Page 103 of Sin Like the Devil

“Where were we?” I sigh.

“What happened after the attack?”

I wring my fingers together, letting the past drag me back.

“I thought all I wanted was revenge. But what do you do when you’re led to slaughter with no chance of escape? When your enemies are in fact your only allies?”

Heart pounding, I touch the scars on my arm again. They aren’t the only marks I left Harrowdean with. Some scars I hate less than others. Some were made by force, and others I took willingly. My hand lifts to my throat, absently tracing the thin knife line there.

Hatred breeds insanity.

And all we had in hell was each other.

CHAPTER 17

RIPLEY

STREET SPIRIT (FADE OUT) – RADIOHEAD

Ten Years Earlier

I don’t remember much about my mother. Even the memory of her scent is vague—a generic, floral fingerprint, but I couldn’t say what perfume she wore or her preferred bouquet for Valentine’s day.

Over time, those details faded. Whether by choice or design, it’s hard to say. Eight-year-old Ripley wanted to lock her pain in a box and bury it at the bottom of the ocean. To do that, she scrubbed her memories too.

I tried painting Mum once. My uncle never kept photos of his sister around. All my parents’ belongings were either sold or put into storage after I moved, so I had to use nothing but memory alone.

Reaching for the image of my mother, I found an empty cavern instead. I’m not sure I could even tell you the colour of her eyes. Brown? Green? Blue? Grey? Whatever hue, they still turned to mulch beneath the ground she was buried in.

But I do remember one thing.

A few months before Dad’s heart attack, I had to have my tonsils removed. I was always getting throat infections, spending whole months living off ice cream. My dad kept the freezer well-stocked.

When I woke up in hospital after the surgery, Mum was there. Curled up in the bed next to me, her body lined up against mine, that nameless flowery scent wrapped all around me. I remember how safe I felt. How loved.

She never let me go through the scary stuff alone. Splinters stuck in fingers. Grazed knees. Failed spellings tests. Dad’s funeral. Mum was always there. Until the day she didn’t come home.

I have no one left now.

Not for the hard stuff.

A tickle in my nostrils rouses me. The scent of hospital-grade bleach is an unpleasant stench. It sneaks into my awareness and pulls me from the hazy shroud of my mother’s perfume, still floating in my mind.

“Come on. You’ve been discharged.”

“No! I’m not leaving her.”

“Who is she to you, Raine? What’s going on here?”

“I care about her! Back off.”

An incredulous scoff. “You know what she’s done! This is where she belongs.”

“I don’t give a fuck about this feud between you two. It has nothing to do with me. I’m not leaving her.”

This time, there’s an irritated groan.

“She’ll break your heart then walk all over the broken pieces. Don’t come crawling back to me the moment she does. I’m not gonna be the one to fix it.”

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