by Logan Fox
I start kicking the door, but it’s sturdy as fuck.
“Apollo! What’s the address?”
Rube.
“Reuben!” I yell. “Reuben, open up!”
But there’s no response. What the fuck is going on out there?
Screw this. I step back, raise my gun—
“Rube! Zach! Help!”
I pause. That’s Cass. But wasn’t he just with Rube? What the—
Thud.
Thud.
The sound’s coming from down the hall. Like someone’s banging on something. I turn on my heel, scan the room. My eyes latch onto the window.
With every distant thud, my heart climbs another inch up my throat.
I shove my gun into my belt and hurry over.
I don’t stop to think. I don’t even allow myself to give the ground more than a passing glance.
My sight is fixed on a nearby tree. From what I saw before I looked away, there’s a good yard of thin air between me and the closest bough.
But there’s a gunfight going on, and my brothers are involved. I don’t know who’s on the winning side, or if there even is a winning side.
I bundle myself up tight, and then push away from the window as hard as I can.
My stomach slams into the bough. A stray branch scratches my face. I fumble, manage to get an arm slung over the bough, and hold on until I have my bearings.
I work my way to the main trunk and climb down. I drop down the last few feet, already running for the patio doors.
Something deep and dark and rectangular draws my eye.
A grave.
A grave?
I race upstairs, my legs almost giving out when I see Rube on the floor. I fall down beside him, and start panting as I hike up his shirt with a shaking hand.
Gutshot. Surprisingly little blood. Does that mean the bullet’s still in there?
There’s a crash from inside the room, but Rube needs me more right now.
Except…I don’t have a fucking clue what to do.
A hand lands on my shoulder, trembling slightly. I look up into Apollo’s face.
“Cass needs you,” he says.
“But—”
“Go.” He falls to his knees beside Reuben and starts ripping off a piece of his shirt. I stand on unsteady legs and half walk, half stumble into the room.
It’s the one from the video.
But there’s blood here now.
And three dead bodies.
Four if you count—
“No! Trinity!” I rush forward, but then Cass is in front of me, driving me back. “No!” I try and shove him, but he somehow manages to herd me away from the bed. My back slams into a wall.
The sound of police sirens and ambulances want my attention, but I don’t give it to them.
Cass clasps my head in his hands, wiping my face, forcing me to look at him. “Hey, bud. Hey. Over here.”
We lock eyes.
“I did everything I could, okay? I tried to save her, but she’s gone. She’s gone. You read me?”
My heart stops beating. “CPR,” I croak.
“Got no blood left,” Cass says. He’s grinning, but it’s the kind of smile you see on a corpse where the fleshy bits of the face have been picked clean by scavengers. “It just kept oozing out. Can’t put it back in, can I? So that’s that. But listen, buddy, listen to me, okay?”
There’s a heavy drone in my ears, which makes complying difficult, but I nod anyway. My eyes dart to the side as I try to look past him, but he tightens his grip on my face and sinks his fingertips into my scalp.
“Look, the police are going to be here in like…fucking seconds. All right? Now we need to do something very important. And we gonna have to do it really fast.”
He steps back. Points.
A dark-haired man lays sprawled on the carpet. There’s a gun near his right hand.
“We got to take this motherfucker downstairs. There’s this big hole outside—”
“The grave.”
Talking is good. Not looking at the bed, that’s good too. Doing something that gets me out of this room? Even better.
“Yeah, the grave.” Cass pats my chest. “Good. So, you grab his legs, yeah?”
Cass backs up, still grinning like a fucking Jack-O-Lantern, and grabs the guy’s wrists.
“Come on, Zach. Stay with me.”
I keep my eyes down. When my vision blurs, I blink them clear.
“We can do this.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. But as soon as Cass breaks eye contact, my gaze flies to the bed.
She looks so serene.
So pale.
So fucking dead.
I blink again. My chest feels like it’s caving in. Tighter and tighter and tighter. I try and breathe, try to clamp my mouth shut, but then another set of hot tears races down my cheeks. The salt in my mouth triggers a sob.
“No, n-no,” Cass says, voice wobbling. “Fuck you, Zachary. You’re grabbing his fucking legs, and we’re putting him in that fucking grave!”
I choke, wipe my face on my shoulder, and lift the guy’s feet.
He groans.
Maybe a normal guy would have dropped him. I don’t. I hold on even fucking tighter. Because he undoubtedly had something to do with the dead girl on the bed, and that means I owe him a world of hurt.
A spasm goes through the guy’s body, and then he lifts his head. He looks at me, dazed, unfocused.
There’s something wrong with his eye.
Outside, in the hall, someone starts sobbing. Big, heavy, ragged sobs.
It takes me a few seconds to work it out.
Time where I’m holding back the ephemeral agony gouging out my lungs and stomach. Time where I’m moving back, dragging the guy’s stomach over the pale blue carpet. Time where I’m staring at that fucked up eye so I won’t look up again and see Trinity on the bed and lose my shit.
The man twists in our grip. His strength is coming back. There’s a wet slick on the back of his head. Splinters in his hair.
That’s where the broken chair comes from.
“Doorway,” Cass warns. “Take a left, bud.”
I angle out the door.
Apollo’s head is on Rube’s chest. His blond hair shifts with every sob wracking his lean body. He’s hugging Rube with his elbows, hands fisted in Rube’s shirt.
The guy we’re dragging begins fighting us. Cass’s grin turns into a grimace. My arms are starting to burn from the weight, from keeping his ankles clasped when he tries to kick his legs.
He keeps bucking off the floor, forcing us to take his full weight instead of letting us drag him over the tiles. He sends a loathing glare at me over his shoulder, mouth twisted with frustration and fury.
And then I get what’s wrong with his eye.
It happened a few times to Rube, and would always freak me out.
His contact has slipped. Like an eclipse, the dark lens creates a crescent from the lighter iris below.
I almost drop his legs.
But then I think he recognizes me too. And his face loses all color.
I don’t blame him.
He knows what happened to my parents. Fuck, maybe he was even the one who found them.
Were they still in those chairs? No, wait…the chairs must have burned in the fire.
I honestly wish I could have stayed to see their faces.
See how they struggled to get free.
How their skin began blistering from the heat.
Fire cleanses.
It was the only thing that made sense. I was doing them a fucking favor. And, if it didn’t work, then at least they’d already know what Hell felt like before they got there.
I walk faster.
The sirens are so much closer now.
“Hey, easy,” Cass calls out.
So I rip the man’s wrists out of his grip.
There’s no time.
“Zach, wait!”
The man immediately flips onto
his back and grabs a passing rail before I can haul him down the stairs.
We stop.
Stare at each other.
My Ghost’s chest rises and falls, the action speeding up the longer I glare at him.
Trinity’s stepfather.
Keith fucking Malone.
But he looks different now. Too different to account for age.
Plastic surgery then.
He really didn’t want anyone figuring out he’d faked his own death.
Like Gabriel.
Like Trin—
Pain slices through me. My jaw clenches so hard the enamel on my teeth squeaks.
Cass stomps on Keith’s hand. The man curls toward the pain, letting out a wordless yell.
I yank him down the stairs.
He tries to sit up, but his head still hits several of the stairs on the way down. Each time, he leaves a splotch of blood on the wood.
I angle him down the short landing, and then we go down the next flight.
Cass hurries after, stomping on his hands every time Keith manages to grab hold of something. He must already have several broken fingers—they jiggle around too loosely as we make our way downstairs.
Police lights paint the living room walls blue and red. Outside, car doors slam.
I grimace up at Cass. “Grab his fucking arms.”
He does so immediately, deftly avoiding Keith’s teeth when the man tries to bite him.
We hurry through the patio doors, Keith fighting us every step of the way. But Cass and I, we’re filled with the Holy Spirit.
It gives us strength.
It guides our feet.
Keith gasps in pain when we drop him into the grave. It’s only about five feet deep—I guess whoever was digging it didn’t do all that well in school. But his body is cast in shadow when he rolls onto his side and coughs.
“Hurry,” Cass says, a shovel already in his hands.
When the first spade of dirt hits Keith’s face, he scrambles up and tries to claw his way out of the grave.
Cass slams his shovel against the back of Keith’s head.
But not hard.
Just enough to send him toppling over. He lies there at the bottom, dazed, as we frantically pile more dirt over him.
I hear voices coming from inside. But no one’s headed out back yet.
I guess there’s enough to deal with inside.
We throw heaps of dirt around Keith’s legs and torso, trying to weigh him down as much as possible. Keith comes to when dirt starts hitting his head again. He twists, spitting and cursing when a shovel of dirt hits his face. He pushes his hand down, face contorting as he tries to pull himself out of the dirt.
But maybe he’s concussed, because he can’t seem to drag himself free.
And then he screams for help.
I jump into the grave and stomp on his head. He goes still, and then starts shaking. I stay there, my foot on the top of his head, as Cass fills in more dirt.
Just before I climb out to help Cass, I crouch down and brush away dirt from his one eye. It trembles, but it doesn’t open.
“See you in Hell, Keith Malone.”
We shovel in as much dirt as we dare, toss the spades into the hole on top of him and then dart around the side of the house. We wash our hands and shake loose dirt off our clothes, and then enter through the front door.
As we step inside the living room, I see a pair of cops step out onto the patio.
A hand fumbles against my leg. Cass laces his fingers through mine. I look down, then up at his face.
He’s staring after the cops, shoulders stiff, jaw bunched.
“If he’s still alive…” Cass murmurs. Tears brim in his icy-blue eyes, turning them shiny as fucking marbles.
“Then we’ll find him again.” I squeeze his hand fuck hard. “And we’ll dig him another fucking grave.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Trinity
I’m blindfolded. Gagged. My hands bound behind my back. My bare feet scrape over an icy concrete floor as I shuffle around in utter darkness trying to figure out where the hell I am.
Panic ratchets up my heart rate to that of a hummingbird’s.
I’m not alone in this dark.
I’ll never find my way out.
Something follows me. I hear it crawling over the floor behind me.
Nails scratch on the concrete. Skin drags.
My foot slams into a mattress.
Before I can find my balance, I topple forward.
The bedding is wet and warm.
Someone bled here.
You, Trinity. That’s your blood.
I push away the voice as I struggle frantically to stand. The thing crawling after me starts panting. Desperate as I am.
Finally I get to my feet. I surge forward, running as fast as I can.
Straight into someone standing in the dark. Strong arms catch me before I can fall. They drag me close, and hold me tight.
It should have been comforting, but I know who these arms belong to, and I don’t want to be anywhere near him.
My scream gets stuck in my throat. It’s barely a wheeze. Fingers tangle in my hair and drag my head back. My blindfold is ripped off.
There’s a click.
Light blooms, sickly yellow, from the bulb dangling above us.
I’m in the basement of 2142 Maude Street, but it’s larger now. The floor is covered with dirty, blood-stained mattresses.
And there’s a small, curled up body on each. Their shadows shift and dance as the light bulb swings left and right.
Almost makes them look alive.
I stare into my father’s face, and Keith Malone looks down at me without expression.
Nails scrape against the floor. Plastic sheeting now—no longer concrete.
The panting comes closer.
I try to move away, but Keith is holding me too tight.
“You should be dead,” he says. “I told them to kill you.”
Nick and Jess. Are they here? With Keith’s grip in my hair, I can’t turn around to look. I can’t even see how close the panting, crawling thing is that was following me in the dark.
“I will have to rectify that, child.”
Keith’s head snaps back. His mouth opens, but too wide.
Much too fucking wide.
A long, serpentine tongue uncoils and slaps onto my upturned face. I try to cringe away, but he’s keeping me rooted to the spot.
His tongue leaves a layer of slime on my skin as it slithers down my neck, like a slug working its way down my skin. With a tug, he pulls down the front of my dress. I try to collapse in on myself, to hide my nakedness, but I can’t. Not with my hands still bound.
His tongue creeps over my shoulder like a blind, wet snake. Searching. Hunting over my naked skin.
I try to scream, but I can’t draw enough breath. My lungs are too tight.
The panting thing reaches my feet. Ragged nails scrape over my skin as it claws its way up my body.
It’s smaller than me, but it’s angry.
So fucking angry.
It wants to hurt anything, anyone.
Its hands grab my skirt as it tries to lift itself. As it tries to climb higher. My dress slides down to my hips and threatens to go all the way down my legs.
All the while that tongue leaves sticky trails over my breast, a nipple, the hollow in my throat.
The panting thing catches hold of my wrist. Drags itself up. The exertion makes it breathe faster. Like a dog back from a run. Quick and hard.
The sound comes closer as it crawls up my back.
Hair snags in my fingers.
And then I know what it is.
Who it is.
It had been lying on the mattress in that pitch-black basement. Already dead. That’s what I’d been smelling. A girl with short hair, or a boy with long hair.
Dead.
Alone.
There in the dark.
Keith’s tongue finds what it was looking for.
The panting thing claws my face, tearing out my gag.
A slick tongue forces its way deep into the hole in my chest, going all the way through to my back.
The pain is excruciating.
A scream tears apart my throat.
Cold, dead little fingers creep over my face and try to seal my lips.
“Ssh, Trinity,” the child murmurs in my ear. “Don’t let the bad man hear you.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Trinity
My body jerks violently. I clap a hand over my chest, grimacing as I sit up in bed.
I dislodge two arms on the way. Apollo mumbles something under his breath as he turns and goes straight back to sleep.
Cass looks like he’s still sleeping.
I shimmy out of bed as carefully as I can, and hurry out of the room. I pad down the stairs, take a left, and sprint into the nearest bathroom.
If the basin had been another foot away, I’d have missed it. I retch violently, repetitively, my eyes streaming with pain.
I shudder as I rinse out the sink, then my mouth.
Again.
That’s the eighth night in a row.
I gargle half the bottle of mouth wash and stand at the foot of the stairs, staring into the dark.
But I don’t want to go back to sleep. Not if that fucking thing is waiting to pounce on me as soon as I close my eyes.
I head downstairs and let myself out onto the patio.
The ocean sounds calm tonight. The crash and sigh of the waves are barely audible from where I’m standing.
I flinch when hands wrap around my upper arms.
“Same one?” Cass asks.
I had woken him.
“Yeah.” I swipe my hair out of my face, put a hand over my chest. “It hurts more every time.”
“Psychic pain,” Cass says, coming to stand beside me and leaning his elbows on the railing. “Doctor said you’re hundreds. That shit’s healed.”
I rub my palm into the scar just below my collarbone. “He also told me it wouldn’t become infected, and it did. He also told me the scar would be barely noticeable.” I turn to Cass and point at the dark, puckered mark on my skin. “This thing is visible from the fucking moon.”
“Vain much, princess?” he says through a smirk, and reaches for me.