Page 106 of Sinister

“Nothing you’re not used to?” he repeats. “Please don’t say that, Petra.”

“I didn’t mean it like⁠—”

“No,” he cuts in softly but firmly. “You did mean it. Knowing what your life has been like is one thing, but actually hearing that from your own lips . . . It breaks something inside me.”

He pauses, eyes flickering with something deeper.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that, and for everything. For whatever pain you’ve known. Especially for the part I played in it.”

“It’s fine,” I whisper. “It’s in the past now.”

“It’s not fine. You were hurt because of me—again. My God, Petra. What were you thinking, coming here in the middle of the night, after what happened? After those murders?”

“I wanted to find you,” I say quietly. “To make sure you were alive. What else was I supposed to do?”

He sighs. “The ritual happened. The authorities were right: Some of the University’s higher-ups were involved. They’ve fled. No one knows where they are. My entire department is under suspicion now. Some of the staff have vanished. The rest of us . . . the ones with nowhere to go . . . we’re still here.”

“What about those people I saw? That woman?” I ask, my voice lowering to a whisper. “Was that another ritual?”

He finishes rubbing the ointment into my palms, then looks up, locking eyes with me.

“No. They’re from my department, yes. But it wasn’t a ritual. That woman, she’s a prostitute. She was just doing what they paid her to do.”

“A prostitute?” I blink. “You mean they were . . .”

“Fucking, yes.”

A sharp gasp escapes me. I glance away.

“That’s crude,” I whisper.

“No. It’s part of life,” he counters with a dark chuckle.

I chew on my lip, still looking away.

“Is that . . . Have you ever done that?”

He tilts his head. “Are you asking if I’ve participated in that?”

I nod tentatively.

“No.”

Relief washes through me.

“But,” I add hesitantly, “have you ever been with a prostitute before?”

“What are you asking me, Petra?” he says, meeting my gaze squarely. “Are you asking if I’ve paid someone for sex? If I’ve fucked someone?”

I falter, trembling and full of nerves. “I think so. I-I don’t know.”

The pain in my hands has faded under the balm, but my mind is a whirlwind of uncertainty. He watches me carefully, then a slow, unreadable smile touches the corners of his lips.

“And what if I had?” he asks. “Would it change something for you?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” I admit. “I suppose . . . that’s just what men do.”

“Even the men in your church?”