Blood relations
797 Words
Eve didn’t go to church that Sunday.
Let the rest of them pretend.
She lay sprawled across silk sheets, her body still humming with the aftershock of Nathaniel’s touch — his mouth had been everywhere, his hands desperate like he was trying to hold back the flood of everything he wasn’t allowed to feel. He had left in a frenzy of guilt before dawn, muttering prayers that tasted like her name. She didn’t stop him. She never did.
She only watched him walk away.
That was the thing about holy men — they always believed they were the ones in control.
By noon, Eve had showered and dressed in black — not because she was mourning, but because black made people uncomfortable. A red coat draped over her shoulders like a warning. She strolled through town with deliberate grace, a living sin, drawing eyes like a fire in a quiet place. The pastor’s forbidden w***e — though none of them dared say it aloud.
She ended up at the old café on 9th Street, ordering bitter coffee with a half-smile and sitting in the corner booth facing the door. Watching. Always watching. Eve never sat with her back to the entrance. That was something her father taught her.
You never let anyone creep up behind you, little serpent.
The thought of him made her fingers tighten around the cup.
She hadn’t heard from her family in years. And still, some part of her never stopped bracing for the day they came back.
They always came back.
And she’d left them with so many reasons.
Her phone buzzed once. A blocked number. No message. Just a photograph. A house. Her childhood home. The white shutters. The rusted mailbox with her mother’s initials still painted on it.
Eve’s blood turned to ice.
No words. Just the image.
Just a reminder: *we know where you are.*
She slipped the phone into her coat pocket, her expression unchanged. But something inside her had shifted. The quiet snap of a lock being reset. The flicker of instincts she hadn’t used in years.
That night, Nathaniel came to her again.
He didn’t call. Didn’t ask. He just appeared in her hallway like a man walking into his own execution. He looked... undone. His shirt was wrinkled. His hands shook. His eyes were starving.
“Did you tell someone?” he asked her, voice sharp.
“About what?”
“You know damn well about what.”
She moved past him, hips swaying with that maddening calm she wore like perfume. “I don’t gossip, Nathaniel. That’s what your sweet little congregation is for.”
He followed her into the bedroom. “They’re starting to ask questions. They say I’ve changed.”
“You have.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You’re finally alive.”
He grabbed her wrist. “Who are you really?”
There it was again. That need to pull back the curtain. To understand the thing that scared him most.
Eve leaned in, close enough for her breath to ghost across his lips. “I’m everything your Bible warns you about.”
She kissed him like it was the last time — teeth, tongue, fire.
He broke.
They didn’t make it to the bed.
He took her against the door, against the wall, on the floor — as if trying to exorcise her from his system with every thrust, every growl of her name. But there was no deliverance. Only obsession. And Eve moaned like she wanted to ruin him. Like she already had.
After, when their bodies lay tangled and the room stank of sin, Nathaniel reached for her again. But this time, she pulled away.
She stood at the window, naked, unashamed, her silhouette bathed in moonlight.
“Someone sent me a photo today,” she said quietly.
He sat up. “What kind of photo?”
“My past,” she whispered. “My family.”
Nathaniel blinked, confused. “You’ve never talked about them.”
“No,” she said, voice suddenly far away. “And I won’t. Because once you open that door, there’s no closing it.”
He watched her carefully. “Are you in danger?”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
Because far from their window, a black car sat parked at the corner of the street. Engine off. Lights dimmed. Inside, a man smoked a cigar, staring at the building. His phone rang once.
“She’s soft now,” he said. “Weak. Distracted.”
The voice on the other end was cold. “Not soft. She’s just sleeping. And when the serpent wakes up, she’ll remember what she is.”
He hung up.
And Eve, still staring into the night, whispered to herself.
“They always come back.”
- Writer
