When I was a child, I used to watch enviously as the other kids sparred without me. There were six of us total, and before he was old enough to know better, Sean would try to tug me along to join too.

I recall how small his hand felt on my wrist as he tried to jerk me upward. How his baby-rounded cheeks pulled into a smile as he tried to comfort me when Delia was having a bad day so training was harsh as a result.

The memories arise and just as rapidly I try to squelch them down. I've spent so much time trying to think of anything but my past that they push to the surface with the intensity of a dam breaking open. I swallow as rush unpleasant emotions threaten to leak through the cracks.

"Calli." Warm fingers grip my chin and tilt my head up. An alarmed set of stormy eyes gaze into mine. "Talk to me."

"Hm?" Everything mixes in my chest until only a vague set of numbness remains. My hands slick with sweat so I wipe them on my jeans.

But the dampness keeps coming, so I glance down in confusion. Red streams from a deep wound on my forearm and drips into the palm of my hand.

Sinclair swears under his breath and frantically pulls a rag from the bar and presses it to the open wound. His other hand digs into his pocket as he rapidly pulls out his phone and presses it to his ear.

"Who are you calling?" I ask, but my voice sounds distant in my ears.

"Oliver. And Theo if he'll pick up."

I frown. "Why?"

He sighs. "Someone needs to take care of the body while I get you cleaned up."

I stiffen at the word, my eyes flickering down to the floor even though Sin's body blocks most of my view. A span of crimson tinted platinum peeks through the space between his long legs.

My eyes drift back to the puddle of dark liquid that slowly creeps across the floor, staring so intensely that my eyes begin to unfocus. Sin sighs and tugs my chin back up to look at him.

"Stop that," he scowls.

I squeeze back a gag as it itches the back of my throat. "I didn't mean to kill him," I say, a warm trickle of water trailing down my cheek. It's strange—still, I can't feel anything but a dull sense of dread. "It was instinct and I just wanted to protect so I—"

"Angel." His calloused thumb gently wipes the tears from my cheek. "It's okay."

"Don't you want to know who he is?" I resist the urge to lean my face into his hand.

"The golden eyes and the fact that he's shit at being an assassin tells me enough," he says, then sighs as I tense in front of him. "That's not what I meant. You were far more of a challenge than him, angel."

"I don't care about that. We share the same blood—the closest thing I have to family." I wince as he presses the cloth tighter to my skin to clot the stream flowing from my forearm. "We were supposed to protect each other."

He's silent for a thoughtful moment, then says, "Where was he when you needed protection?" He frowns when I don't say anything. "Do you have any idea how close I was to killing you a few months ago?"

I shrug, balling my trembling fingers at my side. I don't know what's worse: the fact that I just killed the closest thing I have to family or I know that I'd do it all over again to protect Sinclair.

"Hold this," he says, then moves my hand to hold the soggy cloth in place. Sin frowns as my fingers strain to loosely grip it in place. "Doesn't that hurt? You're hardly making a sound."

I shrug again. "Don't feel it."

He curses under his breath and practically shoves me onto the barstool behind me. Well—either that or my knees are far weaker than I realize. "Sit. You're in shock."

I've never felt this way and I've taken plenty of lives without so much as a second thought. "But I kill—"

"People that you consider family?" He brushes a gentle hand over my cheek as I fall silent. "Take a deep breath. Rest. What you're feeling is normal."

I snort. "You kill your blood ties often?"

His thumb brushes over my cheek, grey eyes hardening. "I have before," he admits softly.

Heartache trickles through the thick wall of numbness in my chest. Sean isn't my real brother and his death affects me nonetheless. I don't know much of Sin's history but the same grief inside of his eyes lingers all the same.

I leave the soggy rag draped over my injured arm as I reach up and grab the hand that skims over my cheek in my own. I know words won't suffice when it comes to soothing the pain, so instead I press a gentle kiss to his knuckles as an unspoken form of understanding passes between us. His fingers are slightly sticky with blood from pressing on my wound but they fill me with warmth all the same.

"I need you to go upstairs. Lay down for a little bit." He stares intensely at me until stand and head for the door to the upstairs, my gaze absentmindedly tugging back to the limp form collapsed in a grotesque ball on the floor.

He sighs. "And don't look at the body."

I wince. The only thing keeping me together is the fact that I haven't fully glimpsed at the damage I've caused to Sean's body. The memory of the bullet embedding itself in his skull is glazed over although it only occurred moments ago. Probably a mental block to help me keep me sane.

"I don't want to be alone," I say even though my feet robotically beneath me to follow his orders.

"I'll be there soon," he says. Tightness eases in my chest at the promise. "Keep that rag pressed tight until then."

Keeping my eyes strategically forward, I nod and start up the steps.

...

I don't realize I've drifted off to sleep while waiting for Sin's return until a sharp sting on my arm pulls me into a lucid state. I grunt, trying to pull my limb away from the source of discomfort but a vise around my wrist keeps it firmly in place.

I crack an eyelid, startling when I realize Sin's fingers are the shackle holding me in one place and that a needle with some clear plastic-looking thread sticks out of my skin.

"What the shit?" My body stills in fear of snapping the long string by jerking too rapidly. "What is that?"

"Fishing line," he says easily.

I would glare at him if I can't seem to take my eyes off of the half-sutured wound. "And remind me why the hell it's in my arm?"

"Because you need stitches," he says, then releases my wrist. "Don't move." He pushes the needle in deeper until it pokes out of the other side of the puckered flesh, pulling it through with an unnerving sense of ease.

"Jesus." My throat burns with stomach acid as I watch him studiously work away at my forearm, weaving the plastic through the torn ends of my skin and gently weaving them back together. I can definitely feel the pain now—it makes my teeth clench and causes flames to lick underneath the swollen meat of my arm with each pull of the needle. My muscles cramp with the urge to jerk away. "I think I'm going to throw up."

Sin glances up at me, looking entirely unsympathetic. Considering he can sustain almost any injury without dying, he's most certainly felt pain more excruciating than this. "Then don't look."

I grind my teeth and ignore the fire simmering under my skin as I direct my gaze at the ceiling. "Distract me." A gasp rips past my lips as he pushes into my skin again. "Tell me a story or something."

He's quiet and for a moment I think he's going to ignore my request, but then he says, "I'll tell you about Rosie."

My brows raise to my forehead. "Rosie?"

"I found her in a trash can when I was ten," he says. I can't see his face but his voice softens with the memory. "She was the tiniest kitten I'd ever seen. Fit right into the palm of my hand. I'd never had a pet before—my mother could barely feed us, much less even think about another unnecessary mouth to worry about, but I couldn't leave her behind. So I hid her in my coat and smuggled her inside."

Sinclair has so many rough edges that it's hard to imagine him scooping up a stray animal and saving it from the goodness of his own heart, but the thought makes me smile nevertheless. What I would give to see a tiny Sin untainted by life stuffing helpless animals into his jacket.

"But how did you feed her? I thought you said your mom couldn't afford to put food in your stomach."

"I guess she did have enough, but she prioritized her addiction over us. So my brother and I took turns stealing money from her wallet so we could buy kitten formula. Just enough that she wouldn't notice—most of the time she was hardly lucid, so it wasn't hard." He wipes away a trickle of blood that weeps from my wound with careful fingers. "Anyway, after she was old enough we fed her cans of tuna. She was always a small thing, even when she was full grown, but she was fierce as hell. Bet she could've taken down a Doberman with those tiny claws and sheer will."

I turn my head and stare at him. "Brother?"

He grunts in acknowledgment but keeps his face blank as his hands work studiously in front of him.

I force myself to look away and swallow all the questions hovering on my tongue. I know better than to poke at what seems like a sore subject, usual abrasive nosiness or not. "Right. Anyway. You were saying?"

He sighs. "Go ahead. Ask me."

Well, if he's offering.

"Tell me about him," I say.

"His name is Samuel and he's older than me by six minutes." He an eyebrow at the unsatisfied expression on my face. "You need to be more specific than that."

"What's he like?" I can hardly believe Sin has a twin. That somewhere, a man that looks eerily similar to the hellion in front of me walks around and exists and probably wreaks just as much havoc upon the world as his brother.

"Reckless. Ballsy. Has a habit of picking fights."

A short laugh rasps from my throat. "So just like you?"

He makes a sound of distaste. "Hardly. I know my limits—when to take a step back to save my neck. Wish I could say the same for him."

I can sense an undercurrent of something deeper there but I don't press further. "Huh. Why have I never met him before?"

"Because I left him in Chicago," he says. "That life isn't mine anymore."

I frown. "Why?"

"Had to escape some things."

"Hm." I study the sharp angles of his face as they pinch in focus trying to wipe blood away from my skin between stitches without hurting me. "Had to run away from the bad juju, huh?"

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips although it seems a bit stiff. "Guess you could say that." He reaches for a pair of small scissors in his pocket and cuts the clear thread on my arm. "There. All done."

I blink. Though trapped in a constant state of discomfort, the stabbing ache seemed significantly more bearable with the distraction of his words. "You sure this isn't going to get infected?"

"No," he says, "there's always a risk, even if you were stitched up by an actual doctor. But your blood makes you hardier than the average human, so I doubt it."

"Huh." I study the neat row of stitches that keeps my skin carefully held together. They're not perfect, but they're clean and evenly spaced together and could easily be mistaken as done by a professional hand. Well—without the fishing line, anyway. "Thank you."

Sin places the bloody needle and extra thread on the floor and climbs in next to me, carefully moving my body to tuck into his.

I lean my head on his sternum. The soothing rhythm of his heart pounds underneath my ear. "Now what?"

"Now you rest." His fingers draw circles on the small of my back. "We'll worry about everything else tomorrow."

I try not to think of the body of my former companion on the floor below us. Instead, I focus on the feeling of his chest as it beats against my cheek and the ticklish sensation of his fingertips as they skim over my skin.

Things won't always feel okay. If anything, I know I'll feel anything but when tomorrow comes and I remember the blood on my hands.

But just for this moment, I pretend that nothing else exists. That there's no angel bloods or demons or that an innumerable amount of lives have been taken between us.

For once, we're just Calli and Sinclair, and it feels so perfect that I don't even mind that it's a lie.