There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(13)

The ground pitches beneath me like the deck of a ship.

Every step jolts my body, jolts my jaw, rattles my brain around inside my skull. Blood patters down from my right wrist. I clamp my filthy hand over the wound as I run.

I don’t know how far I’ll have to go.

A cold voice in my head whispers, If it’s more than a mile, you won’t make it. You might not make it another hundred feet. You’re going to pass out any second.

“Shut the fuck up,” I mutter out loud. “I’ll run all night if I have to.”

Rationally, I know that’s impossible. I’m literally at death’s door. Black spots bloom in front of my eyes, disappearing only when I press hard on my own wrist, relying on pain to jolt me awake over and over.

Twice I fall, and the second time I almost don’t get up. The ground feels soft and pillowy, my jaw no longer aching. A warm drowsiness tranquilizes me. It whispers, Stay here and rest awhile. You can get up again after you sleep.

Sleeping means dying. That’s the one thing I know for certain.

With a strangled sob, I force myself up again.

I’ve gotten turned around in the fall. I’m not sure which direction is forward, and which is the way I came.

I take two steps, reeling and confused, almost missing a dark splotch on the side of the path. Blood. My blood. I left a trail like Hansel and Gretel, marking the way I came. Only I have no intention of following it back.

Giggling hysterically, I turn around, striking out fresh once more.

This time, the voice that speaks to me is crystal clear on the night air, as alive as if she were speaking directly into my ear.

I told you this would happen.

I stop and vomit next to the path. I don’t have much in my stomach—what comes out is thin and yellowish, burning like acid.

My mother often has that effect on me.

You go out dressed like that, what did you think was going to happen?

I slap myself in the face, hard enough to make my ears ring.

“Seriously,” I mutter. “Fuck off.”

There’s a pleasant interlude in which I hear only my own ragged breath and the night breeze rustling the trees.

Then, in that sickly-soft tone, always so reasonable even as the words coming out of her mouth are the very definition of insanity, she says, It’s probably for the best. It was only a matter of time for a girl like you . . .

“FUCK OFF!” I roar, startling a bird so it rockets up out of an aspen tree, disappearing into the dark sky, flapping like a bat.

My heart batters painfully against my chest. The beats are not steady. It clenches hard three times and then seems to skip several beats while I gasp and reel in place.

The black spots are everywhere now. They don’t disappear while I blink.

She’s right—I dress like a whore. I’ve never taken care of myself. I probably will come to a bad end.

But there’s another thing my mother always said about me:

I’m a stubborn motherfucker.

And I don’t take advice from anybody, least of all her.

For the last time, I start to run.

The sound I hear next is faint but unmistakable: a swift rushing that swells and recedes at sixty miles an hour. A car on the road ahead.

The path widens out, sloping steeply down. I can no longer feel anything beneath my feet. I can barely tell when the path connects with an actual highway.

I come out on the smooth black tarmac, striped down the middle with a single yellow line.

I stand on that line, watching for headlights coming from either direction.

I’m panting and reeling, my heart now skipping every second beat. Each time it does, I feel a pressure on my chest, the black dots swelling and expanding across my vision.

I hear a distant engine. A white light rushes toward me, gradually separating into two headlights.

I stand right in front of the car, waving my arms, praying to god that it stops before it hits me.





5





Cole





I watch the local headlines for several weeks, waiting for news of a girl’s body found in the woods, or any further developments with Carl Danvers.

He’s got no family locally, and a vast amount of police effort is driven by nagging. The cops are spread thin from the protests breaking out all over the city. Without any invested parties prodding for an answer, it appears the SFPD are happy to let the file on some minor art critic’s disappearance languish at the bottom of the pile.

Getting away with murder is pretty fucking easy.

Only 63 percent of homicides are solved under the best of circumstances—and that includes the cases where the idiot criminal is literally holding the smoking gun. There are precious few genius detectives, despite what network television would have you believe.

I’ve killed fourteen people and I’ve yet to receive a single knock on my door.

A pretty young girl is a different story—the media loves to sensationalize Alastor’s work. They call him the Beast of the Bay for the way he batters his victims and even bites chunks out of their flesh.

He draws too much attention to himself.

If the girl was found, her case would be linked to the seven he’s killed over the last three years. He leaves them out in the open, proclaiming what he’s done.

I don’t like loose ends.

I hope he cleaned up his mess.