Page 92 of Sinful

He didn’t make my list.

Maybe it was because I knew my watchers would take care of him again if he toed out of line. Or maybe it was because I saw more than the sinner before me. I saw someone who was struggling and hurting like I was.

I saw someone broken and scared.

Sin was all of us. He just screamed it louder than we did.

And for that, I wanted to hold him close and let him know everything could be OK if he’d let it.

Like I was one to talk.

I was terrified of Adam. Everett. Sully. All the monsters hiding in the dark here.

I’d been waking up nearly every night with a nightmare of it all. Ashes was always so sweet over it, but it was Stitches who was the one to offer me the comfort. Not that Ashes didn’t. It was simply that Stitches had lived through many of the horrors with me, and I knew he still struggled with them. We were sort of bonded in that darkness.

With Asylum.

I sighed, thinking of him. It was weird for him to not be around. But Mirage. I smiled at that. Mirage was. . . everything. They all were though.

Even Bryce.

I didn’t really know when the transformation happened in my heart, but it was there. I felt for him. For Asylum. For Mirage. For Sin. For the watchers. It was a lot, and it made me feel overwhelmed. I didn’t like to think about it, so I focused on one thing at a time.

Right now, it was getting Sin sorted so he could come home. Even if Church was angry, I knew Ashes was already past it, and Stitches was working on it. I just needed to get them all to see that even if Sin decided he wasn’t interested in me, he was still a part of our family. Or his family since they were his way before they were mine.

I knew what love did to Sin.

It made him feel. It made him crazy. It made him kill.

I breathed out, untangled myself from Stitches, and went to Ashes, who hugged me against his body.

“I’ll miss you, heaven.”

I kissed his soft lips before pulling away and taking his hand in mine.

I’ll miss you too.

He smiled at my words as the doorbell rang. Stitches answered it, and Sin stepped into the room a moment later, snowflakes in his blond hair and a notebook in his hand.

His gaze swept over me briefly, with no emotion on his face, before he focused on the guys.

“We won’t be gone long,” Ashes said, breaking away from me to go all business.

“Take your time. Get it out of your system, or you’ll end up needing to go mid-week,” Sin said knowingly.

Stitches nodded. “He’s right. You do it every damn time you cut a burning short. Or you set something on fire in here.”

Ashes grumbled out something before sighing. “You’re right. Fine. Call if you need anything. We worry.”

“She’s in good hands. I have Cady’s number. The psycho I live with. Bryce. Church. I don’t have a shortage of people to call if I need something.”

“Speaking of that psycho you live with,” Stitches started. “How’s that going? Is he that weird all the time?”

“He’s. . . weird in different ways. Always. It’s tiring.” Sin looked to me. I knew what he meant. The switch probably made his head hurt. Always the same, yet always different. Unless you knew, you didn’t know shit. Then again, I’d always known something was up. It took nearly dying and seeing my monster again to put the pieces together to get the full picture.

I didn’t hate Asylum, though. I didn’t even fear him anymore.

Not really. I mean, he was terrifying, but so was Mirage. And Sin. And all the guys.

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