Page 14 of Sin of Love
Nate’s fingers clench and unclench on the steering wheel.
I straighten, narrowing my eyes. “Why, Nate?”
“It’s hard to explain…”
“Spit it the fuck out.”
“Julep—the animal who has her—well, he… he loves her. Or believes he does. It’s a crazy obsession where he thinks she’s his missing piece. It started when…” He trails off, swallowing hard.
“Why are you afraid of telling me?” I ask carefully. “You won’t find any judgement here.”
His eyes flicker to me and away. “I don’t want you to think less of her,” he says, soft and pained.
My heart thumps once, an angry response to such nonsense. “I love her. Please.”
Nate gazes at me for a moment. Whatever he sees causes him to nod.
He speaks.
I listen.
There may be a lot about Deirdre you don’t know.
Dominic was right.
By the end of the story, I realize it’s a damn good thing I’m not driving. While Nate stays calm—desensitized or used to the burden of knowing—I seethe and roil and scream inside. I would have crashed the car at least ten times.
In my lap sits the polaroid. It’s a close-up of Deirdre’s face, slightly out of focus and not immediately recognizable as her.
Her big blue-gray eyes are empty. Just… blank. A black gag cuts into her cheeks, and her hair is shorn crudely to her pale, bare shoulders.
I reread the words scrawled along the bottom:
tell him to stop looking, or i’ll keep punishing her.
A message for me. One that, thankfully, Nate wasn’t inclined to obey.
“Do you still want to find her?”
I blink at him, startled by the question but understanding why he needs to ask.
So I tell him the truth.
“I’m not afraid of her dark.”
