Page 43 of Sinners Atone
Suddenly, the missing puzzle piece slots into place. There’s only one explanation for his rudeness: he’s forgotten.
“Remember the time I saved your life?”
The air around him shifts. Lines tighten, muscles clench. It’s so subtle, I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t staring at him so intently.
Slowly, his eyes sink south and latch onto mine. There’s boredom, terror, and now there’s something else. Something flickering behind the green, inflamed and unreadable. My brain can’t decipher it, but my body recognizesdanger, so I take a shaky step back.
It happens so fast.
A blinding light washes out his features. The sky flashes from black to orange and back again.
And the sound. It’s pressure-fueled, loud, and nasty.
The world goes boom.
Like it does in the movies.
Rory and I share a similar talent. She can identify any bird by its call.
Me, I can identify any emotion by a scream.
Within a millisecond, I recognize all the screams around me as ones of collective terror. The guttural and blood-curdling kind, a chorus so loud the ground grumbles beneath my feet.
Gabriel lunges toward me with such speed I don’t even have time to flinch, and now my feet aren’t touching the ground at all. His forearm pins me to his torso as he drives me backward through a blur of chaos. Sequins glint, glasses smash. The band is no longer singing to The Nolans.
The dance floor grows smaller behind Gabriel’s shoulder. Branches scratch at my own. When the wedding disappears behind a veil of trees, I realize we’re in the forest. I crane my neck to look up to the canopy; tendrils of smoke swirl between the leaves, and the smell of things that shouldn’t be burned thickens the air.
What is going on?
And more importantly, where are Rory and Tayce?
My labored breaths thrum in my ears as I twist in Gabriel’s grip to scan the crowd running past. I pick apart stumbling silhouettes, looking for the pale pink of Tayce’s bridesmaid dress and the white of Rory’s.
When I can’t see them anywhere, my body stiffens, and finally, the shock gives way to dread.
“Where are they?” I yell. He doesn’t reply. “What’s happening?”
His expression is thunderous, pulled so taut that his cheekbones bulge from beneath his skin. He’s laser-focused on the view behind me. Though his mouth is set in a hard line, his lips are twitching. For a moment, I think he’s muttering to himself, but then I notice his fist beneath his beard at an odd angle.
He’s talking into his watch, like he’s Inspector Gadget or something.
I block out the mayhem around us and zone in on his voice. His hot breath grazes the side of my neck, and his chest vibrates against my own, but I can’t pick out any buzzwords that explain why the night has descended into madness. In fact, I can’t pick out any words at all, then I realize he’s not even speaking in Italian, let alone in English.
It’s all too surreal, and I can do nothing but stare at him with misplaced fascination. The cold composure, the smooth stride. The determination behind his eyes. He’s otherworldly. An unmovable mountain in the storm, and the irony is not lost on me: less than twenty-four hours ago, the arm holding me was the same arm preventing me from leaving my home, and yet I somehow know that clinging to his body is the safest place to be.
I grip him tighter.
Seconds drag out into minutes; he doesn’t glance at me once. Christ, if Angelo could pick me up without grunting, well, Gabriel seems to have picked me up and forgotten he’s done so.
When we reach the main road, I don’t have time to take in my surroundings before my back slams against something hard, new arms wrap around my waist, and distance stretches between Gabriel and me.
He flicks a casual look over my head. “Take this one.”
Then he stalks back toward the trees without so much as a glance back.
“Take this one.”As if he’s a port worker and I’m cargo, some inanimate object that needs hauling from one place to the other before he’s allowed to clock out for the night.
Christ, Wren.Rory’s wedding is ruined, and I’m over here with these self-absorbed thoughts. Now I feel guilty for being insulted. I’m unable to dwell on it because these new arms are carrying me across the road. I look out to sea over a car roof, and my gut twists.
