Skin of a Sinner: A Dark Childhood Best Friends Romance(10)

I don't know what I feel. Guilt? Fear? Disgust? Anticipation? I feel all of it, yet none of it. Each swirl of emotion is so visceral but still so dull, as my mind refuses to comprehend the scene before me.

This is fucked up on every single level.

I know I should call for help. I need to stop Roman before he kills Marcus. I should have saved him when I had the chance.

But I can’t do anything, paralyzed in my spot, focused on trying not to pass out.

Roman pauses, looking up at Marcus with an eerie innocence that makes my stomach clench. “Do you want me to let you go?”

I stiffen and everything goes silent. He wouldn’t… would he? The Roman I knew would burn the entire city down before letting someone who hurt me walk free. But three years will change someone.

My foster brother nods slowly, sending me a questioning look. I swallow. Would Roman really let Marcus go? This is the question in both our heads, but I know for a fact that Marcus won’t be asking if Roman will let me go. He’s selfish. There’s no planet where he’d give a shit about what happens to me.

“It doesn’t seem like you want to be let go,” Roman practically sings, swirling the knife around Marcus’s cheek without breaking the skin.

Marcus swings his head from side to side violently, shaking his whole body. He doesn’t seem to care about the pain he’s causing himself because he doesn’t stop.

Worse, I can’t seem to care either.

“That’s better.” Roman smiles in the same way a tiger would before tearing through its dinner’s neck. He may like inflicting fear, but what he loves most is making them beg. “Apologize to my girl.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, it’s fine. He doesn’t have to. But I want to hear him say it. I want him to beg for my forgiveness.

The duct tape is ripped from Marcus’s mouth for the second time tonight. But like the idiot he is, the first words out of his mouth are, “Please, let me go.”

The words earn him a knife to his stomach. I flinch back from the suckling sound combined with his howling. Whether from morbid fascination, a sense of responsibility, or some sick need for closure, I keep my eyes open, staring at the gruesome sight through new tears.

“Apologize,” Roman growls, twisting the knife.

My chest tightens. Watching this kind of thing on TV is different from seeing it happen to your foster brother. I wish I had the strength to hurt Marcus the way Roman is, not just for vengeance, but to prove to myself that I can take care of myself in every possible way.

Marcus screams. What if the neighbors hear? What if the police come? What if Marcus lives and tells the police that I was an accomplice, like I know he would?

Marcus’s lips quiver, spit and blood flying out as he looks at me. “I—I’m sorry.”

I grit my teeth. His apology doesn’t make me feel any better.

“You can do better than that,” Roman says.

“I’m sorry!” Marcus cries as Roman applies more pressure to the open wound. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “Please, just let me go.”

“Keep going,” Roman says.

I dig half-moons into my palms and watch Marcus beg. “Please. I swear—I swear I won’t tell anyone. Do whatever you want with that slut—"

I suck in a sharp breath as the blade rips through tendons and sinews before my tormentor can finish his sentence, but the damage is already done. The rage vibrating from Roman is a living, breathing thing I can taste in the back of my throat.

An endless stream of blood pours from the yawning slit across Marcus’s neck. The crimson waterfall soaks his chest and rushes down his legs before pooling onto the floor.

I start heaving, but nothing comes up.

Inch by agonizingly slow inch, Roman turns his head in my direction, and I’m frozen in my spot. Dark hair falls over his beautifully vicious face, covered in my foster family’s blood.

Electricity cracks in the space between us, and every cell in my body is a live wire under his stare. When his eyes snap up to mine, it’s like I’m finally looking at him and seeing him for the bloodthirsty beast he is. And he’s found his next kill.

Me.

Pure animalistic instinct takes over with the single-minded need to run from the apex predator. My foot slides backward as he steps forward. One foot back, another forward. Stalking me. Hunting me.

The all-consuming urge to run has nothing to do with his strong strides or the knife fisted at his side. No, it’s the glint in his eyes. He isn’t warning me not to run.

He’s hoping I will.

Reason left me a long time ago. Logic is still tucked away in my bed, oblivious to the chaos below.

You should never run. You can climb, and you might be able to hide, but you never run.

Yet, that’s precisely what I do.

I run.





Chapter 4





ROMAN





8 Years Ago

Roman: 14 years old – Isabella: 12 years old.

“Damn it, Mickey,” Bella sighs, dabbing an alcohol-soaked pad to the cut on my face.

I smirk up at her, bouncing my leg on the concrete as I sit on the edge of the deck. “Yeah, but did you see the other guy?”

The glare she shoots my way is enough to make Hell freeze over. But knowing her, I’ll say a few choice words here and there, and it’ll melt like it’s just another day in paradise.