37
Sin isn’t at the lighthouse nor the beach. Calix and I run along sandy shores, following the trace scents of mint and soap and candy, but he’s nowhere to be found.
We race across the road, past any and every landmark on the island, and my heart is in my throat now. Black twines over Calix’s skin like skeletal fingers—like Death’s fingers—and Sin… Where is he?
He has to be hurt, bleeding, alone. Our plan failed.
Our plan failed, and now they’re going to die.
Fuck. I ball my hands into fists and throw myself down the street faster, leaving Calix behind me.
He calls out, tells me it’s okay, but it’s not.
It’s not. My hair whips around me with the mildly cool breeze of Florida in December.
The city smells like ocean, like dirt, like grime and sweat and humans .
And I should miss it, I should contemplate fleeing home to my father, but those smells don’t belong to me anymore.
This island with the flashing streetlights and the flickering neon signs, it doesn’t feel much like home at all.
Perhaps because I can see more than before—I notice dewdrops forming on the tall lamps, bloodstains on the ground, worn facades of gas stations and saloons with porous, splintering wood and grungy metal.
I hear riotous noises from inside.
I hear… screaming.
Stopping abruptly in the middle of the road, I tilt my head. Calix has already heard it, and he’s charging toward the bar as we speak. A local dive, with Christmas lights tangled atop a crooked wooden awning and two massive saloon doors that do little to keep out the mangled sounds of fighting.
Sin.
His voice is crystal clear inside as he says, “If you’re going to throw a punch, at least put more effort into it than that.”
I race after Calix, my heart in my throat and my nails cutting into my palm. We burst into the bar, knocking aside the doors, fists out and ready to fight. But—we both screech to a sudden halt in our pursuit, and I slam into Calix’s back.
Whatever danger we expected, it’s not… this.
Beer signage flashes in vivid reds and blues above a sticky bar, with liquor bottles spread out along the surface and alcohol dripping onto the floor. Sin takes a shot with four huge men who wear gray beards down to their bellies, and then he steps away from them.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Hit me again.”
I blink. A man in a leather vest and cutoff jean shorts throws a punch into Sin’s chest, but it has no effect other than Sin laughing. “See,” he says. “Told you.”
“What kinda trick is that?” one of the men asks.
Sin wiggles his fingers. “You’ll never know.” He swivels around on a barstool, tossing more amber liquid into his mouth before he spots us. Maybe Sin has a fake ID I never knew about. “Ah!” he shouts. “My cousin! My lover! Welcome them, everyone.”
Weirdly, everyone does.
It’s clearly not compulsion because they kind of grumble the words, but nonetheless, Sin seems to have enthralled each person in this bar with charm alone.
Well, each person except for Calix and me.
The bearded men clear away, grabbing liquor bottles of their choosing and stalking off to red lacquered booths in the back, but Calix stalks forward, headed straight for his cousin.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Calix demands, snatching Sin from his stool and hoisting him to his feet by the collar of Sin’s very mundane polo shirt. “Are you drunk ?”
Sin pats his cousin’s arm lightly—and then he notices the blood. Black blood dries on Calix’s shirt, on his arm, his bullet wound healed but the evidence remaining, and Sin pokes it, nose twitching. “Why are you covered in ink?”
“It’s blood ,” Calix snarls. He throws Sin back onto the stool, and Sin wobbles for a moment before righting himself with all the grace and dexterity of a cat currently using its ninth life.
“Apologies,” Sin says. “How could I have known?”
“Maybe through our mothers’ bargain. The one wherein our lives are tied to each other’s .”
“I have been busy,” Sin says—slurs. “And the humans will hear you if you keep yelling.” I step forward, out of Calix’s shadow, and Sin reaches for me. “Truly, Cousin, I expected a little less melodrama from you.”
Calix’s muscles coil. He looks as if he’s about to explode out of his own flesh—or maybe shift into a wolf. But he breathes deeply, and his jaw tenses. His voice lowers so that only we can hear it. “I could kill you.”
Sin pulls me to his side, his hand tacky with old, bitter liquor as it wraps around my wrist. I stare down at him in confusion.
This… was not our plan. This is nothing like our plan.
But when I frown at him, he quickly glances away, plucks a glass of amber alcohol from the bar, and downs it in a single gulp.
“Killing me would kill yourself, and even you aren’t that self-sacrificing. ”
“Try me,” Calix says.
Sin furrows his brow, and his nose twitches again. He looks back at me and brushes the wild hair from my nape. “Vanessa, darling, why do you smell like my cousin again?”
I would pull away from him, but his grip is manacle-tight, and his thumb traces a smooth path along the curve of my wrist. It’s an easy movement, a careful one.
It doesn’t feel very drunk at all. But I glare at him anyway.
This wasn’t our plan, and I really don’t want to explain why I have Calix’s scent all over me.
I like even less that I can’t smell it on myself.
“Because I had to sneak her out of the castle in order for us to find you when my veins started turning black,” Calix says fiercely. “We thought you were dying .”
Sin doesn’t bother turning his attention to his cousin. Deadpan, he says, “Well, clearly I am not.”
Calix snarls. Sin ignores it. Moving his hand down my wrist, he entwines our fingers and squeezes. “Are you okay?” he asks me softly. There isn’t a drop of alcohol in that perfect, beautiful voice, and my head spins. I lean against the bar for support.
What is going on?
“She is definitely not fine. She”—Calix points to me—“just ran into her father for the first time since becoming one of us. You should talk to her. Maybe explain what the hell you’re doing here, because she seems as shocked as I am.
” To me, Calix says, “I’m going to clean up so I don’t attract more attention. ”
“Yes,” Sin says, “because the seven-foot-tall, colossal nineteen-year-old is very subtle usually.”
Cursing, Calix stomps off toward the black curtain that separates the bar from the bathroom. Once he disappears from sight, Sin’s grasp hardens. I can’t even manage to ask him what’s happening before he says, “You saw your father?” His voice drips with molten control and clear sobriety.
He’s not drunk. But he’s in a bar.
Why?
I shake my head, blinking rapidly to clear away the confusion.
“He… he was on duty, and Calix was handling the SUV like a Formula One driver to get to you. My dad pulled us over.” I release his hand and step back an inch.
“Why are you here, Sin? Why did Calix’s arm start to decay?
” My voice cracks. “I thought… I thought you were dying .”
Sin’s face falls, and he glances to that black curtain before he stands. Brushing my hair back from my face, trailing his hands over my cheeks, he says, “We can’t talk about that here. I promise I’m all right.” But— no . A white-hot comet explodes against my ribs. He’s lying .
“Sin—”
His wine-stained eyes narrow, and I… I smell it.
The copper stench of pain. Blood. He tries to back away from me, but I hook a finger in the collar of his shirt and peel it back.
Sin exhales roughly as I expose a deep cut, scarlet congealing above the white bone of his shoulder.
Oh my god. My stomach churns brutally, violently, at the sight.
Silver. It had to be inflicted by silver. He… he could have…
Sin tugs his shirt back in place, however, as if it’s no more than a paper cut. “Not now,” he says. “It’s not safe here.”
Truth.
But I glance around for an explanation as to why. The bearded men have returned to their booths and conversations. The bartender wipes down his perpetually messy bar. Calix is in the bathroom. Why —
Sin retreats a step, his hands falling from me in an abrupt, cold second.
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” a girl says, and instantly, my body fills with dread.
I stiffen, and I refuse to turn around.
A pair of heels clacks over the gritty floor, growing louder and louder like the beginning wails of a tornado siren.
Evelyn Lee approaches Sin, a glass full of some kind of thick, green mucus in her hand as she glares at me with the hatred of a thousand burning suns.
“I’m gone for three minutes, and she’s here?
” Evie shoves the glass into Sin’s chest. “Take your damn potion. I hope it hurts.”
“You wound me, Evie,” Sin says dryly, though he immediately heaps the mucus onto his shoulder. The wound… closes. Just like that. My brows pinch, and Evie rolls her eyes. Planting a fist on the high waist of her black miniskirt, she wedges herself between me and Sinclair.
“What an interesting coincidence to run into you here, Vanessa ,” she says, saccharinely sweet. “Is this your favorite local hang?” She glances around at the dirt, the dust, and the grime. “It certainly seems like a place you’d frequent.”
Sin pushes her aside, if only a centimeter, and forces a chuckle.
“Ladies, as much as I enjoy you both fighting over me, I really must demand that you relax. We are in a place of tranquility, after all.” He smiles brightly, as though this isn’t the biggest lie he’s ever told. Evie narrows her red gaze at him.
“Must you always act like an absolute nitwit?”
“I can promise you, it’s not an act,” Sin lies through his teeth.
“Our engagement will be one for the ages,” Evie says—and now it’s her turn to delve into flame-hot dishonesty.
Sin nods. “Our grandchildren’s children will speak of our illustrious affair.”
Lie.