Page 75 of Two Sides of Sin

Noah was staring at the tent entrance, scratching the back of his neck, looking more bewildered than I had ever seen him. “I… I honestly have no idea, Sage. I swear to you, he is normally just quiet and in his head, not… whatever that was. It’s like his brain just rebooted.”

“He didn’t even take the manifest,” I pointed out, gesturing sharply to the clipboard on the crate. The whiplash was making me dizzy. “Yesterday, he practically tears a guy’s head off to protect me, and today he looks at me like I’m a walking disease and storms out? It’s incredibly rude.”

Noah sighed, picking up the clipboard. “Yeah. It is. Look, I’ll take this to command and try to talk to him. He hasn’t been sleeping. Maybe the deployment is finally catching up to him.”

“Right,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest.

Noah gave me a sympathetic look before slipping out of the tent to chase after his friend.

I was left alone again, surrounded by dusty crates and art supplies. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, letting out a heavy breath. I was used to being ignored. I grew up in a house where my presence was barely acknowledged. But Julian’s brand of ignoring me felt different. It didn’t feel like apathy, it felt like active, painful resistance.

It felt like I was standing too close to a fire, and he was the one getting burned.

I grabbed a rag and aggressively wiped down a palette knife, my jaw set. I was done tiptoeing around his moods. If the ‘Terminator’ wanted to act like a petulant, hot-and-cold jerk, fine. Let him. I was here to do a job, not to decode the psychological baggage of a giant, emotionally unstable soldier, who couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as me.

By nightfall, my irritation hadn’t faded, it had just settled into a low, simmering annoyance.

I was sitting on the crumbling stone steps just outside the NGO barracks annex, staring out at the perimeter fence. The camp was quiet, the harsh daytime heat finally bleeding out into a cool and calm night, the thick European fog beginning to roll in low over the cobblestones. I had a sketchbook in my lap, charcoal smudged across my fingertips, but I hadn’t drawn a single thing. My mind kept replaying the unexplainable panic on Julian’s face before he fled the supply tent.

A shadow detached itself from the side of the building.

The only warning I had that I wasn’t alone was the sudden, electric shift in the air and the faint, grounding scent of cedar-wood.

I gripped my pencil, my spine stiffening as Julian stepped into the pale wash of the moonlight.

He had shed his tactical vest and weapons, wearing only his dark cargo pants and a fitted black t-shirt that clung to the massive, terrifying lines of his scarred shoulders and ripped chest. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, keeping a careful distance between us. He looked like a man walking to his own execution.

“If you’re looking for the manifest, you’re about twelve hours late,” I said, my voice sharp and defensive. I didn’t look up from my blank sketchbook. I wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

Julian didn’t flinch at the venom in my tone. He just stood there, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his broad chest rising and falling in a slow, deep rhythm.

“I didn’t come for the paperwork,” his voice was low. He hesitated for a moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I came to apologise.”

That made me look up.

The anger I had been nursing all day faltered the second my eyes met his. The moon cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting the exhaustion carved into his features.

“For which part?” I asked, though my voice had lost its bite. “Ignoring me, glaring at me, or practically sprinting out of the tent because I dropped a box of pencils?”

“For all of it,” he said quietly. He pulled one hand out of his pocket and dragged it through his dark hair, a rare crack in his rigid military posture. He finally looked me dead in the eye, and the raw, bleeding sincerity there made my breath catch. “My behaviour was unacceptable. I was… disrespectful. And you didn’t deserve that.”

I closed my sketchbook, my frustration melting into that same, inexplicable pull I felt every time he was near. “Then why do you do it, Julian? Yesterday you practically broke a man in half to keep him away from me, and today you look at me like I’m a burden again. You’re giving me whiplash.”

He let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a frustrated sigh. He took a single half-step closer to the stairs, but forced himself to stop, as if an invisible wall kept him from closing the distance.

“You aren’t the problem, Sage,” he said, the sound of my name on his lips sending a shiver straight down my spine. The way he said it was too heavy, too reverent. “I am.”

I frowned, my fingers tightening around the edge of my sketchbook. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you asked why I avoid you, and I owe you the truth.” His eyes locked onto mine—beautiful, intense honey-brown. “It isn’t because I don’t want to be around you. God knows that isn’t it. But it’s best for you if we aren’t friends. It’s best for everyone if you pretend I don’t exist.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I shot back, standing up. “You’re a soldier, not a plague.”

“You don’t know me,” he warned, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating with a dark, terrifying gravity that made my heart hammer. “You don’t know what I’ve done, or what I carry with me. I am not a good man. I am a machine built for violence, and I bring ruin to the things I get close to. I push you away because being near you…” He trailed off.

“Because being near me does what?” I challenged, stepping down the first stone stair, my anger replaced by a reckless, undeniable need to push past his armour.

Julian looked up at me, his gaze dropping briefly to my ribs where the word “nevermore” was hidden beneath my shirt and then back up to my face.