Page 191 of Sinister

Sin and I, my legs locked around his hips, his lips biting and sucking at the curving mounds of my breasts . . .

The thought sends a shiver down my spine, and my legs feel weak. But I don’t want Sin to see just how undone I feel even at the memory of our escapade there, so I clear my throat.

“Yeah, I remember, of course. Why?”

“Well, don’t freak out, okay?” Sin begins cautiously, and of course, those words freak me out. “But that was the tomb of Arnoult the First. He’s buried there.”

When my eyes widen in shock, and I open my mouth to protest, he trips over himself to say, “I didn’t know before, Petra, I swear!”

“Wow, that’s . . . um, I’m gonna need a minute here,” I stammer.

“So what I’m suggesting is we go back to the mausoleum and take a look around, perhaps find some clues? Objectively, without getting carried away and tearing off each other’s clothes.”

He’s laughing by the end of his sentence, and I punch him on the arm.

“Ow! Easy there, Valentine! Damn girl, the pregnancy’s turning you into Superwoman.” He grins.

We fall back giggling and laughing for a bit—a miracle, given the awful topic we’re discussing and the macabre plans we’re cooking up.

“Fine, I guess we can do that,” I say in the end.

56

PETRA

The following day brings more news of doom. Another body has been found—this time in the town square, just like the students from over a hundred years ago. But this time, it wasn’t staged as a suicide.

It was murder, plain and simple.

And the details are even more horrifying than I could have imagined.

His body had been chopped up, and parts of it were strewn around the town square. And because of the level of damage to the body, the police have not been able to ID the victim yet.

It seems one of the street cleaners, working in the early hours of the morning, came across a hand hidden among the autumn foliage.

At first, he thought it was a prank and pushed it aside. But quickly, he realized it was real—a human hand.

A dead body.

More body parts started appearing after that, and so the terror returned to our little town in full force.

And if that wasn’t enough, there are whispers of a few more odd deaths happening inside the isolated religious community.

Because of their secrecy, these deaths weren’t reported at the proper time; apparently, they happened somewhere between Edwin’s and Harry’s deaths.

That brings the total to five deaths now.

I haven’t been able to find much about the victims from the religious community: who they were, how exactly they died, or whether they were somehow connected to the persecution of Arnoult and his group all those years ago.

I’m still digging for a link, but the more I search, the more conflicting information I find.

So many people have motives. So many reasons to kill.

And then there’s the most pressing question of all:

What about dream-Sin?

How does he fit into all of this?