The Given Read Online Free PDF

friend would die if she didn’t do exactly what he wanted.
    So Kit did. She told Grif—the man she loved, the one she’d saved just as thoroughly as he’d saved her—that Evelyn Shaw was still alive. And Grif—who’d been looking for any sign of his wife for the past fifty years—had left. And Dennis had lived.
    â€œI believed I was doing God’s will,” Sarge said now, following Grif’s thoughts into the past.
    â€œYou tricked her.” Bitterness sat like ash on Grif’s tongue. This was really why he hadn’t talked to Sarge—or any of the Pure—for the last six months. Not for his sake. He knew how to be an island. He’d do fine alone. But Kit . . .
    â€œYou used her emotions and her natural goodness against her. The finest woman I’ve ever met, one of the people you were created to support and protect, and you manipulated everything that was good in her. You knew she’d do anything to see that Dennis lived.”
    Including give up Grif.
    â€œYes,” Sarge said simply. “And my actions brought you both pain.”
    Now Grif opened his eyes. His fists clenched as he stared at the Pure, his biceps twitching. Unfortunately, even in his weakened state, Sarge would see a blow coming. And, of course, he already knew Grif’s thoughts. So, instead, Grif said, “And since when do you care about that?”
    Because even though Grif had been gutted, whacked over the head, and buried so deep no one had ever found his bones, what Frank had done to him and Kit was even worse. It was the cruelest thing he’d ever known, and looking at the Pure, he had to wonder if God didn’t feel the same.
    â€œSince I was punished,” Sarge confirmed.
    Considering all the ways God doled out punishments—floods and famines, pestilence and disease—Grif almost felt sorry for him.
    Almost.
    â€œHe do that?” Grif jerked his head at Frank’s shorn wings. They’d once soared in beautiful black arches from shoulders that reminded Grif of rocks. Gold-tipped, they’d glinted even in full dark. Now they sprawled in spikes from ashy shoulders that were withered and hunched.
    â€œNo. I clipped those myself.”
    Like a monk who voluntarily lashed himself until his back seeped with blood, clipping one’s own wings was significant in a way that Grif would likely never understand. It was the most visible aspect of angelic power, and an obvious lessening of status and strength. More than that, the shearing appeared to have changed something on the inside of Frank. Ghosts moved behind his marbleized gaze. Something heavier than gravity turned his mouth low.
    Something vital, Grif thought, something Pure, had been lost.
    â€œMy job,” Sarge began quietly, “has always been to see that the souls in my care, the Centurions, work through the pain of their own deaths, forget their mortal lives and loves and regrets, and move on to the safety and absolution of God’s presence. I’ve always been able to fulfill my duty. Until you.”
    Grif shifted uncomfortably, but Sarge continued.
    â€œI should have known you were different. Your recollection of your life in the fifties was more acute than those possessed by other Centurions. Most have memories like line drawings, scratched in dull pencil, erased and rubbed over a dozen times. But yours burst like hothouse flowers in full bloom. Still, I thought it would be okay. You remembered that you’d been murdered, but you didn’t recall how. I should have told you then that your wife still lived.”
    â€œYes. You should have.”
    Sarge shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not our way to reveal All. We’re concerned with moving souls into Paradise, that’s it. Forcing you to don flesh again and return to the Surface—making you feel the pain of living and dying all over again—was supposed to be a punishment for assisting Nicole