Page 52 of Two Sides of Sin

I lean back in my leather chair, a slow, cold smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as the proximity of the Ritual brings Thomas back to the forefront of my mind. It’s sparked memories I would rather keep buried under the floorboards of the old garden shed, yet there is a certain sweetness in remembering how wrong he was.

Thomas. The boy who thought he was the architect just because he found the blueprints. I can still hear his voice, dripping with that arrogant, older-cousin condescension. “You’re nothing without me, Cain,” he’d sneer, looming over me in the shadows of that damp shed. “This Ritual will only ever be a dream to you without my hand to guide yours. You’re weak. You need me.”

I was young then, and for a time, I actually believed him. I let his poison settle in my bones, mistaking his recklessness for mastery. But as the months bled into years, that belief curdled into a silent, simmering resentment. I watched him fumble with the bindings; I saw the weakness in his “strength.” I knew, even back then, that one day I would prove to him exactly how powerless he was. He ruined everything for himself in the end, but he nearly took it all away from me, too.

I remember the night everything shattered. Thomas had been fuming for weeks. I’d been sneaking out—not to meet him. I was meeting Katie. She was… different. She had perfect golden brown hair that caught the light even in the dim shadows of the local park where we hid. For the first time in my life, I felt something that wasn’t emptiness. It was a strange, terrifying warmth. I never told Thomas about her, but he knew. He always knew when I was hiding something.

That night, he told me he’d found the shortcut. The sacrifice was tonight. He didn’t tell me where we were going, just led me through the back alleys until we reached a house I didn’t recognise.

“Put it on,” he hissed, shoving the balaclava into my hands. “And take this.” He handed me a hunting knife. “If I tell you to do something, you fucking listen, Cain. No hesitations.”

We broke in through the basement. The air was stale, smelling of laundry detergent and black mould. My heart was thumping against my ribs as we moved into the main house. We crept down a hallway lined with framed pictures. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t want to know whose life we were about to take.

We stepped into a bedroom at the end of the hall. The curtains were thin, letting in enough moonlight to see a figure huddled under a duvet, facing the wall. All I could see was a spill of golden brown hair across the pillow.

A familiar shade.

I looked at the bedside table. There was a photo of her—Katie—smiling with her little brother and sister. My stomach dropped. Thomas saw the realisation hit me. He stepped closer, his eye peeking through the balaclava. I grabbed his arm, my hand trembling as I tried to pull him back—a silent plea for him to stop.

I begged and pleaded with my eyes.

Thomas just looked at me. His eyes were wide and filled with a malicious, evil glee I will never forget. He leaned in, whispering so softly it was barely a breath: “I told you to stop choosing her over me.”

He attacked.

I tried to fight him. I threw myself at his back, clawing at his shoulders, but Thomas was possessed by a frantic, unnatural strength. He threw me off like I was a child. I hit the floor hard, the wind knocked out of me, and I had to watch.

I had to watch the only person who had ever made me feel alive, get slaughtered by my own flesh and blood.

Her screams weren’t like the movies. They were fear filled and desperate as she choked and suffocated on her own blood. Then came the heavy thuds from down the hall—her parents.

“Katie?” a man’s voice called out, panicked. “Katie, what’s happening?”

I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. I scrambled to my feet, the knife Thomas gave me clattering to the floor. I bolted out of the room, my vision blurred by tears I refused to let fall.

“Fucking stop!” Thomas bellowed from inside the room, his voice seeping with rage. “Stop or I’ll fucking kill you too, Cain! Get back here!”

I didn’t stop. I ran through the house, stumbling over furniture, and burst through the front door into the night air. Just as my feet hit the pavement, a chorus of screams erupted from inside—the parents finding what was left of their daughter.

I never saw Thomas again after that night. The police, the sirens, the trial… I stayed in the shadows. He vanished into the system, and I hope to God he stays there until the day he dies. A nicer end than he deserves.

Chapter 39

Julian

Ihaven’t slept. Not tonight, and not for the better part of a week.

Every time I close my eyes, the darkness behind my lids paint a flawless picture of my damnation: the bloodstained stone of the cellar altar, and the slow, ear piercing drag of ceremonial steel being sharpened for the kill. I’ve had years—decades, to find a way out. I’ve scoured dusty, forbidden archives, whispered to shadowed men in back alleys, and begged the very universe for a loophole, a trade, a mercy.

I failed.

I led the person I love most in this world right into the middle of a spiderweb, and now I have to stand by and watch the spider sink its teeth in.

I stepped out of the shower, the scalding water doing nothing to wash away the aching exhaustion or the bitter taste of guilt. I dressed slowly, my hands shaking so badly I nearly tore the buttons off my shirt. Today is her birthday. The day she becomes a woman in the eyes of the law, and a “vessel” in the eyes of the ancient blood soaked texts Cain worships.

I walked into her room before hours before the sun rose. I’d spent the night transforming her bedroom into a chaotic shrine. It was a pathetic attempt to give her a lifetime of birthdays in a single morning, to compress eighty years of joy into a few hours before the shadows claimed her.

Over a hundred presents suffocated the space around her bed, the thick silk ribbons tied like delicate nooses. Dozens of bouquets, lined every flat surface, their scent so cloying it felt like breathing in a botanical garden. Hundreds of balloons hovered near the ceiling like colourful orbs.