Page 79 of Sinners Atone
With every churn of the motor, moonlight creeps across the concrete. It stops just short of my toes, and for a moment, I stare down its narrow path.
Then I step into the light.
I step over broken glass and oil stains. Over the thick stretch of Gabriel’s shadow. And when concrete meets grass, I have every intention of stepping out into the rain too.
But the thing about the dark, is that it’s never needed chains to trap me.
A monster’s attention is leash enough.
Pausing at the door, I peer over my shoulder for one last look. Gabriel’s standing just outside of the moonlight’s reach, though when his hand drags across his mouth, it cuts into its path.
And maybe it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, or maybe it’s just delusion.
But I swear, it holds a tremble.
Three years.
I lasted three fucking years.
I’d folded her into a box that only rattled on the quietest of nights. Now all that self-restraint has come undone with a short temper and a tug.
Ripping back the throttle, I lean into my Harley and drive into the blizzard head-on. Can’t see for shit, but it doesn’t matter. I know the winding ribbon of these mountain roads like the back of my hand, and even if I didn’t, I’d still take the risk just to get away from the coast. FromHer.
“Skip,” I mutter. The sinner in my ear cuts off mid-sentence, and the next call plays. I know it’s Raj the Gambler within the first two seconds by the self-pitying sigh that fills my helmet.
Gritting my teeth, I skid around a deep bend and snap at Siri to skip again. I’m not in the mood for Raj’s monthly woe-is-me ramble that comes every time he wastes his paycheck on the races.
I need something darker. Something that breaks the loop of her breathy voice fizzing in the black.
You’re scaring me.
Of course I scared her. Scared my-fucking-self too when she burst into my garage mid-panic attack and my gut twisted into a shape it’s never made before.
I wanted to make it stop and strangle whoever started it.
The next call is from a new sinner. She’s chained her husband to a water pipe in the basement and won’t let him out until he admits he’s fucking the new girl at work. I turn up the volume to max when she mentions she’ll give him until the weekend to come clean before she shoots him point blank in the dick with his own hunting rifle.
Her confession. The howling wind. The deep purr of the engine beneath me. They blur into white noise, but it’s not long before it darkens to pink.
Those two flimsy triangles covering her tits are etched into my fucking eyelids. Forget the look in her eye when she begged me to take her secret to the grave, or the fact she doesn’t drink, or that she suddenly stopped driving yet told me she never learned in the first place.
The girl’s a confirmed sinner based on that body alone.
“Siri, play my favorites,” I grit. This caller has started crying, and I’d rather turn left off the mountain ridge than listen to it.
There’s a beep in my ear, followed by a robotic voice.
“This is a prepaid call from?—”
Mildred Black states her name.
“—an inmate from the Washington Corrections Center for Women…”
The voice goes through the usual spiel about the call being recorded and monitored before Mildred’s smokers cough rattles down the line.
“I really thought Danny was The One. He looked like Brad Pitt in his hey-day, just a few inches shorter, and unfortunately, not as rich.”
The sound of her voice makes my thoughts slow down and my shoulders drop a few inches.
