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I woke when Darius cut the turn into my driveway too close and the car's tires bounced over the curb. My cheek jerked from the window's glass, leaving a spot of drool and saltwater, and I blinked bleary eyes as I tried to get my bearings. Darius parked, and then jerked the keys from the ignition as I scrubbed salt from my lashes and flinched at the pain rising in my exhausted body.

The night pressed heavy and colorless upon the world outside the car, burdened by the quelling silence of an isolated suburb after hours. I eased from my left side and couldn't stop the pained whisper of breath from escaping me.

Darius' eyes tracked my movement and slid over my injuries, analyzing and assessing, his stolid expression never wavering. His face held nothing but tired, bone-deep lassitude, and the Sin spared me the same interest one would give their dying houseplant before ripping free the damaged blooms.

Unnerved, I left the car, my bare feet slapping on the pavement as I walked to the front door, thankful I'd left my purse in the glove compartment before visiting the docks, else it'd be on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean along with my shoes. Like a persistent shadow, Darius followed and wordlessly used my keys to unlock the door and shunt us both inside.

The door shut, sealing us in the solemn darkness of the lightless house, and the heat I'd regained after the Sin had dragged my struggling body from the dirty harbor evaporated in the rapidly building chill. The indicator lights on the microwave and the television winked out, and the soft hum of electricity in the house's wires died with a hollow sigh. I rubbed my arms and ice broke beneath my trembling fingers.

What's happening?

"Sara," Darius whispered, still hovering at the entrance, my name spoken harsh and unbidden into the frigid dark. All six feet of the otherworldly creature fairly trembled with the heat he stole from my home, and as I fumbled with the light switch and the fixture remained dark, I realized the Sin's abnormal temperature and fluctuating chill resulted from the changes in energy permeating his vicinity. I licked my chapped lips and, feeling arctic-like cold sink through my flesh and bones, concluded that Darius could somehow steal energy from heat and other sources, making it his own.

Why though? For what purpose?

One glimpse of the towering Sin cooled my curiosity and curbed my questioning tongue. Unyielding black color consumed the whole of his eyes, the sclera rendered reptilian, his irises and pupils lost to the pitch with only the barest whisper of red color lining his lower eyelids. His eyes had been this black before, only once, when I'd shot him in the chest and he nearly killed me. His features narrowed and looked almost starved, cheekbones high and sharp, bones prominent, and when he bared his teeth in a fierce grimace, they were subtlety elongated, his canines more defined than they should be.

He was not human. Not in the slightest.

I swallowed in trepidation as my back smacked the wall.

"Sara, I'm hungry," he said, voice soft, fingers curling and uncurling in a restless, repetitive pattern. He crossed his arms over his chest to hide the motion.

Hungry?! "Hungry for—?!" Had tonight pushed the creature too far? Had it driven him over the edge? Would he steal my soul now to feed this sudden, terrifying mood of his?!

"For food, you idiot!" he snarled, jerking with the effort to control himself. A loud snap echoed in the sitting room, and I felt something lash out, a curve of undiluted energy and heat swinging overhead, slamming into the wall, where a frame cracked and fell, glass shattering on the floor. Spooked, I leapt away from Darius and darted into my kitchen.

There wasn't much inside my desolate cupboards or refrigerator. I lived alone—or had lived alone until the Sin had moved in—and so I stored few perishables and kept a barren pantry. Typically I ate in the city during my lunch break and maybe picked up something on my way home for dinner. Scouring the house, I grabbed a questionable box of granola on one of the lower shelves and, when I shoved it into Darius's waiting hands, he devoured the two bars inside within seconds, hardly pausing to shed the wrappers.

"That's it," I muttered, raking my fingers through the tangled web of my hair so I could tie it back. Darting into my bedroom, I stripped off my rank, brine-saturated attire and pulled on the first set of viable pants and shirt within my reach. I slid my feet into a pair of bent flip-flops before returning to the kitchen and the waiting demon. "We're getting food, c'mon."

Darius followed without verbal protest, sitting in the car's passenger's seat with a wet squelch as I went to the driver's side and jumped inside. I refused to glance in his direction as the chugging motor turned over, and I drove away from Spruce Street, ignoring the car's vehement complaining and the sickly smog coughed out from the muffler. I had many things on my mind, none of which included my aging vehicle.

Darius tilted his head, watching with mild, irreverent interest when I didn't race down Spruce Street toward the freeway—the most direct route returning to Verweald—and instead continued past my house into an eastward climb out of the sleepy neighborhood. The lights of Evergreen Acres faded behind the crest of dusky brown hills, leaving Darius and me to speed through the undeveloped outreaches of the high desert with the car's headlights chasing the cracked highway in front of us. The hills rose and then fell to reveal Verweald glittering below in the valley's belly, while farther to the east, Lake Verweald lay in a smooth patch upon the stubby desert plateau, the Agoura River spiraling away like loose thread from a spool. South from the lake, in the tail ends of the scrubby hills and patched canyons, the city's dismal projects lurked dark and sullen.

Our destination wasn't far. The highway dipped out of the hills and turned westward, away from Lake Verweald, curving into the lower-end commercial district, and just outside the district's borders resided a stucco diner on a partially cleared lot alongside the highway. The outdated sixties roof needed refinishing, and the flickering, lopsided sign provided the only spot of light aside from the distant city's glow. I passed the place whenever I took this route home, though I'd never been inside before. With its seclusion, faded decor, and sketchy regulars, the diner hadn't struck me as an establishment a small, single woman should dine alone at—but it did seem the kind of place where the management wouldn't ask questions of the clientele, even if they stomped inside wet, bloody, and stinking of ash and seawater.

The Sin slipped on his dark sunglasses as I parked by the chain barrier separating the thinning gravel from the untamed brush in the lot's extremities. Without a word, we left the car and hurried toward the diner's single entrance, gravel popping underfoot, the cold following Darius like a palpable raincloud of ill-tidings. Worry ate my insides as I kept a step ahead, wondering just what the hell I was doing, and if bringing a starving demon into a diner full of people was a wise idea.

Too late now, Sara.

The interior of the diner wasn't any more impressive than the exterior; the lights hummed and struggled, the carpet left threadbare from years of traffic, stools at the counter bent and crooked. The hostess in a greased apron glanced up, popped her Nicorette gum, and proceeded to seat us at a marginally cleaned booth near the back with a window scarred by careless lines of crayon wax. It offered a partial view of the city, the lot, and a side of the dark hills. Roughened bikers and truck drivers drank from dusty bottles at the bar, neon signs glinting on the amber glass.

My heart still thundered with adrenaline when I dropped into the booth, leaning on the sticky table situated between me and Darius, who managed far more grace when sitting than I did. Pain prickled in my side and I winced, peeling a hand from the dubious surface to brace myself, willing my pulse back into acceptable climes. My hearing had improved, but the resounding ring lingered, strong enough for me to miss the hostess asking for my drink order. Twice.

"Uh—," I floundered as I blinked at the annoyed woman. "Can I get a beer?"

Her heavy lids flickered, gaze jumping up and down my person. "Got some ID, hon?"

I reached for my purse—only to realize it'd been left behind in my careless rush to feed the black-eyed demon now sneering at the unsuspecting waitress. Shit. My ID and my wallet were both in my purse. How was I supposed to pay for this?

Darius grabbed a fistful of the woman's apron and forced her to bend nearer the demon's pale, terrifying face. He flicked his free hand, and his sunglasses landed on the table by the salt and pepper shakers, baring his reptilian eyes for all to see, their unearthly appearance impossible to miss even in this dark, distant booth. I stopped breathing.

"Get us whatever we ask for, then forget we were ever here," he hissed, voice laced with a strange but pervasive undertone I couldn't quite describe. His words flowed with purpose, dancing on my skin, tiny footprints of heat and persuasive power settling in my limbs before dissolving to nothing, like walking into a thick, hot mist and feeling it pour through my lungs. Had the feeling been anything thicker, it would become smothering.

I expected the hostess to scoff at Darius, to smack his hand away for touching her—but the woman straightened, her gaze unfocused, and calmly recorded our drink and food choices before she tottered away without another word.

Dumbfounded, I stared at the hostess as she went to the counter, reported Darius' substantial order to the pass-through, and then returned to her station at the diner's front—all without a single glance in our direction. I looked at Darius, and my confusion must have been evident because the bitter creature smirked and displayed a slim line of edged teeth.

"What did you do to her?" I asked as I turned on the ripped vinyl to watch the woman seat a new customer and again return to her station without comment. What?

"I spoke to her in the Tongue of the Realm," Darius said, his tone bored. I waited for an explanation as he wiped sweat from his brow and shut his strange eyes, lips moving in silent patterns like the Sin was asking a higher power for patience against my curiosity. "It is a form of language innate to my kind. It's a magic power, if you will. We speak directly to the essence of objects, of beings, and of people."

"It's like mind control?"

Darius' lip curled, and he tracked the movement of the bearded bartender as he dropped off a bottled beer—no glass—and a mug of water for the Sin. "Not mind control," the Sin drawled, waiting for the man to drift farther away. He drank what he was given in one generous gulp, then sank deeper into his seat with his shoulders slumped, teeth discreetly digging into the side of his fisted hand as if he wished to gnaw the meat off his own bones. Blood welled.

I dismissed my mounting questions and traced the rim of my bottle with one finger. Don't push him, Sara, he's liable to take your head clear off. I lifted the glass and drank.

The first taste of malt and hops almost had me retching when the cheap, warm liquid spilled over my tongue—and suddenly the smell returned me to Sunday night, to a filthy alleyway with cold metal under my hands and the stench of foreign alcohol filling my nose, the nauseating glare of dated security lights overhead. My sister called my name, terrified. She kept calling my name.

The Sin's hand passed my own, taking the beer away. He drank, throat moving with every swallow until it disappeared, and I watched red flicker to life in the endless tunnel of his stare. I was drowning still. Ever so slowly.

Neither of us looked away, seated together in a filthy diner at the city's edges, bloodied and bruised and haunted in ways others would not understand. The word betrayer fluttered like my tired heart, like Tara's fading screams, and I wanted to ask what does it mean? But I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I would wait.

The Sin of Pride tipped his face away from the light and said, "What a shit night."

I couldn't agree more.


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