Page 322 of Sinister

“No,” he shakes his head. “It’s something else.”

“What do you mean?”

He pulls up his sleeve and reveals his lower arm—it’s red and full of blisters.

“What—”

Sin is on him, pulling on his graduation gown to look for any other injuries. There are more red spots, some worse than others.

Rren gulps down and looks at us uneasily. “It’s been getting progressively worse since my birthday. I think . . .” He bites his lip. “I think it’s the sun. It’s burning me.”

“But . . . your face?” I frown. But as I get closer to him and touch his cheek, I note a thick layer of sunscreen and foundation.

I rub at it with my sleeve only to reveal the same type of redness.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Sin asks, his expression grave.

“I didn’t want you guys to worry about me.” He shrugs.

“Do you know what this could be?” I ask Sin.

He shakes his head. “My mentor said he would be something different . . . unique.” He sighs. “We need to research more.”

“But how, if there’s no one else like him?”

“Maybe there is, and my mentor doesn’t know. It won’t hurt to look.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just stay out of the sun,” he says blithely.

“You can’t do that forever.” I gasp. “We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

“It’s fine, Mom. I’ve always known I was different, and I’ve adapted to all the challenges that came my way.”

I purse my lips. That is true. From the moment he could talk, we’d started to introduce him to our special but odd world. He’s always known we are not the same as other people, although he only truly grasped it when he went to kindergarten and realized no one else drank blood like him. But that wasn’t the only difference between him and other boys. His strength and speed were astronomically different than his peers. His sight, hearing, and smell as well. Everything was heightened.

When he’d been in primary school, he’d wished so badly to try different sports, and we didn’t allow him because it would not be fair to other kids.

Yet as he matured, he started to understand why we were so strict with him—after all, we had to make sacrifices to ensure he wasn’t isolated; that he grew up as normal as possible.

“In the meantime, let’s heal those nasty blisters,” Sin added. He manifests a bottle of blood and hands it to Rren, who downs it all at once.

Some of the redness heals. Not all of it.

Sin frowns. He manifests another bottle of blood. After drinking until the last drop, everything heals.

I glance back at Sin. He has the same expression on his face. One way or another, we have to get to the bottom of this. We knew he was going to be different, but I don’t know how to feel about him spending his entire life in the shadows.

After a few moments of heavy silence, Sin clears his throat.

“Now that you have your diploma, perhaps we should go out and celebrate.”

“Yes but—” Rren wrinkles his nose. “Please change out of those uniforms. It’s cringe.”

I blink. “Cringe?” I echo.

“We will definitely change.” Sin laughs.

Although still a little worried about Rren, I tell myself there’s time to explore this more in depth later. Now it’s his moment to shine.