Page 310 of Sinister

I take one step. Finger on the trigger. I squeeze.

The bullet hits her shoulder. She cries out in pain, begs me again to stop.

I get closer. Perhaps this is the frenzy of killing—why this becomes so addictive to serial killers. Perhaps it’s just the relief at being alive. But there’s this bubbly feeling inside of me that only intensifies with every shot.

Once I’m closer, with better aim, I shoot again.

Face hit. Right in the middle of her nose.

She stops moving.

Another shot. This time her forehead. Headshot, I think they call it. Now I’m certain she will never move.

And yet, I don’t stop. I shoot again and again until there are no more bullets in the gun. Only then do I throw it to the ground.

I inhale and exhale. Her face is a mess. Skull exploded, flesh mangled.

I did that.

I stare in shock at my handiwork, and I can barely recognize myself. At least I’m alive, or at least that’s what I tell myself. The reality is that this might have been survival—could have been. But if it was, it should have never gotten to this.

She’s dead. Fiona—Agatha is dead. She failed to fulfill her bargain.

I’m still breathing hard when a slow, methodical clap of hands reverberates in the tunnel.

From the stark darkness, two distinct sets of footsteps emerge. I’m immediately on guard, thinking it’s her partner.

Instead, my mouth hangs open in shock when I see two men. The first, I don’t know. Tall, muscled, with stark green eyes. He looks a few years older than me, but there’s a lethal aura to him that speaks of a lifetime of experience. The second man, I know far too well.

Sin.

Sin? Why is he here? Why now, after I was attacked?

Why wouldn’t he come in time to save me?

More weird, he doesn’t seem at all shocked or surprised to see me like this, with blood-stained clothes and two dead people around me. If anything, he looks . . . pleased.

“Congratulations, Sister Agatha,” the first man starts speaking. “You have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”

84

PETRA

“What’s happening, Sin? Why are you here? Why didn’t you come earlier?” My voice trembles as I speak, and I barely stop myself from adding—why didn’t you come in time, like before?

But that would be low of me, especially now knowing what he went through: how long he’s waited for me and everything that he’s done to get me back.

“Petra, calm down,” he says in a low, entirely too unbothered voice.

“Calm down? How can I calm down? I killed someone!” I burst out. “I killed someone and . . .” I trail off as I look around.

Fiona’s body is a mess, and as my eyes zero in on her shattered skull, a sliver of shame consumes me. Yet even as I look away from her, there’s still Daphne. Equally as disfigured, equally as viciously killed. Could it be that . . . ?

“Fiona wasn’t Sister Agatha,” I whisper, more to myself.

“Petra, please,” Sin adds, moving to come toward me. But the stranger with him extends his arm to the side to stop him.

“Not yet,” he says.