SINS OF THE HEART
Roxy cringed back against the wall and wished she
could dissolve into the concrete blocks like water into
sand. She was shaking so hard her shoulder bumped the
wall again and again.
He glanced at her, his expression ruthlessly neutral.
Terrifyingly so.
She’d called him vanilla bean. She’d called a fucking monster vanilla bean.
“Stop,” he said.
Only in that second did she realize that every time
she exhaled, she made a high-pitched whining sound.
“Stop. Now.” A hard edge crept into his tone.
And she did. She snapped her mouth shut so quickly
that her teeth clacked together vigorously enough to hurt.
“Thank you.” Soft. Polite.
She whispered, “You’re welcome,” and as the words
left her lips, she recognized how ludicrous they were.
A laugh tore free, against her will, against any sort of
good judgment. Too loud, too wild, it rang with the
sharp peal of hysteria.
Keep it together, sister. Don’t you lose it now.
Ignoring her outburst, he turned back to the bodies,
moved to Jerry’s corpse and shoved his hand into the
lacerated chest. Again, oily smoke coiled up his forearm and coalesced into a second black balloon that
slithered up to join the one he’d pulled from Marcie.
Roxy’s every instinct screamed for her to escape, to
run while he was occupied elsewhere. But instinct and
the reality of her bound limbs didn’t mesh. Her gaze
skittered once more to the knife that’d landed in the
corner, and she wriggled and twisted, suddenly wholly
