Page 92 of Where Sinners Repent

A slow breath falls through my teeth. I reach into the inside of my jacket pocket, my fingers finding the familiar weight in an instant, pulling out my favourite knife.

The butterfly knife that I stole from my foster father, and used it to slice his throat when I was eleven.

The click hits something deep inside me every time I unfold the purple knife. Her eyes lock onto it immediately.

“The pretty one,” she whispers.

I know she likes it. She asked to be sliced by it.

“The pretty one,” I confirm.

I roll it once in my palm before stepping behind her again. She stiffens at our proximity again, but something tells me it’s not from fear. It’s from something far more dangerous.

Harrison’s cries and screams are distant to me. This close, I can see her pulse flutter in her neck, and my tongue darts out to lap it.

She moans.

Pull yourself together, Kaleb.

I guide her shoulders, subtly adjusting her stance with my body behind hers.

“Don’t tense up,” I murmur. “It’s like a dance.”

My hands guide hers around the blade. Her eyes stay fixed ahead while mine study her.

“What do I do with it?”

Unable to help myself, I nip at her pulse again. Feeling it race under my mouth. Her scent has my nostrils flaring. Drunk on the feeling of being pressed against her. Of watching her delight in violence like a sexy little sinner.

“I don’t fucking care,” I growl. “Stab him wherever you want. It’s sharp and he’ll bleed.”

“Kaleb,” she whimpers, and I squeeze my eyes shut before pulling away from her neck. “I’m scared.”

Harrison is going crazy. Yanking his restraints and bucking like a man possessed. Begging now. He can barely hold himself upright with his ravaged knees. Blood drips from where the cuffs dig into his wrists.

“His throat, Black Cat,” I whisper. “Right,” I murmur, kissing the pulse in her neck again, “here. Stab here and he’s gone.”

“You don’t have to do this, Roxanne,” Harrison pleads. “We can go back to Isaac and Ethan, and I’ll tell them you saved me. They’ll welcome you. Fuck, please, Roxanne.”

She stiffens every time he says her name, and it makes me want to rip out his voice box.

“Did they all beg like this?” she hisses through her teeth at him. “All those girls you used to drag back to the apartment. I bet they faced their fear with a hundred times more decorum than you, Harrison. Look at you. Weak.”

Harrison’s eyes are wide as if he is seeing the girl for the first time. I don’t blame him.

My hands slide from hers, and I wait. I don’t have to wait long though.

With a scream, she swings the knife into his neck. Pulling it out for a spray of blood to coat her. She does it again. And again. Losing herself to it.

Harrison died after the first one. But she keeps going.

My feet stumble back, and when she turns, my next breath gets trapped in my chest.

For too long, none of us speak.

My eyes search her for her reaction. I’m expecting tears. Sobs. Hysteria.

All I see is... Calmness. Unnatural calm.