A Sinner’s Saint (De Bellis Crime Family #4)

Story Time with Vin

The Sinner and the Saint

Cammi’s eyes flutter closed. She loves me telling her this story. It’s the same one I tell her over and over again. She’s always asleep before I get to the end, though. I close my eyes and start at the beginning:

“There was a boy. A rebellious, lost boy. A sinner. He thought he had everything under control. He thought he was handling life just fine. Then God gave him a saint. At first, all he did was watch her. Admired the saint’s beauty from a distance.

The Sinner was far too damaged to be near someone so perfect. Someone as innocent as the saint. You see, the saint was flawless, but one touch from the sinner and she’d end up with more flaws than even he could count.

The sinner was determined to keep the saint pure, which was why he avoided the temptation for so long. Until one day he couldn’t stop himself. He saw the saint struggling, and he wanted to help her, let her know that she was going to be okay. He’d make sure of it.

So the sinner and the saint started talking. She was the easiest person he’d ever talked to. And when she smiled, he was blinded. The sinner wanted to touch her. He wanted to reach out and grab hold of her and never let go.

He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t touch her. As bad as the sinner was, there were monsters in the world far worse than he was. And those monsters, they destroyed the sinner. Left him the broken, fucked-up version of a human he now was.

Which was the reason he couldn’t touch the saint. Not unless she asked him to first.

Days went by and not a word was shared between the sinner and the saint. He missed her, even when he was looking right at her. And then, by some miracle that was surely meant for someone else, he got to talk to her again. Not only talk to her, but touch her. And when he touched her, everything in his world faded away.

When the sinner touched the saint, the lights came on and the darkness was gone. There were no monsters. There were no nightmares. And the horrible things that had happened to the sinner were gone. The saint had magic powers to make everything bad disappear.

The sinner wanted to keep the saint, and he was going to. Until, one day, he let the darkness slip through and that darkness spilled blood all over the saint. The sinner knew then that he couldn’t keep her. So he foolishly let her go.

The saint moved away and the sinner… Well, he sank farther and farther into the darkness. Only allowing himself to see the light a couple of times a week. And it hurt so much.

The sinner prayed, for the first time in a really long time, that he’d get to be with the saint again one day. That this wasn’t how their story ended. The sinner and the saint were going to find a way to be together again, because a life without her wasn’t a life he wanted. I love you, Cammi.”

I hang up the phone. Cammi fell asleep halfway through the story. She’s not ready to hear the ending yet, but maybe that’s a good thing. Because in my head, there is no ending for the sinner and the saint.