Page 2 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
She offered a mean smirk. “A bitch who made you breakfast.”
Sophia snorted. Burned toast and shitty scrambled eggs wasn’t really breakfast, but she shrugged anyway. “I thought Lincoln did the cooking.”
Tehlor rolled her eyes. A spotted rat sat on her haunches outside the bathroom, watching. When Sophia glanced at her, Tehlor said, “Gunnhild,” like a teacher would to a student. “Where’d you find these?” Tehlor asked again. She dropped her hands from Sophia’s cheeks and picked the shears up out of the sink.
“The big room.” Sophia wiped her nose and sniffled.
“Did you go through my shit?” She arched a brow.
“Did you expect me not to?”
Clear, gray eyes sharpened. Sophia had spent the last two years avoiding people like Tehlor Nilsen. She’d seen women striding down sidewalks, laughing together inside cafés, buying discount groceries at the supermarket, but ferocity was something the second De’voreaux daughter had taught herself, and unrefined danger had never reflected back at her until right then. She swallowed hard, lifting her chin to meet Tehlor’s harsh gaze.
“You’re a murderer with a demon-guy on standby. You think I wouldn’t find a way to protect myself?” Sophia added, rallying confidence.
Tehlor nodded slowly. She placed the shears beneath Sophia’s chin, pressing the sharp tip against her throat. “And you think that demon-guy wouldn’t kill you for less?” She offered a tired, playful look, one that saidc’mon, be for real, and popped her lips, annoyed. Shepulled the scissors away, gesturing to the toilet seat. “Sit down. Let me fix this hack job you started.”
Sophia didn’t move until Tehlor flapped her hands, waving the shears toward the toilet again. She sat on the lid and listened for movement or voices downstairs. Hushed chatter came and went, fluttering upward from the kitchen.
“Ariana Grande would bankrupt an orphanage for this kind of volume,” Tehlor said. She raked her fingers through Sophia’s wet mane. “What’s with the haircut?”
I’m sick of looking like her.“Wanted a change.”
“Uh-huh. And the panic attack?”
“What about it?”
Tehlor played with her hair, pushing it around, scraping her short nails across Sophia’s scalp. “Happen often?”
“Couldn’t say.”
The witch hummed. She didn’t sound convinced. “Well, you took off a bunch in the front, so it looks like we’re doing a pixie or a mullet. Pick.”
Sophia stiffened. Her cheeks flared hot. One time, a while ago, before Haven split from the Austin homestead, Amy had plucked wildflowers while they were on a walk near their parents’ house and tucked the stems into Sophia’s braid. Amy had told her about Daniel.He’s wonderful, and godly, and good, Sophia. He’s just a little damaged.And Sophia had ignored the bruise on her sister’s wrist, shaped like a man’s palm. She blinked away the burn behind her lashes.
“Mullet it is,” Tehlor decided. “If you don’t dig it, we’ll chop it off and turn you into Tinker Bell. Hold still.”
The shears made thick, blunt sounds as Tehlor snipped and shaped. Brown, wavy chunks fell across Sophia’s socked feet, striping the fluffy bath mat. After a while, she closed her eyes, listening to Tehlor makepleased chirps, and anticipating the next snap of metal blades. When Tehlor told her to turn around, she did. And when the heaviest part of her locks gave way, she sighed.
“Are you going to kill me?” Sophia asked, so suddenly it startled her.
Tehlor stilled. She rested her slender hand on Sophia’s shoulder. Silence filled the bathroom, and that long, dreadful pause curdled in Sophia’s gut. But finally, the witch said, “No.”
Another few minutes went by, quiet except for the snipping of scissors and the distant spray from the kitchen sink, until Tehlor set the shears down and pointed at the mirror. Sophia stood, stepping in front of the vanity to assess herself.Different.Thrill jolted through her. Her hair was short and choppy, sticking to her nape and curling away from her temples. Boyish, almost.
Tehlor scooped Gunnhild into her palm and leaned against the doorframe. “It’ll look better when it’s dry.”
Sophia shifted her gaze to Tehlor’s reflection, meeting her eyes in the mirror. They studied each other for too long, poised on opposite sides of an impossible conversation. Sophia remembered Tehlor at the revival, levitating, eyes milk-white, like a snake about to shed. How small she’d looked after that, heaped in the bathtub, barely breathing. She remembered Amy, soft as a hutch-raised rabbit, tender and easy to pull apart.
“Do you regret it?” Sophia asked, as if Tehlor could read her mind. Maybe she could.
“Is that what’s goin’ on your pretty little head?” Tehlor cinched her brow. A single tattooed finger followed Gunnhild’s spine, stroking like a metronome. “The only thing I regret is forgetting your sister existed for long enough to let her stab me. If I could go back, I’d kill her first. Well, okay, notfirst.Second. Right after Rose.”
Sophiahad known liars her entire life, but she’d never met a liar like Tehlor. Someone so familiar with dishonesty that the act itself seemed second nature.
Tehlor rolled her lips and flared her nostrils, inhaling a deep breath. “They fucked you up, didn’t they?”
Sophia recalled the exact moment Daniel’s rib cage had snapped through his skin, bending like antlers. She’d wanted to wield that power, to break those bones, to be the last earthly thing he saw. But she’d plunged her hands—corpse hands—into her sister’s stomach instead. Tore through to her core. Unmade her.
