Page 6 of Sinners Atone
“If you have no signal, you can put your phone to your head and you’ll magically get service. Don’t ask me how it works, I just saw it on Instagram—oh,God.”
There she goes, calling out to God again. But I’ve collapsed flat onto my back and can see that the sky beyond the lamp is empty.
She doesn’t float now, she stomps and jingles, then drops to her knees at my side, muttering empty promises into the wind.
“Okay. You’re okay. Let’s see, uh…” She slips the huge bag off her shoulder and upturns it. Its contents spill out around her, and she combs through the mess. “Right, we just need something to stem the bleeding, that’s all.” She picks up a tube from the pile and holds it up to the light. “Eyelash glue? No, not strong enough. Okay…” Another small package glints under the light. “I’ve got Band-Aids, but they’re for, like, blisters and cuts, not…” Her gaze shifts over my stomach.
“Stab wound,” I grunt.
She freezes, and for a second, fear threads through her perfect features, but when her eyes climb up my torso and lock with mine, her expression changes shape, and I don’t fucking like it.
I’m used to being regarded with fear. It’s familiar and comforting. The sickest part of me almost enjoys it. But now she’s got the same strain of pity in her eyes as my mama had every time she’d watch me limp down the driveway at dawn.
“Who did this to you?” she whispers.
Mama used to ask me that too. And like it did then, my father’s voice scratches my inner ear.
Rule four: If it happened in the dark, it didn’t happen.
But as with my mama, silence doesn’t satisfy her.
“What did he look like?” she presses. “Or she,” she quickly adds, clamping her hand to her mouth. “Sorry, that wassosexist of me. Would you recognize them if you saw them again? If he—or she!—is still out there, we need to tell the police immediately so they can catch them. Can you describe them to me?”
Irritation rises within me, and it hurts more than the gash splitting me in two. “Go away,” I mutter. I’ve never been in the business of asking twice, let alone three fucking times. I’m starting to sound like a broken record.
But she’s not even listening, let alone looking as though she’s about to fuck off. Instead, she goes back to mumbling to herself, picking up objects, tossing them down. Rinse, repeat.
I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. The voice that was so sweet just moments ago is now grating.
Guess my father was bang on the money with rule five:A Villain never dies peacefully in his sleep.
I always thought it meant I’d be tortured to death, not slowly bleed out in a sea of beauty products under the watchful eye of an annoying angel.
“Hey—don’t close your eyes,” she demands. “You’ve gotta stay with me, okay?”
I force an eye open to make sure she doesn’t touch me again. But it’s worse. She pushes up off her heels, sucks in a shaky breath, and slams her hands down on my torso.
The pain is excruciating. It zaps through my body like a lightning strike, shocking every cell, nerve, and muscle. I writhe and shake and groan, trying to buck her off me.
My thoughts are nasty, and they’re all pointed at her. If I had even a fraction of my usual strength, I’d snap her fucking wrists, every finger and knuckle too.
But the angrier I get, the more she apologizes and tells me tojust breathe, as if I’m getting a fucking Brazilian wax or something and it’ll all be over in a moment.
Her voice is breathy and restrained as it cuts through the ringing in my ears. “I’ve got to apply pressure to the wound, but my hands are too small. I’m going to have to sit on you.”
“No—”
Too late. Pinning her dress to the backs of her thighs, she shifts sideways onto my stomach, like she’s sliding into a diner booth.
I’d think I was hallucinating if the pain wasn’t so fucking visceral. I can feel its pulse, taste its minerals. But before I can let out the scream to accompany it, it wilts in my throat.
She’s touching me again. Skin to skin. The fingers I desperately wanted to snap now rest on the hollows of my cheeks. Her thumb tracks over the same two inches, dipping in and out of my beard in an unfamiliar, soothing, stroking motion.
Her gaze locks with mine, and for a split second, the world dies instead of me. It drains of color and light. Even the wind has stopped breathing.
“That feels better, right?”
The pain returns, but it’s dull and misplaced. My torso throbs a little less, but now it hurts where she touches, a slow-moving burn seeping through skin and bone and bloating every cell between.
