Read Online Blood Sins by Kay Hooper - Free Book Online

feel his body ripping, tearing, feel the warm blood and the white-hot shimmering blaze of pure agony that had crackled across every nerve ending his small body possessed.
    And then . . . nothing.
    A darkness unlike anything he had ever known or imagined surrounded him, enfolded him in warmth. He felt strong. He felt calm. He felt cherished. He felt safe.
    Samuel had no idea how long that had lasted, though judging by what he found when he woke up, it was hours at least.
    The room was warm when he woke, which surprised him because the sort of motels his mother chose invariably had heaters and air conditioners that hadn't worked in years, and this particular hovel was no exception.
    The room was warm, and he was warm, and at some point he must have braved the stained and moldy bathtub, because he was clean and dressed. He wasn't even sore, which surprised him a lot because he was always sore and that john had been so big--
    Samuel saw him then. The john. Pinned to one wall of the room like a giant, ugly-ass butterfly in somebody's collection. He was bloody. Very bloody. He looked surprised.
    The knife his mother always carried was buried to the hilt in the john's left wrist, and the knife Samuel had stolen for himself months before was likewise buried in the john's right wrist.
    Neither would have supported the huge man's weight if not for the thick piece of wood protruding from the center of his chest, clearly driven into the wall behind him. It was a table leg, Samuel realized, from the rickety old table that had sat near the door.
    He turned his head just far enough to see that the tabletop lay on the floor, upside down. With all four legs missing.
    The room was utterly silent, except for his own suddenly audible breathing.
    Slowly, Samuel turned to look at the wall across from where the john hung and saw his mother. Like him, she hung suspended, spread-eagled and pinned in place.
    She looked surprised too.
    One of the table legs, split neatly in half, pinned each of her wrists to the wall. Another table leg, also halved, had been driven through her legs just above her ankles.
    The fourth and final table leg, whole, was driven into her body between her breasts, buried so deeply that only a few inches were visible enough to identify what it had been.
    It looked like she had bled a lot; thick reddish stains coated the peeling wallpaper below her wrists and legs, and the short skirt she wore was no longer pale pink.
    Samuel stared at her for a long, long time. He thought he should probably feel something, even if only relief, but all he felt was a kind of indifferent curiosity.
    It must have taken a lot of strength, he thought, to have pinned the huge john to the wall. And he knew his mother, knew how ferociously she'd fight to defend herself. So it would have taken somebody strong to do that to her. Somebody really strong.
    Her eyes were open, he realized.
    Open--and white. No color at all.
    When he looked at the john, he saw the same. Eyes open. But totally without color.
    Weird.
    He still didn't feel anything and for a long time just sat there looking back and forth between the two dead bodies. Eventually he got up and dragged his mother's old duffel bag from inside the closet. Since they never unpacked, his few bits of clothing and her things were still in it. He dumped all the contents on the bed, then picked out his own things and put them back in the duffel.
    He raided the bathroom of its meager supplies of threadbare towels and tiny shrink-wrapped soaps and put those in his bag. He found on the floor the man's pants and emptied the pockets, finding a big switchblade, a few coins, a couple of crumpled receipts, and a wallet. The wallet had several credit cards and a surprisingly thick wad of cash.
    Samuel hadn't spent more than a week at any one time in school, but when it came to money, he could count. Twenty-seven hundred dollars.
    It was a fortune. It was enough.
    He put the money and the knife in the duffel, then