Page 101 of In the Light of Sin

Despite the agonizing pain I felt at my left side being on fire, my mind went to my team still hanging by the rafters. I tried to crawl as the flames spread everywhere, my body bleeding and charred, leaving a trail of blood as I crawled to the area where I abandoned them. The gravel dug into my melted skin, my movements sluggish, and black tinting my vision as I began to black out due to pain and exhaustion. My body became more numb as it started shutting down. In a feeble attempt, I reached my left arm up. My bloody hand was missing appendages, the blood flowing down my palm and dripping to the ground outside of the building. One last blinding light sent me into the darkness. Hopefully, for the last time.

I wasn’t that lucky. The best thing that would’ve happened to me is if the blast of the bomb killed me.

“They burned.” I didn’t recognize my voice. It sounded like I was almost in a trance, my body feeling numb like I was practicing for the day I finally wouldn’t be burdened by my sin. Joslyn wasn’t in front of me. It was like a movie. I was on the ground outside the building, flesh melting off of me and the fire cackling in my ear, but I still heard them. They were shouting for me to come and save them, being eaten alive by the flames. “They burned alive. They were waiting for me to go and save them.” I swallowed past the heavy lump in my throat, my eyes slamming shut as five ghosts filled my vision. “But I never came for them.” And they didn’t make it out of there alive. I broke my promise. There was nothing to bring back home to their families besides the customary flag and standard condolences.

She remained stoic. Her face was calm, blonde hair splayed over her shoulder. She tilted it slightly. Was that disgust? Was she planning her escape away from me now that she knew what my sin was? If she left… I don’t know if I’d survive it.

“I was in the hospital for months. Was bandaged to shit when I went to their funerals. Everyone else wore black, and I was wrapped in white bandages.” I remembered all their looks. They knew who I was, even if they didn’t know my name. “I was out-casted. I wanted to stay there for the whole thing, but Madison and her mother were so enraged the health care worker who brought me there was terrified for my safety.” I wasn’t scared, though. I deserved everything that was coming to me.

Her lips flattened before turning up at the corners. I was confused by that tiny, comforting smile and even more confused when she leaned in, her soft lips pressing against the rough skin of my bicep. My scars were an area I’d always been self-conscious about. She was the first one I’d ever willingly let near them. “You’re so strong, Darin.” Her words were whispered across my scarred skin, making my whole body shiver. “These proved you survived; your friends would want you to live.”

“You don’t know that.” And I sure as fuck didn’t believe that. I was a stupid twenty-two-year-old kid with a golden future ahead of me. Most of my comrades were fathers, holding pictures of their families in their pockets that they stared at in hard times, making silent promises they’d come back to them.

“You don’t know that either,” she countered, face turning up to mine. “You’re the one living with their last days alive. It was tough. What all of you went through something no one should even fathom, but it brought you together. They don’t blame you.”

“Their families do.” Joslyn wasn’t there. She wasn’t there to see the carnage my choice left behind. I still felt their stares, their judgment, their hatred. I carried it all with me like a badge of dishonor that was cauterized into my skin along with the scars I would always carry. “I tried to take care of them, but they refused. They said they didn’t want blood money.”

“I know.” Hearing her confirmation cut through me even though I knew it was already true. “Because they don’t understand. They lost someone. You lost everything.”

I lost myself.I remembered what she told me. How she lost herself when her parents died. I lost myself the day my comrades died.

We’re just two lost souls with nowhere to go but with each other. And maybe that’s why we’re so drawn to each other. Others rejected us, not having a place to go but within one another. Two wandering souls with pieces we force to fit.

We just stood there in the middle of the living room, touch comforting but not deleting the rampant thoughts in my mind. I didn’t know what to tell her. She was right about me losing myself, but not even she could convince me that I wasn’t responsible for their deaths. She didn’t see their apparitions every morning. When I woke up from seeing their faces in my nightmares, I would continue to see their shadows surrounding me in my safe space. Everywhere I went, they were there.

Joslyn’s light diminished them, but they were still there… they would always be there.

“How did Darrell find you?” My hand moved from her forearm to her cheek, and my thumb brushed against the bare skin. Thinking of that night five years ago took my mind slightly off my sinned past. It’s what led me to Darrell and, ultimately, to the girl I held so close to me.

I was living rough, spending everything I had on forgetting who I was. It’s been a year since I’d gotten out of the military. Five months since I’d gotten out of the hospital. I’d just beaten the fuck outta somebody for making me drop the bottle of booze I spent my last dime on. I wasn’t supposed to take it with the painkillers and anti-depressants I was prescribed. What was the worst that could happen? I would die? I fucking wished.

I picked up the broken glass, pointing the now sharpened end at him. He didn’t look phased. He looked impressed. He lifted his hand, putting it right on the jagged edge showing me just how fucking crazy he was. I saw the blood slipping down his palm as I pushed it harder against him, but he still didn’t flinch.

“I could use someone like you.” He could use someone like me? This man was a smooth talker, and I didn’t trust a single fucking word out of his mouth. “I know you don’t trust me. But do you have anythin’ to lose? You want to die, and if this shit doesn’t work out, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to ya.”

This sounded too good to be true. My mental health was spiraling. The only relief I got was when I bled the anger from my body using my fists on someone else. There was nowhere for me, but with my fallen comrades, I was struggling to survive. The only reason why I hadn’t put a bullet in my head is my guilt. The guilt that I was alive, able to try to start over. And they were six feet under, being mourned by the people they were fighting for.

No one was missing me. I had no one.

I stood there, the bottle still pushed in this fuckers palm as I considered his words and my options. I was running out of money, living in government housing, and doing petty fights just to barely survive. I needed something else besides my current lifestyle. “What do I have to do?”

He grinned, satisfied with my answer. He held out his hand for me to shake, but I refused. He chuckled, putting it back down to his side. “All I’m askin’ you to do is atone for your sins.” My eye narrowed beneath my hood with no fucking idea what he meant. “And if you don’t? I’ll make sure you have an early judgment day.”

Her green eyes shined in the minuscule lighting, looked at me concerned when I finished telling her my story. “You joined the Souls thinking you’d die?”

I felt drained from giving her what I promised I wouldn’t, but she broke down my walls until it all unwillingly spilled out. I mustered a shrug, not having a good answer for her. “He promised shelter. Food. I was missin’ the comradery I had but scared shitless of havin’ people in my life my actions could get killed. He was the best option I had at the time.”

Her lips pressed to my chest, the warmth of them spreading through the skin on that area, making me shiver. “I’m glad you took him up on that offer.”

I was neutral towards my decision to join the Souls. Mostly because it wasn’t much different than the life I was living before it. I still wanted to be isolated. But now I felt desperate. I hadn’t told anyone anything about me, and now that I was, I wanted her to hear it all. Even if she was just going to leave, I wanted her to know she was the only one to have this piece of myself I kept hidden.

“I wasn’t always like this.” I needed her touch. Her lips on my chest weren’t enough. My hand slid on her lower back and behind her neck, thrusting her clothed body until it was flush with mine. I didn’t know when I went from not wanting anyone’s touch to being lost if she didn’t touch me, but here we are. “Ma and Pop were told they couldn’t have kids, but I came along, and they treated me like a damn miracle. May have been an only child, but I was raised to work for your own shit. Pop was a farmer, and Ma was a homemaker. Been workin’ all my damn life.”

Joslyn took my vulnerable moment as an opportunity to walk us back to our bedroom. A room I refused to touch with paint. I wanted this to be my safe space. Somewhere I could decompress and live alone with my thoughts. Any color in here, and I would think of her.

She guided me to our bed as I mindlessly laid down on her side. I inhaled, the floral scent calming me as she walked to the other side. She laid flat, the back of her hand dragging my hood down before going to the back of my neck to guide my cheek to her chest. Cuddling. A foreign concept that I’d just adapted for her recently. I hated people’s touch, but I was addicted to hers. Her touch was delicate as her fingers ran through my curly brown hair, the gesture soothing me more than I wanted to admit. “Tell me about your parents.”

I reveled in her comfort a few moments before I found the words to describe them. “They were an older couple, had me in their late forties. They were told they couldn’t have kids, and I was an oops baby. They never treated me like one, though. Came with complications with Ma. She was almost forty-five when she had me, and it wreaked havoc on her body. She died when I was sixteen. Pop followed her closely after.” Watching them die was harrowing, but I made sure they had the best damn care before that passed. “I took care of the farm, but with no help, it got too much for me. Did somethin’ I promised Pops I would never do, but I sold the land. I had to.” And it gutted me.

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