Page 14 of Sinners Atone
Because that’s the thing about feeding your addictions: the high is only ever temporary.
Tucking my clutch under one arm and hitching my SOS bag over the other, I close my eyes and suck in a breath so deep the night’s frost burns my chest. I’m hoping it’ll burn away at the guilt that sits there too, but when it doesn’t, I try to turn my attention to other parts of my body. A trick my therapist taughtme years ago to deal with my thoughts sliding south. I find the steady beat of my pulse in my neck. I taste the night’s moisture on the tip of my tongue and smell its earthy scent. My ears prickle at the sound of tires hissing over the frosted tarmac of the nearby road and the bare trees shivering in the forest beyond it.
Crack.
What the hell was that?
My eyes pop open and scan the darkness. It sounded like a twig crunching underfoot, and it sounded close.
“Hello?” I whisper, clutching my bag strap. “Who’s there?”
Silence.
My stomach clenches as I glare out to the never-ending void. It stares right back, offering me only the trickling sensation of being watched.
Seconds pass, slowed by the weight of tension. I stare until my eyes ache.
Nothing.
A sharp gust of wind skates down my collar, and I shudder enough to shake myself out of my trance.
I’ve let Leah get into my head with all that nonsense about the “Boogeyman” of the Devil’s Coast. She was so drunk she was probably hallucinating. I’m being silly, and even if I’m not, why am I still standing out here? I might choose a rom-com over a horror any day, but even I know the ditzy blond doing something careless, like hanging out alone in an empty parking lot, always dies in the opening sequence.
Not the type of movie I daydream about starring in, thank you very much.
With a weak chuckle, I turn on my heel. I only make it two steps toward the dimly lit veranda when another noise reaches out from the dark and taps me on the shoulder.
Hiss. Fizz.
My laugh wilts on my tongue. I spin around, and now, at the heart of the dark, there’s a flickering flame. A match, little more than a pinprick against the broad black expanse. The flame moves north, and my eyes move with it, transfixed by how it dances at the mercy of the wind. I can’t make out most of the objects that shift and contort in its wake. Something patterned. Something metallic. Then something that makes my heart trip over its next beat.
A cigarette.
Which means someone is out there smoking it.
I let out a stunted gasp. The flame comes to a stop beneath its tip, and I almost don’t dare drag my gaze up to what it’s brought to light. I follow the length of the cigarette, skim over the full lips its tucked between, then trail the sharp, straight line of a scar over a hollowed cheekbone, and come to rest on a heavy brow.
Is he the “Boogeyman” Leah spoke of?
He sure looks like a monster.
The man’s eyes lift from the match and clash with mine. Suddenly, the air drops ten degrees, chilling my blood and slowing my breathing.
And now I’m not breathing at all.
I recognize those eyes—only, I don’t. It’s a weird, fleeting feeling. A short, sharp tug on a memory I didn’t know I had. Perhaps an alternate me has seen them in an alternate universe or in a dream that slipped from my mind the moment I woke up.
That gaze… it’s glassy. Magnetic.Certain.
And then I have this slow, syrup-like feeling it didn’t find me by chance.
The realization shoves me backward. One step, two, my heels skating over frosted asphalt. Three steps and I nearly trip over the raised deck of the veranda. Four, and I’m back under the light of the heat lamp, grappling for the nightclub’s door handle.
There’s a voice screaming at me to get inside. I hear it often, and I’m pretty certain it belongs to my friend Tayce—she has a habit of yelling at me about safety, and I have a habit of rolling my eyes in response. But I guess being the nosiest person on the coast has its pitfalls, one of them being I can never resist the pull of curiosity.
Heart slamming against my ribs, I slowly turn and press my back against the door.
He’s still there. Watching me. The flame is fading now, its dying reflection trapped within the walls of his cold gaze. I’m trapped there too, frozen between running inside and staying to find out what will happen when the flame reaches the end of its life.
