I can’t bear to let her slip away. Not a second time.
When my legs and lungs start burning, I push harder.
And I’m rewarded for my effort. Despite my heart clanging like a race horse’s in my chest, despite the fact that I’m breathing fire, I make it in time.
I turn the corner.
I see the car.
Gabriel’s car.
I’m in exactly the right place to watch him drive off, a shadow slumped beside him in the passenger seat.
He doesn’t notice me because I’m yards away. If he did, I doubt he’d care.
Because I’m too late.
I ran too slow.
I didn’t give it my all.
My legs collapse. My teeth clack together as I go down.
I’m still there, staring at the last place I saw them, when Cass runs up to me. He’s out of breath, muttering something about stairs and smoking, and then his hand is on my shoulder.
I slap it away. I’d stand and face him, but I can’t.
Muscle failure is a bitch.
“Gone?” he asks, but it’s more a statement than a question.
Fucking gone.
And I was so close. If I’d pushed a little harder, if I’d thought just a little faster…
Cass helps me up. The ground feels spongy as we head back to the library. Something catches my eye.
I turn.
Zachary’s standing on the front steps of Saint Amos. The big doors are open wide—Gabriel must have left that way. Zachary turns and disappears into the blackness without a word.
And then it all comes together.
I’d be mad, but I’ve got nothing left. I burned up everything in the useless sprint over here. It’ll take time for my tank to refill.
I don’t say anything to Cass, and I probably should. But sometimes it takes me a while to process things.
Like the fact that we were just betrayed by our brother.
Chapter Eight
Trinity
It was all a dream. Saint Amos, the Brotherhood, Ghosts and Keepers and Guardians. Nothing but a nightmare. Sure, it makes no sense, but how else do I explain waking up in my old room back in Redford with groggy memories of photos and men with knives and losing my virginity in a library with four psychopaths?
My core aches when I try to remember details of the dream though. How they used my body for their own pleasure until they were spent.
Until I was spent.
I’ve had sexy dreams before, but nothing like that. Nothing that intense, that...vivid.
I force myself to picture the Brotherhood’s faces.
Zachary with his intense green-eyed stare and that serpent tattoo on his chest. Apollo with his long, sandy-colored hair and light-brown eyes. Cass—mouthwateringly handsome, but those blue eyes so heartless. And Reuben. Black eyes and such a kind heart.
I sit up in bed, staring around blearily at my room as I scratch my tummy. Daisy wallpaper. French-pane windows. Pastel pink curtains.
My body is stiff, my muscles sore. The itch is what woke me, I think, but it’s hard to remember more than that.
I tug down the sheets and stare at myself. I’m still wearing the lacy white dress. There are a few spots of blood on it. More blood on the inside of my thighs—dried, smeared. My neck feels stiff. When I touch the back of my head, I find a bump on my skull. It should hurt, probably, but it doesn’t. Not really.
The aroma of onions trickles into the room, wiping out my own stink of sweat and dried blood. There’s a distant thump. Someone’s in the kitchen.
Mom? Dad?
Awesome. I should go say hi.
Somehow, I make it to the top of the stairs, even though it’s like I’m walking on clouds. From here I can only see a slice of the kitchen floor—I still don’t know who’s making the noise. The smell of cooking is intense now. I should be hungry, but instead I feel empty inside. Hollow, like a chocolate Easter egg. But in a good way.
I don’t know why, but everything’s good. And if it wasn’t, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t give a damn anyway.
I cling onto the railing as I make my way downstairs because my legs feel kind of unreliable. Cigarette smoke comes to me in between the breakfast smell.
Wait. That’s not right.
Dad’s not allowed to smoke inside the house. He didn’t even do it when Mom went to the shops.
Where is Mom?
She died in a car accident.
I falter halfway down the stairs.
Oh my God. They didn’t both die. All this time, Dad’s been living in our house in Redford while I was sent from pillar to post. While I had to bear the shame of being stranded in a school full of boys, an orphan girl who no one liked. No one except the Brotherhood.
Why would he do that to me? How could he?
The thought is visceral, but with no emotions attached. In fact, I don’t feel anything. Except for a sudden itch behind my neck.
“That you, child?”
Dad called me that. Child. Like I was one of the kids in church. Maybe he got it from Gabriel.
I clear the stairs. I can see in the kitchen now.
There’s a man by the stove. He has his back to me. There’s a whole fog of smells now—bacon, onions, cigarettes, coffee, burned toast.
The man turns, smiling fondly when he spots me.
I’m convinced it’s Dad, even though I know he’s dead. So convinced that I see him there, right there. So convinced that, when my brain tries to interject, to correct me, I write it off as the fact that he’s got a big Band-aid over his nose, and his face is a little puffy, and that’s why he doesn’t look quite like Dad but just enough that it must be him.
Dad beckons me closer with a spatula as he turns and starts dishing up food onto the plates standing ready on the kitchen island.
“Is this a dream?” I ask him through numb lips. Might as well make sure, after all.
“Would you like that?” he asks. And it’s not Dad’s voice at all. It’s Gabriel’s.
“Dunno,” I say, but actually, I don’t care.
Unsteady legs take me deeper into the kitchen. I stand next to a stool, but I can’t even imagine how much effort it would take to get up.
Gabriel puts the pan back on the stove, dusts his hands, and comes around the island. His damaged face should scare me, but instead it intrigues me. I feel like I should know how he was hurt, but I can’t seem to find the memory. He slips his fingers under my armpits and lifts me onto the stool like I’m a toddler.
“Morning, daughter,” he murmurs, close to my ear, before he walks around the island and takes his seat on the opposite side. “Sleep well?”
When he slides my plate over, I try and pick up the fork propped on top of a piece of blackened toast. My fingers can’t seem to get it right though.
Something is wrong.
With this setup.
With me.
“Hasn’t worn off yet,” Gabriel says, as if talking to himself. He takes a bite of his food and then points his fork at my plate. “You’re probably not hungry. Should I put it in the microwave?”
The fork drops from my fingers, and he chuckles at me as he comes around to my side again. He pushes away the plate and grasps my chin with his fingers, turning my head to face him.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, staring deep into my eyes.
“Not feeling anything.”