It tasted like warm sunlight and strawberries, liquid and sweet and smooth. The fruit filled her mouth with the same tingling that had crawled down her arms. Juice dribbled over her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand as she swallowed. The tingling moved with the fruit into her stomach, radiating out from there to her limbs, to her fingertips. Like the prickling of nettles against her skin. Her body felt as though it had been lit from within by the sun.
Lilith turned and ran, the fruit she had taken held tightly in her hands. Eve paid her no mind. It was only a matter of time now, anyway. Wasn’t that what Adam had told her? That it was only a matter of time?
Reu’s face was white, but he took the fruit from her hand, not waiting for her to offer it. Lamech still stood with them, his eyes wide with fear as Reu took his bite.
“Go, Lamech,” Eve said. “Before Adam wonders what keeps you.”
He hesitated for another moment and then sprinted after Lilith.
Eve’s vision blurred and shifted, and she was looking at herself. The ground seemed unsteady, and somehow she knew she was in Reu’s mind, looking through his eyes. But she had never seen so clearly before, not even when Adam had touched her. She clutched at her head, stretched and bruised. It was too much. She tried to step back, to put space between them, but her body felt sluggish and unbalanced.
Reu supported her when she began to fall, easing her to the ground. “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes, but she could still see. Her face half hidden by her hair, and her hands. It was odd to see herself this way. Odder still when the sight stayed even after Reu pulled his arm away. She stared at the red leaves beneath her hands and knees to clear the vision. Her head pounded, and the roaring from her first moments returned to her ears.
She could feel the same from Reu, though he didn’t make a sound as he sat beside her. And she could feel the creature in the tree above them, watching closely, waiting to see what they would do next, and what would be done to them.
Every bird, every animal in the Garden touched her mind. With a thought she could see through their eyes, as she had seen through Adam’s, but there were so many that the world around her fractured and she fought to keep her own sight. And comprehension. All at once and slowly over time, everything was brighter and sharper. All the things she had seen, witnessed, felt and heard in the last two days became significant. She understood, at last, what God had intended for her, and what Lucifer had tried to explain. Live, he had said. Whatever this power was, her children, her people, would need it to survive. Perhaps it was not what God wanted for them, this knowledge of life and death and evil, but he had seen the need to provide the path. To give her and all her people the strength to stand against Adam.
“Eve?”
Her whole body flushed at his nakedness, all muscle and tanned skin, and thatches of rough, curly hair. She blushed and dropped her gaze again. “Yes,” she said. “Are you well?”
“Well enough, I think. To go back.”
“You shouldn’t have eaten the fruit.” She climbed unsteadily to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest to cover her breasts. She kept her back to him, too, so that he couldn’t see her womanhood. “He won’t forgive it, Reu.”
“I did what had to be done, just as you have. But if we don’t return, there is no telling what he might do to the others. And I can’t—I cannot stand by, Eve. Even for your sake.”
“I don’t know what’s worse than the things he’s done already. To Lilith.” She crossed the clearing to the trees. There was a banana tree on their way back, with broad enough leaves to cover her body. She didn’t want to face Adam so naked and exposed.
Reu followed, holding back branches that might scrape her. “I wish you hadn’t had to see her that way.”
“What you see is only the least of the pain he’s caused her,” she said softly. “The worst of it is in her mind. He’s taken her will with the power God gave him. As he tried to take mine.” She found the tree and stripped several leaves, wrapping them around her chest and hips. It made her feel much more comfortable to be covered, and she was finally able to turn and face Reu again.
It was impossible not to notice the way he looked at her. The adoration in his eyes. How had she not seen it before? When Adam had spoken of making him love her, she had dismissed it. When the creature, the serpent, had asked if he would still love her, she had been more concerned with the other things it had said. But it was true. She flushed again, her cheeks burning, and looked away again, adjusting the banana leaf at her hips.
He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face back up to his. “I will not let him harm you ever again, Eve. And when I am gone, my sons will protect you from him. And their sons, after them. Forever.”
“You love me.”
He smiled, caressing her cheek. “More than my life. From the moment you were made.”
She covered his hand with her own, pressing it against her cheek and closing her eyes. It seemed only fitting that she see herself through his eyes in this moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His gaze lingered on her mouth while her eyes were closed, drinking in the sight of her face. “I wanted you to be able to choose.”
But there was something else behind his words. Some knowledge he hadn’t shared. She saw her forehead wrinkle in concentration while it eluded her.
She opened her eyes. “You’re hiding something.”
“It isn’t important.” His jaw tightened and he took her hand, walking with her once again toward the caves. Toward Adam. “Just know that no matter what you choose, I will always care for you and protect you.”
But the truth rose to the surface of his mind, where she saw it clearly. He had walked with God.
He had bargained with God.
“Oh, Reu.”
He hesitated, his whole body stiffening at her tone. “The serpent asked if I would love you still when you could read my mind as easily as your own. You can see now it is so. I will, always. No matter what.”
“God made you love me?” She tightened her hand around his when he tried to let go of her.
He sighed. “So that you would be protected.”
She looked up at his face as they walked. His eyes were dark again, and she could feel his discomfort. “But you, more than anyone, believe so strongly in free will. In choice.”
“This was my choice, Eve. God did not force it on me without my permission. Free will was his greatest gift to us. And I wouldn’t trade my love for you for anything. Even if you never return it.”
Her heart ached for him. The sin of eating the fruit was not the only sacrifice he had been called upon to make, yet he had done so willingly. Without complaint, without hesitation.
“You deserve all good things, Reu. I am honored by your love, though I’m unsure if I am worthy of it.”
He glanced down at her, his eyes soft and dark. “You are worthy of so much more than I can give you, Eve.”
They paused at the clearing before the caves. Adam was speaking with Lilith and Lamech, his face growing darker with every word. He held the fruit in his hand, but it was unblemished, whole.
Eve felt relief from a dread she had not even known she was carrying. Adam’s anger hung thick in the air even from this distance, made all the more bitter on the back of her tongue with the fear of the others and the confusion of those who did not yet understand the significance of what had been found. Reu held the branches aside for her, and they stepped out from the cover of the trees.
Adam’s eyes locked on her the moment she was in the open, traveling from her face, over her body, pausing on the crude coverings she had made for herself, and back again. She blushed at the sight of Adam’s nakedness, and didn’t dare let her eyes stray from his face. Then Adam’s gaze settled on Reu’s hand holding hers, and Eve flinched from the jealous rage that washed over her, black and stinging in her mind.
Adam shoved Lilith and Enoch out of his way and crossed to them, the fruit still in his hand, though Eve thought in that moment, he no longer remembered it.
“You lust for power, and yet you deny me. You eat of my fruit, but refuse to sleep at my side.” He raised his hand to strike her, and she braced herself for the impact.
Reu’s hand wrapped around Adam’s wrist before it could come. “You will not lay a hand upon her again,
