Page 101 of Two Sides of Sin

Hello, June, I thought, a venomous, possessive smile curving my lips.

Julian had spent the last month trying to protect her from our shared past. He had written her letters. He had made her promises. But he had failed. I was the one sitting on her bed. I was the one touching her skin. I could break her delicate little neck right now, and my twin wouldn’t even know until he arrived to find a rotting corpse.

But death was too quick. Too merciful. Too boring.

I leaned down, my face hovering mere inches from hers. Closing my eyes as the intense rush of possession flooded my veins. I wasn’t going to kill her. Not tonight. I was going to tear down her sanity piece by piece, until the only thing she knew to fear was me.

Slowly, I moved, the mattress barely dipping under the weight of a ghost as I slipped under the covers with her. The heat of her body was a siren song as I pressed myself against her back. I leaned into the curve of her neck, my lips brushing the skin where her pulse hammered and whispered into her ear, “Hello, little birdy.”

Tonight I was going to show her exactly how much I’d missed her

Chapter 57

Sage

My head felt like it was packed with wet cotton.

Forcing my eyes open, groaning softly as a brutal shaft of pale morning sunlight pierced right through the gap in the blinds and stabbed directly into my eyes. My mouth was dry, tasting faintly of red wine and sleep, and my limbs felt like they were made of solid lead.

I blinked sluggishly, staring at the ceiling of my loft. I felt hungover. Not just a little tired, but completely incapacitated, as if I had spent the entire night drinking tequila instead of curling up on the sofa with a glass of wine.

I slowly rolled over, my arm feeling incredibly heavy as I blindly slapped my hand against the nightstand to find my phone.

I grabbed it, bringing the shattered screen to my face, and my heart instantly dropped into my stomach.

10:14 AM.

“Shit!” I croaked, my voice a harsh rasp.

I bolted upright, the sudden movement sending a dizzying, nauseating wave crashing through my skull. I had slept through my alarm. I had missed my 9:00 AM Art History seminar, and my Advanced Ceramics class started in twenty minutes.

The adrenaline forcefully kicked my paralysed limbs into gear. I threw the duvet off, stumbling out of bed. My legs felt like jelly, my balance dangerously off as I practically tripped down the loft stairs.

I rushed into the kitchen, my bare feet slapping against the cold floor. I needed coffee. I needed water. I needed to figure out why I felt like I had been hit by a car overnight.

Stopping at the kitchen counter, my bloodshot eyes locking onto the bottle of red wine sitting exactly where I had left it last night. Next to it was my single, half-empty glass.

I snatched the bottle up, holding it to the light, fully expecting to see that I had stress-drank the entire thing in a paranoid blackout. But the dark liquid sat just below the label. I had maybe two glasses.

I stared at the bottle, my brow furrowing in deep, groggy confusion. How am I this incapacitated off two glasses of wine? My brain felt too thick, too sluggish to process the impossibility of it. The terrifying events of last night, the black SUV, the power outage, the phantom footsteps on the stairs, the missing underwear I couldn’t find after my shower, felt like a bizarre, distorted fever dream.

I set the bottle down with a loud clink against the counter.

You’re just exhausted, Sage. I told myself, aggressively rubbing my throbbing temples. You’re burning out.

I didn’t have time to psychoanalyse my own exhaustion or dig into the creepy, lingering feeling that my apartment harboured this morning. I was going to fail Ceramics if I didn’t get my final glaze on the kiln rack today.

I abandoned the idea of coffee and scrambled back upstairs, my head spinning. I threw on a pair of worn-out jeans and a heavy, oversized vintage sweater, shoving my feet into my Doc Martens without bothering to tie the laces properly. I grabbed my canvas tote bag, frantically making sure my sketchbook was inside before sprinting for the front door.

I threw the deadbolt open, flying down the apartment hallway, totally oblivious to the lethal dose of synthetic sedative still coursing through my veins, or the devil incarnate who had watched me sleep.

The Advanced Ceramics studio was usually my sanctuary, but today, it felt like a torture chamber.

The heavy scent of wet clay and glaze that normally grounded me was twisting my stomach into tight, nauseating knots. The noise of the studio, the low hum of a dozen pottery wheels, the wet slap of clay, the overlapping chatter of the other students, was echoing in my skull like a jackhammer.

I sat hunched over my workbench, staring blankly at the piece I was supposed to be finishing. It was a tall, macabre thing I had been hand crafting for weeks, heavily inspired by dark academia—black stoneware carved with intricate, anatomical human hearts entangled in thick, overgrown rose vines.

But I couldn’t even pick up my carving loop today without groaning.