Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,11

up in my gut, and I want to storm in there and demand he stop. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I tug at my hair and shift closer to the door. As soon as they come into view, Elias’s head lifts, meeting my eyes, but he never stops playing. Never stops singing.

And there…her head resting on his thigh, one arm wrapped around his back, fingers tightly fisted into his tee. The other hand clenches the edge of the sweatshirt he has draped around her. Our girl.

The pronoun slips itself into my mind. However, once it’s there, I realize it fits. I can fight this shit all I want, but the fact is she’s here, and until she’s well again, she has to stay. She has nowhere else to go until we find her family. I may be heartless and cold, saying things I don’t mean, but I’m not cruel enough to toss her out onto the street.

Elias’s eyes harden, and his jaw clenches, and then he resumes singing. The fucker is pissed. He’s not the only one.

The girl in his lap starts to stir, and I take that as my cue to get out of here. Without a word, I push off from the wall and stalk to Elias’s room. Looks like he’s got her covered tonight, so I’m not taking the fucking couch. The sound of her retching follows me down the hall, and I close the bedroom door quietly behind me.

I strip naked and shower, washing the weekend of booze, coke, and chicks down the drain.

Then I go to bed alone.

I wake up the next morning cranky with a lifeless dick and feeling like hell—what a weekend of hard partying and drugs do to a man. I dress groggily. Jeans, black tee, socks, and boots. After that, I wander to the kitchen in search of coffee.

What I find instead is her.

I stop in the mouth of the hallway and take her in. She’s starting to heal nicely. And it’s amazing what a good shower can do for someone, but she’s still too damn skinny. The tee Elias gave her is drowning her. The hem nearly reaches her knees, and the sleeves hang to her elbows. And the black makes her sickly pale skin even more noticeable.

The sight makes my stomach sour and clench. This is fucking stupid, she’s not my damn responsibility, but I can’t help feeling like I got to get some food in her.

I can’t let her get attached. People become something to me, and they wind up dead. I won’t take any more casualties.

I clear my throat and move toward the kitchen, but even that small noise scares the shit out of her. She jumps as if she was electrocuted and drops the mug in her hands to the floor. It shatters into a hundred pieces.

Fuck.

A whimper slips past her lips before she drops to her fucking knees in a pile of glass shards and starts sweeping them up with her hands. What the fuck?

“Stop!” I command, my voice rough from the weekend so it comes out scarier than I intended. She whimpers again but thankfully stops moving.

Frozen solid and won’t look at me. Jesus.

Glass crunches beneath my boots as I cross the room. My legs want to race over to her, but I force myself to slow. She’s afraid enough.

I walk around her, giving her the chance to see my face and that I mean no harm. Blood drips from her hand, and I bet she has glass embedded in her knees too. “What were you thinking?” I question before I can stop myself. I’m angry she’d be so damn careless.

“I-I-I-I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

God, her voice is broken. Everything about her is broken. I need to clean her up, then put her somewhere she’ll be safe and out of my way.

Without thinking, I reach out to lift her away from the glass. I realize my mistake too late.

The girl lets out a small scream and thrusts herself backward to get away from me—right onto more glass. Her palms smack the floor to break her fall, and she lands on her ass. The cry of pain goes straight to my gut, but the look on her face sears itself into my brain. The torment and terror etched there is something I’ll never forget. She’s torn between the risk of asking for help or scurrying across the shards to get away. Holy fuck, the trauma this girl must have endured.

Taking a note from