71. Petra
PETRA
Arnoult is still for moments on end, cradling Leah’s head, tears streaming down his cheeks. A loud, earth-shattering wail erupts from him before he carefully lays her down and directs his attention toward Snowden.
“How could you? She was your daughter!” he snarls in anguish.
“And she went and got pregnant with your child. I daresay she is just a casualty. The real target was your unborn child,” Snowden scoffs.
“I cannot believe there was a time I called you a friend. You . . .”
Arnoult launches himself at Snowden, pulling a hidden knife from his boot and brandishing it toward Leah’s killer. Snowden doesn’t seem surprised; in fact, he looks like he was expecting it. Before Arnoult can reach him, Snowden withdraws a pistol from his vest and takes aim.
“No!” I yell, just as Sin uses his shadows to teleport in front of Arnoult, opening a shadow-like void for the bullet to pass through—redirecting it so it doesn’t strike his mentor. Snowden stares in disbelief.
“You never said he was capable of that,” he mutters with skepticism. He’s clearly shocked, but still exudes that same smug self-assurance, convinced he’s going to win. “My love, finish that man for me, will you?” he murmurs sweetly to the corpse beside him.
The creature wobbles from side to side, barely balanced on rotting legs. Her flesh is tinged yellow and green with decay. One eye is completely gone, and the other is half-eaten. Her cheeks are sunken—partially consumed by maggots now crawling into the bone.
She walks toward Sin with mechanical movements, ready to attack.
Sin teleports behind her, grabs her neck, and snaps it. She drops like dead weight. But no sooner does she fall than she rises again.
I remember what Sin told me: No matter what you do, she will rise again. The only way to end her is to destroy her maker.
Yet there’s something else. Each time Sin kills her, she comes back stronger. Faster. The first time, she could barely stand.
Now, her spine is straight, and her steps are certain as she charges toward him.
“Be careful!” I call out, fear rising in my throat.
“Don’t worry about me, Petra,” he shouts back. “I can handle this. Trust me.”
“Yes, but—”
“Trust me,” he repeats, punching through the creature’s gut, his fist emerging through her back. I turn away, revolted by the grotesque sight. It’s not just disturbing—it’s inhuman.
Meanwhile, Snowden is closing in on Arnoult, a smirk on his face. He thinks he’s already won. He’s killed his own daughter; who knows what else he’s capable of?
He raises the gun again, aiming at Arnoult. But his arrogance won’t let him act without delivering a final line.
“You cost me everything. And now you’ll pay.”
I spot a second knife concealed behind Arnoult’s back. He wields it deftly, keeping it hidden.
Just as Snowden squeezes the trigger, Arnoult throws the blade—it hits Snowden in the upper arm.
The gun falls to the ground. Snowden groans in pain.
“You coward!” Arnoult growls. “How could you poison your own daughter? You’ll pay for this!”
He charges, grabbing the knife still lodged in Snowden’s arm.
First, he pushes it deeper to cause more pain, then tries to yank it free. Snowden counters, slamming his other arm down on Arnoult’s grip and shoving him away.
I watch from behind, caught between two battles.
On one side, Arnoult and Snowden are locked in hand-to-hand combat. They fall to the ground, rolling, grappling, each trying to seize the knife. It’s a blur of limbs and fury. I can’t even tell who’s winning—until someone is stabbed. But who?
On the other side, Sin continues his fight with the undead creature. There are holes punched through her body—one in her chest, one in her lower stomach, another through her cheek.
I can tell he’s trying to destroy her brain, trying to find a weakness. But she’s not like other beings. She has no heart. The gaping cavity in her chest proves it. No brain that functions.
She’s just a weapon. A body that moves. Obeys. Kills.
My heart hammers in my chest. Sin is covered in scratches and bite marks. His shirt is shredded, blood soaking through the fabric.
“Sin,” I whisper. “Please be okay.”
Somehow, he hears me.
But the moment his eyes flick to mine, the creature strikes. She mimics his earlier move, punching toward his chest and digging her claws into his skin.
“No!” I scream.
But just in time, Sin teleports again—vanishing before she can do more harm. He reappears behind her and immobilizes her, though he’s clearly in pain. His face is pale, blood still trickling from his wounds. But he pushes through it.
“You have to kill him! Kill Snowden, or the creature cannot die!”
The only response from Arnoult is a groan of pain, some guttural, unintelligible sound.
“The only ones dying tonight . . .” Snowden growls, gritting his teeth, “are you.”
He straddles Arnoult, who is lying on his back in the grass, and raises the knife high, gaining momentum to stab him in the heart.
Sin notices and quickly teleports to help him, but just as he reaches Arnoult’s side, the creature tackles him to the ground. They both roll onto the grass.
Arnoult is still pinned under Snowden’s body, and both of them search through the grass for the knife.
Once again, Snowden finds it first. Arnoult grabs for it, trying to wrest it away, but the blade is now lodged between their two bodies. Snowden pushes it toward Arnoult’s chest while Arnoult desperately tries to stop it from breaking his skin.
Sin struggles to get away from the creature long enough to help his mentor, but by now, she’s too fast. She won’t give him any opening—any window to intervene.
As I watch, heart pounding, wondering whether Snowden will finally plunge the knife into Arnoult’s chest, something catches my eye—a glint of light in the grass just a few feet away from me.
The gun.
It’s the same one from before.
I move in slow, methodical steps and pick it up with trembling hands. Just as the tip of the blade breaks Arnoult’s skin and blood seeps through his shirt, I raise the gun and aim it at Snowden.
I’ve never fired a gun before. I’ve never even held one. But I understand how it works. I think I can do this.
In that moment, I don’t hesitate. Maybe I should have stopped to consider what it means to take a life to save another.
But the truth is, I don’t care about Arnoult. I don’t care about Snowden.
I only care about my Sin.
And if the only way to make that creature stop hurting him is to kill Snowden, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.
I swallow hard, eyes fixed on my target. My fingers find the cold trigger.
I fire.
The first bullet strikes him in the arm, but I’m already committed.
I take a step forward, then another step, reloading as I go.
Snowden turns to look at me, his face a mask of shock. While he was so focused on the man, he forgot about the girl he called docile.
I shoot again.
This time, the bullet hits his chest. He teeters off Arnoult and collapses in the grass, groaning.
I take another step forward, reload once more.
When I reach him, when I’m standing right over him, I aim at his head.
The only way Sin is safe is if this man dies.
I shoot.
The force of it knocks me back. The bullet enters Snowden’s skull and shatters it from within—brain matter, bone fragments, blood—all scattered in the grass. Arnoult stares at me in shock from the sidelines.
I throw the gun aside and turn to find Sin.
A loud, unnatural scream splits the air.
The creature stumbles backward. Her entire body goes slack—frozen in place. Only her mouth remains open, her voice shrieking like a siren, like an alarm echoing in the still night.
She screams and screams until her skin starts to melt off her bones.
Her bones are next, shattering under my very gaze . . . until there’s nothing left but ash. Even that is eventually swept away in the wind.
I blink. Adrenaline still floods my veins. I can’t fully process what I’ve just seen—or what I’ve done.
All I know is that I need Sin to be okay.
I run to him.
He’s injured—his chest torn with claw marks, blood seeping from his wounds.
“Sin,” I whisper, “please tell me you’re okay. Please.”
“Petra . . . you . . . you killed him,” he murmurs.
“I did,” I whisper, nodding. Then I frown. “Did I?”
He pulls me into his arms as I glance back at Snowden’s ruined skull.
Arnoult slowly rises to his feet and stumbles toward where Leah’s body lies. He’s wounded, too, but I know the pain in his heart is far deeper than anything physical. He doesn’t look at us. He just pulls her into his arms and mourns in silence.
I stand frozen, still staring at the bloody mess on the grass. “Snowden . . . I did that,” I say again, stunned.
“Are you all right?” Sin asks softly.
I look at him, unable to answer. I don’t know what to feel, if I should feel anything.
“I will be,” I eventually say.
He kisses the top of my head, and I note the strain in his features. He’s in pain, and he’s asking me if I’m all right.
“We need to tend to your injuries.”
“Not now.” He shakes his head. “First, we must take care of the bodies.”
“What?”
“We can’t leave them here to be found by constables.”
With slow, tentative steps, he walks toward Arnoult.
“Sinclair . . .”
“Don’t ask me that. Don’t ask me to leave her.”
“You must.”
“I can’t.” He holds her tighter in his arms. His voice is broken and rough. “How can she be gone . . .” he whispers. “She was fine just moments ago. Both her and the baby. And now . . .” He breaks into a harsh sob. “They can’t be gone.”
“Sinclair, I’m sorry for your loss. But we must move along.”
“No,” he states resolutely. Still holding her in his arms, he rises to his feet and starts walking toward the house.
Sin’s lips are flattened into a thin line of concern as he nods for me to come to him. He also grabs what’s left of Snowden’s body and the gun and carries them toward the house.
“Why . . .”
“You will see,” he merely answers.
Once we enter the house, there’s a trail of blood that leads toward the hallway. We make our way carefully there, and instead of finding other victims of Snowden, we encounter Arnoult holding a bloody knife in his hand.
Leah is carefully seated on a chair. And on the floor, one of the servants is bleeding profusely.
“What the hell, Sinclair?” Sin demands.
“I can’t leave her. Not again. I’m taking her with me,” he replies mechanically.
“What is this for then?”
Sin dumps the body of Snowden to the ground next to the dead servant.
“You wanted to arrange the scene. Be my guest. I’m leaving,” Arnoult adds.
Pocketing his knife, he takes Leah again in his arms and leaves.
Both Sin and I stare at each other in shock.
“Now what?” I whisper.
“We arrange the scene, I suppose.”
“Uhm, in case you did not realize, one person is stabbed, and the other is missing the better part of the skull. No matter how much you arrange it, there will be concerns.”
“Not if they consider it a murder-suicide.”
“Sin. He’s missing his brain!” I point out, trying to forget I was the one who did that damage in the first place.
He purses his lips, then sighs. “A little harder to achieve but not impossible.”
“What do you want to do?”
He disappears in the blink of an eye, then appears with a canister. The smell reaches me immediately—kerosene.
“A fire it is, I suppose.” He doesn’t seem too thrilled at the prospect.
“And how will anyone infer that it was a murder-suicide from a fire?” I roll my eyes at him.
“The butler. He must be still sleeping. I will find him.”
“And—”
“Pay him.” He shrugs.
Then he disappears again. I don’t see him for minutes on end while he is no doubt bribing the butler and dousing the house in kerosene.
I let out a weary sigh. I am tired, and angry, and as I look down at the dead bodies, a little disgusted.
I’m not entirely sure if I should be angry about killing Snowden—he deserved it more than anyone. But Leah’s death? She was pregnant!
Sadness fills me to the brim as I remember the short moments she had with Arnoult, how even I had been convinced by their romance, despite my reservations.
And now? She’s gone. Just like that.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
Hopefully, wherever she is, she knows she was avenged, and that Arnoult will likely carry her memory with him for the rest of his life.
A flash of color enters my sight.
“Oh, you scared me,” I burst out when I see Sin has returned.
“The butler needed a little more convincing. He’s out of the house now, though. The only thing left is . . .” He looks around. “We should probably move the bodies to a location that makes more sense.”
“They’ll find charred bodies, Sin.”
He shrugs. “It needs to be believable.”
“Well, I’m not touching either of them, so go do your thing.”
He gives me a charming smile. “I would have never asked you to.” He winks.
He carries Snowden first, then the lady servant. I don’t ask him where he decided to put them; I don’t think I care that much.
When he’s back for me, he merely teleports me outside the house before going in one last time. “The fire has to come from within, from Snowden’s own lighter.”
So I wait for him while he lays the first spark of the fire. When he’s finally back, he just nods at me and pulls me into his arms.
“Close your eyes,” he whispers before teleporting us to his underground home. “We should probably take a bath,” he says. I would have readily agreed if it weren’t for his almost slurred speech and pale countenance.
“Sin?” I ask tentatively.
He’s still bleeding from the deeper wounds. At this point, I don’t even know how many of those are there. It feels as though the creature ripped through his flesh from head to toe.
He sways a little on his feet, at which point I quickly react, shouldering his weight and helping him to the couch.
“I’ll be fine.”
Except he’s not. He’s out cold.