Page 5 of Sin & Fall
“Something to say?” The man’s voice has a rough edge to it as if he doesn’t use it much.
“Can you take me to a bus station or not?”
“Sure,” he says nonchalantly.
I relax a little bit more now I know I’m actually getting out of here.
As I settle in for the drive, I pull the rosary from my pocket and run my fingers over the beads. They don’t hold the same meaning as they used to, but each one is a reassurance that I’m here, and I’m alive.
“What’s a nun doing in the middle of the road at this time of night anyway?” he asks casually.
“Look, Mister?—”
“Zack.”
“Zack.I appreciate the ride, and I don’t mean to be rude, but we don’t know each other, and we don’t need to know each other. We’ll be going our separate ways soon enough, so you don’t have to bother with small talk.”
His dark eyes hold me captive as he stares at me, and I let out a shaky breath. There’s something about him that makes my skin crawl, but also makes my heart race in a new and exciting way. I’ve never met anyone like him before.
Those devil-like eyes drag slowly down my body. “Maybe I want to get to know you.”
Oh, God. His gravelly voice has my legs ready to part wide open. The far-from-holy way he’s making my body react reminds me of every caning I’d receive from the priests for stepping out of line. Every harsh reprimand they’d throw at me, pretending it was God’s word.
I had no choice but to stay there. For so long, I held onto a belief that there was good in the world. That a benevolent God was looking out for us all whether we were sinners or saints. But my belief started to slip through my fingers when I found out just how many sinnerswere hiding within God’s own walls. I was a lamb to the slaughter then, and it seems I’m no different now.
My face is hot from blushing so much, and when I look away, Zack laughs. I tuck my rosary back in my pocket and smooth the thick fabric of my skirt down on my lap to distract myself.
I expect us to drive in awkward silence for the rest of the journey, but he puts heavy metal music on that makes me jump. The unfamiliar screaming vocals and overly heavy drums give me a thrill. This would never be allowed back home. It’s loud and obnoxious. Everything those I left behind would hate.
When was the last time I listened to anything that wasn’t sung by a nun? Must be the boybands I liked back when I was still living with Mom before she gave me up.
“You want me to turn it off?” He laughs.
“No, leave it on. It’s loud, and it hurts my ears, but I like the way it makes me feel. It’s so new.” When I catch the odd way he’s staring at me, I realize I’ve overshared. Keeping my head down, I avoid saying anything else.
“What’s your name?” Zack asks after a while.
I suppose there’s no real harm in telling him. “Chloe.”
“Nice to meet you, Chloe. You and I are going to have a lot of fun on this little road trip, I can just sense it.”
His statement makes me uneasy, as does the wide wolf-like grin on his face, so I try to change the subject. “Thank you for not running me over earlier.”
He laughs loud enough to make me cringe, and it seems like he’ll never stop.
“You don’t have to mock me,” I murmur.
His laughter dies down, and a soft smile remains. “I’m not mocking. I’m laughing because I genuinely thought you were a real-life angel for a second back there! You were justin the road, fucking glowing!” He looks at me in astonishment. It quickly disappears as he adds, “Then I remembered none of that shit’s real—no offence—I figured I wasn’t hallucinating and had to stop myself from mowing you down. You got lucky I didn’t.”
He grabs a small metal container from the cup holder and flips it open with his thumb, then tips something into his mouth. When he tosses the tin back down it rattles and the lid pops open. Spotting the pills inside, my stomach twists with dread.Has he been high this whole time?
When he catches me staring, he quickly flicks it shut without saying a word.
Either this is going to end very badly for me tonight or it’ll go in my favor and he won’t remember a thing.
I should keep to myself as much as possible to avoid attracting any more of his attention. But the curious part of my brain that I’ve never been able to control wants to know why he’s driving in the middle of the night on whatever those mystery pills are. And why he looks at me like he’s hungry to see the darkest parts of me that I thought I’d kept well hidden.
Chapter 3