Oh, my God.
How in the hell will I find out?
My poor stomach is a jumble of nerves when I rejoin Rafe in the kitchen. He looks up as soon as I enter the room, his gaze lingering on me. “You all right?”
I nod my head, trying to think of what to ask. I don’t want to set off any alarms in case Sin hasn’t acted yet, but if something went wrong, I have to know. I know absolutely nothing about Sin’s plan though, so I don’t even know what to ask. I can’t ask if he has seen Sin today, because Sin is obviously a sore subject. I have no idea if anyone else is involved.
In the dark, that’s where Sin wanted to keep me, and that’s right where I am.
Someone needs to drop me a flashlight, because this fucking sucks.
Sin’s face flashes to mind. A memory of him in bed with me yesterday, my naked body snuggled up against his. A searing vision of how powerful he looked standing above me in the shower, my wrists trapped in his cuffs.
My eyes sting and even though I’m in the kitchen and Rafe is standing right in front of me, I pull my cell phone out to see if Sin texted me back. Still nothing.
Rafe’s gaze drops to my phone, then comes back to my face and he lifts an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, suddenly overwhelmed. This is all too much. I want the most stressful thing in my life to be finals week, not a possible showdown between my two most recent lovers that has to result in one of their deaths.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and leave the room. I can’t be around Rafe right now. Even if he felt like boasting now, even if he would tell me exactly how his day went, I don’t think I have the emotional capacity left to handle it.
42
Laurel
The rest of the day passes by in a slog. A foggy slog. Sin never texts me back, and Rafe never expands on how his day went. It feels like verification that everything that could go wrong in my world has, and I don’t want to face it anymore.
I don’t know if Sin played and lost, but I know I feel defeated. All I want to do is cry, so I spend as much of the evening alone as I can. I take a bath instead of a shower. I can cry alone in the bath tub. I check my phone obsessively for something, anything from Sin. If he’s okay, I don’t understand why he isn’t texting me back.
Day turns to night and I feel sicker and sadder than at any other point today. I am exhausted from dealing with all my emotions, but if tomorrow comes and I still haven’t heard from Sin, I guess I’ll just ask. Maybe he’ll disappear just like Marlena did. Maybe I’ve said the last words I’ll ever get to say to him.
I can’t keep tears from welling up and spilling down my face.
I can’t live this life. If Rafe killed Sin, I’m calling Mia for sanctuary. I won’t be able to bear being with Rafe, knowing what he did. I know Mia will protect me. I don’t know why I’m so sure, but I know she will. Carly says she protected Vince from Mateo, and everyone who knows more about their story than I do insists Vince wronged her horribly.
I’ve never done anything bad to her, and when I tell her what Rafe did, she’ll understand why I can’t be with him.
As soon as I know for sure, I’m getting the fuck out of this godforsaken town. I’ll never step foot here again.
Since Rafe has already been tried and found guilty in my mind, I can’t bear to be around him. I have to be for tonight, just until The Bad Day is over, just until I can be sure about what happened, but I don’t have to like it.
He went for a swim without me since I hibernated inside, and now he sits next to me on the couch with damp hair, a pair of gray sweats slung low on his hips. If he notices how crabby I am tonight—especially juxtaposed with how caring I was this morning—he doesn’t mention it.
I’m a ball of resentment curled up on my side of the couch, as far away from him as I can be when there’s not so much as an empty cushion between us. I’m angry at him and angrier at myself. I can’t keep checking my phone in front of him, but I wait for it to vibrate in my pocket. It just never does.
We’re both stunned when Sin comes strolling in from the kitchen. For a split second, my heart stops, then fills up with joy. He’s alive. Rafe didn’t kill him.
My joy crashes a moment later when I realize that means he’s here for Rafe, and I have been mean to Rafe all night long because I thought he had outsmarted Sin.
I don’t know if it’s the fact
that Sin entered through the back door, my general weirdness over the past day, or pure instinct, but Rafe knows this isn’t a normal visit.
The back door isn’t normally unlocked, but then Rafe doesn’t normally go for a swim. Sin’s presence in Rafe’s living room isn’t normally anything to get worked up over, but today we all know why he’s here.
Rafe lunges forward, reaching under the table.
Sin draws his gun and says, “Laurel, move.”