Page 4 of Two Sides of Sin

He took a hesitant step closer, and my breath caught. He was going to do it. He was going to try and kiss me.

I should have stopped him. I should have remembered the rules, the unspoken laws written in the chill of Julian’s furrowed brows and the tight, lethal set of Cain’s jaw.

Alex leaned in, and I tilted my head up, anticipating the quick, clumsy peck of a first crush.

Then came the snap—a sound so sudden and deafening it seemed to tear through the very air between us. It didn’t belong to the idling engine or the people passing on the street, it was the sickening sound of a predator closing the gap at a speed that defied physics.

Alex didn’t even get his lips halfway to mine before he was ripped backwards. One moment he was inches away, the next he was airborne. He crashed into the rusted iron fence of my neighbour’s yard with a sound like a bag of wet gravel hitting stone.

I spun around, my heart hammering. Cain's face was a mask of cold, icy resentment. He no longer looked like the precise perfectionist who dictated our lives, he looked like the predator Julian always tried to shield me from. And right now, his eyes were locked on me.

Cain stood over Alex, who was curled on the ground in the dirt, clutching his side and whimpering.

“Are you tired of breathing, or just incredibly stupid?” Cain’s voice was a low, vibrating growl that didn’t sound human. “She isn’t yours to look at, let alone touch.”

He was on him in an instant, lowering himself until his face was inches from Alex’s terrified features. He pressed a blade to the boy’s throat, the steel glinting with a hungry, silver light.

“You’re a stain on her life, and I’m a man who likes things clean,” Cain warned. “Consider this your only warning. Stay away from her, or the next time we’re in the same room, you won’t leave it on your own two feet.”

He straightened up, the shadow he cast swallowing the boy whole. Before I could find my voice to beg, Cain’s boot connected with Alex’s ribcage.

The sound was sickening, a crushing snap that made me clap my hands over my mouth to keep from vomiting.

“Cain! Stop!”

Julian’s voice tore across the street. He was running now, his face pale with a mixture of fear and fury.

“Stop! You’ll kill him! You’re going to ruin everything!”

Cain pulled back, his chest heaving, and fixed me with a look that made my blood turn to ice. I was trembling, my face pale with shock, but he didn’t reach out to comfort me. Instead, his eyes raked over me with a clinical, predatory intensity. It wasn’t a look of love, it was the look of a hunter who had just reminded the world exactly who I belonged to.

“If he has any survival instinct left, he’ll stay away,” Cain murmured, his tone ice cold. “You’re a rarity, June. You don’t belong with people like him. You don’t invite strays into our world.”

He gave Alex one last, scornful look, spat a curse in that strange language they sometimes used when they thought I wasn’t listening, and strode back towards the car.

Julian was instantly on his knees beside Alex, his hands hovering, visibly fighting the urge to help him.

I couldn’t move. I just stared at the crumpled form of the boy who had offered me a moment of normalcy, now ruined and broken on the cold pavement. The cost of my selfish needs laid out in Alex’s blood.

I ran. I didn’t stop until I was in my room at Nana’s, the door locked and the lights off. I collapsed onto my bed, the image of Alex hitting the fence playing on a loop. I felt like I was being buried alive, the dirt being shovelled on by the two men who claimed to want to keep me safe.

A half hour later, there was a soft, repetitive knock on my door. Three taps. Julian..

Cain never knocked.. he just entered. He treats personal boundaries like optional suggestions.

“June? Let me in, please.”

I didn’t want to see him, but the silence was worse. I opened the door and crawled back into a ball on my bed. Julian stepped inside, moving with perfect precision through the dark. He sat on the edge of my mattress, the weight of him making the springs groan.

“Why?” I sobbed into my pillow. “He was just a friend, Julian! He almost killed him!”

He sighed, a sound of profound, weary sadness. He reached out, his hand hovering before finally settling on my shoulder. His touch was warm, steady. “You know how Cain is, Junebug. He has… anger issues. He just cares about you so much. He thought he was protecting you.”

I jerked my head up, my eyes stinging. “Is that seriously the excuse you’re going with? He wasn’t hurting me! He was the only person who treated me like I wasn’t some… weirdo!”

“I’m sorry,” Julian said softly, but there was a hint of steel in the apology. He wasn’t sorry for what Cain did; he was only sorry I had seen it.

“I’m so lonely,” I whispered, the isolation finally crushing me. “No one talks to me. They see the way you both follow me…. And since Annie moved away, I have no one. I need someone to talk to, Julian. I’m drowning.”