Page 71 of Make Me A Sinner
It’s dark outside when I wake, and guilt wraps around me for sleeping so long. I instantly rush to the living room to check on Set. But the moment I make my way into the room, I realize he’s not there.
My first instinct is to check his bedroom, but a large silhouette on the balcony pulls my attention. He’s outside.
I hesitate, like some part of me knows better than to go to him. Things were a lot easier when he was unconscious. Now everything feels even more complicated than last night, when he tore through all of Chen’s men like it was nothing.
But this needs to happen. We need to settle this. I need to find out who he really is.
I slowly step onto the balcony and notice he’s changed clothes. The shredded shirt’s gone, replaced by a white T-shirt, and his black pants swapped for joggers. To be honest, I don’t even know which look suits him best. Because he’s pure temptation in anything he wears.
My breath catches in my throat every time I see him. And tonight is no different. If anything, he’s much more imposing than before, and I can’t stop myself from staring at him. He knows I’m here. The shifting in his stance as I approach him is visible, but he turns before I get too close. He might look normal again, still, his eyes are pitch black.
“Go away,” he says, his voice barely his own, more like something sinister and ancient warning me to obey him.
“I’m supposed to be mad at you. Not the other way around,” I snap, infuriated because this isn’t on me. None of what’s happening right now is on me. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be scared. You’re a damn devil.”
“Then be fucking scared and leave me alone. Go away, I said,” he growls, the warning in his voice unmistakable now.
Still, not enough to scare me. “No, you won’t hurt me,” I answer, unwilling to leave him. I saw this in his gaze that night when he had a nightmare. He’s fighting the evil within him, and I’m not gonna let him do it alone.
“Don’t be so convinced,” he says, taking a step toward me, his body shaking as if he’s about to lose control at any moment.
thirty-five
-Set-
I feel like I’m going to break into pieces just trying to keep myself from killing her. I know I could never harm her, no matter what shape or darkness clogs my mind. But she keeps pushing me, and that fragile line I hold back begins to fray.
I can’t risk it. I need to get out of here, so I try to move past her, but her fragile body blocks my way, pressing against my chest, as if she could have a real chance of stopping me.
“You don’t understand,” I rasp, struggling to explain, struggling to even think straight. “Every time I take a life, I lose part of my soul,” I say, hoping she gets the message. She needs to stay far away from me. But her body doesn’t budge, her arms still locked around me. I could almost laugh at the effort, but laughing doesn’t come to me. It’s a pain that’s slashing through my soul. I’ve feared this moment so much for so long. Now it’s here. And I have no fucking clue what I’m doing anymore, but the closer she gets, the more the evil within is starting to subside.
“I’m not afraid of your darkness. I’m not afraid of you. Whatever you are, and whatever this means,” she says, her body pressing harder into mine.
In some twisted way, this is all I’ve ever wanted—for her to want me as I am. But it’s not that simple. For that to happen, she has to know everything about me. And I can’t do that—not with her being wrapped all around me.
I gently peel her hands from my waist and take a step backward, the absence of her warmth instantly leaving me cold like I’m out in a blizzard storm.
I have no idea how I’m supposed to do this and keep control. She may still the darkness inside, but the memories I need to invoke will sink me into a total abyss.
The confusion on her face is obvious, as she’s trying to get near me again, but I raise a hand to keep her in place.
“I’ve thought for a long time about how to start this. You weren’t supposed to find out this way. Not before I told you. But I guess that’s changed now.” I can’t look at her as I talk. Not because I don’t want to. It’s because she unsettles me too deeply, and I’d be too close to losing control.
I turn to look down at the city, the real hell beneath us. “My name is Set. But mortals have called me different things throughout history—from God to Demon to Destroyer of Worlds. Truth is, I’m the offspring of what you’d currently call the devil. Contrary to what people believe, he’s not a red-skin monster with a pitchfork, but a force beyond human comprehension. We’re gods. Ruled by desires and ambitions, just like mortals. Only ours are... far stronger. That’s what nearly drove humanity to extinction.” I glance down at the streets, despite the noise, they’re quiet now, too quiet because I remember a time when they roared with pleadings and screams. “We used to see people as insignificant beings made for our pleasure, for our fun. Made to be tortured by us. Made to be broken. But we got greedy and we wanted more and more of their suffering. Until we pushed so hard that there was almost nothing left.” I let out a breath, like it could somehow ease tellingthis to her. “We brought on the apocalypse, driven by our thirst for power, foolish enough to believe we could end the world just for fun. What we didn’t realize... was that humans were the ones who gave us purpose. What is the point of being a god if no one worships you? As punishment, our creator stripped us of most of our power, but also of our dark selves. He wiped our memories, leaving only fragments of the lives we used to know—of what we were.” I turn my head slightly, just to catch a glimpse of her. “I used to be Set, the god you saw in my office.”
“Set,as in the Egyptian God,Set?” Serena asks, and I can hear the distress in her voice.
“Yes. The dark God of Egypt. That was the place our creator assigned to me. People saw me as their dark leader, a deity of chaos.”
“There are stories about you. About your brother Osiris, and how you…”
“...killed him. I know. But Osiris is very much alive. I assure you. You’ll probably meet him someday. Truth is, most ancient history is just stories made up by scared men. Humanity always made up things to explain the unexplainable, came up with stories about our lives and deeds that never actually happened. Back then, information was so scarce that any written story turned into a myth. Imagine someone writing a fantasy book today, and it’s only discovered centuries later, with no other written records to explain the world at that time. You wouldn’t be able to tell fact from fiction. Most the myths are just the imagination of ancient authors, poets, or musicians.” I pause, letting the weight of it sink in. I need her to process all of this before I go on. To be honest, I have no idea what her reaction would be to what I’m telling her.
“So now what? You’ve gone from demon to humanity’s protector?” she asks, trying to make sense of things.
“I’m not good, Serena. None of us are. We’re just here to keep the balance so we don’t lose our favorite toys.”
“You say we, meaning your brothers that I met?”
