Page 4 of Sinners Atone
I step forward and the world tilts, trying to shake me off it. I push onward against the wind; it drives me back even harder. Its roar is deafening and cold, but when I cock my head, I hear something softer within it.
“Hello?”
Tension leaves my lips in a short breath.
The voice is like cashmere and chocolate. Like a gentle kiss on the cheek, a warm bath on an icy night.
“Hello? Are you okay?”
It’s a ray of sunshine through an open window, a cool breeze on a hot day.
I want to die to its soundtrack.
I want to hear it again.
I scan the horizon for its source, and when I find it, my vision jolts.
Under the next streetlamp stands a girl. No—an angel. Not one of those biblically accurate ones they’d draw on the whiteboard to scare the shit out of us in Sunday school, but one from the movies. The human-shaped, heaven-sent kind with outstretched wings and a halo hovering over flowing blonde hair. She’s also wearing a fuzzy pink jacket and matching earmuffs, but fuck, who am I to question what angels wear these days?
There’s no time for side quests, but getting to the church suddenly feels secondary, and curiosity steers my path.
I take a step toward her; she takes one back, glances at my stomach, throws her hands in the air, and says, “Um, that’s a Halloween costume, right?”
What?
The cogs in my brain whir at half speed, but when they groan into place, I realize I’m a fucking idiot.
It’s October thirty-first. Halloween.
Of course I’d die on Halloween.
I’m still too weak to laugh, but the irony is all-consuming, so I do it anyway. It takes the last shred of energy from me, and I fall to my knees.
She’s not an angel; she’s just a girl dressed like one. Looks like one, sounds like one, even now that she’s shouting. Shefloats toward me like an angel too, out from underneath her lamp and into the light of mine.
Sparkly pink boots and frilly socks pulsate in and out of focus beneath my eye line.
Christ. So much pink.
“Oh my God. What happened?”
Ha.
I blinked, that’s what fucking happened.
Rule two: Near enemy, family, or friend, The Villain never blinks.
He’d plucked that one straight out of his ass in a panic after the first time he shot me. He swore he’d done it just to show me what it feels like, but even at eleven, I knew the cunt just had shit aim.
Rule three came just nine hours later as I was waking up under the harsh strip lights of a makeshift operating theater:The most powerful villains are as unlovable as they are untouchable.
I’m as unlovable as I am untouchable.
So why thefuckis she now touching me?
Delicate fingers sear my shoulder. Violence is a deep-rooted reflex, and I jerk out an arm to shake her off.
“Fuck. Off,” I snarl.
