The Sinners We Love |18+

[26] amber

"Don't needa pay." Sarah dismissed, sucking on the orange tootsie that painted her lips orange.

"Please," Charlotte insisted, like every other time, whenever she picked an issue of the Johnsons Tribune and Sarah refused to accept any payment for it. "You are actively jeopardizing your brother's business."

"He wouldn't bother, prolly smokin' with some college folks 'round the corner." The woman behind the counter shrugged, bringing out a calculator to cross check the bill. Charlotte had often considered this habit a time consuming waste. The computer was already doing it. What were the chances that an old rusty calculator would do a better job than a computer?

However, this time it bought her few more seconds to think. Charlotte took an ounce of breath and slapped herself with a mental pep-talk. It wouldn't hurt her, she had told herself. "Do you know where I can find him?"

Question laced and crinkled the Sarah's nose, as she packed the items in the tote bag Charlotte had handed over. "My brother?" It was rhetorical. 

"Yeah," Charlotte drawled. "Love the work he's doing." A faint pride made Sarah's chest rise, and it was Charlotte's cue to understand she was doing it right. "I could use some publicity for my gallery after all. People must be reading a lot of these." A lure. A lie.

"Take the left. Climb the stairs, he'll be in one of the rooms." Sarah informed, buying the hook Charlotte had sold. "Talk outside if his room is filled with smoke." 

Charlotte grabbed the bill and her bag, secured her card inside, and bid a small goodbye. With a sharp step with full of intent to leave, she halted. A question struck her. "Oh, what do I call him by?"

The next customer had already placed their basket, scanning, twisting, registering, Sarah gave a quick side glance, her mouth rolling to form the name: "Joseph."

Luca was an elite—  in lust and vicious manipulation. Fingers skimming along her waist, tears rolling, and the man kissed the tears tainting the porcelain of her skin. Seizing them. Tasting them, as he recited: "This is not for pleasure, Charlotte. This is a lesson."

Charlotte had never wanted to rinse something off as much as his sinful touch from the gravel of her skin. Sweet scents of a fresh shower infiltrated her rigid senses— a fresh shower after killing people, relentlessly. Her stomach churned, curdled, distastefully, and then painfully. Every thing whirled inside, as visions of the scene etched to her vulnerable mind.

Dead people. Bloody guts. Body matter.

The idea of freedom was delicate.

Charlotte had not understood the gravity of freedom until she was caged by a detestable man. Her strength useless against his and freedom was straying far. Far— so far that reaching out became an illusion. The further it went. Her mind went with it too. Like she was choking on sand and water. The rough and the soft. She did not know which one was the right choice anymore.

The desperate woman smacked her head to the side of his face. It was a voluntary choice. Or perhaps it was not. But again, maybe it was. Charlotte did not know anymore. Would anyone smack death himself? She wouldn't have, any other day, where the time was correct, where the time was sane.

But if you asked her now, she couldn't tell you.

His head fell to side, on impact. His breaths hollowed. Patience ebbed. Charlotte hit the cabinet with a loud rattling noise, hands pushed to her sides, wounded palm slamming against the wooden counter. Luca grasped the little bubble of distance.