Page 73 of The Sinner and the Scholar
What are you hiding?
Some part of me wants to find a secret and protect my heart. So I can prove he’s not just confused and nervous about his feelings. Instead, he used me, and it’s all misdirection, and I’m being played. He’s done what Sinners do—seduce, manipulate, steal.
Betrayal is easier to swallow than love.
My eyes land on the cell phone between his thigh and the seat. I check that he’s still asleep, then pluck the cell from its hiding spot. I hold it to his face and unlock it with facial recognition.
The first thing I see is a text conversation between him and Zeke. As I scroll through the history, a stone drops in my stomach. The text history goes back to a conversation he had months ago about discovering an old prophecy and how he believes it’s linked to the new female cult of assassins called Sinners. How taking us down should be easy. I raise my brows at that, then promptly lower them when I read that Wes believes the relic is a one-time-use thing. He will use my talents to procure it, and then he’ll steal it and take it home first. Zeke is sick with something terminal, and Wes will heal him before I can heal Prue.
He’s going to betray us.
This is what I wanted, right?
I mean, I understand perfectly what he’s going through. He wants to save his friend. He’s putting Zeke before anyone else. I should admire his loyalty. But after I return to the couch, I lie there with my fingers thrumming on my chest, trying to ignore the sense of cold emptiness creeping into my body.
I know what this is, and I can’t stop it. Every Sinner knows.
It’s the numbness after you burn yourself. It’s the long few seconds before your brain registers the pain. It’s the calm that allows you to do whatever is necessary to protect yourself from further harm before paralyzing agony hits.
Sooner or later, everything ends.
Twenty-Four
Wesley
“Are you going to tell me the plan?” I ask Thea as she leans against a souvenir shop across the street from the British Museum. She stares at the behemoth, columned building as though she didn’t hear me.
We dodge the occasional person moving about their evening but always return to watching the museum in silence. This silence is how it’s been between us since we disembarked from the jet. I know I’ve been a prick. We shared something honest, but then I saw my blood on her body, and somehow, I saw fresh welts from a flogging. I saw the pain I’ll cause her.
She knows something is up. I see it in her eyes, and the coldness and shadows lurking there. There are more ghosts now, and I put them there. At least this way, my betrayal may sting less if she’s already numb.
A spiked iron fence surrounds the museum. The gate is closed. Night has fallen, and security patrols the area.
We spent an hour wandering the museum before it closed. The old relic was there, but we barely stopped to look at it. Didn’t want to look conspicuous. Thea spent most of her time in an exhibition about feminine power in the divine and the demonic. I followed her and read what she read. I don’t know why she was so interested in it, except that much of the exhibition scripture revolved around Lilith and how she became the queen of hell.
I even saw an incantation bowl used to ward and trap Lilith. It’s probably a fake, and I’m not even sure Lilith can be trapped—not the real Lilith, anyway. More accurate knowledge exists in the Vatican archives. What’s out here in the real world is often misleading. It fits the narrative the ancient institution needs to remain in power. Or at least, it has for so long that no one knows what’s real anymore.
But like the relic, sometimes authentic information survives out in the world.
My attention wanders. It’s hard to rein in. My palms aren’t the only things burning—a fever has stolen over me, worsening by the hour. I’m shivering despite the warmer summer air. Voices from my dreams haunt me. Some words were from Vepar… but I’m not sure if they’re from the present or my past.
Yes… use her as she uses you. Take what you need. She’ll never love you. She doesn’t have the capacity. I’m your only friend.
But then I remembered Thea’s voice breaking through my sleep. I think she was reminiscing about Prue as she spoke on the phone. She sounded wistful.
It’s all a cloud now. All I know is that I can’t delay anymore, and I can’t pull off a museum heist alone.
Finally, she says, “I’m going in through the roof.”
“What do you meanI’m?”
Her eyes slide to me. “You’ll slow me down—”
“You can’t do it alone. Breaking into the national museum is bloody bonkers.”
“The person who says it can’t be done shouldn’t interrupt the person about to do it.”
“I don’t know what wise person you’re trying to quote, but you’re not doing it yet,” I point out.
