Page 52 of Holy Sinner

“Fuck the police.”

“Rafe!”

He grins and his eyes are playful. It’s enough to break me out of my spiral and I smile back at him because smiles from Rafe are like gold. Rare and beautiful, a sight to be treasured when the man gives them out.

“What did they want?”

“Same old shit, just some questioning, that’s it. Told them to come back later.”

Grant joins Rafe in the doorway and there’s a cup of coffee in his hands. “Did you sleep at all?” he asks with a frown and I shake my head.

“I couldn’t. I-I everytime I closed my eyes I kept seeing her.”

“Who?” Grant asks. He blows on the coffee and brings it to me, carefully turning the mug so that I can take the handle from him.

“The woman from my dream.” I take a sip of my coffee and it’s perfect. Two sugars and a splash of cream with cinnamon powder. Exactly how I love my coffee. “She didn’t have a face.”

Rafe and Grant share a look that makes me scowl at them. “I mean it. She had a shadow where her face was supposed to be,” I go on because I don’t like the look they just shared— the look that said their girlfriend is definitely going off the deep end. “It’s a dream, okay? It’s not like they make any sense.”

“Dreams are dreams but yours took you into the woods.” Rafe’s voice is gentle and I shrink into myself, my fingers tightening on the coffee mug. He’s right.

“How did you get out there, sweetheart?”

I look at Grant and see the worry in his eyes. “I don’t know. I used to sleepwalk when I was kid. I think…I think that’s what happened. I don’t remember going out there, just that when I grabbed her and I saw her face it was awful. There was nothing there, it was just empty.”

The darkness that was there seemed alive, like it was reaching for me, spreading out and over her body but I don’t say that. I keep it simple.

“There was no face,” I say quietly and look down into my coffee. “I don’t know why I dreamed it or why I sleepwalked out there.”

“Stress,” Rafe answers and we all look at him. “Stress can be a trigger for people that have bouts of sleepwalking. It’s been a lot with the move out here and the why. I think that’s all it is and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, shy girl.”

Shy girl.

He still calls me that and it still makes me melt.

“What happened to Jane?”

“No one knows,” he says. “That makeup artist you're friendly with shares a room with her, they’ve got them bunked up two to a room. She said she went back there after having a drink at the bar and Jane was gone but the place was painted in blood.”

“Oh god. Poor Jane. They have to find her.”

“She’s dead, baby.”

“How can-I just saw her. That doesn’t make any sense. Who would want to hurt Jane?”

I look from man to man and in that moment I’m once again struck with how different yet alike they are. Dark to light, brooding to amiable, but that’s only on the surface. My men are both predators, killers that move the same way and think the same way. Even if I scared Jasmine and lost control for a moment, I don’t see the world like they do.

They’re killers.

The thought that maybe they had something to do with this flits across my mind and I try to bat it away. It couldn’t have been them. They were with me the entire night. Even if they hadn’t been, Jane isn’t their usual target, right? I see the cold look on Grant’s face that had me confessing to what I had done to Jasmine and there had been a moment tonight when Rafe’s eyes had been different. Hungry in a way that wasn’t all desire.

I knew falling in love with monsters was going to be ugly, hadn’t I? It was easy to ignore when the monsters loved me so well. I clear my throat and meet their eyes. Both Grant and Rafe are watching me closely so it isn’t hard to do.

“You didn’t, I mean, neither of you did it, right? Not to Jane.”

Grant’s face is made of stone. No reaction. He looks like he hasn’t heard my question, but I know better. The room is too small, too quiet, and they are watching me like they always do.

He heard me.

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