5. Zach
Chapter 5
Zach
CASSIUS
We have a problem.
I tap my finger against the side of my phone, stroking my bottom lip with the other hand.
“Afternoon, Brother Zachary.”
I glance up and give Simon a curt nod. Students file neatly into my class, seating themselves like a beautifully choreographed dance. My AP Psychology class is one of the smallest in Saint Amos—I only teach up to a dozen students in each grade.
I return the smattering of ‘hellos’ and ‘good afternoons’ before facing the chalkboard. “Today we’ll be discussing epigenetics. Can anyone tell me?—?”
My classroom door rattles. I glance back at my class.
All my students are present. It’s highly unusual for a staff member to interrupt me once my lesson has begun. Word has long since gotten around how much that annoys me.
“Who is it?”
The door immediately stops rattling. Then a hesitant, high-pitched voice says, “Trinity.”
She cuts off when I open the door and snatches away her hands. Looks like she’d been pulling at the handle instead of pushing.
I tilt my head. “May I help you?”
The girl steps back, and huffs a dark curl away from her face. She’s wearing street clothes and a thoroughly confused expression. “Yeah…uh…is this Psychology?”
T. Malone.
My new student.
I’d barely glanced at the memo slipped under my door this morning. My mind had been on other things. More important things. So much so, I’d even forgotten to assign her a seat.
I step back and wave her inside, my mind moving a mile a minute.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m set in my ways. Which is saying something for someone who’s turning twenty-one in a few months. A strange girl showing up at my door shouldn’t have rattled me, but it did.
She stands at the front of the class, notepad clutched to her chest like a shield. A moment later, her amber eyes come back to mine, now even more confused than before.
I snap my fingers at a student in the front row and point to the chair behind my desk.
He hurries over, picks it up, and sets it by the wall.
“You’re late,” I say, when the girl keeps staring at me like she’s had a stroke. “Don’t let it happen again.”
Still, she doesn’t move.
“ You’re my teacher?”
I straighten as my hand drops to my side. “Were you expecting someone different, Miss Malone?”
As if she realized what she said, she shakes her head and hurries to her seat. There’s a soft hiss as she plops down on my chair and the air leaves its pillow. Her fair skin looks even paler as her cheeks turn rosy with embarrassment.
It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts. As I turn back to the board, the text message on my phones comes back to me.
Could this be the ‘problem’ Cassius mentioned?
She’s not wearing a uniform which indicates her presence took others—such as Sister Ruth, who runs the laundry—by surprise. Else she’d have been decked out in Saint Amos colors.
Her slim body, her poorly fitted clothes, the nervous energy vibrating through her—I put her at sixteen. But her eyes tell a different story. They’re underlined with shadows, as if she hasn’t had much sleep, and don’t hold my eyes longer than a moment before she looks away.
Could be she’s shy, but I suspect it’s more a matter of her not wanting to give away more than she already has.
“Have you submitted your transcript to the administration office?” I ask, turning my back on her as I scratch out a note on the chalkboard.
“I…I don’t have one.”
I turn back to her, subtly aware the other students in my class are following our exchange like a particularly slow—if fascinating—tennis match. “Which school did you attend? I’ll have it sent over.”
“I was…homeschooled.”
“Ah.” I click my fingers at the student closest to her and turn back to the board. “Sit with Alex. He can share his textbook with you.”
She drags her chair over to the closest table, and the boy reluctantly slides his textbook to the side so she can lean across and read with him.
Homeschooled? That’s a first for Saint Amos. At least, since I became a teacher here. Most of our students are children from across the state who couldn’t afford private tuition and whose parents—for whatever reason—had decided they didn’t want them in a public school.
Those who still had their parents, of course.
Many students at Saint Amos are orphans.
Is that the case with Trinity Malone? If so, why isn’t she at the all-girls school up in Devon? Sisters of Mercy never turns anyone away.
I glance over my shoulder. Trinity immediately drops her gaze back to the textbook, and her cheeks turn rosy again. I take in the rest of the class. Most of the boys are surreptitiously peeking over at her, some hiding the fact behind hands or raised up textbooks.
I’m fully aware of her presence through the rest of my lesson, and find myself watching her more often than my students. Perhaps it’s because she’s a new and shiny thing in a place usually full of shadows and cobwebs.
I need to find out what she’s doing here.
If this is in fact a coincidence, then so be it. But if there’s any chance she’ll disrupt our plan, then we’ll have to get rid of her.
The new girl doesn’t have anything to pack up except her notebook. She clutches it against her chest as she makes a beeline for the classroom door. The bell is still sounding its last gong when she disappears out the door without so much as a glance in my direction.
My regular students stream out of the room, each pausing to thank me or bid me a good afternoon before they leave.
Many of them used to have abysmal grades before they joined my class last year. The devotion and passion I pour into each class are beginning to show. With my help, these boys will get a head start on their degrees.
Moments after the last student leaves my class the door opens again.
I glance up. My body tenses soon when a student slips into my class. He peeks outside before silently closing the door and turning the lock.
“What’s so important it couldn’t wait?” I ask dryly, straightening the things on my desk as Cassius Santos slinks closer. “And fix your fucking tie, Santos.”
“You can drop the act,” Cassius rests his thigh on the corner of my desk as he crosses his arms over his chest and leers at me. “It’s just us.”
“Hallway monitors don’t mock the dress code. Or did you forget that you’re supposed to be a star pupil?”
The eighteen-year-old student is tall and well put together. Stark blue eyes contrast a dark buzz cut that accentuates his features even more than a mop of hair would have. He pretends to adjust his clothes, but when he drops his hands his tie is still crooked and his top button still undone.
“Whatever,” Cass mutters. “And it’s not a what, by the way. It’s a who .” He stabs a thumb over his shoulder. “She just left your class.”
I close my drawer and sink into my seat, leaning back and crossing an ankle over my knee. We shouldn’t be meeting like this, but the other classrooms should already be empty by now—the chances of someone seeing us are slim to none.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had a female student, or an enrollment so late in the term.”
“That’s what I thought.” Cassius narrows his eyes to blue slits. “But then Rube came to talk to me. Told me Old Scratch was showing her around like a tour guide. He seems to think they’re pretty tight.”
I shrug. “I’ll take a look at her file this afternoon.” I grab my ankle, pressing my thumb into one of the tendons. It’s an old injury, one that usually doesn’t pester me this much in warm weather. Its twin on the other ankle starts aching too, but I leave it be. “If there’s cause for concern, you’ll be the first to know.”
“What if she fucks this up, Zach?” Cass’s arms tighten as he ducks down a little. “It’s taken us years to get to this point. If she’s going to be one of those closet nuns who hang around Lucifer the whole time, how are we supposed to…” he lowers his voice, leans close “…get rid of him? You told us it would only work if no one misses him for like a week. If this chick’s his niece or something, don’t you think she’ll notice if he suddenly disappears?”
I recognize the storm brewing in Cassius’s eyes. “Tell Apollo to keep an eye on her, if you’re so damn worried,” I say.
“Will as soon as he gets back. He’s been out in the woods most of the day. Somehow managed to convince the old hag to let him leave the grounds.”
My eyes shift to the window panes. They’re high up on the wall, and less than a foot across each. They don’t show anything of the world outside except a few pieces of the sky—classrooms are for learning, not for daydreaming. But I know this place well enough to know how far away those trees are. It’s one of the things the staff of Saint Amos drill into every student who attends—no one goes past the fence. If they’re caught, they’re expelled.
Too many students have gotten lost in those woods, most of their bodies never recovered. Those that were? Hardly recognizable once the wild animals out there had finished with them.
Trust Apollo to charm his way into being allowed to spend the day out there. He hasn’t even been here the longest. This is my second year at Saint Amos. Apollo graduated last year, and Reuben and Cassius will be graduating this year.
We made sure not to arrive at Saint Amos in the same year. We couldn’t risk anyone piecing together the fact we knew each other. That’s why we’ve always kept our relationship on a need to know basis.
A dry chuckle escapes my lips. “Fuck my life.”
“I’d rather fuck her.”
My eyes snap back to Cassius. “Not a chance. You don’t go near her until we know who she is.”
Something flickers over Cass’s face, but it’s gone before I know what it means.
“Don’t fuck her.” I narrow my eyes at him. “In fact, don’t even look at her.”
“Aye, aye, Boss.” He gives me a mock salute before leaving my classroom as surreptitiously as he entered.
My muscles loosen, but not as much as they should. If my brothers are all as restless and uneasy as Cassius, then we could be facing disaster.
But he’s right—we’re running out of time. And this girl could be no one…or the person who causes this web to unravel. A web we’ve been building for years.
My ankle throbs, but I ignore it this time.
I’m stronger now. My body doesn’t have full control over me anymore.
But I don’t have full control over my mind.
It was a tradeoff I was happy to make. One we’ve all made at some point in our journey.
That’s why we stuck together. That’s why we formed our brotherhood of revenge.
Alone, we were nothing but prey.
Together, we’ve become the ultimate predator.
Sister Stella gives me a warm smile when I step through the door to the administration office that afternoon. While Saint Amos only has two female teachers, all of the administration staff are women. Students’ grades, school supplies, and everything else the school needs to run are handled from the cluster of offices on the east wing of the school’s main building.
Framed by her black-and-white habit, only the center of Sister Stella’s face is visible.
“Good afternoon, brother. Something I can help with?” she asks, rising from her desk.
Saint Amos has telephone lines and electricity, but everything looks like it’s from the 1960s. No computers. No internet. And since the telephone lines are down more often than they work, everyone relies on their cellphones to maintain contact with the outside world.
When there’s service, of course.
Certain places on campus don’t get any service, like the libraries nestled deep in the disused catacombs.
Originally a church, all of the original buildings remain intact. When this place became an orphanage, the catacombs were used as an infirmary. These days, it houses the library. Unconventional, since the classrooms are a good fifteen-minute walk away, but more cost-effective than building a new structure. In fact, the low, squat building housing the classes is the newest structure on the property.
“I’d like to take a look at Trinity Malone’s transcripts, if she has any. May I see her file?”
Sister Stella widens her eyes at me, and gives her head a tiny shake. “I’m sorry, brother, I only requested it this morning. We didn’t even know she was coming until the provost mentioned it after prayers.”
“That’s strange,” I say, resting my elbows on the reception desk and leaning in a little. “Why was no one notified?”
Stella shrugs. “Perhaps it slipped the provost’s mind. He’s under a lot of stress at the moment, what with?—”
“Yes, I understand.” I shouldn’t have interrupted her—I’m supposed to be the kind of person who cares deeply about Father Gabriel’s state of mind.
In a way, that’s all I care about these days.
I was hoping her file had arrived already. Why did her arrival at Saint Amos take so many people by surprise? I doubt it slipped Gabriel’s mind. He’s the most intelligent and cunning man I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Her file would have told me all I needed to know. Where she came from, what her connection to Gabriel and the school is. No one just enrolls at Saint Amos—students have to be referred by the bishop of their diocese.
If I know who her emergency contact is, I could contact them and find out even more.
But not without her file.
And maybe that’s exactly what Gabriel wanted. Maybe he didn’t want anyone knowing who she is, or how she’s connected with him.
Why?
“When is he leaving?” I ask, keeping my voice casual.
“Let me confirm.” She lifts a finger, giving me another honey-sweet smile. Then she turns her head a little and calls out, “Sister? When does Father Gabriel leave?”
“Thursday afternoon,” a voice replies from one of the rooms branching off this reception area.
“And her file?” I ask. “When are you expecting it?”
Stella turns back to me. Her shrug is nearly invisible beneath her habit. “I’ll let you know as soon as it comes in. But I doubt there’ll be a transcript. Probably a few report cards and her family history. She was homeschooled, you know?”
“I’m aware,” I murmur. “Thank you, Sister.”
How long will I have to keep Cassius in check? I refuse to make a move until I know how she fits into all of this. From the sounds of things, she was brought here by the provost himself.
I’m not okay with an innocent being caught up in the fray. We planned this so there would be no collateral damage.
Our window of opportunity is closing. Fast.
And there will never be another chance like this.