Sins of Eden Read Free Page A

the color of sunshine.
    The sky was blue over there. Benjamin was fleeing to a place where the sky hadn’t yet shattered, where it would be too bright for Elise to give chase.
    She had to catch him while he was still in New Eden.
    Rage erupted inside of her. She didn’t fight it. She embraced it, fed into it, and unleashed nightmarish fear in a wave.
    “Stop!” Elise shouted, and he did.
    Benjamin cried out as he fell, clutching his chest.
    She sank the hooks of her power into him. Once caught, it was trivial to make his fear grow, paralyzing him as he struggled to breathe.
    But what strange fears for Benjamin to have. Through the ropes of energy tying them together, she could see his nightmares played out like a movie: a blond woman drenched in her own blood, a towering Tree that Elise hadn’t seen intact for years, a dark garden that she had never visited at all.
    She stopped at his side, but Benjamin didn’t see her. He writhed, clawing at his back, as if trying to rip away wings that weren’t there.
    “Let me go !” he cried.
    Elise eased her power away from him.
    Color slowly returned to Benjamin’s cheeks as he panted on the ground. His palms were dirty with Earth soil where he had fallen. The knees of his jeans were ripped.
    Elise could think of a thousand questions for him, starting with “How did you escape Dis?” and ending with “This is all your fault, isn’t it?” But she had no idea how long she could hold on to Benjamin, and only one of those questions mattered. “You told me that Marion was in New Eden,” Elise said. “She’s not here. I don’t think she’s ever been here.”
    “I lied,” Benjamin gasped.
    “But why ?”
    “Because I wanted you to go back here. I wanted you to punish the angels for what they’ve done. I think. I’m not sure.”
    And she had taken the bait without thinking twice.
    Anger burned in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t appreciate being manipulated, especially not when those manipulations had led to the walls between all of the universes falling apart.
    “Why do you care what the angels have done? Did they take someone you care about? Is that why we’ve come back?”
    “I don’t know anyone here. It’s just that they killed Nathaniel’s mother,” Benjamin said. “I hate angels. I hate all of them.”
    The sound of Nathaniel’s name from Benjamin’s lips stunned her. He spoke with such heat.
    Metaraon had indeed killed Nathaniel’s mother, a woman who James had once been engaged to marry, but that angel was dead now. Adam had ripped his head off.
    It made no sense at all that Benjamin cared who had murdered Hannah Pritchard.
    “Then where is Marion?” Elise asked.
    “I took her somewhere safe, where nobody would be able to find her. Not even me. It was for her own good. She’s a mage, you know. Leliel would have taken her. Or James would have.” Hatred twisted Benjamin’s features. “You know what happens whenever James gets involved.”
    Not long ago, she would have agreed with that sentiment. She wasn’t sure that she still didn’t.
    Benjamin shouldn’t have known James at all.
    “Have you seen him in your visions of the future?” Elise asked. Benjamin Flynn was a precognitive; he knew her with uncomfortable intimacy because he had seen her in previous visions. “James and Nathaniel—have you been having premonitions of them?”
    “No. God, no,” Benjamin said. He gripped his head in both hands. “Yes. All the time.” He lunged for her. Elise took a quick step back, but he still managed to catch her shoulders, clinging to her desperately. Thunder rolled over New Eden, followed by the conflicting scents of rain and smoke. “I still see you, Elise. I know you. I never wanted to hurt you, but I hate you. How could you do this to me?”
    His touch made her flesh roil. “I think the visions have damaged your mind. We need to isolate you from them again.”
    “Like the Union did?” He laughed bitterly. “Their equipment failed.