Page 24 of Saints & Sinners

I shot straight up, blinking blearily before groaning and slamming a pillow over my face.

“Someone turn it off!”

No one did.

Because Hunter’s alarm went off three more times.

And this morning? Oh, Hunter had upped his game. Hebrought reinforcements. Enter Silas, another menace of my existence.

I woke up to chaos. All my clothes were strewn across the floor, and my curling products were scattered like crime scene debris all over my bed covers.

All of that had led to now, where my patience had finally hit an all-time low as soon as I got into my room, wanting to collapse on myrecentlycleaned bed only to pull back the blanket and witness, sitting right there in the middle of my bed, like it had full ownership, the biggest spider I’d ever seen. Not just any spider but one easily the size of my hand, with long hair and legs, twitching as it slowly crawled across the bed.

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Nope. Nope.” I wasn’t dealing with this,nope.

I spun on my heel and marched down the hall, heading straight to the usually shut and locked room. Only one person would pull something like this, and I knew exactly who. I should have known that these past few weeks of silence were leading up to something.

“Hey!” I yelled, banging on Hunter’s door like a mad woman. It took approximately ten more seconds for me to keep knocking before he opened the door, wearing a plain grey t-shirt and sweats. He leaned against the doorframe and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“Get your damn tarantula out of my room!”

Hunter stared at me, blinking slowly as if he would rather not deal with my outburst right now. “That’s not mine.”

I scoffed. “Please, a spider on my bed has you written all over it. Do you really think that’s going to make me quit? I happen to like spiders!” A lie clearly not masked well enough.

He tilted his head slightly, giving me that infuriating blank look. “Like I said, Grace. It’s not mine.”

I folded my arms, glowering up at him, but my eyes snagged onsomething.

A flicker of gold right there on his pinky finger.

My gold band ring.

I blinked. What the hell? When did he get that?

“Wait—” My accusation about the spider invasion died on my tongue as I grabbed his wrist, dragging his hand up. “Is that my ring?”

Hunter, completely unfazed, barely spared it a glance. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” I was dumbfounded. “Since when did you start stealing my jewellery?”

He sighed like I was the exhausting one here. “Since you left it on the windowsill last week and never picked it up. Finders keepers.”

My lips parted. “Give it back!”

He smirked but said nothing.

I tried snatching it back, but his reflexes were too quick for me, and something sharpened in his smirk—like he was enjoying watching me spiral.

Grabbing the front of his shirt instead, I leaned up against him and gritted my teeth. “Get that tarantula out of my room and give me my ring back or—”

“Did you say spider?”

I turned to see Silas strolling toward us with a wide grin on his face.Oh no.

“Grace found your spider,” Hunter added nonchalantly, and I just stood there gaping at him.

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