There Are No Saints (Sinners, #1)

by Sophie Lark

I feel no sympathy. No guilt. Those are emotions I’ve never experienced. I’m aware, academically, of the full range of human emotions. I’ve studied them intently so I can mimic their effects. But they have no power over me. What I do feel, I feel intensely: rage, revulsion, and pleasure.

Textbook murdering psychopath

That’s the thing about murder: no body, no crime.

Alright Taylor swift calm down. I think you did it, I just can’t prove it

So I take one last glance at the girl’s beautifully tortured body. Then I step over her and carry on my way.

Are you fucking for real?! He just left her to die???

I’ve killed fourteen people and I’ve yet to receive a single knock on my door.

What the fuck

“If we’re ever alone in a room again, only one of us will walk out breathing.”

With the way he talks about women, I can’t even be sorry

Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer—both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams . . .” I smile to myself. Poor little Mara is not impervious to nightmares, whatever she may pretend during the daylight hours.

I pick up the next novel on the stack, Prometheus Illbound, and let it fall open to a dog-eared page. Here she’s marked: I do not love men: I love what devours them.

Minus points for the dog-eared page (personal no no). Plus points for the quote tho

Power corrupts and beauty warps the mind.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely

“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.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart,” she says. Then she kisses me on the mouth.

Yep. She’s crazy. He’s crazy. They’re both crazy. Perfect for each other

Right then, right as she’s about to cum, she looks directly at the camera.

She knew I would watch.

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.

She’s signed the painting in sharpie and titled it: The Best Night of My Life

“I own you now, Mara. You belong to me, whether you like it or not.”

“I can’t have another man’s mark on you.”

I feel the prick of the needle as it pierces my skin, depositing the ink deep down where it can never be removed.

Two snakes: one white, one black. Twisted and entwined with one another—their alternating coils tightly wrapped, but their mouths open to show their snarling fangs. I branded him just as he did to me.

Craaazzyyyy

“You could have killed that guy!” “I hope I did,” Cole says. I turn to stare at him, gasping in the thin, damp air. “You can’t mean that.” “Absolutely I do. He disrespected you. Put his hands on you. I’d kill him for much less.”

I can get behind this level of crazy tho

Worse, she weakens my mind. My decision-making. She warps my goals and values, making me think I care about things I never gave a fuck about before. I can’t protect her. Her death is inevitable. But I’ll be damned if Shaw is the one to do it. Mara belongs to me. I’m the only one who gets to kill her.

All in a moment, he’s gone. The buzzer sounds, the dryer stops, and I’m standing there, legs shaking, realizing that I’m definitely fucking crazy.

Ya think?!