Page 123 of Stitches

“What are we going to do?”

He was quiet. “I don’t know. She’s hiding something from us. I intend on finding out exactly what it is. It’s too fucking dangerous for her to be out here alone.”

“Do you think it’s Sin?” I’d rather it be him than anyone else in the world. If it were Asylum, he’d have been gloating about it to us, so I’d already ruled him out.

“Maybe. Only one way to find out.” Church stared off into the distance.

“We could ask her.”

He shook his head. “I doubt she’d tell us. If she’s sneaking out, trying to keep it a secret, she’s not going to tell us.”

“What will we do if we find out who it is?” The words were hard to say.

“Easy. We kill them.”

“And her?”

He turned to me and gave me a sad smile. “She belongs to us, Malachi. She will pay dearly for betrayal. Maybe we’d let her watch us kill him, so she doesn’t do it again.”

“I don’t want her to hurt,” I said.

“Nor I, but sometimes a little pain reminds us to not fuck around and find out.” He said no more and walked back the way he’d come. I followed behind, a note of hope in my chest because at least he didn’t say we’d kill her.

Thank fuck.

But with Church, the punishment always fit the crime…and then some.

I prayed Sirena would come clean with us before we found out who it was she was meeting out here in the dark forest.

CHURCH

“Come here,” I instructed Sirena when she came into the living room the following morning.

She stepped to me. I patted my lap for her, and she slid easily onto it.

“How’s my girl?” I cooed in my ear, all my willpower going into not snapping and forcing her to tell me who the fuck she’d been with last night. I’d already told Ashes about what happened, and he was with Stitches trying to locate Sin to ask him what was going on.

She snuggled against me like always. That only drove me more insane since she was acting like nothing was wrong.

“Do you want to tell me anything?” I asked, running my lips along her jaw. “Like maybe where you were last night? Because it wasn’t in your bed.”

She stiffened on my lap, making me grind my teeth.

“Where were you?”

When she didn’t answer me, I pushed her back so I could see her face.

“Tell me where you were and why you were there.”

Her bottom lip trembled as she stared into my eyes.

Finally, soft words slipped past her lips.

“Woods.”

I breathed out, grateful she’d told me.

“Who did you meet in the woods?”

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