Page 9 of Sinners Atone
But I’m too busy staring at her mouth to register the nonsense seeping out of it.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Guess death softens your insides, and liquid shit is coming out of my mouth too.
Her wings flutter beneath the light as she cocks her head and flashes me a broad smile. It’s like looking at the fucking sun.
A bitter amusement filters through me. “You hear that all the time.”
“Yes, but tell me again.”
My laugh comes out in a weak choke. The chorus in my ear drowns it out, and when her fingers smooth over the curve of my cheek again, I suddenly can’t even feel its burn.
She changes path, tracing a line from my brow down to my chin. “How’d you get this scar?”
I swallow. “My barber was a drinker.”
Her laugh is warmer than the wind. It’d feel good in a different timeline; tonight, it feels bittersweet. “How’d you get those wings?”
“Eh, I just bought them off Amazon,” she chirps, eyes holding a sparkle.
I shake my head, humor playing on my lips. I can still see her eyes when I close my own.
With ABBA in my ears and her touch dancing on my skin, an odd sense of calm drifts over me. Turns out, there’s peace in purgatory. Never felt it in my life, and I sure as hell won’t feel it in the afterworld, either.
So I lay in limbo for a while. The flames of hell brushing my back, the touch of an angel caressing my face. She’s heaven-sent, I’m hell-bound, and here we are, crossing paths in the middle.
When the music cuts out mid-verse, I open my eyes again.
Something in her expression has shifted. A storm shaking the calm in her gaze.
She breathes out on a shaky whisper, “You’re actually going to die, aren’t you?”
“I will with that attitude.”
Humor flickers across her face, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. They’re too full of something else, something dark and heavy. Her hand slides down from my face and fists the fabric of my shirt.
She leans in. So fucking close that she steals one of my last breaths from me. An inch more, and I’d feel those lips on mine and taste the strawberry scent of her gloss. “Can I tell you a secret?”
What?
My thoughts fizzle and my gut twists. A secret. The mere idea of a secret breathes new life into me, but then my father’s voice blows it away.
Rule eight: a secret is The Villain’s most powerful weapon.
“No,” I grit out, twisting my head out of her grip. She only tightens her hold and pulls me back. A weak spark lights in my core as her nose brushes mine.
“Please,” she whispers, urgency tugging at her tone. “You’re dying. I just need to tell someone. You’ll take it to the grave.”
The darkness rears its ugly head.
If we’d met on a different night, under different circumstances, I’d reach down her throat and yank out her secret with my bare hands. I’d have her researched and studied. I’d find her name, age, address. Her fucking star sign. I’d climb her family tree and shake all the secrets from its branches too.
That’s what I do. I take secrets and turn them into weapons.
But for once in my goddamn life, I don’t want to know. The moment’s too perfect,she’stoo perfect. I ruin everything I fucking touch, and I don’t want to ruin her.
I shake my head, but she decides to tell me anyway.
