Sins of the Innocent - Jamie McGuire Page 0,1

to go undetected in public places used to leave me unsettled. It only reminded me of the other things that lurked where others couldn’t see.

That was before I knew the truth—that the Others, the inhuman dark beings hiding in the shadows, couldn’t hurt me. Nothing could. By God’s own rules, under the condition that I respected and preserved the Balance, I was to be left untouched, the exceptional child to a Holy Father who had hated me before I was born. Of the many who—willingly or not—would bow before him, I would not.

I was born unafraid.

“Eden!” A gangly boy jogged to my side, pushing up his glasses. “Missed you at lunch.”

Morgan McKinstry had been trying to be my friend since moving to Rhode Island in the eighth grade. He was too asthmatic to run track, too skinny to play football, and too uncoordinated to play basketball. His wiry brown hair and round glasses reminded me of an awkward Harry Potter.

“Hey, Morg. How’s the newspaper coming?”

“Last and best coming up. Graduation edition,” he said, standing up a bit taller and puffing out his scrawny chest. His smile faded. “I saw what happened with Lacie. Is she ever going to get tired of that? No one even laughs anymore.”

“Probably not,” I said, stopping at my locker.

“So, calculus test today. Did you study?”

“Not really,” I said. It was the truth.

I had mastered calculus in the fourth grade. Dad had been giving me graduate curriculum since my freshman year. Mom had said that high school was an experience. Not that All Saints didn’t have above average scores in academics and one of the best athletic programs in the region, but I had already learned everything they were teaching.

All Saints was my mother’s alma mater, and she had been insistent that I realize my human side just as much as my role in the spiritual realm. I supposed it made sense. Technically, I was mostly human.

I pulled my books from my locker and let Morgan walk me to class. Students took their seats, quiet and ready to take their tests. I appreciated that most about the student body at All Saints. All but one were respectful, almost adults—knowing when to focus and when to let loose, when to speak up and when to keep their opinions to themselves.

As I pretended to struggle with each problem, a familiar coldness settled into my bones, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. When I was young, I’d associated it with the feeling to run, as if someone—or something—were after me. Now that I was older and understood the rules, fleeing was the furthest thought from my mind. Curiosity and a readiness to fight were my only impulses.

I peeked over my shoulder, seeing a creature crouched and settling on the edge of a cabinet running along the back of the classroom, rustling its eagle-sized wings.

“Eyes forward, Miss Ryel,” Brother Ramsey said.

I turned and looked down, scribbling the rest of the steps of the problem before writing out the answer, circling it, and raising my hand.

Brother Ramsey came to collect my test. When he turned his back, I turned around again to get a better look. The creature was watching me with its black orbs but cowered under my glare. Morgan’s desk was less than five feet ahead of jagged dirty claws, blackened skin, and a misshapen body. The entire room smelled of sulfur, an odor that used to make me nauseous, but I’d learned to appreciate the pungent warning.

I rested my elbows on my desk and interlaced my fingers, keeping my head down and clenching my teeth. Bex wasn’t close. He’d gone somewhere. I wonder if it’d had anything to do with the creature.

One by one, the other students turned in their exams. I usually allowed others to finish first, but with something surrounded by a long tail and talons gripping the cabinet, focus was necessary.

Two more classes, two more finals, and then I would be free to walk across the parking lot to my white-and-black Audi R8, a gift from my Aunt Claire for my sixteenth birthday. When I opened the door, Bex would already be sitting in the passenger seat, reading Watership Down for the hundredth time.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of anything else but what was twitching and shifting from one clawed foot to the other as it got comfortable behind Morgan. My heart beat once against my chest, pounding and rattling my rib cage, and then returned to