by Logan Fox
His fingers close over the red beads. “It’s mine.”
“You gave it to me.”
“But you don’t believe. What’s the point?”
My heart stutters at that. His commanding stare forces me to drop my gaze. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?
The smell of roses hits my nose. He’s rubbing the crucifix with his thumb, intensifying the scent.
I bite down on my lip. I’m such a jerk. It obviously means a lot to him, and I’m demanding him to give it back.
He tenses when I lay my hand over his. I slowly close his fingers over the necklace.
“You’re right. There’s no point. It’s yours, anyway.”
But then, as I’m holding him, staring into those pitch-black eyes, a wriggling worm of doubt starts working its way through my mind.
“Wait…” I turn my head, watching him warily from the corner of my eye. “I know I put it on my clothes. It…it wasn’t there when I got out.”
He watches me with the patience of a rock.
My eyes go wide. “You took it.”
There’s the tiniest flicker in his eyes.
“Oh my God!” I slap a hand into his chest and begin squirming against him so he’ll let me go. “You were watching us!”
He lets out a soft grunt, grabs my ass, and slams me back into the door hard enough to rattle it.
Shock dips me in ice.
My hands are on his chest, fingers digging into his muscles, but I slowly retract them and hug myself instead.
He lets out a long breath through his nose and then slowly scans my face like he’s looking for something.
I don’t know if he finds it, but a moment later he slips his rosary over my head and tucks it behind the open halves of my dress. Then he slowly starts buttoning me up again.
“Why?” The word warbles out before I can stop it.
“Why did I watch, or why didn’t I stop him?”
“Both!” The anger’s coming back, but I force myself to swallow it down.
“I watched because I like you. Because you were enjoying it. Because I wanted to see what you look like when you come.”
I should be flooded with horror or disgust. Instead, I stare at Reuben with morbid fascination.
I thought it was him. That’s the only reason I allowed—
“And I didn’t stop him, because I was pretending it was me in there, not him.”
His words spear into through me like a blunt knife.
“What?” I belt out, thumping his chest with my fist. “That makes no sense!”
He grumbles faintly as he steps back and lets me slip to the floor. I’m breathing so hard you’d swear I ran a fucking marathon. “That makes no fucking sense, Reuben!” I yell, bashing my other fist into him.
He catches my wrist before I can get off another blow and then closes his arms over me, crushing me to his massive chest. I let out a strangled yell, but fighting him is pointless.
“Can I kiss you now?” he asks.
That knife twists, scraping over my bones and shredding my heart. It takes every ounce of self-control I still have, but I manage a hoarse, “No. Never.” I clear my throat and force strength into my words. “Never, ever again.”
Then I shove at him with all my might.
And he lets me go.
I don’t look back when I leave, but I manage not to slam the door. I take two steps before the smell of his rosary hits my nose again.
I leave it hanging from his door handle, blinking back tears as I stalk back to my room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zach
My heart almost explodes from my chest when I spot Cass sitting on the couch. I wasn’t sure if he’d be here. A part of me wishes he wasn’t. A part of me can’t be more relieved to see him.
Cass looks up from the latest edition of Pussy Pounder as I slip into our lair through the narrow opening in the bookshelves. I can’t wait for the day we’ll have a space of our own with a proper fucking door. No, fuck that. No doors. Just an archway.
I know exactly where we’ll go when this shit’s taken care of.
Whenever I go into town on the weekends, I spend an hour or so at the local coffee shop. Their filter coffee tastes like the shit you scrape out of a gutter, but that’s not why I go there.
Their Wi-Fi, although spotty, opens up a new world. For an hour, I can escape this shitty school and the decades-long path my brothers and I have been trekking.
For those few precious minutes, I go house hunting. It started as a mental itch I had. We have a game we play. Can’t remember the last time we did, but since our answers are always the same, I have that shit committed to memory.
It’s called: what would you do, if you could do anything?
Not highly original, but for a bunch of kids trapped in a dark basement who’d never played sports or gone to the mall or even asked out a girl to the prom…it filled a void.
We played it once or twice after we escaped, but it became painfully obvious that we’d be adults by the time we’d had our revenge.
What did it matter, then, what dreams we had as kids?
But those things stuck with me.
Apollo loves the ocean even though he’s never set foot on the coast. Before he was taken, he’d watch surfing championships on television and imagine it was him slicing through those waves on some beach in Malibu. Honestly, I think he just secretly wanted to take photos of chicks in bikinis. But who the fuck am I to judge, right?
One day I went to town on a supply run, hungover as fuck after a night of blunts and whiskey, and I decide to get a plate of something greasy at the coffee shop. Only to discover they have Wi-Fi.
In this place?
Shocker.
I had one of Apollo’s old laptops with me. He wanted me to send it in, because he swore the on-board graphics card was malfunctioning. I stopped listening after the fifth time he mentioned the driver and took it with me anyway.
They keep forgetting they don’t have to repair shit. Ever. If it breaks, I’ll buy them a new one. Money means fuck all to me.
So, hungover as fuck, I decide to get Apollo’s laptop out of the car and go online while I’m waiting for my grub.
I’m guessing the laptop didn’t shut down properly because as soon as it boots up, the browser pops open and loads the last website Apollo had been on.
A Youtube video of some surf competition.
Minutes later, I was hunting down coast-side properties in California where I’m guessing—probably incorrectly—that a guy can catch the best waves.
Then I found it.
Six bedrooms, five en-suite. An infinity pool overlooking the ocean. A garage big enough for as big a collection of classic cars as Reuben wants. A game room for Cass, replete with a fucking billiards table. Billiards, not pool, because he’s snooty like that.
There’s even a fucking dance studio with wrap around mirrors on the walls, perfect for Cass to admire himself in.
I haven’t told them about the property.
I also haven’t told them I put in an offer on the place on Saturday. I know I’ll be getting that call sometime this week—my offer was ten grand above asking.
It’s eating me alive, but I have to make sure it’s happening before I break out the champagne.
And yeah, I bought champagne. Four bottles of the most expensive brand the liquor store stocked.
“Love the new look,” I tell him, pointing at my neck. “Just give me a heads up if you’re about to start reciting bad poetry, though.”
He’s wearing a black turtle-neck shirt and dark jeans. Sullen colors which match the smudges under his eyes.
“I could have died,” he says, voice as dead as his eyes.
“I think you were dead for a few seconds.” I wish there were a power outlet down here so I could brew some coffee. The only other alternative is alcohol or weed.
I choose the whiskey, turning my back to pour out a shot. Fuck the fact that’s it quarter past si
x in the morning.
“But luckily, you’ve always been a stubborn sonofabitch.” I glance at him over my shoulder when I don’t hear the rueful chuckle I was expecting.
“It worked,” I say.
Cass shifts a little, and then runs his palms down his legs. “Yeah?”
“She took the drive to Rube last night.”
“So why aren’t they here? Why aren’t they going through his shit?”
“You know Apollo has to be in the kitchen before breakfa—”
“You think I give a fuck?” Cass yells.
I set down the bottle of whiskey and turn to face him. He’s on his feet, hands bunched into fists at his side. But he’s glaring at the floor, not me, as if he can’t bear to make eye contact.
“Cass…”
“I risked my fucking life for that shit,” he says, finally looking up. Eyes the color of dirty ice stab through me. “I don’t care if you have to go drag that little cunt out of the kitchen by his fucking ball sack, you go and—”
“Christ, Cass, I’m here,” Apollo says.
We both turn to him as he sidles in through the opening to our lair. He’s wearing a baggy plaid sweater with an unraveling collar, sweatpants that have seen better decades, and a pair of tiger-striped gumboots. Judging from his rat tail hair and the damp patches on his top, it’s started raining again.
He slides a backpack from his shoulder and collapses on the couch, then glances across at me and groans when he sees the bottle in my hand. “Don’t we have coffee down here yet?”
“No power, remember? It’s this or warm beer,” I say.
“Fuck it,” he grumbles, hiking up his sweater as he shoves a hand under the fabric to scratch at his ribs. “I’ll get coffee later. Let’s get this over with.”
I take my usual seat and both me and Cass watch Apollo as he slips the drive into his new laptop.
“So what shit did you make up for Gabriel?” Apollo asks as he starts tapping the laptop’s touchpad. “He ran out of there like someone had set his grandma on fire.”
My eyes go to Cass, but he keeps his head down, using his thumbnail to push back his cuticles. “Does it matter? It worked.”
“Yeah it did,” Apollo says through a grin without looking up. “Looked real fucking spooked. That’s—”
He cuts off and starts shaking his head.
“What is it?” I sit forward. “Apollo?”
“Shit,” he mutters, his eyes flickering as he scans the screen. “There’s nothing here.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing?” Cass growls. He grabs the laptop from Apollo, stabbing the down button as a glare slowly deepens on his face. “There’s tons of shit on here.”
“Yeah, but nothing useful.” Apollo takes back the laptop, scowls at Cass, and then gets up and goes to sit in the armchair opposite us. “Just a bunch of crap.”
“You couldn’t have gone through everything so fast,” I say, wincing around my first sip of whiskey.
Apollo lets out a world-weary sigh. “I’m using keywords and search strings. Either he’s code-named the shit out of everything, or he’s encrypted the important stuff.” Apollo scratches his head and then gathers back his hair from his face. “I’ll keep looking, but I have a feeling he’s not keeping anything important on here.”
“A feeling?” Cass sits back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “How about you actually check first?”
“The fuck crawled up your ass?” Apollo mutters, sending a questioning frown my way before focusing on Cass. “I’ve done this hundreds of times. I can tell if someone’s trying to hide shit.”
“I’d feel better if you took a good, hard look.”
Apollo lifts his thumbs from the keyboard, throwing me an exasperated look. “Zach—?”
“Do a manual search,” I say. “It’s the closest we’ve gotten to him yet. Maybe there’s something you’re missing.”
“Oh, there’s something missing all right. She only got like eighty percent of the drive. Guess she pulled out early.” He glances up with a coy grin which none of us return, and then mumbles something under his breath as he goes back to the laptop. “And, he hasn’t even bothered to clear his browser history in…” Apollo holds up a finger as he stares at the screen. “Forever. Literally, since the dawn of fucking time.”
“Or he could have deleted just the shit he didn’t want you to see, leave everything else, then it looks like he didn’t delete anything,” Cass says, lifting his eyebrows at Apollo.
“So either he’s really fucking innocent, or he’s really fucking guilty.” Apollo sniffs. “Go figure.”
“Apollo, take the laptop with you. Go through it today and make sure. Check every fucking cluster on that hard drive.”
He mutters something sarcastic about “clusters” and snaps the laptop closed with ill grace. “Sure thing, Captain.” He stands as he slings the backpack over his shoulder again. “But on the off chance I’m right—” a glare for Cass “—what the fuck do we do? If it’s not on here, then he’s keeping it someplace else.”
I study him for a second, and then shrug. But before I can open my mouth, Cass cuts in. “We tell her it didn’t copy anything. Tell her she has to do it again.”
“I don’t know if she can,” I say.
Cass turns his glare on me. “Does it look like I give a fuck?”
“Dude, seriously, what’s your deal?” Apollo demands, his hand tightening on the backpack’s strap. “You have another wet dream about Zach and wake up with a sore ass?”
Cass rushes so fast to his feet, I’m already reaching to stop him going for Apollo. But he doesn’t rush him—he just stands there, chin up and shoulders back, as if waiting for Apollo to throw the first punch.
Then he grabs the neck of his sweater and tugs it down.
I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s instinct, something I’ve always done when I’m suddenly faced with a sight I can’t—or won’t—process.
But then I force my eyes open. Force myself to see.
I force myself to become a witness.
It’ll come down to us versus them, if I get my way. My brothers feel different, of course. They don’t want any of this shit going to trial. Their definition of justice is biblical.
An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
And they’re convinced that each and every Ghost took a life.
The marks around Cass’s neck are swollen and bruised. But he always bruised easily. The Ghosts liked that about him.
Easily damaged, but impossible to break.
Apollo gapes at Cass’s neck, the unspoken question writ large in his wide eyes.
“She’s going back, and she’s getting what we need,” Cass says through his teeth. “And this time, there won’t be a fucking noose around my neck.”
“I hear you, man,” Apollo says, putting out a hand as he immediately switches into conflict resolution mode. “But don’t you think we’re putting a lot of shit on her shoulders? What if she can’t do it?”
“She’s a smart girl, isn’t she? I’m sure she’ll figure it out. She just needs the right motivation.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence before Cass pushes past me. Apollo watches him leave and then turns angry eyes on me.
“What the fuck happened?”
I hold my tongue. I’d been about to spout a whole monologue about how shit got fucked up and it shouldn’t have gone down like it did. But none of that matters anymore, does it?
“I fucked up.” I take my seat again. I study the glass in my hand and then toss everything into the back of my throat. “I fucked up, and Cass got hurt.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Apollo sinks down on the edge of the armchair. “Is he okay, though? Like, mentally?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to talk.”
I’d gone to his room last night. He hadn’t been there. I’d eventually tracked him down in the infirmary, where a grim-faced Timothy was filling up an orange prescription bottle for him.
When I’d tried to catch up to Cass in the hallway, he’d shoved me out of the way without saying a word. I know when I’m not wanted. I didn’t try and go to him again. I was hoping he’d have cooled off by now. Guess I was wrong.
I’ve been getting a lot of shit wrong lately.
“Does Reuben know?” Apollo asks quietly.
“No.”
“I’ll have to tell him.”
“Obviously.”
Apollo lets out a sigh. “He’s gonna be pissed.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, of course. But what’s done is done, right? Can’t change anything. No reason to start yelling and shit.”
I go over to refill my glass.
“Don’t you have class?” Apollo asks.
I set the bottle down again. “Yeah. Fuck.”
“Smoke a blunt,” Apollo says, coming up behind me. He lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes my muscle. “It’ll help more than the whiskey. Want me to roll—?”
“Don’t you have shit to do?” I snap. “Reuben, the data, breakfast? Sounds like a busy fucking morning.”
Apollo withdraws his hand. The sigh he lets out as he leaves takes me back.
Fuck, it takes me back.
I’m losing my shit again, and he knows it. Cass probably knew it before anyone, but he loves playing with fire just as much as the rest of us.
But no one, no one likes to get burnt.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Trinity
Instead of going to morning prayer, I hide out in a restroom stall staring at the freshly painted door. From the faint marks shining beneath the white paint, it looks like someone had gone to town on the thing with a Sharpie. Wish I knew what they’d written.
My appetite hasn’t been back since I puked last night so I don’t bother going to the cafeteria when the breakfast bell rings. Instead, I head back to my room and try and get in an hour’s sleep.
The next bell rings me from a death-like sleep I don’t remember falling into.
Time for class.
Thankfully, I only have Calculus and Sociology before lunch. It gives me half the day to work up the courage to find a way to excuse myself from Psych with Brother Rutherford.
