Page 25 of Sins of the Heart

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focused on the gleaming blade. Her efforts only served

to snag his unwanted attention.

EVE SILVER

35

He looked at her with those glacier eyes.

“You’re shaking.”

Give the man a prize.

He rose and strode toward her, the grotesque balloons writhing behind him like fat, slimy slugs.

She shook harder. And it pissed her off that her body

wasn’t doing anything her mind was telling it. She

wasn’t a coward. Growing up in Rogers Park, she’d

seen all kinds of shit. Shit that had seemed so big, so

bad. Shit she’d been adept at avoiding. But all that suddenly seemed small in comparison to what she’d just

witnessed.

Fear gnawed at her as he approached and stood over

her, studying her. Like she’d studied the frog in tenthgrade biology, all pinned out and cut open. It had been

interesting in a dead, gross, reeking kind of way. A part

of her had felt disgust, but the bigger part had wanted to

get her hands dirty and figure out how the thing worked.

Right now, she was feeling a mighty kinship to that

frog.

Behind him, the two smoky, black balloons bobbed

and dipped on their glittering tethers. One dropped and

bounced against her forearm, icy cold. With a gasp, she

yanked her hand away.

“You see them.” A statement, not a question. But he

was surprised. Even though there wasn’t a flicker of

emotion in his features, and his eyes stayed flat and

cold, she knew he was surprised.

Lie? Tell the truth? She’d say anything if he just let

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