Devoured: A Novel(48)

When I worked the “All Over You” video, I had tried my hardest to stay as far away from him as much as professionally possible, but of course he’d been unavoidable. If Lucas had fallen head over heels in kinky lust with my submissive tendencies it was because of Sinjin. Back then, he had freaked me out and even now I just want to shake him off of me.

I push open the exit doors, breathing in fresh air. Sinjin is right on my heels. “No, I don’t think that’s what it is at all. Did we f*ck? Or did you f*ck one of the others before you started up with Lucas? I mean, I know I don’t remember you from him because he doesn’t hold on to ‘em for very long, if you know what I mean?”

“Actually I don’t,” I say. Now, my voice is hard. “I was under the impression that he’s had the same personal assistant for years.”

Sinjin’s nose wrinkles and he shakes his head in pity. “Is that what he says you are—his personal assistant? Whatever keeps your mouth around his dick, right?”

He’s just trying to get a response out of me, but God, he sure is going for a big one. When I say nothing, crossing my arms over my chest, he begins to laugh. Loud, boisterous laughter that makes a woman in the next parking lot glance over at us with her eyebrow lifted.

Turning his body in her direction, he yells out, “What are you looking at, you fat bitch?”

Even from several feet away I hear her gasp before she flushes a bright red, rushes into her car and speed off. What’s wrong with this man? He’s shaking with laughter, raking his hands through his short, blonde hair, and singing. I back up towards the door to get inside of the studio, banging on it so that the guard can let me in.

Sinjin turns back around to face me, and there are tears streaming down his cheeks. Now, instead of laughing, he’s sobbing violently. I move closer to him, finally noticing the beads of perspiration on his upper lip. He shakes his head, backs up.

He’s messed up, completely obliterated. I’ve not been around drug addicts for so long that it’s taken me this long to notice it.

“Don’t touch me, you slut,” he hisses, pulling at clumps of his hair.

“I’m trying to help you, and—”

He lunges toward me, and out of reflex or watching too many movies with Tori, I ram my elbow back into his nose and bring my knee up to strike him in the stomach. He stumbles backward, glaring down at the blood on one of his hands and holding his belly tight with the other. Then he vomits all over himself.

The door behind us buzzes open.

?



Lucas orders me to go home, to the house on Green Hills, and wait for him while he handles things for Sinjin. I don’t argue, despite having a million questions and even more concerns. But I find myself pulling Lucas close to me, our hands clasped and his chin on top of my head. He inhales my scent for what seems like forever before gently nudging me into the Escalade. When our eyes meet, the fear in his is enough to paralyze me.

I’m still shaken the moment after I enter the house and lock the doors and activate the alarm, but I call Seth. After seeing Sinjin fall apart and realizing how much of things similar to that Seth had seen as a kid, I know it’s the perfect time to talk to my brother. Plus, Lucas is right. There’s so much I need to say to my brother and until I do, I won’t ever be able to do anything else.

Seth sounds anguished from the moment he answers. “Sienna, I’m—”

“No, you listen for once,” I say. “You can’t just take out your frustrations on people you care about without even giving them a chance to explain themselves. And by the way, I don’t have to explain myself to you, the same way you don’t want to prove yourself to me. You ripped into me without knowing a goddamn thing about what was going on. If you had only asked me, I probably would have just told you what you wanted to know.”

“Look, I—”

I cut him off again. “I’m not finished. If you ever talk to me like you did yesterday again, I will kick you in the balls, Seth. You’re so pissed at what Mom did to you, the way Jeremy used to talk to you, the people they brought around you, and yet you act just like them.” And here I am, the total opposite of Seth. Wincing every time someone so much as breathes at me.

“Seth, I don’t want to be the f*cked up people they’ve made us,” I whisper.

He inhales and exhales heavily for what seems like minutes, hours, but in reality is only seconds. “Me neither.”