There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(59)

Cole raises his hands in front of my face. They tremble with the desire to throttle me.

He points one finger at me instead.

“You stay away from him.”

The order pisses me off. I wasn’t trying to buddy up to Alastor Shaw—in fact, I find him obnoxious. But Cole has no fucking right to tell me who I can and cannot speak to, especially in the art world. He wants to be the only one who can help me, the only one who can influence me.

“Why?” I murmur, my eyes locked on Cole’s. “Afraid he’ll teach me something you can’t?”

Cole’s hand twitches. I know he wants to grab me by the throat.

“I’m not fucking joking, Mara. He’s dangerous.”

“Oh, he’s dangerous?” I sneer. “Like YOU?”

I’m facing him down. Daring him to admit what he’s hinted at a dozen times. Daring him to say it out loud.

Cole’s face goes still and smooth. Bleached by the last remnants of paint on his skin, he looks pale as a skull.

As I watch, he removes the last mask. The last vestiges of humanity.

He shows me his real face: utterly devoid of emotion. No life at all in those pitch-black eyes. Teeth white as bone.

Only his lips move as he speaks.

“You think you know what you’re talking about?” Cole hisses. ”I filet people with precision. This guy does what I do BADLY. You have no fucking idea what I’m capable of.”

The air freezes all around me. Sweat turns to ice on my skin.

I can’t speak. I can’t draw breath. I can’t even blink.

He could kill me in this moment . . . I’m too scared to move.

Instead, he turn and walks away. Leaving me there alone.





27





Cole





Shaw knows.

The look of triumph on his face was unbearable.

He had no idea she was still alive.

He’s been out wilding the last few weeks, not paying attention to me, his work, our mutual acquaintances, or anything else that should have tipped him off.

That’s what happens when he goes on a frenzy: he disappears from the art world until the madness passes. Until he’s ready to act sane again.

He killed two girls. That means there’s one more to go.

He’s never satiated until he takes the third. Then he goes quiet—sometimes for months at a time.

That’s his cycle. I’ve watched it happen.

He’s predictable. I’m afraid I can predict exactly what he’ll do next:

He’ll try to take Mara as his last kill.

He would love the symmetry of that—he was the one who gave her to me, and he could take her away.

He might do it just to see how I’d react. To see if he could truly make me snap.

I don’t know how the fuck to stop it from happening. Even I can’t watch Mara every minute, every hour. If Shaw is determined to hunt her, how the fuck can I keep her safe?

Especially when she’s reckless and stubborn, determined to get herself killed. I saw the look in her eye—ordering her to stay away from Shaw only makes her want to defy me.

So I terrified her on purpose.

She thinks she isn’t scared of monsters? I’ll show her a fucking demon out of hell.

And it worked. She didn’t come to the studio yesterday, or today either. I know how scared she must be if she stayed home when she’s aching to work on her painting.

She’s home, but not actually alone. I’m watching her right now through the telescope. Watching her lay in bed, reading.

She finished Dracula. Now she’s started The Butterfly Garden. I’m not familiar with that one, but if it interests Mara, I want to read it. I want to know everything in her head.

I’ve been following her continually. It won’t be enough.

Alastor won’t give up that easy.

I could kill him.

That eventuality has always loomed between us.

He knows too much about me, and me about him.

I’ve been tempted to do it many times before.

I almost followed through after he deposited Mara in my dumping ground. I should have done it then.

I’m not afraid of Shaw. But I’ve put myself at a disadvantage: it’s not just me versus him. I have to protect Mara, too—if I want to keep her safe for myself, for my own use.

I’m spread thin. Covering too much ground.

This is exactly why I always avoided these kinds of entanglements. Mara complicates my life in a hundred different ways.

Yet here I am neglecting my own work so I can watch her.

It’s addicting. All-consuming. It has a literal physical effect on me when I’m not near her, when I can’t see her. My muscles twitch like I’ve had too much caffeine. The craving builds and builds until I can’t think about anything else. I lose all my powers of focus because my mind is pulled away after her.

Watching her creates the opposite effect. The drug courses through my veins and I’m soothed, relaxed, purposeful once more.

Several hours pass. It’s late now—past midnight. I should go home and sleep in my own bed.

I stay because of the nagging sensation that she’s not safe, not even asleep in her room.

Shaw is going to do something, I know it. He saw us at the party together, and now he’s going to take some action, leave some sign to let me know that I didn’t fool him for a second.