Page 142 of Sinister

“What about my pregnancy?” I blurt out.

“Petra, I don’t care that you’re pregnant,” Sin says in a steady tone as he looks straight at me. “I also don’t care who the father of the baby is; all I care about is your happiness. Do you believe me?”

“I-I think I do,” I reply hesitantly. What else can I say? And anyway, he does sound sincere enough.

Perhaps my nightmares had been darkening all other aspects of my life, much like the greyish blue of the skies in the painting made many of the features look slightly ashen.

Maybe everything from last night really was just a product of my overactive imagination and pregnancy hormones mixing with fear.

“Thank you for the flowers and the painting, Sin,” I repeat myself from before, but this time I offer the words as a genuine gesture of gratitude. “And thank you for apologizing.”

“Of course. I so want to make things right between us.” He smiles at me for a moment before his expression turns pensive again.

“What is it?” I can’t help but ask.

“I should have been gentler with you at the cemetery,” he says, his voice softening. “I let my emotions get the better of me. I don’t like that you had to see that part of me.”

Those last words remind me of my earlier analogy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Sin’s many opposing moods.

I am slightly taken aback by this sudden shift in his demeanor.

“Sin, it’s . . . yeah, it was sort of messed up. I understand you were upset, but yesterday was really intense.”

“I know,” he continues, his tone sincere. “And I am really, really sorry about my behavior. But . . .”

“But what?” I reply, piqued by his expression. He looks reluctant, like he’s forming some thought he’s afraid of saying out loud.

“There’s something that’s been weighing on me.”

“Which is?” And now my tone is impatient at how he’s stretching out this air of suspense. “Tell me!” I demand again.

“Look, Petra, the two deaths, Edwin and Harry. They were both people you knew, and I’m—” he breaks off and gets up from his chair, as if determined to look away from me while conjecturing about my safety. “I’m worried about you, all right? I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and honestly, I’m scared something might happen to you.”

At last, he turns around to look at me, and I can see that his eyes are filled with a kind of fear as well. A shiver runs down my spine when I realize that Sin is being honest, and I hug myself surreptitiously.

“Sin, I’m scared, too,” I finally admit in a quiet tone full of unspoken despair. “It’s all been a little too much too sudden, right? And I just don’t know what to make of it all.”

He breaks off his pacing to come and stand beside my chair and rub my shoulders in a comforting gesture.

“Apart from all that madness, how are you handling everything, Petra? Are you doing okay?” he asks softly.

“I’m not entirely sure. For now, I’m just trying to get through each day. The deaths, the pregnancy, the crypt, and all those godawful paintings in there—my head feels like it might just burst one of these days!”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I gasp and cover my face with my hands. An image of Harry’s mutilated body has just swum past my mind’s eye. Sin flinches as well but doesn’t stop kneading my shoulders in the same cadence as before.

“I can’t even imagine what you’re going through,” he whispers into the tense air. “But don’t think for a second that you’ve got to go through all of it on your own.”

He pulls up a chair and sits next to me, his palms grasping my own in an assuring way that calms me down, despite everything.

But there is still a faint recollection of something wrong in the past. Perhaps my mind still retains scraps from the volley of questions and demands Sin had lobbed at me—in dream or recollection, I don’t know.

And now he seems genuinely worried for my safety.

Once again, I get the feeling of being manipulated in some way.

“Why do you care so much, Sin?” I ask in a much quieter voice. “You barely even know me.”

“And that’s where you’re mistaken, Petra,” Sin replies with an ineffable look in his eyes. “I already feel like I have known you for a long time.”