Page 49 of Sinners Atone
My brain ticks over for a few more minutes, until my thoughts grow slower and slower and finally stop.
I’ve run out of steam. I’m sotired.My limbs are heavy against Gabriel’s grasp, as if my body is letting gravity take over in preparation for being six feet under soon.
When he finally comes to a stop, I realize my lids have grown heavy too. Awareness wakes me like a knee-jerk reaction, and I bolt upright in his arms.
Through bleary eyes, I scan our surroundings. The sky is lighter now, and for a moment, I think dawn has arrived. But it hasn’t, it’s just streetlamps, their soft glow washing over a large gravel parking lot.
I scrunch my eyes and recalibrate. We’re at the entrance to The Whiskey Under the Rocks, a fancy bar in Devil’s Hollow. Cars similar to the one Rory and Tayce were whisked away in are parked around the perimeter, and when I glance to the front door, a faint hum of activity drifts out from behind it.
Gabriel’s grip loosens around me, and my feet touch ground.
Confused, I blink up at him. He towers over me, the glow from the streetlamp above us catching the high planes of his cheeks, casting the rest of him and the whole of me, in shadow.
His eyes glint with black disdain when they touch me. “Go.”
My retreat is shaky. I walk backward, not daring to take my eyes off him, in case this is another mind game. I’m weary of everything: the clench of his fists, the hard bob of his Adam’s apple, the stillness of his stance, and the way his eyes track my movements like a laser beam.
I thought increasing the distance between us would bring me relief. It doesn’t. I’m still tethered to him by a thread, woven with the words of his earlier ominous statement:If it happens in the dark, it didn’t happen.
It’s not even close to the craziest thing he’s said tonight, but it stuck. Not just because it’s a creepy thing to say, but because of the way he said it. It held a different weight to his other threats, like it wasn’t even a threat at all.
I don’t know. I’m tired. I should let it go, run inside, hug my friends, and thank the Lord I made it from one side of the woods to the other without being murdered by Gabriel Visconti. But every step backward only pulls the thread tighter, and when he turns and steps out of the light, disappearing from view, it snaps.
“Wait,” I blurt out. The thud of his heavy steps comes to an abrupt stop, and I take a deep breath. For some reason, I need to say it. Whether it’s to remind him or myself, I don’t know. “Whatever is done in the dark, always comes to light, you know?”
An uncomfortable silence trickles out of the dark and across the parking lot. Just when I think he won’t reply, his words reach out of the dark and fissure through my coat, seeping beneath my skin and disturbing every cell they touch.
“Not if you stick to the shadows.”
Aslither of moonlight cuts through the window, narrowly avoiding my dark corner of the room. Way beyond the glass, waves roar and crash as they meet the cliffs. Down the hall, a clock ticks, and from behind the bathroom door, the muffled sound of water rains down on marble.
How is the showerstillfucking running?
Patience thinning, I settle back into the armchair and drive the heels of my muddied boots across the rug, squeezing the lone earbud in my fist.
Darkness is my friend, but silence is the enemy.
Can’t fucking stand it. Even more so since I followed Angelo back to the coast, because now my life doesn’t just flash before my eyes when I’m dying but in these pockets of silence too. Memories bounce from month to year to decade, running in spirals and zigzags.
And when they grow tired, they run back to Her.
Her.
My hand twitches to put the earbud back in my ear, to drown out her voice with the soothing sounds of sin.
But no. I must stay alert tonight.
I’ll roll a cigarette instead.
I balance a rolling paper on my knee and pepper tobacco into its crease. By the time I run my tongue along the gum line, I’m already thinking about her again.
Fuck. I’ve spent the last three years thinking about her. Obsessing over all the things I know and battling with all the things I don’t.
Can you keep a secret?
“Stop,” I mutter, throwing myself forward. Resting my elbows on my knees, I glare down at the blood dripping from my knuckles and onto the rug. I count nine slowsplats, then start over. Again and again and again until her voice fractures and fades into the dark corners of the room.
When my pulse returns to normal, I light the roll-your-own and take a deep drag. Then I grind the charred match into the rug under the heel of my boot.
