Page 39 of Two Sides of Sin

The world tilted on its axis. The ground seemed to collapse underneath me. I felt Julian’s strong arms wrap around me from behind, trying to anchor me, but I fought him with a feral, hysterical strength. I clawed at the air, my vision blurring with hot tears.

“Nana! No! Let me see her!” I shrieked.

The paramedics stepped in front of the doors, their expressions grim. “I’m so sorry, Miss. There was nothing we could do. It was a tragic accident.”

“I should have been home,” I wailed. While I was letting Julian mark me, while I was losing myself in the heat of his body… she was dying alone on the kitchen floor.

My legs gave out completely. Julian caught me, lowering us both to the wet grass. I buried my face in my hands, the sobs racking my body until I couldn’t breathe. I was covered in the scent of the man who had killed to keep me, while the woman who had lived to love me was being driven away in a bag.

Chapter 29

Julian

Iam standing in a room that smells of lilies and stagnant air. Watching the girl I love disappear in front of my eyes. Again…

June is sitting in one of those god-awful, high-backed velvet chairs, her skin so pale she looks like she’s carved from the same cold marble as the statues at the Manor garden. Her eyes are fixed on a singular, invisible spot on the wall—a gaze so empty it causes a physical ache in my chest. She hasn’t blinked in minutes. She hasn’t eaten or slept in days. The vibrant, fiery girl who once laughed at an oversized stuffed elephant is being systematically replaced by a hollow-eyed zombie.

The funeral director is a man who speaks in hushed tones, droning on about the “timeless dignity” of mahogany versus the “earthy warmth” of oak. I am just nodding, my hand gliding over the paper to sign whatever he slides across the desk. My hand is steady, but my chest feels like it’s being crushed by a hydraulic press.

Every time I look at June, the guilt hits me. I should have seen the fragility in Nana’s steps. I should have been there to catch her. I was playing house with her granddaughter while her foundation was turned into rubble. I’ve spent the last three days being the version of myself June needs—the planner, the protector, the one who handles the formal overwhelming reality of words, like autopsy or burial plot so she doesn’t have to hear them.

“June? Junebug, look at me.”

She blinks, and it’s like watching a screen flicker to life after a power surge. The hollow, thousand-yard stare in her eyes nearly breaks my resolve.

“It’s time to pick out the plot,” I say, my voice sounding like gravel. “We need to go outside.”

The memorial gardens of the town cemetery are pristine and manicured to an impressive degree. We walk past the polished granite and the weeping angels. I can feel the tension radiating off June in cold, detached waves.

“What about this one near the old oak tree?” I ask, pointing to a quiet, shaded corner. “Or the one by the fountain?”

“No,” she whispers. It’s the only word she’s said in hours. “Not that one.”

We move from plot to plot, and the answer is always the same. I can see the frustration building in her—the fresh grief and anger that is desperate for a target. My palms are still tender from dragging Billy through the forest; a stinging reminder of my own volatile duality.

“I know it’s hard,” I say, my voice straining with the effort to stay patient. “I know this is the last thing you want to do. But she can’t stay… she can’t stay at the morgue.”

“None of them are right, Julian!” she cried. For a heartbeat, the fire is back in her eyes, a flash of the girl who once challenged me at the diner. But then she crumbles, her voice turning into a broken sob. “None of them suit her. It’s all so far away. The energy here… it’s cold. It’s sterile. It feels like I’m just leaving her here to be forgotten.”

She wraps her arms around herself, shaking so hard I can hear her teeth chatter. Seeing her like this, so vulnerable and untethered, makes something change inside me. I look to the horizon, towards the dark, looming silhouette of the Manor standing on the hill. I think about our private gardens. I think about the soil that has been in our family for centuries.

If I do this, June never leaves the property. She’ll be bound to the Manor, to the Blackburn name, and to the Ritual in a way she can never escape.

But I can’t stand to see her heart break one more time today.

“Stay here,” I tell her, my pulse hammering in my ears. “I have to make a phone call. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I stride away before she can ask questions, pushing through the heavy timber doors into the facility's main office. The funeral director looked up, startled, but I ignore his expression as I gesture to the heavy rotary telephone sitting on the desk.

"I need to use the phone," I tell him, my voice leaving no room for argument.

He steps back with a nervous nod. I pick up the receiver, listening to the hollow click of the dial tone before spinning the numbers from memory. Cain answers after the second long, echoing ring, his voice cutting through the static like ice.

“We aren’t burying her in the town cemetery,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, possessive growl. “June’s grandmother. Nana. She’s coming home. I want her buried in a private garden, near the white rose bushes. I want June to be able to see her from the parlour window.”

There is a long, terrifying silence on the other end. I can practically hear the gears in Cain’s mind turning, calculating the risks and the undeniable leverage this gives us— gives him.

“You realise what you’re asking,” Cain says finally. “You’re making the girl a permanent fixture of the estate.”