Born in Sin [BOOK 1]

E p i l o g u e

Neo?" She shook him when he didn't respond. "Neo..!" She stared into his unfocused eyes and felt her world crashing down around her.

His hand slid from her face and her heart finally shattered completely. How it was still pushing the blood around in her veins was something she'd never understand.

"No..! Not like this, Neo. Don't leave me... Please. I can't be alone again..."

Jacquelyn could feel her soul physically tearing inside her. A scar much deeper than any blade could reach etched itself across her heart. The ache in her chest was so unbearable she wished that death would find her soon, that it would take her to her loved one, that it would take her to anywhere but here. But Death was unkind, especially to the likes of a killer such as herself.

Why..? She asked herself when the only pain she felt was in her chest. She was sure she was shot too, so why hadn't she fallen? Why was she being forced to suffer through so much torment before her final release? She couldn't bring herself to look away from Neo's face. His eyes burned themselves into her mind and just when she thought she would implode from all the emotions that were swirling inside her, a hand suddenly reached down and closed them.

Jacquelyn looked up and saw Stephen standing above her, his eyes brimmed with tears of his own. A simple glance over to Eric's new bullet hole on his chest told her what had happened.

The second gunshot had not been for her, but for Eric. Stephen must have had shown up sometime later while they were distracted and saw Eric taking aim. Jacquelyn had only rendered him conscious and like a fool she didn't check to make sure she finished her kill. Her first and only sloppy job, and look what happened.

This is my fault, her mind whispered with the power of a scream.

Grief battled with her self inflicted anger and so she released another sob, suddenly overtaken with the idea that she wasn't going to be joining Neo anytime soon.

"Jacquelyn?"

She looked back up at Stephen, wondering if her eyes showed how dead she felt inside. She stared at him long and hard and the only thing she could bring herself to say was, "why?"

Stephen shook his head, unable to answer. His own heart ached for her, seeing her so broken.

"It won't do any of us any good just to sit here. We need to get back, you're hurt." He didn't have the strength to think about Tamara. He only knew that he just had to hurry back.

"Why?" She asked again, her voice no more that a hoarse whisper. "Why?"

Stephen waited for a moment before realizing she hadn't even been listening to him, but lost in her own mind of grief. He stole a glance to Neo's beaten body and swallowed hard. Tamara was going to be livid. He decided to focus on the task at hand and instead of waiting any longer he bent down to move Neo away.

Jacquelyn snapped her eyes up and suddenly she was awake.

"Don't touch him!" She hissed, throwing herself over him as she held him closer. "I won't let you take him."

"Jacquelyn..." Stephen tried to calm her down. "He's gone."

"No!" She screamed. She could feel her old habits slipping back into her body like a virus and with nothing to try and stop it, she allowed it to come back to her.

"Get away from her Stephen." Darius suddenly said as he appeared at the scene. "That's not Jacquelyn anymore."

"But-"