My Sinner

ZARA

|| FIVE YEARS AGO ||

The first pair of bright yellow eyes appears between the pines while I'm shoving barbecue chips into my mouth to stifle the rage burning through my chest.

It's too low for a deer and too still for a dog.

I tug one headphone off and lean over the gutter until a second shape peels itself out of the dark and sits on its haunches, like it's waiting for permission.

Wolves don't come this close to Greyhaven. Everyone said that the last time I saw one. Liars, all of them.

Something taps the bottom of my sneaker.

I shriek and jerk around. My heel slips. Chips scatter across the roof, and before I can slide towards the gutter, a hand clamps around my ankle.

“What the fuck?!” I hiss.

Ramsey is leaning out of my bedroom window, one arm hooked over the sill and the other wrapped firmly around my ankle.

His eyebrows rise. Right. He hates it when I swear.

“Would you rather I let you fall?"

“I'd rather you didn’t sneak up on me while I'm sitting on a roof!"

His mouth ticks up. He releases my ankle and climbs through the window. I sit up, rubbing the place his fingers were wrapped around me.

I can still feel them. Shit.

Ramsey settles beside me, leaving enough space between us for another person.

He never used to do that.

Before my eighteenth birthday, he stole my popcorn during movies and bumped shoulders with me when I said something stupid.

Now he knocks before entering any room I occupy, even when the door is open. I hate that I've noticed.

I glance towards the trees, breathing in apple and whiskey-oak beneath Ramsey’s cologne. Sweet at the edges, heavier underneath.

The wolves are still there.

"Why are they staring at us?"

Ramsey follows my gaze. His expression doesn't change. But the warmth disappears from his face.

One of the wolves lowers itself immediately. The other backs away.

I look between them and Ramsey. "Did you just scare them?"

He says nothing, not looking away from the animals.

The larger wolf turns and disappears between the pines. The second follows.

Weird.

Even weirder is how clearly I can still see them as they move deeper into the woods. The reddish brown along one wolf's back. The pale patch beneath the other's jaw.

I blink hard. Darkness swallows them.

"What happened with your mother?" Ramsey asks, the rumble of his deep voice making my pulse skip.

I shove a chip into my mouth and he holds out his hand.

I groan. "You're rich. Buy your own."

He reaches for the bag. I twist away, laughing, and my palm lands on his thigh.

We freeze.

Heat shoots through me so quickly my fingers actually twitch. Ramsey looks down at my hand, and I snatch it away. Oh god.

I stare at the trees. Maybe the wolves will come back and eat me.

Ramsey is just a man. A very beautiful man who has been married to my mother since I was fourteen.

Technically, that last part should be enough to cure me. Even if lately, they've been behaving less like a married couple—

"Talk to me, Zara," he says.

I shrug, and he waits for me to open up.

My eyes sting. "She wants me to stay here. Forever, apparently. Study here, work here, marry here, and produce six Greyhaven babies. Even after I told her that I got accepted."

He turns, the moonlight catching on his thick lashes. "Where?"

"Ivoryfalls. Partial scholarship."

Saying it aloud makes my stomach flutter all over again. Three hours away. Classes I chose. People who have never known me as somebody’s daughter.

Freedom. Or abandonment, according to Mum.

Surprise flashes across his face. "That's good, Redbird."

My throat tightens. He hasn’t called me that in months. I wish one stupid word from him didn’t feel better than my acceptance letter.

"You think I should go?" I whisper.

He leans back with both hands planted behind him, his black sweater stretched across his massive shoulders. "I think your mum is terrified of losing you.”

I glance at the gap in the pines once more. It's empty, but I still feel like I'm being watched.

"Whose side are you on?" I ask.

"Yours." The answer comes so easily I forget to breathe.

"I want to go far away,” I say.

"Then go far." Something small lands in my palm. An old brass compass.

"Ramsey."

“It was my father’s,” he tells me and I nearly drop it. “He gave it to me when I left home.”

I look down at the worn brass in my palm. “Then you definitely shouldn’t be giving it to me.”

“I want you to have it.”

“Why?”

“So wherever you go, you’ll know which direction you’re facing.”

My fingers curl around it. "Does this mean you want me to leave?"

His expression softens. "No."

My heart kicks painfully. "Then why—"

The bedroom window bangs open.

"Zara!"

Mum's eyes find me, Ramsey, then the compass.

Her face turns red with fury. "What are you doing?"

Ramsey rises to his feet. "Talking."

"I wasn't asking you," she snaps. "Zara, get inside. Now."

"No," I grit out.

"You don't know what you're doing!" Mum hisses.

"With what? University? Leaving? Existing?" My eyes are welling up with angry tears now.

“With Ramsey.”

My heart starts pounding. Does she know?

She can’t. There’s nothing to know. Ramsey certainly hasn’t done anything.

“Why? Because he actually listens when I speak? You don’t listen to anyone unless they’re agreeing with you.”

Mum’s face crumples.

The anger inside me falters. I could stop here.

Instead, I think about every conversation that somehow ended with my life becoming hers to arrange.

“Maybe I don’t want your protection anymore.”

Mum goes very still. “Fine.”

"Mum—"

"Go upstairs, Zara."

...

I pack at 1:13 a.m.

I'm not leaving forever. I'll stay with Imani. Mum will calm down. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow. Maybe Ramsey will call. My chest hurts at the thought.

That's disgusting. He's my stepfather. Technically.

Whatever.

A floorboard creaks downstairs. I freeze, glancing at the clock at the sound of Mum's voice.

1:26 a.m.

Who is she talking to?

I creep towards my door. Her voice drifts up from downstairs. She's on the phone.

"...getting worse."

I stop.

"No. She doesn't know."

My fingers tighten around the banister. Know what?

"Zara cannot stay here."

My stomach sinks. Earlier she was screaming because I wanted to leave. Now I can't stay?

I move down one stair.

Mum lowers her voice. I catch only pieces.

"...too close..."

“…Ramsey doesn’t know. No. He can never know what she is.”

What I am?

My heart slams against my ribs. Then I hear footsteps coming toward the stairs.

I run back into my bedroom and grab my backpack and duffel. My hands are shaking so badly I nearly drop my phone.

Fine. If she wants me gone, I’ll go.

I climb through the window and glance towards the other side of the house.

Ramsey's room is dark.

I could wake him. Tell him what I heard. Ask him to take me somewhere. Stay.

My hand closes around his compass.

'He can never know what she is.'

Tears blur the yard.

"Bye, Ramsey," I whisper.

Then I climb down.

I don't know that the next time Ramsey touches me, something that's been sleeping inside me will wake up screaming for him.

Or that I'll return to Greyhaven to bury my mum...

and find evidence that Ramsey might have been the one who put her in the ground.