There Are No Saints (Sinners, #1)

by Sophie Lark

No one believes me because my story makes no sense.

Maybe I am fucking crazy. And maybe that’s just fine. I’d rather be crazy than be like half the people I meet.

I savor her distress. I want to see her break down. Or at least, part of me does. The other part wants to watch her fight. I enjoy her stubbornness. And I want to crush it out of her.

“Great men don’t always make great fathers,” she says.

Sonia frowns. “Why are you always so averse to anyone knowing you’re a good guy?” “Because I’m not a good guy,” I tell her. “Not even a little bit.”

It really starts to fuck with your sense of reality. Every time someone tells you that you’re wrong, it didn’t happen like you said it happened, it couldn’t, you’re a liar, you’re a child, you don’t understand . . . Each hack of the hatchet takes a chunk out of your confidence, until you don’t even believe yourself anymore.

“You’ll be my protégé,” he says. “What does that mean?” “We’ll get to know each other. I’ll give you advice, mentorship. You’ll follow that advice, and you’ll flourish.”

“Are you the Weinstein of the art world?”

“Do I look like I need to bribe women for sex?”

All I learned is that no amount of submission is good enough for a man. You can roll over, show your belly, beg for mercy, and they’ll just keep hitting you. Because the very act of breathing is rebellious in the eyes of an angry male.

“That she’s a parasite. That her only ambition is to latch onto people and bleed them dry.” Cole nods slowly. “Including you,” he says. “Especially me.”

Cole offered no sympathy. He also offered no excuses. No fucking platitudes. No lies.

This obsession with Mara consumes me. It’s all I think about. It directs every action I take. I’ve never felt so out of control—which upsets me.

She’s determined to defy me at every turn, even though it’s obvious I’m infinitely more powerful than her. She’s stubborn. Self-destructive, even. And yet she’s not some pathetic, broken victim. Her will to live, to thrive, to never, ever, ever give up in her relentless pursuit of her goals . . . I’ve never seen myself in another person before.

“As a reminder. You don’t want to forget. Which means you don’t want to forgive.”

“Evil men always want to justify what they do,” she says. “And it’s not by telling you all their reasons. No . . . they want to push you, and bend you, and break you until you snap. Until you do something you thought you’d never do. Until you can’t even recognize yourself. Until you’re as bad as they are. That’s how they justify themselves . . . by trying to make you the same as them.”

She still thinks it might have been me. She thinks I did that to her. And yet she’s here, now, alone in this room with me, inches apart, her lips as swollen and flushed as mine . . . She’s more twisted than I ever dared dream.

he’s right, that’s what fucking kills me, he’s right! The things he points out, the things he tells me to change, I see them too. I know what I have to do.

I could have strolled in on Cole Blackwell’s arm. Instead, I’m going to see peoples' reactions to my work. Their REAL reaction, when they don’t know I’m here.

A perfect portrait. My portrait.

I don’t want Alastor anywhere near Mara. I don’t want him to know she’s even alive.

I want her with me constantly.

I want to do every fucking thing I want to do with her. The conflict between this need and its inevitable consequences infuriates me.

“How fucking dare you not wait for me.”

Yet she faces me boldly. Because she anticipated this. Planned it, even. “I missed you too, sweetheart,” she says. Then she kisses me on the mouth.

I taste the fucking animal. That animal is hungry. It attacks my mouth. It bites my lips. It swallows me whole. Cole is kissing me like the fucking monster he is, right here, right now, in front of all these people. He’s eating me alive while they all watch.

When we break apart, my mouth is bleeding. I feel the warmth sliding down my chin. My blood dots his full lower lip. I can see it in the threads of his teeth.

The only thing I think is this: I fucking did it. I made art.

“I wanted you. Genuinely. Because I admire you. And you attract me, I won’t deny it. I wanted to fuck you. But you don’t own me, Cole. And you never will.”

I embarrassed her. She was so vulnerable, kneeling before me . . . I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see how far I could push her.

The more she rebels against me, the more I want to crush her.

Stupid— Ashnikko

Stupid boy think that I need him . . .

I want to drive over there. Rip them apart. Smash his head into the wall a hundred times until his skull cracks like a melon and his brains leak out his ears. But I’m frozen in place, unable to look away from the screen even for a second.

I’m engulfed in jealousy. Inflamed with it. It’s a bonfire all around me, and I’m a heretic tied to the stake, burning and burning and burning.

Right then, right as she’s about to cum, she looks directly at the camera. She stares at me like she’s looking in my eyes. Her expression is wild and defiant.

In that moment I realize this whole thing has been a performance. She knew I would watch. She’s been fucking him for me, at me. To get revenge on me. And I realize . . . she’s everything I dreamed of and more. More vengeful. More strategic. More effective. More fucked up.

Instead, a freshly hung painting awaits my view. Abstract, with large streaks of violet, scarlet, and sienna . . . She fucked on that painting, and then she hung it on my wall. I’m struck anew by the absolute insanity of this girl. I admire her audacity. While planning how I’ll punish her for it.

The Best Night of My Life

Slowly, with great difficulty, I examine this feeling that sits on my chest like a fucking gremlin, weighing me down. I think . . . it’s regret. The title of the painting is a taunt. But it stabs me, all the same. It could have been the best night of her life.

She would have taken me back to the studio, if I let her. Instead, in that moment when she knelt before me, my impulse was cruelty. I wanted her—badly. And because I didn’t like that feeling of need, of weakness, I tried to humiliate her.

I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done. It’s an ugly feeling. Depressing and unending, because you can never go back. You can never undo what’s been done. I can’t shake it off. I can’t get rid of it.

I loved that piece. Sometimes you have to kill what you love.

And I’m starting to think that was a huge mistake. Cole Blackwell is not somebody you want to fuck with. I should know that better than anyone. He is neither reasonable nor forgiving. And he’s gonna make me pay for this, I know it.

Something is happening to me. Something is taking me over—twisting me, changing me. I’ve been infected. And Mara is the disease.

My desire to bring Mara there shows me how far this obsession has grown. Bringing her into my house is like bringing her inside my own body. A far more intimate act than simply fucking her . . .

“I’m no one’s fucking boyfriend,” I snarl. “She belongs to me, she’s my property. And you put your disgusting inky hands all over something I own. What do you think I should do about that, Logan?”

But Cole is right. I like the reminder. I need it. So I never get too comfortable again.

I’ve been reading Dracula. It’s a cautionary tale. A warning to young women not to give in to the seduction of a man who wants to devour you. And yet . . . not all of us were drawn to Prince Charming. Some little girls ate up the stories of ball gowns and castles and knights who slayed the dragon . . . While some little girls read the stories of a dark pathway into the woods . . . a twisted mansion with black windows and fog covering the grounds . . . That’s where we wanted to go. No matter what we might find inside . . .

Gasoline — Halsey