Hand In Ash

by Zoe Parker

  To know the sin eater was ashes means he was there for most of the conversation with Cris. Why lie about it? The question troubles her until she falls asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Voss shows up bright and early to escort her to the prison Max is being held in. He’s his normal flirty self, while she’s running on caffeine and barely functioning. She insists on driving in her car and following behind him, and he decides to ride with her.

  The drive is mostly silent, with Devil sneaking a nap in the back. Sora envies him in that and sips at her coffee. She only drinks it when she needs a serious kick in the ass, and today, she definitely does. She might even need two cups. Her brain is a mess of conspiracy theories and suspicion of people in her life.

  She had shifter bodyguards up until she got to the house last night. They would’ve seen anyone following her to that point. That leaves one answer: someone is giving them information on her. Someone in Voss’s camp more than likely.

  As they pull up to the prison gate, she pushes those thoughts to the back of her mind.

  Voss nods at the guard and they’re waved through.

  The first thing she notices about the prison after they go through the hoopla of being searched and letting the guards go through her personal items, Voss is exempt, of course, is that it’s clean. Very clean. As they walk through the corridors boasting the shiniest floors she’s ever seen, Voss is booed, growled at, and threatened a dozen times.

  “You put a lot of them in here, I’m guessing?” she asks, when a wet roll of toilet paper bounces off the barrier the guards placed around them.

  “Most of the people I confront don’t end up here.” He means that they mostly end up dead. “They hate me because I won’t let them out.”

  “You’re really keeping Max here for life?” Not that she’s concerned for his well-being, merely curious.

  “Until a power higher than mine claims him.” Once again, he means death, which she decides to say nothing about. “Ashley isn’t carrying his young, and that gives her a chance to move on with her life and find another mate.”

  “You can do that?” That’s something she didn’t learn in history class.

  “We can do a lot of things that you can’t read about in your books, Sora.” She feels like there’s a double meaning to that statement, so lets it ride. “There was something off about that sin eater, but I didn’t hear what it was.”

  Devil and Sora look at each other. That confirms that he showed up after amber-eyes dropped that tidbit. “Why lie about when you arrived?” Sora asks softly. Not upset with him for it, concerned a little maybe.

  “I expected you to be upset with me for not interfering,” he finally answers.

  “Na, it’s better that you didn’t.” She means it too. “That sin eater you’re asking about, he’s part shifter.” That gets Voss’s full attention. She can tell by the way his body slightly tenses, and the air grows thick around him.

  But all he says is, “Interesting.”

  “Why did you come back, anyway?” Hopefully, he came back and wasn’t just creeping outside of her house.

  “I got halfway home and changed my mind and decided I wanted to talk to you more.” She leaves that alone too. She has a feeling he didn’t want to only talk. Sora decides to let it go. Anything she says will either get him to admit and prove her suspicion or lie to her.

  When they get to Max’s cell and open the door, he’s laying on his comfortable looking bunk reading a book. When he sees Sora, he stands, puffing out his chest and tries to give her the same kind of smile she fell in love with. Voss moves closer to her, growling, and it falls off his face.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, looking warily at Voss.

  “How did you contact the sin eaters?” She sees no reason to explain anything to him. He knows why he’s in here, just as he knows what the sin eater's intentions towards her were the day at the café.

  His eyes fall on her, a big smug smile lighting his face. “You do want something from me. What do I get out of it?” In prison for life and he’s still a greedy twat.

  “You get to continue to breathe,” Voss answers for her.

  “I’m going to die in this place anyway.” They can all see that he doesn’t mean it. Max doesn’t want to die; he’s terrified of it. The fear he’s trying in vain to hide fills the room with an acrid smell.

  Sora repeats her question. “How did you contact the sin eaters?”

  He looks from her to Voss and back again. Nothing he can give her is worth rewarding him for. Max is in a place in his life where he owes everyone, not the other way around. The second that smile falls off his face, she knows he’s giving in.

  “There were flyers being passed out at the new bar down in the borough. The place was crawling with them, wearing their fake smiles and stiff clothes. There were black lights all over the place, and the recruiters were wearing runes on their faces that only show up under the lights. It was how to find who to talk to.”

  “What does the rune mean?”

  “I have no fucking idea. Some stupid lost language or something.”

  Sora knows. Sin eaters are notorious for using them. It’s from a language only they use, created by the first wave of sin eaters based around the runes on their arms.

  “Did you ever meet one who is part shifter?”

  “I wouldn’t say I met him, but he was around there sometimes. He’s a creepy fucking dude, so I avoided him. But Ryan liked to talk about him. He said that he did all the leader’s dirty work, like some kind of enforcer.”

  “Who’s Ryan?”

  “Cocky as hell with cheddar cheese colored eyes. Likes to run his mouth a lot.” He’s perfectly describing the dead sin eater, but she doesn’t fill Max in on Ryan’s current condition. Or lack of one.

  “Why isn’t he afraid of him?” She witnessed that lack of fear. Up until his face was pressed against the ward and resembling candle wax, he wasn’t afraid of him at all.

  “They’re cousins, I think. Ryan was determined to figure out how to bump creepy dude out of the top spot. He hated the guy, thought he was bad breeding or some shit,” Max explains.

  “Well, that won’t be happening now,” Devil tosses out.

  “Devil.” Max doesn’t need to know anything in case they can get to him in here.

  “Truth, ain’t it?” Finished talking to Max and wanting to get the hell away from him, Sora goes to walk out of the door when Max’s next words stop her.

  “I’d be careful trying to get in if I were you. You need a password to get into their stupid club.” Her annoyance with the worthless man is immediate, and the fist at her side fairly aches to connect with his face. He knows he won’t get anything in exchange. He withheld information simply to be a dick.

  “Was there one on the supposed flyer?” Voss questions, as annoyed as her. He’s just better at hiding it.

  “Well, no. But she’s a sin eater. She’ll need one. Only they do. They won’t let her in without it.” Strange rules, but then again, it’s a way for them to weed out the ones they really want with the ones that are a means to an end.

  “How do we get this password?” Voss demands, stepping closer to Max, who flinches.

  “They have recruiters who go around to the fancy sin eater parties recruiting women. But the higher-ups know your face, Sora.” He says it so snidely she almost turns and kicks him, but the tingling of her built-in lie detector stays her. He’s lying about something, the tingle in her arm tells her so.

  “Strange of you to be so generous when you didn’t want to tell us anything before,” she says, looking at Voss. Hoping to communicate that Max is lying. When he raises his eyebrow, she knows he got it.

  “What else do they know about her?” Voss crosses the room in two steps and has Max in the air against the wall in seconds. For the first time, Max looks truly afraid. Another piece of proof that Max is an idiot. Having Voss in the same room as him should scare him.

  “No, Voss. L
et me touch him.” The beauty of sins is that they can’t be hidden from a sin eater who’s looking for them. Something as mundane as lying is even a sin, whether the person committing it believes in a higher power or not. If there is guilt, deception, or a feeling of remorse attached to it–it becomes a sin.

  Voss drags him to her, forcing Max on his knees in front of her. With her fingertip she touches his forehead and staggers back when she sees all the trash inside of him. Max is so much worse than she ever expected him to be.

  So is what they’re doing with the sin eater women.

  “Sora? What is it?” Devil asks in concern.

  “There’s a reason we don’t see women… they’re holding them captive and breeding them.” She shakes her head and touches Devil to rid herself as quickly of Max’s sins as possible. “That’s our way in. The ones going to the sin eater functions to look for women.”

  “Do you want him to live?” Voss asks casually. She’s already halfway out the door when she stops, again. She genuinely considers saying no for several seconds before another idea forms. Something she saw inside of him that he lies and connives to keep from happening.

  Something he deserves more than the peace of death.

  “There’s a shifter here. Someone Max is afraid of. Big guy, bald head. Has a tattoo of a woman on his belly. He ghosted the man’s daughter after convincing her to part with her money. If you put him near that guy… that will be enough.” Max won’t have such comfortable days anymore.

  “He’ll kill me!” Max protests, raising his voice in anger.

  “Na. He’ll just make you wish he would,” she argues quietly.

  “Sora, this isn’t like you. You love me,” Max pleads petulantly. For ten years, that tone worked on her. Forced guilt onto her that wasn’t hers forced her to sacrifice things for his needs.

  She ignores him and walks away. She’s clenching her fist because her magic is still awake. As she walks through the corridors, without the aid of a barrier, the prisoners fall silent.

  “Why are they so quiet this time?” Devil asks, looking around curiously.

  “Because they know there’s a bigger predator in the building,” Voss answers in amusement.

  “That’s just arrogant. It didn’t stop them the first time,” Devil says in disbelief.

  “Who said I was talking about me?” Voss says with a teasing note in his voice.

  Devil whistles. “I’ll be damned. Someone else finally sees it.”

  “Not just someone, all of them do,” Voss comments. Sora tries to ignore them both while getting her temper under control.

  Being in the room with Max was hard enough, seeing into his head even harder. The things he’s done… even when he was with her is enough to make her want to bash him time and time again with the biggest rock she can lift. The woman he stole the money from was a long line of many. So many faces, so much heartbreak.

  Some of them while he was with Sora.

  It was enough to think she wasn’t ready to move on with someone else, now she knows. For it to make her feel so raw, so used all over again means she’s just not ready.

  Not even for a hookup.

  Both of the men have fallen silent behind her, but she can feel both of their gazes on her back. She stops walking suddenly, looking over into the cell to her right. The big guy from Max’s memories is standing there with a puzzled look on his face.

  “You’re going to get a cellmate soon. His name is Max.” When she says the name, it triggers a look of familiarity in the man’s eyes; she continues walking. No, this man won’t kill him, he’s not the type, but he’ll definitely fuck him up.

  Max deserves every single bit of it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In order to get into sin eater social functions, Sora has to do something she hates. Ask her mother to take her. That means a day of primping, clothes shopping, and her constantly listing single sin eaters and their monetary worth. An entire day of being dragged from place to place while her mother laments about the lack of marriage and social status in Sora’s life.

  Just to mess with her mom, she waited until she dropped her off to let her know that she already had a date for the charity ball. Her mom surprised her by rolling with it, assuming that it was another sin eater.

  Sora didn’t correct her.

  Instead, she sat in her car, enjoying the freedom from her mom’s nearly suffocating presence. When she came to Sora’s apartment and was helping her pack–after the little temper tantrum because Sora said no to going to dinner–she realized something important about the relationship with her mother. The guilt she used to feel about wanting to be away from her mom is gone. There’s no more sense of obligation or remorse. If she chooses to spend time with Tammy, that’s great, but when she decides she’s had enough of it, that’s great too.

  She loves her dearly, but that doesn’t mean she has to like the kind of person her mother is or actively seek out time with her because she feels bad. That’s the thing about toxic people; it’s her choice whether or not she wants to be around her. Despite all the crap she used to tell herself to explain the willingness to be treated badly, her mother is definitely a toxic person.

  She has a right to decline exposing herself to that just because of family ties.

  Sora spent too many years humoring her and putting up with the backhanded compliments and passive-aggressive insults. Lying to herself and making excuses about her mom’s behavior to the point where she was miserable inside all the time but hiding it because it upset Tammy.

  If not for the need to go to the ball, this time spent with her would’ve been much shorter or not happened at all. Love isn’t a pathway to allow someone to abuse you.

  It took her thirty-one years to see that.

  “She’s looking out the window, so you might want to drive somewhere else and park to keep having your epiphanies, Sora,” Devil teases.

  “Shit,” she mutters, pulling out of the driveway and heading towards home.

  “I almost feel sorry for your dad. He looked so confused that you were hanging out with her and going to the party.” Devil makes a valid point. Her dad spent the majority of the morning while they had an awkward breakfast giving Sora questioning looks. She remembers his frown as he watched the parade of her trying on dresses and modeling them in the dining room for her mom. It took three hours for her mom to pick one, and it ended up being the first one she tried on.

  A simple, floor-length red gown with straps and a slit from knee to ankle. It was the one Sora favored as well and planned on picking no matter what her mom said.

  “It’ll be a long time, if ever, before I do this again. Without her, we wouldn’t be able to get in there. You know how old fashioned the society is.” Even at Sora’s age, her unmarried state keeps her on the same level as a child in the eyes of the elders. It’s stupid and archaic, but how their cloistered society works.

  Yet another reason she wants nothing to do with it.

  Once she gets home, she hurries to get ready and calls Voss to meet her there. The idea of riding with someone doesn’t appeal to her. She prefers having her own way to leave if need be. Even when it comes to Voss, considering what kind of party it is, she can almost guarantee she’s going to want to leave early.

  She takes one last look at herself in the mirror and decides that everything is as perfect as it’s going to get, locks up, and drives to the ball across town. They’re hosting it in one of the sin eater culture buildings that, as far as she knows, only hosts events for sin eaters.

  Sin eaters are snobs even as they lament about how the world treats them. She’ll never understand the odd double standard. The group is claiming they’re seeking equality for her kind but doesn’t see anything wrong with their own people being close-minded. A bit of hypocrisy there.

  Once there, she pulls into the long line for valet parking. When she gets to the front of the line and discovers a familiar shifter valet, she realizes that Voss already has people here. He’s more
prepared than she is. She’s also not that surprised. He’s responsible for millions of people, connected to them. Of course, he’ll have ways to implant people into the social functions of other supernaturals. The shifter winks at her when he takes her keys, and she gives him an amused smile.

  Tucking her clutch close, with two knives and several charms in it, close to her, she girds herself to go inside. She genuinely hates these types of things. The sly comments, the insinuations of her worthlessness. Years of being treated like a second-rate person because she didn’t proudly broadcast her abilities and marry young.

  Because she let them continue while saying nothing, too.

  After passing her coat to a hostess, Sora ignores the curious looks directed her way and walks through the entrance. Voss is waiting for her just inside the door, and when he sees her, smiles broadly, holding out his elbow for her. She takes it, clinging to it like the lifeline it is.

  These things give her anxiety.

  He covers her fingers with his reassuringly and gives her a saucy wink before steering her towards her mother. Tammy lights up when she sees her, but not the light of happiness. It’s the light of calculation. There’s a sliver of hurt, but Sora ignores it. She’s accepted that to her mother, she’s a tool, not a daughter. There’s no reason to let it hurt her anymore.

  “Sora, you look radiant,” she says, taking both of her hands to pull her close and air-kiss her cheeks. She turns her probing gaze to Voss, giving him a quick head to toe look before her eyes rest on his face and narrow while she tries to place him. Voss is a gorgeous man, anyone who looks at him will think so, even if they hate him, and she sees her mother appreciate what she’s looking at.

  Her mother’s eyes narrow when she figures out who he is. The smile on her face brightens and sharpens. When she lifts her hand to push a loose strand of hair away, it slightly tremors. As she speaks, there’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth.