Page 17 of Sin & Fall

Now that I’m calmer and more focused on her, I see that her lips are blue.

I switch the heater on. “That’ll warm you up.”

“No. I want dry clothes.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“Then I’m not telling you anything.”

Oh, she loves to push her luck.

I reach to the backseat for the blanket I’ve been using tocrash in my car since I moved out of my home the other day.

“This’ll have to do.”

I expect her to be stubborn about it, but she lets me drape it over her. I’m annoyed that I can’t see her legs anymore, but I want to know her secrets even more.

She settles into the seat, and gets herself comfortable. “Since I was sixteen, I lived at a convent near to where you picked me up. My mom signed me over to them, and that was it. She died not long after. That was eight years ago.”

It takes me a minute to do the mental math with my drug-addled brain. She’s twenty-four? The same age as me. It was obvious she’s legal, so it doesn’t make much difference, but she’s sharing information with me. She’s letting me in.

“Then what? You ran away because you’re too much of a rebel?”

“Something like that.”

“So do you really believe in God?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Come on. You’re killing me here. If you don’t want to talk about the boring stuff, give me all the juicy details. What did you get up to behind those walls? Were you and the other girls scissoring all night and day?”

“You’re so gross,” she mumbles. Her nostrils flare as I rile her up. This is the best form of road-trip entertainment a guy could ask for. I turn the music off to give her my full attention.

“I was only joking. Don’t take it so seriously.”

Her mouth opens like she’s about to put her sharp tongue to good use again, but she calms herself down first. “I just couldn’t stay there anymore.”

That doesn’t explain why she was on the road. If shewas trying to hitchhike, she’d have a bag, and would have been waiting on the side, not risking getting run over.

There’s only one explanation for it. “Someone hurt you.”

For a second, she looks vulnerable. Like I’ve cracked open her biggest fear.

“I—” She loses her words. “It doesn’t matter, and it’s not like you actually care. You just killed a man and raped me.”

I don’t remind her that she had every opportunity to get away from me when she was on top, and not once did she tell me I shouldn’t have killed him.

Her glow is dimming, and I don’t like it.

This is becoming far less fun than I anticipated.

That pain is back in my chest again. To make it go away, I grab the tin of pills and pop another one. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Chloe’s disapproving face.

“You hardly get to judge me for my shitty life choices, not when you’re sat there with a pussy full of come.”

She bares her teeth at me then turns away, shifting her body toward the door.

Grinding my jaw, I concentrate on the road.