Escape from Eden Read Free

mine.
    “That’s not fair,” he said. His voice was pleasant, subdued, the edge from earlier gone.
    “What’s not fair?” I asked.
    “That you know my name, but I don’t know yours.” He smiled then, just a hint of a smile but enough to cause my breath to hitch.
    “Mia,” I whispered.
    “Mia,” he said as if testing my name on his lips. “Mia what?”
    “Eden.”
    “Eden?” He sounded confused.
    “The Flock’s surname is Eden.”
    “So we’re family?”
    I shrugged. “If you put it that way, I guess so.”
    Gabriel’s brows drew together as he regarded me. He leaned down, eyes shimmering with mischief, and whispered in my ear, “Good. Because I’ve always wanted a sister.”
    The heat of his breath lingered on my neck, his hair like feathers skimming over my cheek. A tingle I’d never felt before danced up my back and I let my eyes drift shut at the feeling. It wasn’t until I heard the kitchen door slam that I realized he was gone.
    And it wasn’t until I looked down at my hand that I noticed he’d stolen my knife.

Chapter Two
    When I heard the knock on the door, I shoved my sketchbook to the bottom of the trunk at the foot of my bunk. My heart thumped faster than those three staccato taps. I thought I’d be alone for a few minutes while the girls from my cottage were on their way to physical training, and before I left to see Doc Gladstone. Sometimes, my moments alone with my sketchbook were all I had to look forward to in a day. I knew where I was going to draw, the upper-right corner of the twenty-second page. There were barely any blank pages left. All were packed with six years’ worth of sketches, almost every inch of each page used, so I carefully planned out what was left of the open space, sacrificing some drawings to the kneaded eraser I’d kept balled at the end of my last pencil.
    What I was going to draw, though, was a mystery until the lead slid across the paper.
    I heard the pencil hit the tile floor and I scrambled around looking for it under my bed.
    “One minute,” I called.
    I found the stubby thing and dropped it into my trunk. I couldn’t get caught with the sketchbook—or the pencil. Personal items of any sort were strictly forbidden. But it was all that I had left of my other life—the life I still longed for outside of Edenton. A life of freedom and breathing space. A life where possibilities were my own to create. I was sure that outside of this regimented, scheduled place, there was something bigger than me, bigger than the God the Reverend wanted us to worship.
    I shook the thought away as I shut the trunk and rushed over to open the door.
    “Agatha needs you in the kitchen,” Thaddeus said, looking down at me with his hands folded behind his back.
    He was the Reverend’s number two, whom the Reverend trusted above all others. He, like most of the men in Edenton, was tall and well built, imposing in an almost elegant way. His dark skin always had an unnatural luster, as if the surface were opalescent. Unlike the rest of the men, however, who wore plain gray collared shirts and black pants or shorts, he wore a simple white collarless shirt and gray trousers. His garb was the telltale marking of one of the Reverend’s inner circle, with an embroidered Edenton crest on the left side of his chest. He waved his hand toward the path that led to the kitchen.
    “Agatha?” I asked, and quickly realized my mistake. Thaddeus was never questioned.
    “Yes.” His pitch-black eyes bore down on me. “Agatha.”
    My hands began to tremble slightly. Thaddeus had spoken to me twice, as I could remember. Once when he welcomed our family to Edenton, and once when he’d thanked me for bringing him soup when he was ill. Otherwise, I was simply a member of the Flock. His presence alone made me nervous.
    “I was on my way to see Doc Gladstone before training,” I said, trying to keep the quaver from my voice.
    He tsked. “Mia.” My name sounded important in his deep-coal