by Logan Fox
I half expect to hear bats take flight when the door swings inward.
The bell tower.
It’s so much larger than I’d thought. The bell hangs a few yards away from where we’re standing. A wide ledge circles it, opening to balconies.
“It’s…”
“You should see it during the day. The view I mean. The bell’s nothing special.”
Apollo moves inside. When I don’t immediately follow, he grabs my wrist and hauls me after him. “Come on. We don’t want to be here when the bell goes off. It’s super fucking loud.”
He leads me past the bell to a much smaller door set off to one side. The metal door makes it seem like some kind of maintenance area.
The door opens to black nothingness.
Then Apollo turns on the light, revealing a tiny room with nothing more than a desk and a rickety-looking office chair, fabric unraveling on one corner of the cushion.
There wouldn’t be enough room in here to swing a cat. Possibly not even a small guinea pig. Not unless decapitation was on its bucket list.
Less than a yard away from me is a blank wall.
Well, it used to be blank. Now it’s covered with sheets of paper board glued together to form a massive canvas.
I step forward on automatic.
I’m dimly aware that Apollo’s still holding onto my wrist, but instead of letting me go, he comes in behind me and shuts the door.
“This is everything,” he says.
He’s not kidding. The wall is covered with photos, news articles, and pink post-it notes. Lengths of blue string join seemingly random objects together, forming the type of web only a spider on LSD could make.
“There’s so much…stuff,” I murmur as I step to the side to try and find a starting point.
Apollo uses the grip on my wrist to lift my hand. He carefully forms my fingers until I’m pointing, and then moves my fingertip over the collage.
He stops a foot or so away from the middle. I’m pointing at an old photograph—color, but edging toward sepia and slightly out of focus. It’s a school photo showing a small class of about twenty girls and boys dressed in school uniformed lined up on sports benches with two adults.
Behind them rears the majestic turrets of Saint Amos.
Friends of Faith Children’s Home
CLASS OF 1991
My heart sinks like a stone tossed into a deep well. It still hasn’t hit the black bottom when Apollo says, “Recognize him?” and drags my finger to one of the boy’s faces.
“I do.”
But it’s not the only face I recognize. I swallow hard and then glance at Apollo. He’s looking at me, not the board. “Why are you showing me this?”
“They told me you don’t want to help anymore,” he says. “But I think you should.”
I rip my hand out of his. “Zachary told you to bring me up here?” My voice is tight, my hands balling into fists.
“No.” Apollo shakes his head. “He—they…” He lets out a long sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose before looking back at the hysterical matrix of evidence scattered over the wall. “They’d kill me if they knew this was here.”
“Kill you? Bit dramatic, don’t you—?”
“Don’t tell them. Please.” He turns to me, grabbing hold of his elbows. “We’re not supposed to keep stuff like this around.”
“So why do you? Why is this here?”
“I had to put it all together so I knew it made sense.” He waves a hand at the photos and clippings, shaking his head. “I mean, it’s easy for them. They’re all so fucking smart. They just keep this shit in their heads. You ask any of them which year the fire broke out on Rhode Island, how many orphans apparently died in it, they could just tell you straight off the bat.”
Fire? Orphans? What the hell is he babbling about?
“Me? I get it all confused. So I made this. It helps me keep track. Helps it all make sense.”
I find the clipping he’s talking about.
14 DEAD IN FIRE
My eyes swivel back to him. “And it all leads here?” I ask, pointing at the photograph again.
“Yeah, in some way or the other.” He runs his palms carefully down the wall, smoothing everything in his path. “I thought, if you saw this, you would know it’s not just four guys talking shit. It’s real, Trin.” He cautiously moves closer. “Can you see how real it is?”
“Where did you get the photo?” I force myself not to look at it, even though I’m itching to snatch it off the wall and burn it.
“High school yearbook. Tracked it down in a library a few years ago.”
“How old is he?” My voice is hoarse now. I’m barely holding back…what? Anger? Fear?
Apollo is right. This changes everything. This photo?
It. Changes. Everything.
“So will you do it?” he asks. “Will you go back and try again?”
“I don’t know.” I have to crane my head to look up at him when he steps closer still. “I’d need more time, I think. Or maybe I did it wrong. Zachary said—”
“He lied.” Apollo’s eyes narrow. “He wanted you to think you’d fucked up so you’d try again.”
My mouth falls open. “That’s—”
“Why I brought you here.” He squeezes my arm. “But please, don’t say anything. Not to anyone. Understand? No one can see this.”
I nod mutely, wishing my skin would stop tingling where he touched me. Maybe it was our proximity, or my brain trying to cope with the next-level shit it had just been dealt…but suddenly I want nothing more than to kiss him.
He must see something in my eyes because his gaze drops to my lips a second before he ducks down and presses his mouth against mine.
Wanting and doing are two very different things, of course. No matter what I want, I shouldn’t let him kiss me. I mean, what does that say about me?
Blasphemous little sl—
You know what? Fuck it.
I arch into him, tangling my fingers in his hair. If this is going to happen, then for once I’m going to be in charge of it fucking happening. No more being bullied. No more unwanted fingers in my yoohoo.
Apollo huffs out a laugh as we totter back from the force of my kiss. But instead of pushing me away, or laughing harder at my pathetic attempts at seduction, he slings an arm around my waist, hoists me up, and plops me onto the desk behind him.
The cold metal starts seeping through my dress.
But cold is the last thing on my mind.
I’m focused entirely on Apollo’s mouth. But, also, how silky his hair feels as I twine it through my fingers. Then there’s his intoxicating taste, and the way he urges my hips closer to his with both hands on the small of my back.
Okay, fuck it, my mind is going in fifty different directions. But just like that web on his board, everything leads back to him.
His kiss grows deeper. He slides his tongue into my mouth, cautiously curious, until I give him unrestricted access.
Then he kisses me so hard my core starts to ache, and I can’t help but moan against his lips.
“Fuck, you taste good,” he murmurs, a volley of hot pants brushing my skin as he pulls away. “I thought they were making that shit up.”
Wait…what?
I shove him away. Stare open-mouthed.
He grins, rakes his hair out of his eyes, and pounces on me again without a word of warning.
They told him what I tasted like?
I thump a fist into his chest, but he just grabs my wrist and moves it off to one side without pausing his kiss.
It’s ridiculous to attack him, especially since I’m still kissing him back. Fuck…kissing him back? I’m barely holding my ground. He’s so passionate, so enthusiastic, my heart starts fluttering in my chest like a moth trapped in the tub.
But still I try and pound him with my other fist.
And then he snatches that one too. Now they’re both at the small of my back, and he uses both hands to keep them there while he ur
ges me forward, closer to the edge of the desk.
He tips his head forward, leaning his brow against mine. We’re both panting, and this time it has nothing to do with climbing stairs.
“I could kiss you all day,” he breathes, and then brushes his lips over my nose, my cheek, my ear. “But that bell’s going to go off in a minute.”
And then the craziest words fall out of my mouth. “Can we go back to your room?”
Hormones.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
He grins against my mouth, and a happy huff caressing my lips. “I’d love to, but I can’t. Raincheck?”
I nod, biting the inside of my lip hard enough that I’m surprised I don’t taste blood.
He lifts me, twirling me around once before letting me slide to the ground, kissing me on the way down.
Then he herds me out of the tiny room, allowing me a precious second to stare at his media mural before he shuts the door and locks it.
When he turns, I force a wide smile onto my face and desperately hope he can’t see through it.
That photo is going to haunt me. Those faces…
I push the thought out of my mind. It’s pointless trying to understand, especially when the answer is but a question away.
Gabriel wants to see me? Well guess what…?
I do have questions for him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Trinity
I spend a good half hour fussing with my hair as I stare at my reflection in the restroom mirror.
Stalling.
Trying to convince myself that going to see Gabriel is for the greater good, even if I’m not sure I actually want him to answer my questions.
Eventually there’s nothing left to do but to start climbing those stairs.
I’m so deep in thought that I don’t notice his door is open until I’m about to walk through.
I pause.
Should I announce myself or just go in? He did invite me and I doubt he’d leave the door open if he didn’t want me to come inside.
The antechamber’s door is partially closed. I step up to it and touch my hand to the worn wood before I hear their voices.
Thank God I stop to listen.
“I’m nothing like you! I’ll never be like you!”
I flinch and snatch back my hand. What is Zachary doing here? I back up, intent on turning tail and getting the hell out of here, but then I hear Gabriel’s voice.
Compared to Zachary’s outburst, his soft reply is barely audible. I move closer to the door and put my ear right by the crack.
“…only hate…for so…”
Speak up, damn it.
I move closer and push gently at the door so it swings a little wider. Zachary stands in the middle of the room, silhouetted by the fire.
There’s a hand on the back of his neck.
“…nothing more to do but forgive.”
I slap a hand over my mouth when Zachary twists away with a grimace on his face. Had Gabriel just tried to kiss him? I stagger back, but I can’t bear to take my eyes away from them.
“So you can fuck a man, but you can’t bear to kiss one?” Gabriel moves closer but Zachary retreats until his back is flush with the wall.
“It might feel like less of a sin but trust me, God has already condemned you to hell.”
What the fuck?
My heart’s in my throat as they glare at each other. The tension from whatever argument they were having before I arrived presses down like gravity on steroids.
I half-expect them to break into a fight, and the thought has my chest so tight I can’t breathe.
My brain works overtime as I try to piece together what might have happened.
Is this because I told Zachary I wouldn’t come back here? Did he decide to get the data himself? I turn, scanning the room through the door crack. The bed looks rumpled, and my stomach sinks.
Did they…?
Oh my God.
But then I spot the laptop on the dining table, lid closed, plugged in. I put a hand on my dress pocket. Apollo gave me back the drive just before we went our separate ways. He said I’d done everything right, but that the copy wasn’t complete. Luckily, it wouldn’t start from scratch—the device would check which files were already copied.
Five minutes, Apollo said.
Five minutes should do it.
I turn back to Zachary and Gabriel. They’re both so tense, it’s impossible to tell who’s mad at whom. Seeing them side-by-side, I can’t say which one would win in a fight. Gabriel has a good fifteen years on Zachary, but he’s much more muscular than the younger man. I know Zachary’s strong but is he strong enough?
If they started fighting…could I slip in and copy the files while they were distracted? I could hide under the tablecloth—it almost reaches the floor.
That’s a big if.
Especially since now they both seem to be relaxing a little. Weighing each other up.
I can’t imagine what’s going through Zachary’s mind, facing his nemesis like this.
I’d be terrified.
I don’t know if I moved at just the right moment, but something makes Zachary look straight at me through the crack in the door.
His eyes flicker, but that’s literally the only reason I have to think that he saw me.
“You’re right,” he says, pushing away from the wall. Gabriel stands his ground as he comes closer. My lungs are about to burst how I’m holding my breath. “I’m a sinner, Gabriel. Just like you.”
Oh, God. What is he doing?
Zachary grabs Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel doesn’t even flinch.
“I guess even penance couldn’t change that.”
Zachary makes as if to walk past Gabriel, his hand slipping from Gabriel’s shoulder. The priest turns to follow.
Putting his back to me.
Crap!
Zachary must have come to the same conclusion I did. But now I’m too terrified to move.
Do it, Trinity. Do it!
Just a few yards, then you’re under the table cloth. Gabriel won’t see you—he’s completely fixated on—
Zachary’s eyes slide past Gabriel and his lips twitch with what I’ve come to recognize as suppressed anger.
Wondering why I’m not moving. Why I’m wussing out like the pathetic wimp I am.
Despite what Apollo thinks—what I made him think—I didn’t come here to steal Gabriel’s private files. I came to confront him about that photo, the one that’s been plaguing me since I laid eyes on it.
But now it feels like stealing the files is the only reason I’m here. Like this was fated from the moment I set foot in Saint Amos.
Gabriel must have seen Zachary’s gaze shift. He turns to look behind his shoulder.
Zachary snarls.
My stomach folds in on itself like a poor attempt at a souffle.
No. No! Don’t—
Zachary grabs Gabriel’s jaw and wrenches the older man’s head back to face them.
And kisses him.
My skin goes ice-cold, but the jolt of panicked adrenaline that spikes through me is enough to get me moving.
I push open the door, slip through, and pause just long enough to close it again. Then I’m scampering silently over the carpet. I rush under the table cloth and almost knock my head against one of the table legs in my hurry to conceal myself.
I squat there for a moment, trying to muffle my too-fast breathing.
I shouldn’t have bothered.
There’s a soft sound a few feet away. Something whisking against leather, maybe.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
What the hell am I going to see when I emerge from this table cloth?
I push away the thought before it can debilitate me. I take the drive out of my pocket and uncap it, then steel myself with an unsteady breath.
One.
Two.
I slowly peek out from under the tablecloth. I’m close to the wall. Zachary and Gabriel were at least
a yard or so behind me, to the right. I peer around the side of the tablecloth trying not to disturb it.
I see their legs and hurriedly retract into the safety of the tablecloth.
Shit. They’re too close.
But I can’t wait any longer. If I can slip the drive in without being seen, then I can probably just leave. Maybe Zachary can pull it out when—
He’s done fucking Gabriel?
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Fuck it, Trinity. Focus.
When he’s done.
Breathe in. Out.
Much better.
I duck out from under the tablecloth, letting it drape my shoulders as I go to my knees. The chair Gabriel was using is in my way, so I have to twist awkwardly to get at the laptop.
Would it work with the lid closed? It’ll have to, because I can’t open it. That’s something Gabriel would definitely notice.
I peek up over the top of the table and almost immediately latch eyes with Zachary.
Oh. My. God.
My lips part as a quiet shock rifles through me like wind through a discarded newspaper.
Gabriel sinks to his knees in front of Zachary, who’s propped against the back of one of the armchairs on the other side of the room, his back to the fire.
There’s a clink of a buckle as Zachary yanks open his belt.
But his eyes aren’t on the priest in front of him.
They’re on me.
Hot and livid.
Look what you made me do, Trinity. Look what you fucking made me do.
Guilt wracks me. My hand trembles uncontrollably as I try and push the drive into the slot on the side of the laptop.
Gabriel wrenches down Zachary’s fly. I force my eyes to stay on the laptop, but those two bodies are stuck in my peripheral vision. Even blurred, I still know what’s happening. What they’re doing.
The drive twists, falling on the floor. I almost don’t catch the hiccup of frustration that claws up my throat. I drop down, panicked tears filling my eyes.
Zachary groans.
Even that sounds angry.
Look what you made me do.
I snatch up the drive and straighten, not bothering to duck my head anymore. Gabriel has his back to me, and he’s so focused on servicing Zachary’s dick that I doubt he’d notice if the rapture happened.
