The Sinners (Raven River Academy, #2)

by Ruby Vincent

“There’s no color in your world, Royal Cruz. It’s why you draw one without.”

The thing about pain is when it torments you long enough, you begin to cling to it. Suffering is preferable to the terrifying fear that without the pain you might be numb.

“I didn’t run from you, princess. I sacrificed you. The beautifully sad girl who stepped onto the balcony wearing agony only I could see. I ate your pain because that’s what I do. And then I left you because I’d give it back. That’s what I do too.

My mother didn’t give me much advice, or attention, growing up, but once after a fight with Dad, she told me I had to seek love with just a tiniest bit of hate mixed in. “Find someone that challenges you. Pushes your buttons. Ignites your anger like no one else. Because in that frustration is passion. The artist doesn’t paint because he wants to. He paints because he has to. Even when he despises his creation. Even when he doesn’t have two pennies to rub together and art demands his last one. Even when the world tells him he’s no good. His passion for painting is obsession, and that’s what love is at the end of the day. It has to be you and only you. Their passion. Their obsession.”