Sinful

by Jenica Saren

  All I wanted was to be part of something meaningful, not just a sinful and exciting temporary plaything. As much as I thought I had that with my guys, when things got real, it just wasn't happening. Like everyone else, I had no role to play in the serious aspects of their lives.

  "I don't understand," Rafe finally whispered, his dark brows drawn together and eyes full of hurt. "You said you feel loved."

  Heavy tears clouded my vision completely, spilling over like torrential rainfall as I stared back at him, silently begging him to understand. "Do you know what's better than feeling loved?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Loving so hard that your heart feels like it's going to split wide open for the whole world to see, giving everything you feel you can give, breaking off little pieces of yourself and handing them out like precious jewels. Loving that hard and passionately, and simply being loved that hard back."

  Rafe said nothing for a long time. I imagined that I saw his own heart break through those beautiful, dark eyes of his. He opened his mouth to speak, but at the last second seemed to decide against whatever it was he was planning on saying.

  Wiping my tears, I finally stood up. "I'm going to check on the others," I muttered, feeling drained - emotionally and physically both.

  He nodded and silently rose to follow behind me as I made my way to where the others were congregated at the front of the barrier. As I approached, a ringing in my ears threatened to burst my eardrums, getting louder the closer I got.

  I was already exhausted from my brief emotional stint with Rafe and felt like I didn't even have the energy to cover my ears. I watched as the wrecking ball slammed into the barrier again and my head exploded, stars dancing in front of my eyes. I clenched my teeth together and felt my fingernails dig into the palms of my hands.

  There was no way this was just a sensitivity to magic.

  With my already fried and frazzled nerves, I recognised the sound of pain better than ever. I felt it all the way down to my soul. But, did I dare mention it again? Probably not.

  Instead, I stood there and watched as wave after wave of shadowy tendrils slithered around the inside of the barrier and away from the giant iron weapon of destruction.

  Something niggled at the back of my mind again. It felt like, other than the obvious wailing inside my head, there was another reason we should stop and let laying dogs - or shadows - lie. The feeling was ominous and made me feel heavy with foreboding.

  On instinct, I walked closer to the barrier. I wasn't really sure why other than this small feeling that was telling me I should, that I needed to.

  The guys were calling me, telling me to back away, but something said to do the complete opposite. It was either my rebellious nature or something more... Soul-deep. Whatever it was, it was strong enough that my legs were practically moving of their own accord.

  In front of the barrier, I could clearly see the shadows inside, each one moving in its own repeating pattern, creating something almost like a net around the inside of the glassy surface. Were they also trying to keep something in, like the barrier? Or were they simply trying to keep us out?

  The more I looked at it, the more it looked like the barrier was trying to push further and further inward, while the shadows seemed to be pushing it out, keeping it at bay. How weird. Why would it move in? How could it?

  My observation only served to further solidify my thought that the magical forcefield was actually living.

  I turned to the guys to shout for them, to tell them to come see for themselves, when an audible crack charged through the air and raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

  In horror, I faced the break and the wrecking crew, my eyes wide and sweat beading on my brow. The screaming in my head that I'd been tuning out rose up louder than ever, making me dizzy and feeling like I was about to pass out.

  Crack!

  Crack!

  I knew that one more blow, one more hit was going to do the barrier in. The guys hadn't thought their plan through.

  They forgot about the darkness.

  "Don't let them hit it again!" I screamed, whirling on the guys who were staring at me in complete shock. Wind began howling around us and I felt small droplets of freezing cold water on my face. "Make them stop!"

  Beck's face was as stormy as the skies above us as he nodded once to me and started running for the workers. He wasn't going to reach them in time, even if he had travelled.

  It was too late.

  CRACK!

  With that final blow, I turned and watched as the barrier shattered, pieces of it falling to the ground before disappearing in clouds of mist.

  Ria... A voice whispered in my ear. I turned to look for the source, remembering hearing it before.

  Whatever it was, there was no time to contemplate.

  The barrier had fallen. The darkness was free.

  21 Ria

  "Ria! Get down!" Someone was shouting, but they were wasting their breath. My ass was hauling like it had never hauled before. I may have been a dumb blonde, but I certainly didn't have a death wish. Thanks, but no thanks.

  As I ran, I collided head first with a solid wall of muscle. "Kel!" I yelled over the gale. "What do we do?"

  His arm wrapped around me and he started shuffling with my body tucked close to his side. "We get the fuck out of here," he growled as we made our way through the haze. The world around us was turning black with the shadows and it was nearly impossible to see where we were going.

  Eventually, after receiving several small pebbles to the head, we reached a small area where the others were already clustered.

  "Ria!" Beck shouted. He threw himself at me and wrapped basically his entire body around mine, like a snake. "Thank fuck you're okay."

  "Uh, yeah, dandy," I replied dryly.

  He pulled back from me, at least having the decency to look sheepish.

  I trained my eyes on each one of my bull-headed, stubborn Sins, fixing each of them with their very own glare of doom. They took turns looking away or staring back at me, either was fine, because it wasn't ending there.

  "I told you guys to stop, I tried to get you to listen to me," I scolded. "And now look what's happened!" I had to resist the urge to groan as I realised that I sounded like their mother. Did they even have mothers? Probably not, being cosmically-created beings.

  "Yes, it's bad, but not as bad as you're making it out to be," Eliam said, sniffing indignantly. "I already have a plan."

  Of course he did.

  "Does your plan include just blasting away at the shadows with your mystical Sin mojo?" I asked sarcastically. His mouth flattened into a hard line and I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or scream. "Does anyone else have a plan?"

  Eliam cleared his throat. "Whatever those are coming from is inside, so our best bet is to get in there and figure out what it is," he said, not unreasonably. "So, blasting our way inside is our best bet."

  I reached over and shook him by the collar of his shirt. "Give him back."

  His face went blank. "Pardon?"

  "Eliam. Whoever you are, whatever you did with him, give him back," I growled. "You're not Kel or Gat. Since when is brute force your go-to plan?" I was clearly referencing the bone-headed idea to smash through the barrier in the first place, as well as this brilliant plan.

  Gently, he pried my hands from his collar and held them tight. "Do you think that you can summon any of your power right now?" He asked, ignoring my little outburst.

  I thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," I answered truthfully. "Maybe."

  Turning my hands over in his, facing my palms up, Eliam sighed. "Picture a tiny ball of light or something," he ordered.

  "You're a fantastic coach, keep going," I commented blandly.

  "I've never exactly had to teach someone to use Sin magic, okay? Now focus." Well, wasn't he being mister grumpy pants. It was probably because I ruffled his collar.

  Sighing, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on doing what he instructed.

  "Pictur
e the ball coming from your own unique energy and just let it build up."

  Squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I could, I attempted to do as he said, imagining that my own energy was my favourite shade of red and that it was travelling through me to form a ball in my hands.

  Eliam breathed a sigh of relief. "At least you're a quick learner, because we're out of time," he said, releasing my hands. "Now, let's go."

  My eyes popped wide open and I stared at the softball-sized ball of smoky light that I held in my hands. It came out of nowhere, forming easily. "That's it?" I asked, glancing at Eliam incredulously as he rose to his feet. "What do I do with it?"

  "Throw it at anything that isn't us. Sound like a plan? Good, then get a move on," he commanded. What a fucking asshole.

  At least I had that, for however long it lasted. I was pretty sure it would fizzle out pretty soon. My own power was nowhere to be found all that time, and then it just popped up? Like it had just been chilling there all along? What the fuck?

  Then I remembered that it was Eliam's Sin that was shared with me, and he was a stubborn prick. It all made sense. My magic was just as much of an asshole as he was. Wasn't that just fantastic?

  Realistically, I knew there was probably a real explanation out there, but it was currently unavailable to me, so I was going to wing the hell out of it.

  I moved to stand near the others and grabbed onto the nearest hand to mine, holding my little ball of energy in the opposite hand. It felt like Beck, but I was trying to keep my focus laser sharp and didn't want to look.

  "Ready?" Eliam asked without looking back.

  Not waiting for an answer, he took off into the howling, swirling storm of wind and shadow, the rest of us hot on his heels. Well, I was mostly being dragged, but it worked out since I didn't have to watch my step as closely, holding onto Beck's hand as I was.

  A distinct shadow shot toward me like an arrow from the storm. Instead of throwing the ball as Eliam had instructed, I threw my arm up and tried to imagine the ball spreading out into a sort of shield. When my magic bowed to my will and the shadow creature slammed into it, disintegrating on contact, all I could do was stare as I was pulled along through the nightmarish storm.

  After counting about thirty or so shadow creatures from hell that met their brutal end against my makeshift shield, it felt like we had been sprinting forever, far too long for the distance we had been from the church to begin with.

  "Guys!" I shouted. "What the fuck is going on?" I couldn't see any of them, but I could still feel my hand attached to Beck's like my life depended on it - which it did.

  "We're almost there!" Was the only answer I got back. I thought it came from Gatlin, but I couldn't be sure.

  Scratch that, I was sure. He had the loudest voice of any of the guys, which was especially handy since I couldn't even hear my own gasping and panting breaths.

  Within mere seconds, I was tripping as I was led up a short set of steps and nearly crash landed on my face. My poor face.

  Once inside, the guys hurried to slam the doors closed. Dully, I wondered why they had been open in the first place - they hadn't been before. The torrential wind that was sweeping around the outside world died down inside the church and I could suddenly hear my own heart pounding in my ears.

  Looking around, I tried not to think about my building panic.

  Directly in front of me was where Eliam had been laying after the fight, scaring me half to death after having come to my rescue. Beyond that was where my badass persona that I never knew about had slain whatever hellish monster had sprung forth from the empty shell of an undead preacher.

  Huh. When put that way, it sounded a lot more reasonable for me to be as freaked as I was.

  I wrapped my arms around myself against the chill in the building, colder than the weather outside. "Guys, does it feel cold to any of you?" I asked, my teeth clenched.

  "It's almost winter, Ria," Gray replied with a raised brow. "Cold is kind of part of that deal."

  Groaning, I sat down against one of the mostly intact pews that were still remaining. It was weird to realise that it was technically my fault this place was trashed. It was probably very pretty at one point, when it was well kept and maintained.

  Too bad it was inhabited by the stuff of nightmares.

  "What do we do about the... Things outside?" I asked the room. And why aren't they coming in here? I thought to myself.

  The guys were all standing around, appearing to be lost in their own thoughts. Well, I could be silently productive, too, if that's how we were doing it.

  I got up from my seat and picked my way down the aisle, avoiding splintered pieces of wood and scattered shards of glass that were littered across the floor. This place was a deathtrap and really needed to be torn down.

  Oh, wait.

  Approaching the altar, I got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. It made me queasy and a little bit dizzy for no apparent reason. Of all the things in the building, the altar was the only thing that appeared untouched.

  I tried to recall if it had been demolished in the fight and seemed to remember that being the case, yet there it stood, proud and unmarred. Curious, I reached out to run my finger down the wooden surface and jerked my hand back immediately.

  "Fucking ow!" I squealed. I cradled my poor, injured hand against my chest and glared at the altar. I just got burned... In a church.

  "Guys! Guys, I'm the devil!" I called out excitedly.

  They all turned toward me and made their way down the aisle, not being nearly as careful as I was.

  "Sorry, but no," Eliam commented distractedly. "You don't look a thing like him."

  Sceptical, I raised my brows in mock surprise. "You've met the devil? You?" I asked with a little laugh.

  "Of course," he replied seriously, stopping to examine some glass and such on the floor. "Lovely gentleman. His place in Atlanta is remarkable."

  A bark of a laugh leapt from my lips unexpectedly. "The devil went down to Georgia?"

  He nodded and I turned to the others with a single question painted on my face.

  Is he for fucking real right now?

  To my genuine shock, they each nodded in agreement. He was legitimately telling the truth. Wow. Never, in a million years, would I have seen that coming. I really, really wanted to meet the devil now, though - he sounded cool as fuck.

  "Why do you think you're the devil, anyway?" Beck asked, coming up to my side.

  I pointed accusingly at the altar. "It burned me."

  "It burned you?"

  "That's what I just said."

  "It's wood."

  "Clearly."

  "And it burned you?"

  "No, it winked at me with dramatic flair," I said blandly.

  He put his hands in the air in surrender. "Just making sure. Damn," he muttered. Dick.

  Beck and the others moved past me to examine the wooden structure, no one touching it - which was probably for the best, but they were immortal and I was a stripper. I was little less concerned about them getting a boo-boo than myself, however selfish that sounded.

  "It looks fine," Eliam commented. "No abnormal energies are radiating off of it that I can feel."

  Gray crouched down and began examining the bottom of the altar, giving it funny looks and even sniffing it. "Hmmm..."

  "Hmmm? What's 'hmmm'?" I demanded, feeling anxious.

  He continued making thoughtful noises and soon I wasn't the only one staring expectantly at the Sloth Sin. The guys had all stopped their own examinations in favour of examining Gray.

  "My thoughts," he said slowly, carefully. "Are that we should probably back up."

  Alarmed, I whipped my head back and forth to all of the Sins around me. Back up? Why would we need to-

  "Oomph!"

  In the blink of an eye, Gatlin had picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder as he hauled ass to the doors. In that same instant, a large mass made up of nothing but shadow exploded from the altar, rising up into the high
ceilings and gathering like the storm clouds outside.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake!" I screamed. Of fucking course there would be another demon-like monster in the exact same place that I had battled for my life once before.

  Gatlin spun around and I was robbed of my ability to see what was happening from my upside-down position on his back. There was no wind or dramatic music, no flare or anything to signify what was happening.

  However, it sure felt a lot like a boss fight.

  I was preparing to bang my fists against Gatlin's back when he suddenly set me down and all the blood rushed from my head. Whoa. I turned around slowly and stared at the thing that had shot up into the air and was now staring down at us with bright, blood red eyes.

  What do we do? I asked, projecting the thought to my guys. If they asked later, I would lie, but I was shaking too hard to actually speak.

  Remember your ball? Eliam’s voice sounded in my mind.

  I nodded slightly, sure that he would see it.

  Do it again, but bigger. And a lot of them. He told me. You know, like I wasn't already planning on using everything at my disposal.

  Focusing, I tried to summon that energy again, but nothing happened. I tried again, focusing harder. Tamping down on the building panic I felt, I turned to Eliam and saw him peek at me from the corner of his eye, grimacing.

  Problem, Wondergirl?

  Nothing is happening. It's not coming.

  He didn't say it in my head, but I saw him visibly mouth a string of curses. Let's hope your instincts kick in again, then.

  Without another word, he sprung into action, lunging at the monster above us as it dove down toward him, a spiralling tornado of pure darkness and evil.

  My heart leapt into my throat as I was left to stare on, feeling helpless while the others jumped into the fray like the badasses they were. And I was only sitting there like the useless sidekick, watching as varying shades of wispy magic flew through the air.

  Come on. I willed myself. Please don't leave me defenceless now. Please.

  It felt like a prayer, but to what or who was a mystery to everyone including myself. Maybe I was praying to just myself. The confidence I tried so hard to maintain was completely useless when it couldn't even help me manifest enough power to help my family.