Confess (Sin City Salvation #1)

by A. Zavarelli

Luna’s face was the only thing to change, and the reactions were sharp. Jerky. It was starting to creep me out, but then a solitary tear rolled down her face as she opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

  “What?” I croaked. “What is it?”

  “Pain. I felt your pain. You were hurt, but you stopped me from reading.”

  I pulled my hands away, and Luna looked unsettled as she pushed the cup of tea toward me, encouraging me to drink. “Just a couple of sips. It will help calm your nerves.”

  I looked at the tea. It was late. I should have left by now. But I thought about returning to Lucian and how angry he would be. I needed something to calm my nerves.

  I brought the cup to my lips and took a sip, and it was awful. I coughed and choked it down, and Luna watched intently. The second and third sips weren’t any better, but I managed to get it down.

  My head started to buzz, and I felt slightly intoxicated.

  “Let it take you,” Luna’s voice drifted into my thoughts.

  My body caved in on itself, so heavy in the chair, I didn’t think I could move. I didn’t want to either. When Luna took my hands in hers again, there was no protest.

  It felt like I was on the outside looking in. Like I was floating above and watching the entire event take place as she tried to read me. It looked as if she were torturing herself, but she was paralyzed at the same time. I tried to understand what was happening when Luna blinked and came out of the trance-like state, her face fractured and her body obviously still in distress.

  “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  The tea and her words left a bitter taste in my mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “You know.” She released my hands. “The one who is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “How did you know that?”

  Her eyes fell to the table. “It’s a curse. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  I shook my head, unable to accept it. This didn’t make sense. Nothing about it made sense. “Fortune tellers aren’t real.”

  “Some aren’t,” she agreed. “But I am.”

  “Then tell me about my future,” I insisted. “Not the past.”

  She closed her eyes again, and the name that she breathed was so intimate it made me burn with jealousy.

  “Lucian.”

  “What about him?” I demanded.

  “He is your flame. He will win your heart, and then—”

  She clutched at her chest, and her eyes snapped open, her features painted with horror.

  “And then what?” I urged.

  She stood and took a forcible step back, visibly shaken. “This was a stupid idea.”

  “What did you see?” I pressed.

  Her eyes met mine, and there was so much sadness there it terrified me. “Nothing that can do you any good to know. You are right to believe it isn’t real.”

  Her body grew weak as she slumped back into her seat with heavy eyes. “I’m very tired now. We need to rest.”

  But I couldn’t rest. What she said shook me. She knew something, and I needed to know what it was. Before I could press her any further, a sharp stabbing pain ripped through my gut as I doubled forward, and my mouth began to water.

  I was going to puke. And Luna was out cold. I dragged myself outside of the camp trailer just in time before I spewed the contents of my stomach onto the ground. But it didn’t end there. I continued to heave until nothing came up, and all I could do was curl into a ball and lie in a puddle of my own sweat. I didn’t know what was happening, but the flashbacks that came were the most intense I’d ever had. Closing my eyes didn’t help. Nothing helped. There was no way to block them. I could only embrace them.

  “Put on the dress,” Ricky said.

  My stomach hurt as I looked at the pale blue dress with white lace. It was pretty and new, and so were the shoes and ruffled socks. I liked the dress, but I didn’t want to put it on.

  “Put it on,” Ricky snarled.

  I curled into myself and shook my head, and his hand exploded across my face, my skull vibrating from the force of it.

  “Put on the goddamn dress, or I will put it on for you.”

  There was no point in arguing. He wasn’t lying. He would put it on for me, and it would hurt. I picked up the material and pulled it over my head with shaking limbs. I felt like I was going to throw up, and I knew when the man got here I would. Ricky would really punish me for that, so I asked to go to the bathroom, but he said no.

  He stayed until I put on the socks and shoes, and then he forced me to sit on the bed and wait. When he disappeared, I squeezed my eyes shut and wished I could be somewhere else. But Birdie was so small, and I didn’t know how I would take care of her. I promised her that someday we would leave. We would run away together, and I wanted that now more than anything.

  The door opened, and Ricky let the man inside. He was old and gray, and I couldn’t meet his eyes even when he told me to.

  “Gypsy,” Ricky warned.

  “It’s okay,” the man told him. “We’ll be okay.”

  The door shut, and Ricky disappeared, leaving me alone with the man. He looked over the dress he’d bought me, and his face looked happy.

  “You look very pretty,” he murmured. “So very pretty.”

  I watched him set up the video camera, and my stomach cramped up. I put my arm across it, so I could try to hold back the sick feeling, but it never went away. The man suggested that we play more dress up games, and I did. But I knew it wasn’t what he really wanted. The dress up always made me feel sick in the end.

  When he took off my clothes and touched me, I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried to imagine a different place in my mind. But he made me touch him, and I couldn’t stop the sick feeling. My stomach cramped and cramped, and I threw up on him.

  He got angry and shoved me to the floor, wiping himself off in disgust. “You’re going to pay for that, you little bitch.”

  It wasn’t a lie.

  They always made me pay.

  THE HOUSE WAS DARK WHEN I walked in the door, and something odd pinched at my gut when I set my briefcase down. The aching silence I’d known for fifteen years stretched between the walls, and though it was once familiar, it had quickly become a foreign concept.

  In a short amount of time, Gypsy had managed to breathe life back into this house. But that life ceased to exist in her sudden absence. With the open floor plan, almost every part of the lower level could be seen from where I stood, and my immediate instinct was to check the master suite. I doubted she’d gone to bed early, but as I stalked toward our room, I found myself wishing that were the case.

  A quick glance confirmed the bed was still made, and my stomach sank. For two long minutes, I stood in the middle of the room, debating my next course of action. I considered myself an excellent poker player, and I never expected Gypsy to call my bluff. But it seems that was exactly what she’d done.

  She’d left me.

  The thought was sobering, and it came out of nowhere. The airway in my chest felt like it was in a vise when my eyes moved to her side of the bed. The bed where she’d slept with me for long enough that I knew it wouldn’t be the same without her.

  But she didn’t mean anything to me. That was what I kept telling myself. I was only doing this to help her, and that was it. I never intended to send her to prison if she ran away. Everything I’d told her from the beginning was an empty threat. A way of manipulating her to stay and see it through.

  My intentions were good, but now all I could see was the blackness dimming my vision as my hands curled at my sides. We had a contract. She couldn’t just walk away from me. We weren’t done. Not by a long shot. She signed the papers and took my name. She recited the vows that made her mine. And if she thought I was going to let her walk out halfway through the game, she was wrong.

  I pulled my phone from the pocket of my trousers and swiped at the screen. But before I could do what I’d intended, something across
the room caught my eye. The closet door was wide open, and inside, her belongings remained untouched.

  A wave of relief expanded in my chest, only to be replaced by an irrepressible fear a moment later.

  If she didn’t leave me, then what happened to her?

  MY EYES OPENED AS I rolled over and stared up at the sky, and I prayed that the worst of it was over. But it wasn’t. The visions came and went, dormant memories brought to life as I puked my guts out and questioned if I was going to die.

  There was so much pain inside me, it felt like I’d swallowed acid. I just wanted to escape, to run away from my past and lock the door forever, but it wouldn’t let me go. I was deep in its grasp, and soon, I realized I was all alone too.

  I’d been crawling into the desert without even comprehending it, and I couldn’t see my way back. I couldn’t see anything but empty spaces on all sides of me, and at that moment, I was certain I would die. Sobs wracked my body as another vision held me hostage.

  “Come here, sweet thing,” Ricky purred.

  He was high again, and he had the keys to the door in his pocket. I’d already secured Birdie in our room, hiding her under the bed, but I couldn’t say the same for myself.

  “Please don’t make me,” I whispered.

  “You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  He’d been saying that for months now. When I sprouted breasts and got my period, Ricky told me I couldn’t make him as much money anymore, but there were always ways around that.

  He got up off the sofa and gestured for me, and I froze. I’d fended him off a few times already, but he was right that it was inevitable. I fantasized about clawing at his face and running out the door with Birdie, but it wasn’t going to happen. I’d been trying to make it happen for so long, I’d lost hope. In the end, it didn’t matter what happened to me. As long as Birdie was okay, I could be okay too.

  “Come,” Ricky ordered.

  I took a step back, and he lunged forward, catching me by the arm. He forced me closer, and I suppressed the urge to retch as he took my face in his hand and licked my cheek. I’d been to hell and back, but I’d never felt dirtier than I did at that moment.

  “Please don’t,” I rattled.

  “You should know by now those words don’t work on me.” He unzipped his pants, and my chest heaved. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I wished for it to be over.

  My eyes fell shut, and Ricky grunted. I hadn’t even touched him yet, and already he was getting off on the fantasy. His skin brushed against mine, and I braced for the roiling disgust. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t breathe. I was paralyzed, waiting for the worst to come, but instead, all I heard was a thud.

  I opened my eyes to the sight of him on his knees. He wobbled, clutching at his back as blood dripped onto the floor behind him. I couldn’t understand until I looked up and found Birdie standing there with a knife.

  “It’s enough!” she roared. “It’s enough!”

  I was immobile, still trying to come to grips with what she’d done when she flew into a rage and slashed at him again, this time hitting him across the face. Blood spurted from the wound and splashed against my arm. I tottered backward, and Birdie tackled him to the floor, stabbing at him again and again.

  “You. Won’t. Hurt. Us. Anymore.”

  Each punctuated word made his body lurch, and I tried to find the will to stop her, but I couldn’t. Birdie had flown into rages before, but never anything like this.

  “B,” I whispered.

  She didn’t hear me. Her arm shot back as tears streamed down her face, and she screamed out her frustration, aiming at the soft flesh of his neck.

  Blood. There was so much blood.

  My body shook as I watched it pour from his gaping throat, and his empty eyes stared up at the ceiling. I knew he was dead, but I kept thinking that he was going to come back. The bad guys always came back.

  I tried to grab Birdie. We had to run. We had to leave. But a hand wrapped around my arm, and I screamed.

  “Stop.”

  I scratched at the offending limb, kicking and screaming my way out of his grasp. I wouldn’t let him win. I wouldn’t let him take Birdie away.

  “Gypsy,” the voice sliced into my hallucination. “It’s me. Open your eyes.”

  I knew that voice. That voice calmed my racing heart, and I obeyed his command. When I opened my eyes, I met the darkness in his.

  Lucian.

  His arms were bleeding where I’d scratched him, and an enormous, gaping hole of sorrow opened up in my chest. When he leaned down to touch my face, I gasped out broken sobs as I clung to him like I’d never let him go.

  “What happened, pet? Tell me.”

  “She did it,” I whispered. “She killed him.”

  “IT HURTS,” SHE CRIED. “IT hurts everywhere.”

  I pulled her against me in the bathtub, cradling her in my arms as she shivered. “I know.”

  Her body didn’t stop shaking while I bathed her, regardless of how warm the water was. At that moment, she was like a child, completely helpless and dependent on me for guidance and care.

  That reality lanced through my heart and poured acid into old wounds. I wanted to shake her for being so reckless. I wanted to do the same to Luna when she’d told me what she allowed Gypsy to take. But there wasn’t any use in letting my anger control the situation. It was done, and now all we could do was weather the storm.

  I removed Gypsy from the bath and set her on the counter while I toweled her off and brushed her hair. It was difficult to dress her when her limbs were so heavy, and she was tired, but I managed to get her into one of my soft cotton tee shirts before I tucked her into bed. It didn’t last long. Before I could even get myself dressed, she was crawling across the tile floor in the bedroom, clinging to the surface like it was her savior.

  “Noooo,” she whined when I tried to pick her up again. “It’s so hot. So hot.”

  Her body couldn’t regulate temperature, but I had to trust that she knew what she needed while the plant eliminated itself from her system. Accepting this, I laid down beside her on the cool tile, waiting out the worst of her tremors as fresh tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Please don’t tell our secret,” she begged.

  Her cognitive state of mind had improved, and that was a good sign, even if she wasn’t capable of recognizing it. I knew the moment she’d told me about Birdie, she regretted it. But she couldn’t know that I’d already suspected it from the beginning. From everything I’d uncovered so far, it was evident that Birdie was prone to mental breaks, particularly concerning her rage. Gypsy had been protecting her little sister for her entire life, and even in the depths of her worst pain, she still tried.

  My fingers traced the lines of her arm as I whispered into the darkness. “I won’t tell.”

  I shouldn’t have said it. It was the one thing that would guarantee Gypsy would stay here and fulfill her obligations. I needed her to stay. But even worse, I was beginning to understand that I wanted it more.

  Her hand slid across the tile and reached for me, falling just short as she rolled onto her side and her gaze came to rest on my face. “I always heard the devil was beautiful.”

  I smiled into the shadows, reaching out to find her fingers. She wrapped her pinky beneath mine, and we laid in the stillness, staring at each other on the cold tile floor for hours. When the sun came up, Gypsy’s breathing grew even, and her body settled into a state of exhaustion so deep, I knew the worst had passed.

  I carried her back to bed, and she was too far gone to feel restless or scared anymore. But it didn’t stop me from wrapping my arm around her and pulling her against me anyway.

  “Hi.”

  Gypsy’s meek voice drew my attention to the doorway of my home office, where she was currently standing. The hem of my tee shirt brushed against her thighs, highlighting the sun-kissed skin of her mile-long legs. After the scare last night, I wanted more than anything to wrap those legs around my face an
d punish her with my tongue, but that wasn’t what she needed right now.

  “Good afternoon,” I greeted her.

  She wrung her hands together. “I bet you’re really mad at me, huh?”

  I set aside the document I’d been reading and gave her my full attention. “You put yourself at risk last night. You specifically went against my rule, and you acted with no thought or regard to me, yourself, or even your sister. So, am I mad, Gypsy? No. I’m disappointed in you.”

  She bowed her head and curled her toes into the carpet. “That sounds like something a parent would say.”

  “That’s because it is,” I murmured.

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” She looked up at me with soft eyes. “I honestly… things got out of control. Luna told me it was a medicinal tea. She didn’t say that was going to happen. And when she drank it, she was fine, so I thought I would be too.”

  “Luna was fine because she drinks it often. Her body is acclimated to it, but yours isn’t. Taking something like that without knowing what it is, you could have…” I choked down the words I didn’t want to say. “Things could have ended much differently. You were lucky.”

  Gypsy’s shoulders hunched forward. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Obviously, I’m never going to see her again.”

  I found that difficult to believe. As mad as Gypsy was, she felt a connection to Luna because of their heritage. I had a feeling she would see her again, and I could only hope she’d learned her lesson, but regardless, I wasn’t about to let her forget it anytime soon.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not yet. My stomach still hurts a little.”

  “Then I assume you are ready for your punishment?”

  I expected a fight from her, but she just nodded. “I knew it was coming, so yeah.”

  “You can go sit in the corner and think about your actions,” I told her.

  “Seriously?” She arched a brow at me. “Like I’m five?”

  “Until you can learn to act like a mature adult, you’ll be treated accordingly.”