Page 11 of Capturing Sin

Another day, another failure.

I checked my watch, stifling a groan.

Most of the science staff were given their own lab and freedom, but since I wasn’t even a scientist, just a nerd that no longer fancied butchering people from another realm, I was given all the menial tasks and far too little time to do them.

My uncle’s demand swirled around my mind. If I accepted this project he was forcing onto me, would I even still have to experiment on the fear demon? Or would I spend my days letting blood demons sink their fangs into my skin and steal my life through my veins?

“Until next time, fear muncher.” I gave the demon a sarcastic wave and stalked towards the door.

He snarled, trying to lunge through the bars, slamming his forehead in his haste. His claws swiped through empty air, and I quirked a brow. There was no way for him to reach me. I was over three metres away, and he was trapped behind reinforced steel bars. He was acting like a rabid animal.

Or a demon.

With a huff, I left him to his captivity.

I sped through my evening tasks, restocking the labs for the other scientists while discreetly checking the demon captives were still alive. Some I tried to feed the cereal bars I’d stuffed into my pockets this morning, but most wanted nothing to do with me. And who could blame them?

I ignored the grumble of my stomach. Since I’d been trying to sneak the less violent captives what little food I had, it didn’t leave much for me.

I’d also caved this morning, spending my whole daily budget on a drive-through breakfast muffin and cheap coffee on my way in. I didn’t regret my morning splurge though. A little comfort food was overdue at this point.

My demon saviour’s dulled sunshine eyes knifed through my mind.

Walking into the lab, holding my final test subject of the day, I flashed a fake smile at the caged demon. “Hey, Mags, how’s it going?”

She hissed in response, tail lashing like a whip behind her back.

“That good, huh?” I asked.

She’d refused to speak to me even once, so I’d named her to make myself feel better. I hoped she was one of the good demons, but how could you tell who was innocent and who was an evil serial killer determined to turn my hometown into a human all-you-can-eat buffet?

Stifling the guilt at keeping her captive, I went through the motions, grabbing samples and equipment from the fridge and cupboards, pretending to get to work.

I leaned over the workbench, pipetting some unknown cocktail of chemicals into a tube and adding different samples of Mags’s blood. They were old and dead, probably taken by one of the other few scientists I rarely saw. I would get no useful data, thankfully, but if anyone walked in on me, it would look real enough.

This was why Martin was breathing down my neck, but a part of me didn’t want to discover anything at all about the demons and their weaknesses.

How would I be able to fake getting bitten by a blood demon? My mind swam with the implications of what I’d been told to do, and whether I could escape the plans my uncle had for me.

I couldn’t just run off. I’d been dragged back so easily last time, and that was before my uncle had installed more security measures to tighten the noose. I was saving hard for enough funds to disappear into the vastness of continental Europe, planning to live off-grid until my uncle gave up the search, but I needed more time and the right opportunity to take off when he least expected it.

Wiping down the workbench, I cleaned off any traces of poison and blood before peeling off my gloves and throwing them in the hazards bin.

I checked the time, the oversize watch mocking me as the large hand hit twelve.

For most people, seven p.m. was a good time. Normally, you’d have finished work already. Probably eating dinner at home with your family, or going for drinks with your co-workers, possibly even on a romantic date to a fancy restaurant.

For me, it signalled the end of my twelve-hour workday.

I released a slow breath, wiping damp palms down my lab coat. “Time to run the gauntlet.”

Chapter 5

Grabbing my bag from the staff lockers, I slung my coat on and hurried up the stairs.

The basement of Riverside’s hunter HQ was a ghost town, not a single soul around to witness my act of bravery.

Except for all the captives trapped down here, hidden in various cages and cells.

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