36. Petra
PETRA
“I can’t tell you,” I reply in a soft tone, trying to diffuse the situation. “It’s—let’s just say it’s complicated, Sin.”
“Complicated?” he snaps, and the glint in his eyes sets my heart aflutter. It is at once questioning and condemning. “What does that even mean?”
“Sin, I told you, it’s not your baby. That’s all you need to know.” There. That’s the ground I’m willing to concede to this pushy, frustratingly attractive young man.
“No, Petra, that’s not enough! I need more, Petra. Please, tell me: Who’s the father?” His eyes have something unhinged in them now.
The lines of his body are taut, and even in my current state of defiance-laced fear, I can’t help but notice how his neck muscles strain against the lapels of his shirt. “Sin, please, you’re scaring me. This isn’t the way to—”
“Who. Is. The. Father?” Each word uttered with a staccato rhythm that bores into the sides of my head. I just stare back at him with the coldest look I can muster.
Instantly, his expression shifts.
Now he steps back and places his hands on his hips, shaking his head in frustration.
“Damn it, Petra! Don’t you see? I need to know. You owe me that much.”
“How—how dare you say that?” I snap back with fire in my eyes. “I owe you nothing. Nothing at all!”
My words are followed by a dramatic streak of lightning that momentarily illuminates our surroundings in a brilliant flash.
“And you’re in no place to make such demands—”
“Fine,” Sin cuts me off in a brisk tone that chills me to the bone. “If you’re not going to tell me who the father is, then I need a list. A list of everyone you’ve slept with.”
“Wh-what?” I stammer out after a few seconds. “Sin, that’s insane!”
“Well maybe that’s because I am mad, Petra,” Sin says back in a smooth enough tone, but the look in his eyes is fervent and bright. “I’m mad for you, Petra. And I need to know.”
His words sound somewhat skewed, as if I am hearing them through a shaky tube. I try stepping around him, and my back slides across the wall.
“Sin, you’re scaring me,” I repeat as I move very, very slowly. “This doesn’t sound like you. Please . . . you need to calm down.”
And you need to get the fuck away from this guy! my inner voice yells in my head as Sin takes a step closer.
“Don’t you understand, Petra?” His voice is much watered with emotion and tears, but his face is .
. . frankly terrifying. “Ever since the fall ball, the video . . . I can’t think straight.
I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. All I can think about is you and this .
. . this baby. I need to know everything, Petra. I need you.”
“Sin, please,” I murmur back as he lightly tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “This isn’t the way. You’re not thinking clearly.”
His face contorts with desperation and anger as his palms cup my face. The way they are shaking makes me wonder if he is struggling against a mad, savage impulse to tighten his grip.
“Then make me understand!” he whispers harshly, pressing his forehead against mine. “Give me something to go on. How many others were there? Who else do I need to worry about?”
The last words are uttered in a singsong inflection that will haunt my future dreams.
All this time, my mind has been trying to figure a way out of this nightmare.
Once again, the surrealness of the situation strikes me. Much like the ill-fated Dr. Jekyll, the Sin I know—charming, funny, laid-back—seems to be completely taken over by Mr. Hyde, the obsessive Sin who sees no issue with invading my privacy and asking me uncomfortable questions.
And also proclaiming that he’s mad about you! My annoying inner voice chimes in again. Are we seriously going to move past that part?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sin. This is—this is unbelievable.” My voice quivers a bit, but I manage to get the words out. “And even if there was anyone else, I wouldn’t give you a list. This . . . this isn’t normal.”
“Normal left the building a while back, Petra.” A hollow humor laces his poisoned words. “Look, it’s not that complicated. I just need the truth. I need to know who’s in your life, who I have to compete with.”
“You’re scaring me more than anyone right now, Sin. This isn’t about competition. What am I saying, you need to leave, Sin. Now!”
But he just stands there, drenched and desperate, his face and limbs twitching slightly under some duress.
“I’ve done everything right,” he starts with a snarl. “I’ve kept all the guys away from you. I’ve acted like a gentleman. And still, you managed to find someone to sleep with. How in hell did you manage that, Petra? How many guys? How many times?”
There is so much heated hate in his words that I physically recoil from them. Who in the world talks like this? No, who the hell does he think he is to talk to me like this?
“NO!” My voice cracks over him like a whip, and with some satisfaction, I watch him stumble back. “You don’t get to control this. You don’t get to fucking demand these answers from me. And what the hell was that about . . . about keeping guys away from me—”
“I did it because I care about you, Petra,” Sin cries out just as I shout, “You think you have the right to decide who I date?”
We are both breathing harder now.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Sin spits out. “But now . . . now this? How many, Petra? How many times did they touch you?”
“There’s no ‘they,’ Sin!” I shout back. “I’m not some fuckboy like you. Stop making this into something it’s not.”
“I’m not a fuckboy!” Sin retorts in a louder, more sonorous tone than he has ever used with me. “I tried. So. Hard. I waited for you, I cared for you! And still it wasn’t enough. So tell me, Petra. I need to know.”
And though I try hard to appear aloof, the distorted conversation has me spinning around in circles, mentally, as I struggle to reconcile the person standing before me with the same guy who had shared secrets and laughter with me in the dark bowels of St. Anselm Hall.
Are you really surprised? The guy used to take you to a crypt for your “study dates.” The sarcasm of my inner voice is hard to ignore, but I keep the rancor out of my voice.
“Sin, clearly, you’re not yourself at the moment. This macho alpha personality is impressing nobody. Seriously, whatever you think you’re protecting, you’re destroying it instead.” The last words are delivered with a wince as he lunges at me midway through the utterance.
“I just-I just want you to be mine, Petra. As I will be yours. It’s a special thing we have here, don’t you see?” His shoulders have slumped down, and there’s a broken longing on his face that almost, almost, makes my heart ache for him.
I take a shaky breath as a part of my fear morphs into deep sorrow.
Ah, how many sweet dreams had been spun around handsome boys like Sin! How many of those reveries were bitter illusions in the end . . .
“Because love isn’t control, Sin,” I manage to whisper at last, spurred to urgent response by the rapidly darkening expression on his face. “It’s about trust and respect. And you’re destroying that with every demand. Like, this is so beyond normal that I can’t believe you’re not joking right now.”
His silence is deafening as he looks at me in pointed observation. As if he were a scientist and I the insect squirming under his magnifying glass.
In this storm-battered moment, any hope for understanding seems like a distant dream. I realize, with mounting panic, that he has taken hold of my arm, his fingers tightening imperceptibly with each passing second.
“Sin, please,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “Just let me go.”
But he takes a step closer, completely ignoring my words. “Petra, you can’t run from this. From us.”
The hell I can!
The next second, I push at his chest with all my might. “Petra, wha—” Sin cries out as I brace my shoulder against his shoulder and shove once more. He stumbles back and loses his footing, but I don’t stick around to see what he’ll do next.
Instead, I bound up the last flight of stairs before the hallway, and once in the corridor, I keep running—even as I hear Sin follow me close behind, yelling something indistinctive, perhaps a wordless shout of frustration.
“Damnation!” I hear him shout just as I reach the door of my room.
I scamper inside and try to slam the door shut—
“Petra, stop!” Sin cuts in, putting his hand between the door and its frame at just the last moment.
And I hate that my hand stops automatically, that I can’t bring the door down crashing on his stupid, slender fingers.
“Petra, stop running away from me!” he says in a loud voice, rushing into the room after me.
“Sin, you’re scaring me,” I start saying but already the edges of my vision are blurring, the walls of the room slanting and the ceiling dipping. “Just let me be!”
His face softens for a moment, but the wildness remains—a barely disguised streak of madness. “I won’t hurt you, Petra. I will never hurt you.”
But I’m far away now, and his voice is muffled by a cottony layer that’s settling around all my senses. My vision is blurring now, and my legs shake uncontrollably; at one point, they fail to support me entirely, and I start slipping.
“Please, Sin,” I manage to say before the world turns black. “Please, just leave.”