“Fuck it.”
pop
The bullet punches clean through the man’s skull. And everything inside me shatters.
Fourteen
Liam
She’s here. Covering her mouth with her hand, pleading with herself not to scream.Surprised, sweetheart?
For a second, my brain refuses to process the possibility that I had conjured her, like some sick part of me had dragged her into this garage out of thin air. The recoil snaps up my arm, but I barely feel it. I barely feel anything, especially since Joe died. That part of me extinguished with him.
What I feel right now though, is Sara, and that alone surprises me. It’s a damn shame that I don’t enjoy surprises, even wrapped in a deadly temptress like her. Black magic.
I hate her for burning through me like she holds a cigarette’s ember pressed to my skin, slow and deliberate. The real problem? I’d probably fucking enjoy it.
She shows up at my doorstep thinking she has any right. Surely, she isn't lost? Church is the other way into the village, and if she needs God, she will not find Him here. She better drop to her knees and pray for an escape from the hell she invited herself into.
Welcome baby girl.
Wide brown eyes, half-hidden in the door's crack, frozen but fixed on me; I’d know the shape of that stare even in the dark. Her chest rises, fast, heaving, her attention flickering between me and the now corpse bleeding out behind me. Her lips part on a gasp she doesn’t even know she makes, the soundless kind that tears straight into me, branding me worse than any bullet ever has because the sight of her panic makes me want to drink it.
She is finally seeing it, that I am a dangerous man, and fuck if I’d try to convince her otherwise. I had already shown her enough cracks, enough jagged reflections of the broken mirror I was. If she’s dumb enough to cut herself for some sordid hope that I have a heart, she’s better off watching herself bleed dry.
I have a heart, sure, but it beats for anything buther.
Joe’s last ride was the rot that she left behind like an aftertaste. She carved holes in my brother’s chest, and I hate her for that. For still standing here breathing, while he isn’t. And looking like sin and innocence all at once, she could kill just from how beautiful she is, but all I see is the reason I buried my twin, and that makes her the ugliest soul alive.
Her body jolts like a startled fawn when the file in my hand slips from my grip, landing on the floor, but she doesn’t move. Just stands there, shaking at the irony of fate. Despite how much I can’t stand the girl, she doesn’t belong in this world, not withDamien pacing behind me, and not with me in the same room smelling her trepidation.
A low voice breaks the silence.
“You want me to take care of her?” Damien asks, lighting a cigarette, his dark eyes toward her, casual, like he’s offering to take out the trash. Smoke curls from his mouth, tattoos shifting over his knuckles as he flexes the lighter in his palm.
“No.” My answer is a snarl before I can tether it.
Damien arches a brow, leaning back into the shadows, waiting.
I snap my gaze back to Sara before he can read too much into this, whateverthisis.
Mine.
I can’t stop myself from moving, a few quick steps and she shudders when the door bangs back, her whole body is like a trapped bird and she has no idea what kind of pitfall she got herself into, especially one where I’d have to make sure she stays quiet.
Her gaping eyes lock on mine, glassy with the fear of me, and for once, it’s something we both can agree on. I move the door but she bolts, running for her damn pretty little life.
The sun scorches her exposed shoulders, barely covered by thin tank top straps, catching in her long dark brown hair as it streams wild behind her. She always comes across as fragile. Always wearing black, warding off her own demons, who I know she is used to running away from, but with the newfound glint of terror as she looks back to see how far I am behind her,I am the demon chasing her this time to keep her quiet.
She tears up the hill of our street, layers of trees on each side with the road narrowing itself. Even the best truck drivers get claustrophobic as it strangles the hill in vicious switchbacks, ancient stone walls closing in like a trap on both sides.
Her hands hold against the stones as she stumbles, a car nearly shredding her alive and her body slams, her hair whipping violently in the car's wake. Those wild eyes find mine, a prey recognizing her predator, and something primal ignites in her and launches forward.
She runs herself straight into Sainte-Anne; the bells tolling above her from the top of the hill, each one echoing our footsteps.
The chapel perches high, its Provençal stone worn by centuries. People built this place to thank a saint for sparing them from the plague, and I am thanking God for bringing her to me on these grounds. No Saint will be sparing her today.
The air is different up here, it’s thick with pine and cypress, sea wind threading through branches that creak overhead and shadows of eerie shapes over us.
