Page 51 of Sinner's End

Like hell I won’t. But I promise you will never taste her when I do.

I leap between graves that date back hundreds of years, before the town proper was built, predating the asylum. My path careens wildly as I dart around an old crypt, its rusty gate swinging wide in a breeze that whips around me in an impotent dust devil, all rustling leaves that tear at my clothes. I bat the grasping tendrils away like they are hands, unsure what creatures Mana sent after me to stay my path, or what awaits Addi in the Void.

A lingering fear that the rift between reality and Mana’s demonic plane reached the house and the asylum fizzles somewhere low in my gut, suffocating me from the inside out. I choke on stale air and the old souls long departed this life thatlinger in this frozen space with no home to return to as I stumble over the thin, rusted gate Mana mentioned and into the original hallowed lands of Sinner’s End.

Beyond the limits the demon is able to tread. But me, with my human blood, can. Go figure the fuck out of that one. I don’t make the rules, but I sure as hell intend to break every damn one in sight to find our girl.

“Addi,” I call, my voice rough with need and fear. “Addi.”

I scan the area, the headstones here white and old, their names and dates worn away by time’s cruel touch. No memory remains of the bones beneath our feet turned to dust.

I near a thick-trunked oak, trailing my fingers around its graffitied bark, the initials carved there. Had I been a few years younger, I might have declared my love for Addi thus, but that was a child’s game. Though I don’t deny it, my need, my craving for her, runs far deeper than a simple date, a quick fuck, and four initials and a heart embedded in the bark of a tree to withstand time’s brutal kiss.

“She won’t see you.” Lethe leans against a cracked headstone, his ashy feet barely touching the moss-carpeted ground. “She’s resting.”

I plant myself and stare the not-angel down. “This isn’t a game, Fallen. You don’t know who you are or what you need to give to be able to play this game.”What the stakes are. Who you might lose.

I understand Mana all too well. I know his games, how he plays. If only one of us walks away today, it must be Addi. That’s what he wants. That’s the offer. I thought I had a better deal with him than this but if it ensures her safety, I’ll do it.

I don’t, for a second, believe there is no loophole that prevents him from setting foot where I stand right now. A law, absolutely, but a loophole? No.

“Get her for me, please,” I say in a low voice, keeping thethreat clear and open.

Lethe frowns at me. “You’re not like the others. You … love her.”

“No shit,” I snap. “Look, I’m running on short sleep. I don’t know if you understand this, but he’s playing you. Mana. Bowen. Whoever. They set you up for a joke. This isn’t the best way to start your day, and you’re fucking with mine. Give her back to me and we all go home. Play again tomorrow. Some other fucked-up game. Otherwise, we find out if you’re as immortal as you think you are.”

He smiles. “Or we find out if you will outlive the woman you love.”

I stare at him.

Well, shit.

I swallow and nod. “There’s that.” He paces around in a broad circle and I match him, step for step, plotting the course. It can work, if I keep him distracted for twelve steps and if someone else is paying attention. If I’m not the decoy. “But do you love her as much as you think you do? How much of this isn’t what you expected?”

Step, step, step.

He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it the wrong way. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect anything.”

Step, step.

I scoff. “Of course you did. How could you think you would get out of this without some form of recompense?”Step. Step.“What, just because Mana can’t walk in, that you would walk out with the goods?”

“Don’t talk about her that way!”Step.“She’s not some product to be traded!”

Step.

I smile, genuine with him for the first time. “No, she’s not.”Step.I nod to the girl herself who appears behind him,shielding her eyes and confused as fuck, wearing the scent of each of us.Claimingeach of us. That might be a dangerous thing, or it could save her life.Step.“Hey, Addi.”

“Addi.” Lethe forgets himself, whirling on the spot, and all bets are off.Step.“I didn’t realize you were awake. Are you okay? I didn’t know if you needed—”

“You piece of shit,” Mana hisses in his ear as the angel crosses back into the borrowed territory where Sinner’s End and the graveyard claims the demon can safely enter, pressing his black blade to Lethe’s throat.

He forces the fallen angel to his knees in the dank earth that has seen the dust of a thousand souls or more these hundreds of years. I can feel their presence in the soil, as though they’ve never been released, or as though they’re … close.

“The Void,” I whisper, my lips cracked, dry.

Addi smiles at me, her eyes vacant once again.

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