging the beams glaring from the floodlights, and backed against the building’s stone fence under the shelter of a wide-leafed tree. Even with my heart pounding in my ears, I heard a low, rhythmic pulsing—music playing—coming from the other side of the fence. This must have been what I’d heard that day with Aliyah as we’d come out of Sister’s sewing cottage.

“Stay here,” Gabriel whispered and he disappeared around the corner. Nervously, I waited for what seemed like forever, focusing on the soft beat of the music, so strange and foreign after years of only hearing songs during service over the jangle of the acoustic guitars.

Gabriel thunked something down next to me. It was a cinderblock. He was breathing heavily, biceps bulging below his shirtsleeves. “I saw it when we passed one of the buildings,” he whispered. He flipped it on its end, placed his foot on it, and lifted himself up, so he could see over the top of the fence. He waved me up.

I glanced down at the cinderblock, at the small square where his foot perched. I placed my foot next to his but stopped. There wasn’t a lot of room. I shrugged.

With a look of impatience, he grabbed my forearm and pulled me onto the cinderblock. It wobbled and I grabbed the top of the fence to steady myself. Again, I was crushed up against him, but this time my back was to his chest, his arms bracketing mine.

Behind the fence it looked like a little paradise. From between the leaves of the tree above us, I saw a kaleidoscope of blossoming tropical flowers bordering a manicured yard. A large, kidney-shaped pool graced the center of a stone patio, glowing that aqua color I’d noticed earlier. Two lounge chairs with thick, white cushions sat at the far end of the pool. A sliding glass door opened and a man, dressed all in black, stepped out with a tray holding one short glass and another tall, triangular one.

“We’re living like prisoners,” Gabriel whispered, “and there’s a freaking Club Med less than two miles away.”

The man in black put the glasses down on a small table between the chairs. He looked over at the sliding glass door as someone walked out onto the patio. A man and woman emerged, both dressed in white robes. Their faces were hidden, but I could tell it was the couple from the car. The woman had that same fall of hair over the side of her face, the sparkling clip at the nape of her neck. The man in black excused himself with a bow and disappeared through the sliding glass door. With a slow, mechanical movement, dark curtains closed on the inside, obscuring the patio from the interior of the building.

The man lay back on a lounge chair, one arm behind his head. With the other he made a sweeping gesture to the woman, motioning for her to stand before him. He was big, this man, barrel-chested and muscular, yet there was an air of cultivation to him, as if he’d been raised with the manners of a prince–and the demands of one, too. The woman took her cue and stood before him, her back to us. He gave her an impatient wave and picked up the short glass. He kicked back the liquid inside, drinking it fast.

The woman untied the robe. When it slipped to the ground, I heard Gabriel mutter a curse. She was naked. Completely, unquestionably naked. I felt my eyes grow wide. Her body was athletic and healthy.

Gabriel shifted behind me on the cinder block, his breath warm on my neck.

The woman leaned down, picked up the triangular-shaped glass, and took a sip. Then another. There was a confidence in her stance. I couldn’t see her face, only her very nude body, but she seemed to be keeping eye contact with the man as she placed the glass back on the table. She reached out and cradled the man’s face, fingers lingering on his cheek. She bent her head and kissed him passionately, while removing the clip from her hair with her other hand. Then she turned, the soft waves of her hair falling over her face as she watched her own feet step toward the pool. After stopping briefly at the edge, she dove in with a fierce determination.

The man stood and walked to the edge of the pool with a swagger. The light hit his face. It was square, jaw pronounced, with a beard that looked more like long stubble. His skin was tanned and his eyes glinted with hunger beneath heavy dark brows as he tracked the woman swimming across the pool. She streaked beneath the surface, hair fanning behind her like a mermaid.

“I don’t think we should keep watching,” I whispered to Gabriel.

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered back. “But I can’t seem to stop.”

I couldn’t stop, either. The scene was so foreign, so riveting–unlike anything I’d ever seen. Something about it caused my stomach to tense. Watching this was forbidden, and I had been raised with such inflexible morals, that the word rang through my head.

Wrong.

If Mama knew what I was doing, what I was watching, her disgust and fury would alienate me for hours, possibly days. And she’d never forget. Mama never forgot anything.

Wrong.

The woman swam toward the edge of the pool that was closest to us. Gabriel and I both ducked, our eyes just above the ledge of the fence. She shot to the surface with a splash, face bursting through the water. She pushed herself up on the pool’s edge. Water sluiced down her curves.

Wrong.

As she flipped her hair back, light from below the water danced over her in a broken pattern of waves. When I saw her face, it hit me like a punch to the stomach. My voice sounded small.

“Mama?”

A hand clamped down hard over my mouth from behind and I was dragged under the cover of the tree line. Floodlights blinded me and in the whiteness all I saw was Mama, naked, kissing that man with the hungry eyes, taunting him with her body as she walked toward the pool. The shock of that moment was so intense that blood drained from my limbs, a sudden cold enveloped me, and the image–that image–seared into my memory. I wished I could erase it as easily as I erased drawings in my sketchbook.

“Hey,” I heard Gabriel whisper and I blinked the blinding light away. “You’re shaking.”

“That was my mother.” The words sounded foreign. “That was my mother.”

“The naked woman?”

I winced and nodded. She was naked. So very naked. And Gabriel saw her, all of her. My cheeks flared with heat.

“You didn’t recognize her?” I asked.

Gabriel winced. “I wasn’t exactly looking at her face.” He looked as if he wanted to say something else. I saw concern in his eyes, but instead he stole a glance over his shoulder. “We need to get out of here. I hear voices coming this way.”

I listened for a moment and heard nothing. Nothing but the splash of a sleek dive, the explosion of water as Mama shot out of the pool. Sounds that reminded me of being young, carefree. Summer days spent at the neighborhood pool; waddling through the women’s locker room, floaties squeezing my upper arms; the biting sting of sunburn and clean smell of sunscreen; hot dogs and Popsicles from the snack bar. Those memories now tainted by what I’d just seen.

Gabriel clutched my arm and dragged me to my feet. “The only way back is through the jungle,” he said as he wrapped an arm around me and steered me into the copse of trees. “Can you keep it together until we get back to Edenton? Then you can lose it, okay?”

Back to Edenton. How could I even go back? I didn’t want to see Mama in the morning, serve her breakfast, watch as she avoided eye contact with me. How did she get to that fancy resort, and how could she be with that entitled and haughty man? Had she been seeing him all along, since we left our home to come to Edenton? And why would the Reverend allow her do that? No wonder she didn’t want to leave.