Page 33 of A Sin So Pure

Everyone always leaves.

I tug the sheets up to my chin and burrow my face in the pillow. It’s cold and wet under my cheek, having caught my stray tears. I wish for my brother, who used to hold me on nights like these, when the world became too much and things fell apart. But even he left me too.

He left and will never come home. Would Nora be the same?

Curling into myself under the covers, I pull my knees to my ribs, and I pray that sleep grants me mercy.

8

NORA

The brownstones on this street stand silent in the dying light, five levels of red-brown brick mourning the loss of their tenants.

They’re identical, save for the little numbered plaque next to their doors. But we don’t need to search for number 88-2B. It’s clear by the broken window on the first floor of the building which apartment we’re headed to.

I nod acknowledgments to the two guards standing watch at the front steps.

Sad eyes blink back at me.

Each step up to the front door is heavier than the last, my shoes weighed down by the thought of what we are walking into.

A family slaughtered. Another daughter alone.

There’s a sickening familiarity about it all.

Josie had gotten word while we were in the Sins meeting, and instead of interrupting—as if taking care of my people could ever be an inconvenience—she waited until I was halfway through my burning rage with Imogen to pull me away.

I rub a hand over my jaw when I reach the last stair. I made a mess of things with Imogen earlier. And during the car ride here, I found myself yearning to fix that.

If there’s anything left to fix.

How fucked up is that? She’s the one who betrayed me, and I still want to forgive her?

It’s got me off-kilter. My consciousness isn’t fully grounded in my body, rather, it’s floating alongside it, precariously tied to the weights at my feet. I’m surrounded by a cloud of disorienting emotion, but I wave it all away. I push it deep down in my gut where all my other bullshit lives. Because these feelings are inconvenient and shutting them down is the most efficient way of dealing with them.

Because family comes first.

“Windows were broken from the inside,” Josie says. “With no other signs of a break-in.”

“So, either they let the person in, or they used magic.”

She stands at my back, watching with careful consideration as I make my way through the apartment.

My gut says she thinks I’m going to break.

I won’t. Not again.

But I’m becoming less and less confident with each step that I’ll leave this place whole.

Glass cracks under my boots as I freeze in the doorway of the kitchen. My heart beats a fraction faster at the scene in front of me.

I’m a trained killer. I’ve tortured my fair share under Pride’s direction. I can handle blood and broken bones and the distinct stench of death.

This is somehow more disturbing.

The room is a tornado-swept mess—the cabinets are thrown open, the shelves swiped clean, and their contents broken across the tile. The two bodies are centered in the room: a pair of lovers staring, unblinking, at the ceiling.

I step over the mess and crouch next to the Halverson’s bodies.

---