75. Petra
PETRA
Present Day
I wake up screaming. The pain still lingers in my mind, in my skin, my bones. I’m shaking from the residual adrenaline as the images from my dream loop in my mind.
“Petra? What’s wrong?” Sin asks, his expression filled with worry.
I continue crying out. He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me.
“Petra, what’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?” he keeps asking.
I stare at him through tear-rimmed eyes, seeing him—Sin. My Sin. But now I have the knowledge of the past. I know what he did. I know that he . . .
“You left me,” I whisper in a broken voice. “You left me!” I cry out, sobs wracking my body.
He frowns and shakes his head. “What are you talking about? I’m here. I never left you.”
“Liar!” I shout and push him off me. “Liar!”
I continue backing away from him until I almost fall off the bed. On shaky legs, I get up, still staring at him—at his familiar face that now feels so strange.
Because this person in front of me is the same person from over a hundred years ago.
He’s the same person who never came for me when I called for him. The same person who abandoned me to live the most painful moments of my life. The same person who was never there when I needed him the most.
“You . . .” My voice trembles, my body high on adrenaline. I can still feel the lick of the fire from before, that penetrating pain that doesn’t seem to go away no matter how hard I try.
And now, there’s also the heartbreak.
“You left me,” I say again, brokenly.
“Petra, please talk to me. Tell me what this is about, and we’ll fix it, okay? I never left you,” he swears.
I shake my head at him.
“Please, Petra, calm down. It can’t be good for the baby.”
“Now you’re worrying about me?” I burst out.
Unable to face him for a moment longer, I dash out of the room. And yet, the only place I can run to is the old study. I race across the corridor, reach the door, open and close it behind me, and lock it.
I hear his steps following me, then the bangs at the door.
“Petra! Tell me what’s going on, please!”
“No. I can’t talk right now. Please, let me be.”
“Petra, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself,” I mutter and step away from the door.
I hear him slide to the floor, his back against the frame. Just as he said—he’s not leaving.
And yet, there is another reason why I came here. Because if there were newspaper clips about those other events, then there has to be one about what happened that night in the town square at the obelisk.
I start looking around. I go straight for the stack of papers from before, but this time I know they’re not there anymore.
“What?” I murmur to myself.
But now I know—it was him.
He must have been the one to put them there in the first place, and now he’s hidden them somewhere for some unknown reason.
So, I start searching.
Like a madwoman, I tear all the books from the shelves. Everything in my path, I fling to the floor when I see it doesn’t serve any purpose.
There are so many items in here. A treasure trove of antiques he must have collected throughout time.
And then another question: If he is immortal now, what about then? Was he not immortal back then, too? How long has he been alive? How many other women has he preyed on?
Even though, logically, I know that someone as devoted as Sin would probably not look at another woman, my feelings—my emotions—are running so hot that I cannot think rationally.
I can only look for the things he’s hidden from me.
The manipulation, everything he’s done from the past until now.
Because no matter how much I love him, I have to admit to myself that I don’t know him. I don’t know a thing about him.
I didn’t know him in the past, either. He might have given me pieces of information, he might have said a thing or two about who he is and where he came from, but even then, the most important things he always hid from me.
I once asked him what deal he made with that entity who saved him when he was fourteen, and he never gave me a straight answer.
Perhaps because this is the answer. The fact that he is immortal. The fact that he’s engineered the death of tens of people—maybe even hundreds I don’t know about.
But that’s not all.
He claims to love me, but all he’s done so far is take advantage of me, of my insecurities, my situation, time and time again.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. All around me, books are flung across the room. Some of them are torn from my reckless need for answers.
Now, looking down at the ripped pages, I feel a hole in my stomach.
I caused this. And even I don’t recognize myself anymore.
I sink to the floor on my knees. I place my palms on the ground and take big gulps of air in an attempt to calm my wild heartbeat.
Think, Petra. Think. It’s not like you to get worked up so easily.
I let out a dry laugh.
How could anyone not get worked up over this? Over everything?
I was just a regular high school student a few months ago. Just a normal human.
And now?
Now the father of my baby is some type of immortal entity who manically murders people.
And I have to contend with the fact that I don’t know what to trust anymore—about him, about this world, about the evil I’ve witnessed, about the fact that there might be some type of evil festering inside of me.
I just . . . I don’t know anymore.
For minutes, I try to calm myself. And that’s when, from the corner of my eye, I see it. The same yellowed paper as the newspaper clips from before. It’s not a fixed stack, just a few pages tucked inside the middle of a book.
I crawl toward it on my knees, pick up the book, open it, and remove the slips of newspaper with trembling hands.
The first one is another report on Snowden and Leah’s deaths. It details more about the fire at his house and includes the testimony of his butler, who was the one to imply that Snowden had gone mad at finding out his daughter was pregnant out of wedlock and had killed her before killing himself.
No doubt—the narrative that Sin paid him to espouse.
I look at the next file, and horror clamps down on me. It’s a photograph of the obelisk in the aftermath of the fire.
There’s no body, but I can see the burnt ashes and the pieces of rope that had been around my limbs.
I feel another panic attack incoming—my throat closing up, my vision spinning—yet I push myself to keep going. I read the text:
Public Execution.
The daughter of a prominent religious leader was killed in the town square by her father and a zealous mob. She was reputed to be in cahoots with the pagan society from St. Anselm Hall. Some even claimed she might have been the devil’s whore.
The article details the symbol on my chest and how its presence confirmed, in the eyes of both my father and the crowd, that I must be marked by the devil.
Nowhere does the article condemn the actions of the townspeople. Nowhere does it express remorse for what happened.
For the fact that an innocent woman was burned alive.
No—it just says these “drastic actions” reflect the townspeople’s fear. Their conviction that something evil lingers in Ratcliffe.
“Petra . . .” Sin’s voice echoes.
I don’t answer.
Instead, I grab my phone and text the only person who’s still on my side.
I need help.
I type to Amelia, waiting with bated breath, hoping she has her phone on her. That she’ll answer. That she’ll give me something—guidance, support, anything.
Please, Ames. Respond. I need you.
I quickly type again. But then my whole body freezes.
My eyes widen just as the phone slips from my hand.
What was that?
Two low sounds. In quick succession.
Text messages—from behind the door.
No. No, no. Anything but this.
Ames . . .
I send again. Another sound.
Where are you?
Another sound.
Finally, I type:
Sin?
Another ping comes from the other side of the door, followed by:
“I’m sorry, Petra,” Sin’s voice rings out.
I throw my phone to the ground, tears streaming down my face.
And still, I hold onto some belief that maybe I have it all wrong. That maybe it’s just my thinking that is skewed.
So I ask, “What did you do to her? Did you steal her phone? Where is she?
“What did you do to her?” I call out, my voice full of venom and vehemence.
Yet his answer is still the same.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I did it for you. For us.”