Page 108 of Sin Like the Devil

Safe from being abandoned again.

Hurting other people, supplying them with the means to hurt themselves, it’s all allowed me to maintain a cobbled-together image of self-control. Broken shards duct taped together in a haphazard puzzle.

I hate the words that sneak out.

“Please come back,” I whisper brokenly.

But he doesn’t.

Nor does the person I always wished he’d be. The illusion I’ve clung to. Now both versions are gone. All that’s left is an empty hospital room and the steady drip of someone else’s blood feeding into me.

Not even the sound of the partition curtain scraping back halts my sobbing. It’s peeled aside to reveal the unlikeliest of alabaster faces studying me. The midnight-blue in his eyes has returned to the surface.

Circling the bed, seeming as uncertain to his presence in my room as I am, Xander sinks into the vacated chair. He doesn’t utter a word. But my dry blood still staining his polo shirt is telling enough.

He hasn’t left me once.

Just remained tucked out of sight.

Face blank, his gaze slides down to my splinted fingers. The same ones he snapped back into place like he’s been doing it since before he could talk. His eyes remain there.

It shouldn’t be funny. None of this is. But the despairing laughter comes anyway. All I have left in the world is the man who hates me more than life itself. The iceman with his secret obsession.

“Go!” I shriek.

But he doesn’t.

So I fall apart some more.

What feels like hours later, I stare back up at the popcorn ceiling. There’s nothing left inside me. Not even defeat. My swollen, gritty eyes screw shut, too painful to hold open for a second longer. Oblivion is beckoning.

I must imagine it before I drop off.

But I swear, Xander takes my hand and squeezes.

CHAPTER 18

RAINE

PRETTY LITTLE DEVIL – SHAYA ZAMORA

I wait against the smooth trunk of a tree in our usual spot. After resting for as long as my limited patience would allow, I dragged my bruised and aching body down here for our usual weekly deal.

I don’t want drugs right now, though.

Just Ripley.

Ears straining and senses dialled to ten, I listen for her approach. Ripley’s footsteps are always soft and light, in total contrast to her fierce spirit and wickedly sharp tongue. She seems too small to hold such spunk.

Inhaling deeply, I can’t smell her body wash. The scents of juniper and birch trees linger in the air instead. Spring is in full-swing, and the world is thawing, bringing with it a new miasma of stimuli to paint my internal world.

The scents I’d usually spend hours dissecting hold no interest today. She has to come. I was turned away from the medical wing at every opportunity, forced to wait for her discharge to smell her again.

But that was three days ago now and still nothing. She isn’t at mealtimes. Not in the corridors nor the art room. Not so much as a passing encounter. I’m not going another bloody day without catching her.

So I wait.

Foot tapping and nose twitching.

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