Page 29 of Sinners Atone
Groaning, I clamber to my feet, peel off my clothes, and replace them with a silk nightgown and fluffy slippers. Then I do what I always do when the anger and desperation feel like they’ll spiral downward into something darker: drown out and distract.
Spotifyopen. ABBA on. Walk from room to room, lighting every candle on every surface and flicking on every set of fairy lights until my pink and cream walls glow with warmth and it smells like a Bath & Body Works.
Skincare. A ten-step routine—well, twelve now that I’ve been crying. I smooth on my undereye strips in the glow of the vanity lights of my bathroom mirror, and by the time the beat drops on “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!,” my shoulders have dropped a few inches and my heart isn’t so heavy.
Screw Damien Cross. My best friend is getting married tomorrow, and I’ll be damned if I let him and his stupid website darken the day.
Once a hot shower has washed off the remnants of the bachelorette party and my rollers are firmly in place, my lids are heavy. Tapping my cell screen, I realize it’s nearly 2:00 a.m.
Jeez. Time really does fly when you’re getting cute.
After tightening the sash of my nightgown around my waist, I begin my nightly wind-down routine of working my way through the house and blowing out candles. I start in the bathroom first, then move to the bedrooms before heading into the kitchen and finishing in the living room.
Something’s not right.
There are three candles on the mantelpiece, and none are lit. For a moment, I think perhaps I forgot to light them, but then the smell of burned wick drifts over, and slow-moving coils of smoke rise into the path of the moonlight cutting across the wall.
My spine goes rigid, but I ignore the prickle of unease on the back of my neck and glance over to the window. It’s closed, so there must be a draft coming from somewhere. That’s a future-Wren problem, because shuffling around trying to find it tonight will only cut further into my beauty sleep.
I shake it off, making a mental note to tell Uncle Finn when he’s back from his “carpentry course,” and lean over the coffee table to blow out the last candle.
Then I feel it. An awful, heavy sense of doom drags all the blood in my body down to my feet. A feeling of imminent danger in the darkness, and I’m too late, too slow, and too helpless to do anything about it.
The armchair lets out a lazy groan, and a face emerges from the shadows.
Ink.
Scar.
Green.
I’ve spent enough time on the sidelines of fear to know what it sounds like—blood-curling screams and final pleas of mercy. Though now, I realize I’ve been lucky enough to never actually feel it. Not this heart-stopping, icy kind that trembles deep within the marrow of your bones and wipes your brain clean of thought.
Christ, I know howtheyfelt now.
With Gabriel Visconti in my living room, spilling out of my floral accent chair, and nothing but three feet of table and a cinnamon-scented candle between us, this must be what it feels like.
He shifts, resting his forearms on his thighs, and traps me with an expressionless stare.
“You always leave your front door unlocked for anyone to walk in?”
His voice is a rough drawl, unhurried and certain. I pick apart the calmness within it, and nausea turns my stomach. It’s the voice of a man who believes he has every right to be here, in my living room, at 2:00 a.m.
Though I doubt breaking and entering is a new hobby for him, I realize he’s right. My door, I slammed it shut behind me in my haste to get away from Uncle Finn and upstairs to my laptop and didn’t lock it.
Somehow, that makes this all feel worse.
My throat won’t work, so I stare back, watching the glow of the flame dance beneath his beard. It flickers only briefly over the curve of his mouth and contrasts the darkness in the space under his cheekbones.
Even the light is too scared to touch him.
Anticipation crackles like static over the coffee table, and I realize he’s actually waiting for an answer.
I shake my head.
This seems good enough for him. His eyes release mine and carve a path down the front of my robe as steady and slow as his tone. My skin tingles underneath the thin fabric with every inch he covers, and it suddenly dawns on me that there’s a fate worse than death.
My brain kicks back in, bursting with vivid snapshots. Me being pinned to my cream carpet by a wall of muscle. A tattooed hand muffling my sobs. Everything I’ve been saving for The One, from my first kiss to my first time, ripped away from me by this monster.
