splitting sound.
They sank to their knees, eyes screwed shut. Clinging to each other. The violence was overwhelming. The din deafening. Disorienting. Banging, booming. Scraping. Screaming. From the house. From them. As the house came crashing down on top of them.
Rubble fell against Armand, pushing him sideways, but there was nowhere to go. Debris, wreckage, was closing in on both sides of them now. Pinning them there. Crushing them there.
Benedict pulled him closer, and he heard the sobbing of the boy, whose body was folded over his. Protecting him from the inevitable.
He could barely breathe now. There was room for only one thought. One feeling.
Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.
And then the unholy shrieking died down. There were thumps and thuds as rafters fell. And settled. But the great rending sound, the crashing, had slowed.
Armand opened his eyes, squinting against the grit stinging them. He lifted his head, coughing.
And looked right into Benedict’s face.
There was blood on Benedict’s forehead, making its way through the plaster and concrete dust. So that the handsome young man looked like a statue that had cracked.
But his eyes were bright. And blinking.
“Myrna?” Armand rasped, barely recognizing his own voice.
“Here.” He felt her move against his back but couldn’t turn around. They were pinned there.
“Billy?”
There was a word Armand didn’t recognize, in a voice he did.
They’d all survived.
Benedict closed his eyes, shutting out the grit in the air. But Armand kept his eyes open. Staring. Peering beyond the boy who still hugged him. Through eyes, watering and burning, he could see the doorjamb that had saved their lives and the familiar marks made on it decades ago. Height charts.
Anthony. Caroline. Shooting up with each measurement. And Hugo, who was not.
But Armand was staring beyond the marks on the wood. At a gray hand thrust up through the rubble.
CHAPTER 16
Amelia woke up, clawing her way to the surface, to the sunlight. Her head throbbed, and her mind was numb. And her eyes refused to focus.
She looked around, blinking, until she could make out what she was seeing. And not seeing.
This wasn’t her bedroom. Certainly not the small, neat room at the academy that she’d called home for the past two years.
But neither was it the shithole in the rooming house.
This was a whole other shithole.
And then she remembered. Sinking back into the grimy sheets, her face going slack, and she closed her eyes.
“What have I done?”
“What did you do, Sweet Pea?”
Marc sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear gray and sagging. His eyes were bright in their sunken sockets. Like a gleam from some deep well.
She and Marc had been toddlers in the same village. Playing in the same playgrounds, schoolyards. Streets.
Marc had come to Montréal first. Young, gay, fresh, and alive. Fit and handsome. Excited to be out. He’d made a life for himself. A male prostitute, to be sure. But clean and careful. With his own tiny place.
His dream was to find some rich old queen and settle down.
She’d followed Marc to Montréal. He’d guided her. To the best dealers. The ones who didn’t cut their shit with worse shit. When she’d sunk low enough, he guided her to the best street corners. And protected her. He was like a big brother to her.
He was careful himself, teetering on the edge of addiction but not quite tipping over. Keeping himself presentable. For the nice restaurants, the private clubs, the international travel he knew was in the next car. On the next corner.
When Gamache kicked her out of the academy, Amelia had gone to the only person she knew could help her find what she needed.
They’d stared at each other, on either side of the threshold of his apartment. Barely recognizing each other. Marc’s hair wasn’t just greasy, it was falling out. His scabbed scalp visible in patches. His lips chapped, his skin mottled.
When he smiled, she could see gaps where teeth had once been.
“Am I so bad?” he asked, reading the look on her face.
“No, no. Am I?”
She could see herself in his eyes. A stranger. Repulsive in her cleanliness. Jet-black hair shiny. Complexion smooth.
They were no longer brother and sister. They were barely of the same species.
“Why’re you here?” he asked, barring the door.
“I need your help. I got kicked out of the academy.”
“Why?”
“Possession. Maybe trafficking.”
He’d laughed then, relieved. “Maybe?”
Amelia might look like another species, but they shared some DNA after all. She’d come home. To him. To the gutter. Where she belonged.
“What?” he’d asked, dropping his arm and letting her in. “Hell dust? Percs?”
“Fen.”
“The good