Page 26 of Ruthless Sin
She turns the handle, opens the door, and steps inside.
The oak paneling closes. The deadbolt rolls home.
I stand in the dark after the deadbolt rolls home with my jaw locked and my hands at my sides and my blood somewhere it shouldn’t be, and she touched her own wrist in this hallway with her eyes on mine the whole time and she knew exactly what that would do to me.
Tonight is not a vigil.
Tonight she sat next to my skin and ate from the place Nonna set for her, and she held my sleeve while she watched my blood rise. She looked into my eyes twice before she walked up the stairs.
I do not get to read to the wood tonight.
I walk back to my own wing.
I don’t turn on the light.
I sit on the edge of the mattress in the pitch black.
She has been weeks under this roof, a survivor in my care, and tonight she came downstairs and put her skin against my wrist.
She came downstairs and I forgot everything else.
I unbutton my collar, my throat tight. I unfasten the silver cufflinks and drop them into the porcelain dish on the dresser.
The watch stays on my wrist. I do not take it off.
I sit back down on the edge of the mattress.
The window is open to the dark. The jasmine is heavy on the dead air, and the cicadas are screaming out in the oaks.
I close my eyes.
Her fingers tighten on my sleeve, a half-millimeter.
She felt the blood climbing under her hand, and she stayed right where she was.
I open my eyes.
The room is completely black.
I don’t sleep.
I don’t let myself think about her fingers.
I think about her hand the entire night.
5
MILA
Maria’s knuckles tap the oak paneling twice.
“They’re ready downstairs,ma fille.”
I have been dressed since before the Louisiana sunrise split the shutters. The folding knife sits in my pocket, the metal cool against my thigh, and the rusted chain flat against my collarbone beneath my collar.
The dark green sweater Cassia left on my chair sits over my shoulders like armor.
I turn the lock and open the door.
