Page 40 of Sinister

A few more agonizing minutes pass by before Sin clears his throat.

“Petra,” he begins, his voice soft but firm, “do you want to talk about what happened? At the party, I mean.”

12

PETRA

My cheeks flush instantly. His words seem to summon up long-buried images and sounds and sensations that I would rather keep suppressed.

I shake my head, my hair falling forward to hide my face.

“No,” I whisper in a barely audible voice. “I don’t.”

“That’s okay,” Sin replies in a gentle tone. “But I just want you to know . . . I don’t regret it.”

This makes me look him square in his face. He’s looking at me with the same intensity that he had worn on the night of the party.

“You don’t?” I ask, a quiver breaking up my voice.

Sin shakes his head, his expression sincere. “Really, I don’t, Petra. And I don’t think you should either.”

I want to respond with something, anything, to tell him how conflicted I feel, but the words form a lump in my throat.

Instead, I can only look at him in wordless wonder, searching his face for any mark of insincerity. But all I see is honesty and a hint of concern.

I take a deep breath, gathering my thoughts.

What I say next may have been a matter of instinct or a secret part of my brain playing its tricks without consulting the rest of me.

But the moment the lines leave my mouth, I know there’s no taking them back.

“Sin, let’s just forget about it,” I say with a nonchalance that amazes me. “Everyone has an embarrassing sex story, right? That’s all it should be.”

His face falls, and for a moment, he looks hurt. But then something shifts in his eyes, an almost . . . sinister glint I’ve never seen before. “Is that all it was to you?” he asks, tension hardening the edges of his voice.

I swallow, taken aback by the sudden shift in his demeanor. “Wha-what do you mean?”

“Do you have many of those stories, Petra?” he shoots next. “Other guys like me who amused and entertained you before being sent packing?”

The heat in his voice feels like a physical blow at this point.

“No, of course not!” I cry out. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Sin’s eyes narrow as he steps closer, and I realize that he has blocked my way to the only door out of the shed.

Can I blame my raw, emotional state for the way my senses now mark him as a source of very real danger?

Am I overthinking it when the gentle guy I had known and befriended is completely replaced by this grim-faced, tight-lipped interloper?

“Of course I have a past, Sin,” I eventually manage to say, a slight tremble to my voice. “I bet you have one, too.”

“With whom?” he asks without missing a beat, his voice a little too calm. “Names, Petra.”

The intense timbre of his words makes me take a whole step back. It’s an eerie scene, as if the person before me has just taken off a mask I didn’t even notice he had been wearing this entire time.

My frightened face must have cautioned him. Or maybe I have been hallucinating. Because in just another instant, the old Sin is back with a wide, charming smile, and the broody, frowning Sin is nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry, sorry, that was weird,” he says, stepping back and giving me a wide berth. “I’ll do what you want, Petra. Anything to make you happy.”