Page 10 of Capturing Sin

My hand shook as I smoothed a stray hair back that had fallen from my messy bun.

I’d made it out, but I was more trapped than ever.

Chapter 4

“Ah, my sad little feast is back,” a smooth voice said. “Come to feed me more of your delicious pain?”

Stepping into the lab, I slammed the door behind me, reeling from my uncle’s demand.

No part of me was ready to face this demonic bastard, but I had a schedule to keep. A lie to portray.

The monster caged in the corner smacked his lips together, obnoxiously loud. “Mmmm, so much agony today, feast. What happened?”

I gritted my teeth, refusing to look at the creep as I went about half-arsing my tests as quick as I could.

“Aww, don’t you want to talk about it? Let me guess, one of the other meatbags said a mean word to you, huh?” His grating voice held a false sympathy laden with mocking in his faint American accent. “Why don’t you come over here and open my cell? I promise to end all your pain,” he purred.

I glared at the skeletal demon, taking in the way his spindly fingers clutched the metal bars. Eager desperation lit eerie red eyes.

He licked his lips, pointed tongue swiping down to his chin to catch the drool. “Come on, feast. Let me have a sip. I’ll bet you taste even sweeter than my last treat.”

“Fuck off,” I snapped. “I’m not in the mood for your fear-munching crap today.”

His last treat was a teenage girl he’d been found torturing. Alpha team had tracked the demon to an abandoned barn on the outskirts of the city, finding a horror show inside. The rest of the girl’s family lay in pieces around her as he broke her bones, one by one.

I was a mess of conflict these days. Maybe not all demons were evil, but that didn’t mean they were all good either.

A part of me longed for the simpler days when I’d believed in the hunter cause. No questions asked. I’d seen the horrible things demons did to humans. They were the monsters we needed to eradicate from our world.

Three weeks ago, things had been black and white. Then I’d been saved by the enemy, and my world had been thrown into shades of grey. More so with every demon captive I’d spoken to since.

Last week, I’d tried to convince a few of the less psychotic hunters that demons might not all be the mindless, evil beasts we thought. I’d even brought it up with Martin and Cara.

Unsurprisingly, I’d got nowhere.

Most hunters were recruited after a demon had murdered a loved one in front of them or they’d been a victim of an attack themselves. It didn’t help that we had vicious demons like this one in captivity.

I sucked back the urge to sigh, instead pipetting a small vial of the demon’s blood and combining it with one substance Cara had synthesised. The set-up here was an odd mix between a pharmaceutical lab and torture chamber.

All the lab work made me feel like a fraud, but it was play with chemicals or kill demons. At least the work I was doing now could help humanity. I’d been given a project designed to limit demon powers and even stop them feeding on us.

Surely stopping monsters devouring the fear of innocent humans was a good thing, right?

“Fear munching is how I survive.” The demon sniffed.

“No. You suck down fear to gain power,” I pointed out, watching the vial for any noticeable changes. “You eat and drink just like we do to actually sustain yourself. Why don’t you become a fucking tandem skydiver or something? Feed on voluntary fear instead of being a homicidal maniac?”

He tutted. “Only the strong survive. Even an idiot like you must know that.”

“Wow, a demon is getting philosophical with me. Are we bonding?” I tossed back.

“Such inner turmoil, huh?” The demon mocked me as I worked, but I was getting used to it by now. “You humans are so emotional all the time. It’s delicious, but it must be exhausting. Come here, and I’ll take it all away.”

“Do you ever shut up? I thought you snacked on fear, not irritation.” I concentrated on my work, trying to tune him out while I dripped the formula onto the glass slide, placed on a cover, and slid it under the microscope. Lifting my glasses, I peered down it.

As expected, the demon blood remained unchanged. The cells drifted amid the substate like unimpressed blobs, silently telling me to go fuck myself.

I sat back from the microscope, switching it off. Rubbing at my eyes, I shoved down the frustration and readjusted my glasses, brushing back a few strands of my chestnut hair that had fallen into my face.

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