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CHAPTERONE
Eden
“I’ll come back for you.”
My words feel like a strangled plea, as if I’m somehow begging Starla to believe me. I need to give her the hope I can barely hold onto myself. My hands in hers, I squeeze, trying to convey with a touch what words can’t.
I’ll move heaven and earth to come back for her, even if it kills me.
And it might.
When she squeezes back, I can feel her own desperation coming off her in waves, but she manages to put on a brave face.
For me.
Starla whispers back, “I know you will.”
I have to pretend I don’t hear the pain in her voice. The worst of it all is having to leave her in misery to set her free.
I stare into my sister’s hopeful blue-gray eyes and see the courage that I need.Theysee her as less than, as weak and damaged. Imperfect. Cursed, even.
I think she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
In her plaintive voice, barely above a whisper, she begs me. “Go, Eden. You have to. We’ll be back together again, I know it.”
Somehow, the confirmation that she knows I’ll be back gives me the little boost of courage I need to move. To face the wide-open world that’s a black hole of uncertainty. To leap over the cliff and into the wild.
A twig snaps in the underbrush of the woods beyond the fence.
We both freeze. My heart pounds so fast I’m dizzy. Long minutes pass while we wait for another sound. Finally, I hear a low growl.
I exhale in relief. A wolf or coyote, maybe.
They’re not who I fear.
Starla squeezes my hands again. “Go,Eden. Go!”
We’ve been planning this for months, for me to escape and get what I need to buy us both freedom—a home and money, whatever I can earn as quickly as possible. If I don’t go now, I may not get another chance for a year or more… or ever.
But now that the time has come—when I have to actually leave my sister alone, knowing the punishment she’ll face if anyone ever suspects she helped me escape—I can’t move.
“Eden,” she says in an impassioned plea. “Please.You have to.” She gives me a quick embrace, holding me to her. I can feel the bones in her back, her rib cage pushed up against mine. So thin and frail, she feels as small and fragile as a child even though she’ll be eighteen – and technically an adult— in two years.
I kiss her cheek. My lips are damp with her tears.
I love you,I think, but I don’t say it out loud, because speaking those words to her could send her into a tailspin. We’re not allowed to love anyone but God. It’s heretical, a damnable offense to tell her I love her. And I’ve already given her enough reasons to face the worst penalty.
But I hope she feels it.
I hope sheknowsit.
One day, I’ll tell her.
But for now, I have to show her.
It’s a scary place to be, when you’re afraid of what lies ahead of you and terrified of what’s behind you. But I love my sister.
So I run.
