10. Zach
Chapter 10
Zach
Gravel crunches under my shoes. With no moon out tonight, this path is as dark as those heading toward the stables and sports ground. This time of night, the students and staff should all be snug inside their beds.
There’s a light fixture outside the crypt, but the bulb’s been busted for months. The tomb isn’t exactly a place students care to go, and even the staff avoid it. Superstition, of course. The only corpses nearby are those in the handful of graves outside in the cemetery.
Warm light spills out when I open the door. Should someone happen to glance out of a window, they could see me enter, but hopefully I wouldn’t be recognizable.
It’s one of many reasons I chose this place for our meetings.
The crypt’s interior is cool and, despite the size of the room, stale.
Until the smell of weed hits my nose.
A double row of columns divide the room into a grid, forming a square in the center.
I don’t know who would ever hold a class or an impromptu sermon in this place, but if they did, it appears the maximum seats allowed would be no more than the dozen inside that sunken square.
Twelve seats
Twelve apostles.
Only three of those seats are taken.
Apollo chuckles as he leans forward, turning his video camera so Cassius can see the playback screen. Reuben’s watching the entrance. He sits up even straighter when I enter the square.
“Christ, I almost feel sorry for her,” Cass says, and then glances up at me. “You took your time, Boss. All good?”
“Never better,” I say as I sink down in the seat closest to Cassius.
“Apollo recorded her,” Reuben says, his voice steeped in disapproval.
“That was the plan.” I hold out a hand for the camera.
“I didn’t know why she went in there,” Apollo drawls through a grin as he passes the camera to me. “Would’ve tried for a better shot if I had.”
Him and Cassius laugh as I look at the screen.
Trinity’s a blip on the small screen until Apollo moves closer with his camera.
I flip the screen closed without bothering to watch more.
Apollo throws up his hands. “You missed the best part.”
I hold up the closed camera. “This is not what I meant.”
“You said t’ watch her. This is me watching her.”
“Showering?”
Any normal guy might have dropped his eyes at this point. Apollo’s grin grows wider. “She did a good job. I’m sure there wasn’t a single spot she?—”
As soon as I move my gaze from Apollo’s eyes, he cuts off. With a huff, he slumps in his chair and runs his hands through his hair, unsuccessfully tucking the bulk of it behind his ears. He’s almost twenty-two, but you’d think he’s the youngest of the Brotherhood.
I stare at each of my brothers in turn.
“She’s not a threat.”
“You saw her file?” Cass sits forward, a blunt dangling from his fingertips. “What does it say?”
Sister Stella sent a message to me this afternoon. Trinity’s file had been faxed through.
From her social worker.
Trinity Malone is an orphan, like I’d suspected. Homeschooled by her parents since she was a kid, her file only had a few report cards and some very basic details. Addresses, contact numbers, that kind of thing. All useless, since both her emergency contacts were now deceased.
No referral. No indication why she’d ended up at Saint Amos.
“Someone wants us to think she’s a nobody.”
Cass and Apollo groan.
Reuben says nothing. It takes a lot for him to involve himself in a conversation.
“If there’s some kind of relationship between her and Gabriel, the file doesn’t mention it.”
“So we’re doin’ this?” Apollo asks, his voice warbling with nerves. Putting his camera down by his feet, he shoves his hands under his armpits and narrows his eyes at me.
I flick my fingers at Cass, and he passes me the blunt. I glance at each of them in turn as I hit it, diagnosing their mental states best I can.
I’m a year into my psychology major. The human psyche has fascinated me ever since I realized how fucked up a person could be.
Or, become.
Nature versus nurture.
We need to have our shit together before we act. Asking my brothers straight out if they’re of sound frame of mind will earn me anything from the unvarnished truth to a flat out lie. But I’ve known them for fifteen years. We’re brothers through and through. I can read them like I read scripture—cutting through all the bullshit metaphors and anecdotes, straight to the bone.
“She is somebody,” Reuben says, as soon as my gaze settles on him.
He could put any of us on the ground in a heartbeat. But he’s always been cautious. Sometimes too cautious for his own good, just like Apollo does shit without thinking things through.
Cass and I, we’re somewhere in the middle. Sometimes cautious, sometimes rash.
“What makes you so sure?” I ask.
“Father Gabriel’s known her a long time.”
I don’t even try to second guess him. Honest to God, I wish Reuben would join my psych class. What he understands on an intuitive level about most people, it would take me years to learn. Maybe it’s because he listens before he speaks. He’s the one that put us onto Father Gabriel in the first place, through a happenstance meeting at one of the provost’s parishes.
For close to a decade, we’d been chasing a ghost. After Reuben met Gabriel in person. Then our ghost suddenly had a name and a face.
“Don’t mean she’s—” Apollo begins.
Reuben doesn’t even pause. When he speaks, he doesn’t allow himself to get interrupted. “He treats her like family.”
Everyone tenses up at that.
Everyone.
Gabriel doesn’t have any family. DNA like his isn’t meant to be passed on. God only knows what evil his offspring would bring to this world. If he ever knocked up some chick, she’d give birth to a two-headed goat.
There’s a pause while everyone makes sure Reuben is done. Then Apollo sits forward in his seat and clicks his fingers at me. I pass him the blunt without taking my eyes from Rube. “Nothing in her file indicates that he even knows her.”
But, like Rube, I’m convinced that’s intentional.
“If you saw what I did, you wouldn’t think she was so fucking special,” Apollo says in a tight voice as he passes the blunt to Cass. When he continues, smoke leaks from his lips. “That hag stripped her down like she’s one of those window dolls.” Apollo gestures with long hands and spindly fingers. “Wasn’t being polite about it, neither.”
“Get that on tape?” Cass passes the blunt to Rube, but the guy ignores him.
“Nah, man. I was working.” Apollo scratches his arm. “Guys don’t like it when I film them in the kitchen.”
“‘Cos then we’d all know who spits in our food,” Cass says through a smirk.
Apollo barks out a laugh.
I’m still watching Rube. And he’s watching me.
“Even if she’s his fucking daughter,” I say, “how could she fuck this up for us?”
Reuben shrugs—an impressive gesture on a guy with his shoulders. “We can’t risk it. This is the last chance we get.”
“Exactly!” Apollo’s foot starts tapping. “It’s our fuckin’ last chance. We don’t do this, we’ve got shit. Nothing. Fucking nada .”
“Relax,” Cassius murmurs, handing the blunt back to Apollo. “We’ll figure this out.”
Apollo’s right. For once, time isn’t on our side.
I make eye contact with Cass. He’s watching me with such intensity I already know what he’s going to say.
“We have to try.” Cass stands. “Even if it’s a fuck up. Even if we get outed, this ends with him, one way or the other.”
“Sit down,” I murmur.
“You knew this day was coming.”
“Sit. Down.”
He does, but with ill grace and the type of sulky mouth I’d expect on Apollo.
Rube’s staring a hole through my head. I prop my elbows on my knees and lace my fingers together. My ankles are starting to throb, but I don’t want to draw attention to the fact by rubbing them.
“Then I vote yes.” I glance aside at Reuben when he remains silent. “Got to be unanimous, brother.”
Reuben’s chair creaks when he shifts his weight. Apollo and Cass finish the blunt between them in the time it takes him to speak. When he finally looks up at me, determination gleams in his eyes.
“No,” he says.
I only realize I was holding my breath when it streams out of me in a hiss.
No.
Of course not.
Reuben doesn’t take chances. If there’s the smallest chance something could go wrong, he backs off.
Apollo springs up. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He stalks out of the crypt.
Cass lets out a sigh, picks up Apollo’s camera, and shrugs at us before trotting out after him.
Silence filters down between Rube and me for long minutes before I let out a sigh and rub my eyelids. “Sure about this?” I ask quietly.
“Of course,” Reuben says. “She’s…”
“What, Rube?” My next sigh is exasperated. “What is she?”
He taps his thumbs against the side of his knees and then slowly looks up at me. “She’s one of us.”