Page 4 of Where Sinners Repent

And here I am, diving headfirst into it.

She picks up straight away.

“Maddy baby,” I whisper, swallowing a few times before I can get the words out, “I need help.”

Chapter 2

Roxy

“Ikilled him,” I gasp.

I more than killed him.

One hand grips the phone to my ear, the other holds Kitty for dear life.

I hear movement on the other end of the phone, before Maddy speaks.

“You... did what?”

God, don’t make me say it again.

I try to suck in a deep breath, but the scent of violence, copper and piss, makes me nauseous.

“I killed someone, Maddy.” My voice comes out as a whisper.

She’s silent for a minute. That’s fine. It’s not like a rang her over a broken nail. This one might take a moment to sink in.

“W... who?”

I look down at the man, who no longer looks recognisable. The unmistakable stillness of his chest.

I can’t bring myself to utter his name.

“A friend of my brother’s,” I rasp. “He came in here and he... I killed him. He’s dead, Maddy. What do I do?!”

Hysteria is on the brink of taking over. I can hear it in my voice, and the way my body trembles.

“Hey, Roxy. Take a deep breath for me,” Maddy murmurs. “Ash is here and you’re on speaker. He’s going to send someone down to help you. You’re at the studio, yeah?”

“No!” I beg, squeezing my eyes shut. “No,” I gasp, quietly this time. “I need you. I can’t...”

The room shrinks around me. Air catches halfway down my throat, and my lungs heave desperately trying to drag oxygen in.

My pulse pounds so violently that it drowns out Maddy’s voice, each beat frantically rattling through my body.

Peeking back down at the puddle of blood and flesh, bile burns in the back of my throat and I barely lean in time to retch.

“Roxy!”

The deep voice of my best friend’s partner booms through the phone, and I sniffle, wiping my mouth with the back of the phone.

“Ash,” I whimper. I swore off any crime-loving man since the moment I left the South and have only made one exception. Only because he looks after my best friend so well and keeps me far away from the things he’s involved with. Until today. “I fucked up.”

A rumbling growl sounds through the speaker. “If he’s anything like your brothers, then you did the exact right thing.”

“You know my brothers?”

I hate the way fear creeps into my voice at that.