Escape from Eden (23 page)

“Sounds like fun,” I said, but didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to hear about him with other girls, and he knew I didn’t.

“Yeah. It was a hell of a lot of fun.” He didn’t sound convincing. “You know, I was never punished for it.”

“For the accident?”

“It wasn’t an accident, Mia. I should have been punished for it.” Before I could tell him he was wrong, he said, “Or maybe my mom persuading my dad that we needed to come together as a family in Edenton was my punishment.”

“Well, we’re not in Edenton now,” I said.

“We’re not.” In the dark, I saw the silhouette of his eyelashes drift closed. Silence stretched out, so long that I imagined he’d fallen asleep.

I let go of his wrist. Before I could pull my arm away, he reached for my hand and snagged it, intertwining our fingers. I couldn’t hide my gasp of surprise.

“Sorry,” he whispered, eyes still closed. “Like I said before, you’re the only one who gets what happened to us earlier. I—” he broke off and tugged me closer to him. “When I saw Juanita like that—the sound of the gun, the blood … ”

“I understand,” I whispered.

“I know.” His voice sounded pained, as if the words hurt. “You see, that’s exactly it. You’re the only one who understands everything—my brother, Edenton, what happened at that place by the beach.”

He turned his head, and his eyes opened slowly. Even in the low light, I saw they were unguarded and earnest. Gone was the boy who covered up his emotions with sardonic quips; all that put-on strength and bravery faded away and I was left with Gabriel.

Slowly, I reached up and placed my hand on his cheek. To my surprise, he leaned his head into my palm, keeping his eyes locked with mine. I guided his face down to my own, placing a soft kiss on his forehead. He didn’t pull away. I kissed him tenderly on his temple, on his cheek, on his jaw, then brought his mouth to mine. And hesitated before I kissed him. It was a light press of lips on lips. We stayed like that for a bit, tenderly brushing our lips together with our breaths mingling.

He pushed me backward onto the mattress and his tongue slipped inside my mouth, both gentle and demanding. The weight of his body on mine was astonishing and phenomenal and terrifying, and I snaked my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. I felt him—all of him—against me. It was as if a fire ignited in the pit of my stomach. All I wanted to do was melt into him. I tangled my fingers in his hair as the kiss grew more desperate. I heard myself make small whimpering sounds, and him groan in response. The light stubble on his face rasped my cheek but it didn’t matter. It only made it more exciting, more real. His hand flattened on the small of my back, pressing me tightly against him. His mouth left mine and he trailed kisses down my neck as he whispered my name against my skin.

I unbuttoned his borrowed shirt with trembling fingers and peeled it off his arms. His skin was brilliant, smooth and taut. Once his hands were free, they traced their way down my body, leaving heat in their wake. We rolled on our sides, legs tangled together, our bodies pressing closer and closer. I couldn’t breathe but I couldn’t stop. We rolled back and I placed my palms on his shoulders, skating down his sinewy, flexed arms as he lifted himself up over me. The tattoo on his arm swirled in the darkness. His shorts slung low on his hips and I saw his other tattoo peeking out on his lower abdomen.

I reached up and pulled his mouth back on mine.

“Gabriel,” I whispered against his lips. I wanted him closer so badly. An ache in my chest burned with the need, spreading to my stomach and limbs and skin.

Gabriel dragged his mouth softly over my cheek and down my neck. He rasped my name and my skin shivered under his breath. Cool air hit my shoulder as he pushed down the collar of my shirt with one hand, the other sliding up my back, fingertips tracing my spine. He kneeled between my legs and bowed me up with the force of his hand. Our chests collided along with our mouths. Our kisses grew deeper and deeper until his fingers toyed with the waistband of my underwear and I wriggled my hips closer to his.

I pulled away from our kiss.

“Gabriel?” I whispered again, loving how perfectly our bodies fit together. I reached his shorts, slipping my fingers between the rough elastic of his waistband and his feverish skin.

“Yeah, Mia?” he breathed and I felt the words on his breath as it traveled over the hollow of my neck, right before he kissed me there.

“I—I—” I stuttered, knowing I needed to say something about how I felt about him, but unsure how. “I think I’m falling—”

“No.” The word was sharp and Gabriel froze when he said it. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his head and our eyes met. He looked dazed for a moment. But quickly it was as if someone shut a door behind his eyes. They turned to ice.

“Don’t,” he said.

I shrank back onto the mattress. My heart, beating so quickly, stopped cold.

“Don’t?” I asked.

“Just don’t, okay?” His body tensed and rolled off me. He stood at his side of the bed dragging his hands through his hair. Snapping up his shirt from the bed, he turned and started toward the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up and pulling the bed sheet up to my chest.

He paused at the bathroom door and placed his hand on the jamb. He hung his head and shook it.

“Once we leave here,” Gabriel said, not facing me. “Once we get off this mountain, I think it’s best if we go our separate ways. I’m going back to New York. It’s where I belong.”

“Okay,” I managed, so confused and lost my voice rasped in my throat.

“Okay,” he echoed and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

When I woke, a deep-orange sunset glow striped the room. Glancing at the clock, I saw the time and realized I’d slept sixteen hours. The day was surrendering to night again, and I stretched, my muscles coming to life before the aches, and the memories, set in.

I wondered what was happening in Edenton. Our absence would be noticed by now, but probably not felt, at least as far as chores were concerned. It was about the time for dinner service to begin, and Agatha would have recruited two of the younger girls from Sister’s sewing cottage to help. Sister would make do. Our absence in the kitchen, Juanita’s and mine, would simply be patched over, like adding more dough to a hole when it’s stretched too thin.

I glanced to my left to see Gabriel in bed, his back turned to me. I remembered the heat that had built up between us, and how, just as suddenly, he’d cooled. He breathed softly, ribs rising and falling in a languid rhythm. I wondered if my fingers would slide perfectly in the indentations between each rib, how warm he would be to the touch. A quiver went through my stomach. Turning my thoughts away, I slowly swung off the bed and wove my way around it to the bathroom.

“You moan in your sleep.”

I whirled. Gabriel’s eyes were open, but he still lay on his side, head on the pillow.

“I do not,” I answered.

“Oh yes, you do.” His gaze was heavy, but not accusing. The air of the room was cool on my legs and I forced myself to keep from pulling down the T-shirt.

“I think the girls in my cottage would have told me,” I said.

“Maybe you only moan when you’re in bed with me.” He sat up, grinning at his innuendo.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“But you like my brand of ridiculousness, don’t you?”

Yes. “No.”

“Okay, maybe you weren’t moaning exactly. Mewling. More like a—” He made a little whimpering sound.

“Why do you feel the need to tell me this?”

He stood and shrugged. “Just thought it was cute. That’s all.” Snagging his—Edgar’s—shirt off the floor, he tugged it over his head, a couple of the buttons down the front still clasped.

“Next time you think something about me is cute, keep it to yourself.”

“No problem.” He gave me a quick once-over, then said, “I’m hungry,” and made his way out of the room so fast I didn’t feel my cheeks warm until after he was gone.

I forced myself to remember Gabriel was broken. Messed up. But I couldn’t help feeling he was playing with me. But why? What would be the point of hurting me?

The kitchen was crowded by the time I’d washed up and dressed in more clothes lent by Ibbie: a pair of too-long jeans, rolled up to my ankles, and another simple T-shirt, this one the color of oatmeal. She’d even lent me a bra, which was surprisingly too small, but I wedged myself into it anyway. My feet were bare, cold on the tile floor.

“Good evening, dear,” Veronica said as I walked in.

She sat at the round kitchen table, a small glass in her hand filled with a garnet-colored liquid. Ibbie sat to her right, smiling at me and picking at a piece of bread. Gabriel, to her left, hovered over a plate of food. He didn’t acknowledge me.

“Good evening,” I replied to Veronica. “Sorry I slept so long.”

“Oh, don’t apologize,” she said. “Edgar has made some dinner. He can fix you a plate and we can talk.”

“About your proposal?” I asked Veronica.

“Ah, yes.” Veronica gestured to an empty chair. “Join us, please.”

I sat in a plastic chair. The seat was cold, seeping through the fabric of my borrowed jeans. It was strange. I hadn’t felt this kind of cold in a long time. No, I’d felt it recently: in Thaddeus’s office. But this wasn’t air conditioning, artificial and piercing, it was the clear, pure, cool air of the mountains.

Edgar placed a steaming plate of food in front of me. It was simple fare: grilled chicken, rice, and a side of colorful, chopped-up fruit. My stomach gnawed at the sight. I scooped up the fork as soon as he put it down and dug in.

The room was silent while we ate. I should have been embarrassed, scarfing down the rice in great scoops, but I couldn’t help it. I’d been too upset last night to eat. I couldn’t believe something as simple as rice could taste like that, with a depth of flavor I’d never created in Edenton. Or maybe I never needed food like this, appreciated food as much as I did now. I never knew real hunger in Edenton. I gulped down ice water and slumped back in my chair, inhaling deeply.

“Good?” Edgar asked.

I nodded, smiling.

Gabriel got up and went to place his dish in the sink. “Thank you for taking us in last night,” he said.

“Don’t thank us yet,” Edgar said.

“We have a favor to ask,” Veronica said without preamble.

I snapped my attention to Edgar’s face. His thick eyebrows knit over his wide, crooked nose. I wondered if it had been broken.

“All right,” Gabriel said. “What’s your favor?”

Veronica spoke. “What we showed you last night, the human catalog—”

“Can we not call it that?” I asked.

“Why?” Gabriel asked. “That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Gabriel,” I said slowly, “that’s exactly what it is. You’re right. Forgive me for not wanting to think of the people I’ve lived with for six years as something you can order at the click of a button.”

“But that’s what they are, Mia.” He sat back down at the table. “That’s what we are.”

“Not anymore.”

Veronica volleyed glances between us. “Well, then.”

Edgar flipped a chair around and straddled it, hanging his heavy arms over the seat back. “It’s not just the three of us trying to free our relatives from Edenton. We have a network of people, all with loved ones inside the compound, working with us. We got here and rented this place to be as close as we could without breaking the perimeter boundary and causing suspicion.”

“Why all the way up on this mountain, though?”

Edgar glanced at Veronica and Ibbie. Veronica nodded in consent. Then he said, “Why don’t we go outside?”

We made our way through a strange little room. A rundown sunroom with a dirty translucent roof and cushioned garden furniture. Along the walls, painted the same color yellow as the rest of the house, hung rustic-looking instruments: dull, rusted machetes, worn leather whips, and horseshoes of different sizes, their opened ends facing up. The sky outside had taken on a burnt-orange sheen that began to darken to twilight. It was such a strange sensation, to wake up so near evening and imagine the whole day passing while I slept.

The air outside was cold, colder than last night when we’d arrived. I wrapped my arms around myself. Behind the house, the patchy yard stretched on until it disappeared over an edge; a sudden drop-off where below a valley carpeted the land to the ocean, lines of trees like fences dividing off sections of land. It was a majestic view.

“Whoa,” I whispered.

Gabriel, standing near me, heard and inched closer. “Not afraid of heights, are you Ricci?”

I shook my head. “It’s just … I haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.”

“Since we saw Las Casitas from the ridge?”

“That wasn’t this high.” I turned to him. “It reminds me of the view from the airplane. Before we landed at the airport in San Sebastian when I was ten.”

Gabriel’s profile was black against the fiery sky. “That’s a long time to not see a view.”

“There.” Veronica pointed into the distance, to a dim jumble of lights. “That’s Edenton. And there … ” she slid her finger through the air “ … is Las Casitas on the shore.”

I watched the lights of Edenton glint beneath the leaves, wondering again what was happening there. Dinner service would be finished, the girls would be cleaning up the kitchen. Mama would be getting Max ready for bed.

“We get it,” Gabriel said. “It’s a nice view. But I’m not sure how this helps you.”

Edgar released a long breath and walked over to a small shed. He dragged out what looked like a telescope on a tripod, but it wasn’t long, it was wide and round. He placed it on a wooden platform, three dots painted on its surface to position each of the tripod’s legs. Then, from his back pocket, he pulled out a small rectangular device that lit up when he touched a button.

“What is that?” I asked, awed by the brightness of such a small, compact thing.

“A very small computer,” Edgar said. “It controls this scope.” His fingers skated over the surface of the screen and suddenly the head of the scope twitched and honed in on a target. “It’s programmed to focus on specific areas of the compound. We just got this working a week ago.” He held out his hand. “Come here, Mia, take a look.”