Page 58 of Sinner's End

But Adreana draws me in, like all of them. I can’t be her pet, as I already answer to one master. Having a mistress too seems counterintuitive. I’m not certain I can run between the two, so I must choose. My skewed sense of loyalty chooses the path of pain and self-flagellation.

Run from her I love, earn the hate from him I serve.

The path between Addi’s house and the asylum is a simple walk, bereft of chance meetings. Thankfully, as I am in a murderous mood. That last part comes into play the moment I step within Harken’s bounds. Adreana does that to me, brings out my worst.

I might have lied to her. It’s not all boredom.

My last victim squeals and screams as I manage to miss all his vital organs and hit only body cavity space.What are the odds?Even Mana wouldn’t place a bet like that. I kneel beside him, placing my face level with the party boy who was just outfor a good time and found himself … welp, in a spot of trouble, looking at the blood leaking from the extra orifices I’ve provided for him in the last moments.

I cup his face in my blood-slicked hands, caressing his cheeks with my thumbs, smearing freshly shed tears across his cheeks. “You’re a regular here, aren’t you?”

I vaguely remember his face from nights with Mana as his toy when he fed from the populace, peddling ForgetMeKnot on nights I wish I could forget.

“Yes,” rasps the poor child who can’t be more than five and twenty.

I nod sympathetically. “That’s right. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time, aren’t you, my dear?” I smile gently, petting his cracked lips with my thumbs as he bleeds out onto the floor, his breaths withering. “Do you remember a certain girl? She came in here with her sister once. A pretty thing. Not the sister. She’s a slut I’ll deal with soon.” My voice hardens. There’s a task I’ll treasure.

“You mean Emma?” He chokes in his haste to assist me, as I knew he would.

“Such a good boy. Yes, Emma is the slut. No, I want to talk about Adreana. Have you seen her?”

The poor child concentrates while his life force drips away a heartbeat at a time, soaking into the knees of my filthy gray pants. “Yes, I think so? She hangs out with the Man.”

“With Mana,” I correct as he coughs up half an organ’s worth of blood. “Did you think she was pretty?”

He nods. “Of c-c-course,” he splutters in his haste to assist me.

“I understand,” I whisper, though my heart hardens. No eyes deserve to watch her and see ever again. His haste will cost him. Plucking out his eyes is too good. A scarlet river wells over his lips and tumbles down his front, bubbling and gurgling.Looks like I hit a lung from the back. “Oh, dear. Shall I offer you an out? If you can crawl to that doorway before you die, I’ll let you go. Would you like that?” He nods enthusiastically and I place a sweet kiss on his lips, licking up his blood and saliva. So much hope in that last breath. “Go on, off, you pop,” I coo gently. “You can do it.” I point him helpfully toward the door, maybe a dozen feet away, leaning down to whisper my tainted brand of encouragement in his ear. “You’ve got this, big boy.”

What once would have been the perfect way to ensure a business professional hit their mark for the day or achieve that promotion, feel untouchable the day they need my power, becomes a tainted, twisted thing under the tutelage of my darkened essence.

My victim labors toward the door as I walk at his side, the owner with a dog off its leash, cheering him on in soft words and happy whispers as his blood leaks from his body.

“Oh my, you’re so weak but it’s just two more feet,” I call when we’re nearly there. His hands scrape piteously at the cement, so lightly he can’t even scratch the flesh from his own palms. “But it’s too much, isn’t it? Too far. You did so well.” I stroke his hair back from his face, placing his head on one side so he can see the doorway that’s less than an arm’s reach away, though he’ll never achieve his escape. “So very close. It was never within your grasp but you tried so hard.” His pale cheek rests in a small puddle of blood and drool, the rest already drained from his body, bloodshot eyes tilted up, staring, the last breath right there as I lean over him. “I’m here when you fail.”

I seal my mouth over his and suck his soul from his body, swallowing him whole. Those eyes that watched her, saw her, lay blank and empty. Sightless.

He tastes like oranges and tequila. Unfulfilling. Unsatisfying as a replacement for my addiction to her.

There is no redemption for a broken being like me.Nothing that can stop my downward spiral. Why would I try? And so, I work my way through Harken, ending each life I discover and breathing in the souls, collecting them as payment for my master’s return.

I’m sure he’ll want them back before he ends me for all eternity.

A small mercy for a broken toy.

My vision blurs as I sway drunkenly and head into Harkin’s underbelly for my next target. The souls fill me to the brim, overflowing my senses. Each pulses at the edges of my extremities, striving for freedom. This fleshy bond pulled out of the earth barely contains today’s cache, but I won’t let them go. I have a job to complete. One more life within Harken before Mana returns and receives the dues I must pay him.

I can’t forget the Chemist.

And if my master loiters too long, I might return to Sinner’s End and collect Addi.

Promises be damned.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A Freedom So Fake

Adreana

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