Page 170 of Sinful

He was quiet for a moment.

“I’m scared,” he finally said.

I looked over at him to see the worry on his face.

“Of what?”

He shook his head. “She’s so fragile. So delicate.”

“Let me stop you right there. Sirena is fragile like a grenade, not a flower. You have to have noticed she’s changing.” I’d noticed the change in her after the forest incident. It was like a fire had been lit inside her, and she was trying to work out how best to let it out without it consuming everything. It reminded me of Ashes, the supreme control he managed over his life, and the struggles he endured to maintain his sanity.

“I have.”

“She’s becoming a lot more than she was when she got here. Hell, she even communicates these days. I think she’s only going to get better. I pray she does.”

“I pray for her too.” He held his hand up to show me a rosary. “She gave me these. I use them, well, all the time.”

I smiled at that. She’d softened the old asshole up a hell of a lot in the past few weeks.

“I also pray that we find the son of a bitch who did that to her,” he whispered fiercely. “Mirage has been looking. I was helping, but we kept coming up to dead ends. I don’t know how else to get her to tell us.”

“Maybe she wants to just forget about it.” I knew the feeling, but I also knew this shit couldn’t go unpunished.

“Maybe, but I-I can’t allow that. He needs to pay. I want to make him pay, Malachi. More than I wanted to make Bells pay for killing my kid.” His voice had lowered and taken on a dangerous tone I hadn’t heard since Bells’s demise. “And you know what I did about that.”

I did know. He’d choked her to death, and Ashes had burned her body before Sin took her remains and hid them. And me. I’d been there. To be fair, I hated that bitch too, so I was fine with her death. I may have even done it myself to put Sin out of his misery.

“Then what should we do? Ashes and I have tried to find the person too. Nothing. Whoever did it was a loner. He didn’t share it, or he has a very niche group, and they’re all tight-lipped.”

“I don’t know of anyone.” Sin sighed. “Fuck. It’s driving me crazy.”

I agreed, feeling the same. I wanted the prick dead too.

“For now, let’s only focus on her. We can work shit out and talk to Asylum and see what he has to say.”

“Mirage,” he corrected me. “At least I think he’s Mirage right now.”

“Fine. Mirage. Speaking of that basket case, what’s up with him?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Is it multi-personalities or something? Schizophrenia? What’s his deal?”

Sin let out a soft laugh. “It’s. . . complicated. I’m not even sure I understand it. I’m assured there’s a purpose, so I’m trusting the process.”

“Be nice to know what the fuck the process is,” I grumbled. “I worry he’s going to lose it and hurt her. I’ve seen the way she looks at him, and I know how unpredictable he can be.” Whenever we were on campus, her eyes would seek him out. It used to bother me before we were all stuck in the facility together. Again, with the shared trauma.

Then there was that fucking Bryce Andrews. Mr. Cupcake Man. Fucking douche. She always looked for him too. It ate me up he had her before us. I was working on it, though. I’d been trying to put my jealousy aside because I knew he was important to her. It was a battle I’d been fighting a lot lately when I thought about that guy. Maybe it was because I felt like there was something more with him, and he was just here playing a part. Being on edge was becoming an everyday thing for me, it seemed. Maybe I was the one with the paranoia.

“She looks at him that way because she loves him too,” he said, his voice thick.

I let out a sigh. “I know she does. And she should. He did a lot for her in the facility. I simply wish he would be more open with us. He’s just so. . . weird.”

“He is weird. Imagine living with him,” Sin mused.

I snorted at that. “Was it weirder than only interacting randomly with him?”

Sin looked over at me as I rolled on my side to face him.

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