Page 67 of Two Sides of Sin

As if sensing the sudden, suffocating shift in the atmosphere, she paused. Her hand slowly lowered to her side. And then, she turned around.

The tactical sling of my rifle slipped from my fingers. The heavy weapon hit the stone floor with a deafening, metallic pop that echoed through the cavernous chapel like a lightning strike.

It was her.

It wasn’t a lookalike. It wasn’t a distant relative. It was the exact, flawless face that had haunted my every waking second for a century. The same soft, devastating jawline. The same cascade of dark, heavy waves pulled up in a messy clip, a few stray curls falling against her neck. And her eyes—those deep, ocean-blue eyes that had looked up at me in complete trust and adoration right before Cain took her from me.

My legs, which had carried me through active war zones and walked off exploding shrapnel, gave out. I stumbled forward a half-step, my hand shooting out to brace myself against a shattered stone pew just to stay upright. The edges of the world turned blurry, narrowing down to the girl on the platform.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice. God, her voice. It was softer than an angels whisper in my mind, ringing like a silver bell through the ruined church. “Are… are you okay?”

She looked down at me, her brow furrowing in a mix of mild concern and confusion. She didn’t recognise me. The realisation was a knife twisting directly into the centre of my chest, exactly where her name was permanently scarred into my skin.

She took a cautious step closer to the edge of the scaffolding, leaning over the safety railing to get a better look at the massive, hypnotised soldier staring up at her like a madman.

My knees hit the marble. I couldn’t stop them. The invincible war machine, the immortal man, brought to his knees in the ruins of a church by a girl who didn’t even remember his name.

“June,” I breathed.

Up on the scaffolding, her breath caught. Her eyes widened as she stared down at the broken man on the floor, her lips parting as if the name had struck an invisible chord deep inside her.

The silence hanging between us was so palpable, I could almost hear the frantic, hummingbird beat of her pulse all the way from the ground. She was staring down at me, lost in a silent question she didn’t know how to ask.

I was drowning in her.

Then, the heavy thud of tactical boots echoed from the corridor, shattering the moment like a brick through glass.

“Yo, Terminator, the hell is taking so long?” Noah’s voice boomed down the hallway, aggressively normal and unwelcome. “You get lost in your own angst again? Tell me the sector is clear so I can eat my lukewarm rations in peace.”

The sound of my friend’s voice was a bucket of ice water. It forced my lungs to work again, and my mind to stop spiralling. I blinked, the ruins of the chapel rushing back into sharp focus.

With a monumental, painful effort, I forced my shaking legs to push me off the marble. I snatched my rifle from the floor and deliberately turned my back to the scaffolding, struggling to smooth the raw devastation off my face before Noah rounded the corner.

Noah strolled through the arched doorway, his helmet tucked under one arm, chewing on a toothpick. He stopped dead when he saw me. His relaxed posture instantly vanished, his eyes narrowing as he took in my rigid stance and the pale, bloodless shock I knew was written all over my face.

“Whoa. Hey,” Noah said, his voice dropping its joking cadence, replaced by the sharp instincts of a combat soldier. He stepped closer, scanning the dark corners of the room before looking back at me. “You good, man? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

The accidental, devastating accuracy of the words made my jaw clench so hard my teeth ground together.

“I’m fine,” I grated out. My voice sounded like it had been dragged over broken glass. “Tripped. Uneven masonry.”

Noah raised an eyebrow, a slow, disbelieving smirk creeping onto his face. “Right. The guy who practically does parkour over active explosive lines gets taken out by a piece of marble. Sure. I’ll make sure to note the treacherous floor in my report.”

“Just drop it, Noah.”

“I’m just saying, Jules, if the architecture is kicking your ass, maybe it is time to retire—” Noah cut off abruptly as his gaze finally drifted past my shoulder.

He spotted the scaffolding. Then, he spotted the girl in the oversized, dust-covered white shirt, who was currently climbing down the metal ladder with a cautious, graceful hesitance that made my chest cave in.

Noah’s entire demeanour shifted. He straightened up, effortlessly transitioning from my obnoxious brother-in-arms to the charming, easygoing guy who could talk his way out of a hostile interrogation.

“Well, now the clumsiness makes sense,” Noah muttered to me under his breath, nudging my arm. He raised his voice, flashing a bright, disarming smile at her. “Hi there. Sorry to interrupt the restoration work, and sorry about my oversized friend here. He forgets how to use his words when he hasn’t had his coffee.”

I closed my eyes for a a moment trying to compose myself, fighting the surge of adrenaline in my veins. “Noah.”

“I’m Noah, by the way,” he continued on, ignoring my warning tone. He walked forwards, offering a friendly wave. “We’re the security detail for this sector. This brooding monolith next to me is Julian.”

She reached the bottom of the scaffolding and dusted off her hands on her jeans. She looked at Noah, returning his smile with a small, polite one of her own, but her blue eyes flicked immediately back to me. They were searching. Wary. Deeply confused.