Static filled her head, the sound drowning out everything.Sinn drove her somewhere, but she didn’t care where.He and Saint could do their worst.Life pretty much sucked anyway, so what was one more fuck you?
“You’ll be okay.”Sinn’s voice cut through the static in her head.
“If I asked you to kill me, would you?”
The truck came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street.A car honked at them and swerved around them.
“What?”He turned his body toward her and used his finger to turn her head.Concern furrowed his brow.“Why did you ask me that?”
“Because I don’t think I can do it,” she replied, eerily calm.“I think I’m too afraid to do it.Or maybe I’m afraid I’d do it wrong and get into a worse situation than I’m in now.Like I’d try to blow my brains out but would miss, and instead the bullet would take off my jaw and I’d have to live without it.I’d have to use a feeding tube or something.That would really suck.”
“Kira, listen to me closely.You are not to harm yourself.”
“Maybe you’re too nice.I bet Saint would do it.He hates me.”
Sinn shook his head.“No, he wouldn’t and no, he doesn’t.We don’t harm innocent people.”
“But he doesn’t think I’m innocent.He thinks I’m a spy for Lucifer, doesn’t he?”His hesitation was all the proof she needed.“I’ll pay you.I think I only have about sixty dollars on me, but you can have it.”
“Stop it,” he growled, a sound she’d never heard from him before.“Losing your stuff in a fire doesn’t mean the end of the road.”
He didn’t understand.Then again, how could he?Darkness shaded out the edges, pulling her into a tunnel without a light at the end.
“Why are you taking me back to your home?”
“Because you need a place to stay.”
“Saint won’t like this,” she muttered.“He’ll probably believe I burned my own apartment building to the ground just so you’d take me in.”
“Nah, he’ll be fine with it.”Somber Sinn was gone, replaced with Cheerful Sinn once more.“Just you wait.We’ll be one big happy family before long.”
She highly doubted that.
“One quick stop to Wal-Mart to pick you up some essentials.”
She didn’t want to go to Wal-Mart.How could she shop when everything she had was now ash?All she wanted to do was crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and never come out.
When they arrived, he told her to wait, which she did.He came around the front and opened the truck door to help her out, then held her hand, refusing to let it go as they walked into the store.His cell phone went off, and it turned out Taylor Swift was his ringtone.
“It’s Saint,” he said and connected the call.“Hey.Yes, she’s here with me.We’re at Wal-Mart to pick stuff up she’s going to need.Yes, it was her apartment building.Okay.”
He walked a bit away and spoke to his brother so quietly, she couldn’t hear what he was saying.When he finally ended the call, he slid the phone back into his pocket and moseyed back to her.
“What did he say?”
“Told me to bring you back home.I told you he’d come around.”
She highly doubted that was the reason, but at this point, she couldn’t care less what Saint thought about her.Or what he’d do to her.Remembering how angry he was earlier, perhaps he wouldn’t mind putting her out of her misery.Sinn asked for her size and then grabbed a couple pairs of jeans, and a couple of tops.He told her to pick out her undergarments and then they headed into the care isle where he grabbed a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant.All of this took about fifteen minutes, and at the checkout, he swiped his card.Which was good because, as she said, she had sixty dollars to her name.
Silence descended between them as Sinn drove back to his house.Hollowness stretched through her, rendering her numb.No thoughts, no feelings.Just a blank canvas where Kira used to be.When they reached the house, Saint was already there, opening the door to pull her into his arms.At first, she went rigid because it had been a long time since she allowed a man this close, besides Sinn, that is, and his touch left her shaken.After everything she’d gone through in the past twenty-four hours, this was what broke her.Tears filled her eyes and her legs gave out.Saint swooped her up into his arms, much like his brother had done earlier, and marched into their house.
Reality drifted by as the storm inside her raged, and when the calm came, her head pounded.Still, he comforted her.This big brutish man who had threatened her only an hour or so before, held her as her world crumbled.Giving her a soothing touch as he ran his fingers through her hair, until she leaned into his warmth, utterly spent.
“I told her she could stay with us,” Sinn murmured.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” she whispered.“I can stay with Joe.I stayed with him before when I, er, before.”
“No, Sinn’s right,” Saint said.“You’ll stay with us.”
