The First Detect-Eve Read Online Free Page B

directed toward restraining his child than hurting him.
    Adam managed to force Cain under him and pin him to the ground...but Cain threw him off and reversed the position. Adam struggled, but Cain held both his wrists firmly against the earth, then plunged his head down upon Adam’s skull.
    Dazed, Adam stopped fighting; his head dropped to the dirt. Cain released one of his father’s wrists, then clenched his free hand into a fist and lashed it across Adam’s face.
    As Adam slumped, stunned by the blow, Cain reached for a rock as big as his fist. Before he had raised it overhead, I was in motion, rushing toward him with the club swung back over my shoulder.
    Alerted by the sound of my running footsteps, Cain moved fast, releasing Adam’s other wrist to catch the blow against his forearm. I heard the wood crack hard against bone, but he didn’t flinch; instead, with the same arm I had struck, he latched onto the club and whipped it around, knocking me off-balance. I went sprawling to the ground, the wind knocked out of me, the club torn from my grip.
    Without a word, he threw it away over his shoulder. Again, he raised the rock over his father’s head.
    I reached for the flint dagger.
    *****
    Then, something visibly changed in my son.
    Kneeling atop his father, he held the rock high, ready to plunge it downward...and he hesitated. For the first time since he’d charged out of the woods, his expression altered, shifting from a grimace of rage to one of horror. His eyes still swam with feverish intensity, but it was overlaid now with conflicted awareness.
    Slowly, I got to my feet. I thought of bolting over to try to fight the rock away from him but stayed where I was, watching the play of emotions on his face.
    The rock shook in his hand, and his eyes welled with tears. Sucking in a great breath between clenched teeth, he snapped up his other hand to grip the rock.
    For an instant, he seemed to overcome the indecisiveness and pulled the rock back as if about to strike. Heart racing, I reached beneath my goatskin and slid the dagger from under the sheep’s gut harness, ready to charge.
    Then, with a cry that sounded like a mix of fury and anguish, Cain cast the rock aside. Weeping and trembling, he slumped against his father’s chest.
    I slid the dagger back under the cord and went to him.
    “I’m sorry,” he sobbed as I knelt beside him. “I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s all right,” I said softly, stroking his hair. “It’s all right.”
    Cain looked up then, but not at me. “I couldn’t do it,” he said, wincing at the sky. “I tried, but I couldn’t do it.”
    “What couldn’t you do?” I said, but still his eyes avoided me.
    “Please forgive me,” he said, his body heaving with violent sobs. “I couldn’t sacrifice them!”
    It was then that I realized he wasn’t talking to me at all.
    “I couldn’t pay the price!” he said. “I’m so sorry!”
    He was talking to someone else.
    “Forgive me!” he cried, and then he buried his face in Adam’s chest.
    He was talking to someone I couldn’t see.
    *****
    That night, when Cain confessed to killing his brother, I felt relieved. I was horrified, saddened, disappointed, and enraged...but also relieved.
    For one thing, I finally knew what had happened to Abel. It was terrible, and I knew it would resonate for all the days of my life, but at least I knew. There was some closure.
    Also, I had never wanted to believe that Adam was capable of killing his own son. It was equally awful that our other son had done it, but I was relieved that my husband was not to blame. In spite of his flaws, in spite of all the little things he had done to hurt me through the years, I had never truly stopped loving him.
    Never forget, what I did in the Garden, I did for him. For us, but especially for him. I was told that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would lift us up, would make us like God. I wanted that for Adam, I loved him so much. It was the promise of a