Page 69 of Two Sides of Sin

By the time the evening siren signalled the end of the shift, I was practically vibrating with nervous energy. I packed up my brushes, climbed down the scaffolding, and headed across the dusty courtyard towards the main humanitarian camp.

The mess tent was a chaotic blend of NGO volunteers, local translators, and off-duty military personnel. I grabbed a dented tin mug of terribly bitter coffee and slid onto a wooden bench next to Alice, a hardened, no-nonsense nurse who had been working in conflict zones for most her life.

“You look like you saw a ghost, Sage,” Alice observed, not looking up from her clipboard.

I nearly choked on my coffee. That’s exactly what Noah said to Julian.

“I’m fine,” I deflected quickly. I traced the rim of my mug, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Just… had a weird run in with the security detail today. Some soldiers clearing the eastern chapel.”

Alice finally looked up, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Noah and Julian?”

“You know them?”

“Everyone knows them,” she snorted, setting her pen down. “Well, everyone knows Noah. He’s the camp golden retriever. Will talk to anyone, charm the socks off the local kids, give you the shirt off his back. The other one, though…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“Julian,” I prompted softly.

“Yeah. The big one.” Alice leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “The guys in his unit call him Terminator. Or the Machine. He hates it. I’ve been at this camp for eight months, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak a full sentence. He doesn’t socialise. He just volunteers for the worst, most suicidal night patrols and always comes back without a scratch.”

I frowned, the image of him stumbling in the chapel flashing in my mind. “He didn’t look like a machine today. He looked… sick. Like he was in pain or something.”

She looked genuinely surprised. “Julian? sick? Honey, if something rattled him today, it must have been biblical.” She gave me a long, calculating look. “Why? What did he do?”

“Nothing,” I lied smoothly, though my hand instinctively reached up to press against the hollow of my throat again. “He just… I don’t know. I think he was just tired.”

Alice hummed, clearly not buying it, but she went back to her clipboard. “Well, steer clear of that one. A guy with eyes that dead is definitely carrying some serious skeletons in his closet you don’t want to meet.”

I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee, but my heart was racing. Eyes that dead. She was right, his eyes were terrifying. But they also carried a warmth and depth beneath the surface that made me want to know more.

Chapter 46

Julian

Ididn’t make it far past the chapel doors before my body quit on me.

“Jules, seriously, slow down—” Noah called out from behind me, but his voice sounded distorted, like I was hearing him underwater.

I veered off the main pathway, ducking into the dark, crumbling remains of the cathedral’s old cloisters. Out of sight of the camp. Out of sight of her. The moment the stone wall concealed me, my knees buckled. I hit the dirt hard, the impact jarring my teeth, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel my hands.

I dropped my rifle and clawed at the collar of my tactical vest, desperate for air that refused to expand my lungs. I was hyperventilating.

June. Sage. June.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, a ragged, ugly sound tearing its way out of my throat. It was a sob. A century of suppressed, soul-crushing agony, a hundred years of waiting in the dark, and she was just… there. Standing in a shaft of sunlight, brushing dust off ancient stone.

The Ritual had worked. Her soul had returned. The universe hadn’t taken her from me completely.

But the agonising reality of it, was that she looked at me with the polite, wary eyes of a stranger. She didn’t know the cabin. She didn’t know the Manor. She didn’t know how her skin felt under my hands, or how I had wept over her grave until my voice gave out. I was a horror from a nightmare she couldn’t remember.

“Hey! Jules!”

Footsteps crunched in the gravel. Noah rounded the corner, his rifle lowered but his body tense. When he saw me on the ground, practically tearing at my own chest, the easygoing soldier vanished.

“Julian, hey, look at me,” Noah dropped to his knees right in front of me, grabbing my shoulders. His grip was grounding, human. “Talk to me, man. What is it?”

“I can’t,” I choked up, frantically shoving his hands off me. I scrambled back until my spine hit the stone wall, pulling my knees up, trying to make myself smaller. Trying to keep the madness from spilling out and infecting him. “Don’t touch me, Noah. Just back off.”

“Like hell I will,” Noah fired, though his eyes were wide with genuine alarm. He had seen me walk through fire, but he had never seen me falter. “You’re freaking out, dude. Breathe. What happened in there? Was it the girl?”