Page 138 of Sin Like the Devil

“There is only one version of me.”

She swipes escaped tears from her cheeks. “Does that version feel? Or is he still in denial that he’s human at all?”

Those words detonate whatever internal defences remain inside me. The ice in my veins solidifies, expands then shatters. Deadly shards rip me apart from the inside out until it feels like I’m bleeding in front of her.

I don’t need to be told to leave again. I’m already running as far from this devil woman as possible. Far from her questions and pain-laced stares tugging something free from my soul that I have no intention of giving.

Her door crashes shut behind me. I slump against the solid wood, sliding down until I’m crouched, my knees pressed to my chest. Luckily, the corridor is deserted with no one to witness my ragged breathing.

How dare she?

I dragged her from that pool because only I get the privilege of deciding when it’s her time to die. I’m the one who gets to claim that reward after all she’s done. No one else. Not even Lennox.

But the even more disturbing realisation is that I don’t know if I want that privilege. Seeing her ruthlessness and will to survive firsthand has ignited an obsession too strong for petty revenge to get in the way.

Still breathing hard, I can feel myself vibrating. What the hell is happening to me? My chest is tight. Jaw clenched. Brain whirling. Too many foreign sensations from a time long past are returning.

That conniving bitch is making me fucking feel again. I will not go back to being that person. I took the victim I once was and crushed that little kid into a tight corner in my mind. He’s been chained there since.

I don’t care about others.

I don’t care about myself.

I only care about the next target.

Head resting against the door, I know I should leave. She doesn’t deserve my concern. If she’s found dead by morning, it will be one less concern for all of us. We’ll go back to our original plan—taking Harrowdean for ourselves.

Even if she’s not in it.

That thought is unbearable.

Banging the back of my head against the door, I savour the dull ache. Pain has always been a means of control to me. A way to check that my bulletproof shields are still intact. Only now, the pain has wormed its way back inside me.

I need to expel it. Purge this spreading poison from my veins and reset my operating system. I can go back to my last safe backup. The uncompromised version of Xander.

Before I ever met Ripley Bennet. Before she sunk her claws into me. Before seeing her in pain made me revert back to that wounded child who endured so much.

The storm rages outside and my own inner tempest grows with it. A battleground has opened up in my mind. The cold logic of removing the malware attempting to corrupt me versus embracing the bug and letting it tear my system apart.

Taking the pocketknife from my still-wet jeans, I spin it in my hands. Considering. Analysing. Reaching the only logical conclusion to end this madness. I’ve humoured my obsession for too long.

Pulling her from that pool was a mistake. Becoming infatuated in the first place… I never should’ve been so weak. Allowing hatred and fascination to become so inextricably entwined was only ever going to lead to ruin.

Scanning the keycard, I slip back into her room. The knife is cold in my grip. I follow the path to her bed, lit by lightning flashes. In the time I’ve spent deliberating, Ripley has passed out in her towel.

I stop a metre or so away, statue still and frozen. She’s breathing deeply, sticking it out at this fickle thing we call living. Nothing seems to kill this girl. She’s survived far more than I’d ever thought she would.

It would be so easy to sink the knife into her, removing any further temptation. She couldn’t survive that, right? Not if I stayed to watch the life fade from her eyes. I’m longing to hear her dying breath.

But my body doesn’t respond. Not to move an inch closer, not to lift the knife and not to sink it deep into any available organ. Instead, I’m fixated on the continued evidence of her breathing.

What is she doing to me?

Not even hatred can offer me comfort as she whimpers in her sleep. My stomach lurches, filling with the most unwelcome sense of anxiety. She’s afraid. Not in the pleasurable way I want her to be—in actual fear.

I don’t want her fearful of the world’s monsters. I want her to fear me. The real monster. No one else has earned the right to haunt her nightmares. I deserve to be the object of her hatred and revulsion.

If she hates me, this feeling will stop.

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