Deadly Sins (a Damnation Trilogy Prequel)

Chapter 8

Keeping her eyes glued to her computer screen, it was easy enough for Jade to look like she was focusing on the case. She'd begun a rhythm that she had long ago learned worked easily to fool her brothers; look intently at the screen with her eyes skidding across it as though reading the words, tap at the keys every once in while to make it seem as though she were searching something new, scroll down the page occasionally and every twenty minutes or so, sigh with frustration that she hadn't found anything useful. She'd mastered the skill from a young age, when she found her mind wandering to something Justin said or did, or when she imagined her life without her gifts and her brother’s fell for it every time but Justin wasn't fooled.

            As she tapped nonsensically at the keys again, Jade could feel Justin's eyes on her as though he could pick out what she was hiding just by staring. An hour had passed since her vision but she still hadn't let down her wall because she knew Justin was waiting for it. It was her own fault really for slamming the wall up as fast as she had, making Justin immediately suspicious, but the vision had shaken her a lot more than any other she'd had before. The blank look on Justin's face, the absence of hesitation as he pulled the knife out and drove it into her, the lack of response or recognition as she pleaded with him not to do it; it replayed in her mind, over and over again as though on a constant loop. A mini horror movie in her mind that there was no escaping no matter how hard she tried to think about something else.

            Justin would never hurt me, she told herself. No matter what happened, he wouldn't do it. He's proven it multiple times; he would rather die than let anything happen to me, so I know he wouldn't do it. I'm all he has left anymore, he wouldn't let me go. He would fight harder than anyone I know, even Damian, to stop himself from doing something horrible to me. It has to be something else...

            “Maybe we're dealing with a shape shifter,” she said out loud, deliberately looking at her brothers and no Justin who hadn't moved his eyes from her yet. “It would explain why the guys seemingly go from perfect boyfriend to abusive psycho within minutes.”

            “But it doesn't explain why the first boyfriend showed up forty years older and dead,” Damian replied. “Or why the targets are all teens and why all the attacks are the same, down to the details of their dialogue.”

            “What made you think shape shifter?” Justin asked suspiciously.

            “Just a thought,” I answered, staring forward blankly. “All of the girls said that the guys were fine before hand and then they left for a few minutes and came back robotic. It just seemed to me like a possibility because it only takes a few minutes for the shape shifter to change and download thoughts.”

            “But shape shifters don't act blankly after they take form,” Justin replied. “The point of them changing shape is to act the part for even part of the time, which none of these guys did. So whatever is happening here, they're doing themselves under control by someone else. Unless you saw something in your vision to make you think shape shifter?” Somehow it seemed like Justin's gaze on her had grown hotter and Jade knew she had no choice but to look at him now.

            “I didn't,” she said evenly, meeting his dark eyes even though she knew they could make her spill the truth. “I told you what I saw.”

            “You did,” he nodded shortly. “But I don't think you told us everything. And whatever it is you didn't tell us is what's behind that wall in your head that you're trying so hard to keep up.”

            “I'm not trying hard to keep anything up,” she replied stubbornly.

            “Then drop the wall.”