The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,127

something.”

“Wait. Wait!” I push the words between heaving pants. “You’re going too fast.”

“You gotta work on your stamina, Trin,” Apollo says. I don’t have to look at him to know he’s wearing a fat grin. “We still have a flight to go.”

“Do I look like an athlete?” I ask, straightening with a wince and forcing myself up the stairs after him.

He laughs as he disappears around the corner of the landing. I arrive a few moments later, blowing like a racehorse. Okay, maybe not that bad, but I definitely have a stitch. I guess I didn’t have to run after him when he loped up the first flight of stairs, but he had me so curious I couldn’t help myself.

He hasn’t answered a single one of my questions. Hasn’t told me where we’re going. But I realized about halfway up the tight corkscrew stairs that we must be going to one of the towers dotting the four corners of the dormitory. That, or the bell tower.

I was kinda freaked out taking the stairs. While I won’t go as far as to say Saint Amos is cozy and inviting, the dorms are a far sight homelier than this staircase. Here, there’s nothing to dress the rough brick wall, and the only natural light comes from small square windows filled with thick panes. Of course, with the overcast sky, it’s practically night outside already. That leaves the job of illumination to the handful of naked light bulbs sticking out of the walls every few yards. They’re so far apart that I have to step through deep shadow to reach the next one.

Someone could break their neck.

“You made it,” Apollo says, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Screw you,” I mutter, and then stop talking so I can concentrate on getting air back into my lungs.

We’re standing next to a thick wooden door that Apollo unlocks with a key from his pocket.

I half expect to hear bats take flight when the door swings inward.

The bell tower.

It’s so much larger than I’d thought. The bell hangs a few yards away from where we’re standing. A wide ledge circles it, opening to balconies.

“It’s…”

“You should see it during the day. The view I mean. The bell’s nothing special.”

Apollo moves inside. When I don’t immediately follow, he grabs my wrist and hauls me after him. “Come on. We don’t want to be here when the bell goes off. It’s super fucking loud.”

He leads me past the bell to a much smaller door set off to one side. The metal door makes it seem like some kind of maintenance area.

The door opens to black nothingness.

Then Apollo turns on the light, revealing a tiny room with nothing more than a desk and a rickety-looking office chair, fabric unraveling on one corner of the cushion.

There wouldn’t be enough room in here to swing a cat. Possibly not even a small guinea pig. Not unless decapitation was on its bucket list.

Less than a yard away from me is a blank wall.

Well, it used to be blank. Now it’s covered with sheets of paper board glued together to form a massive canvas.

I step forward on automatic.

I’m dimly aware that Apollo’s still holding onto my wrist, but instead of letting me go, he comes in behind me and shuts the door.

“This is everything,” he says.

He’s not kidding. The wall is covered with photos, news articles, and pink post-it notes. Lengths of blue string join seemingly random objects together, forming the type of web only a spider on LSD could make.

“There’s so much…stuff,” I murmur as I step to the side to try and find a starting point.

Apollo uses the grip on my wrist to lift my hand. He carefully forms my fingers until I’m pointing, and then moves my fingertip over the collage.

He stops a foot or so away from the middle. I’m pointing at an old photograph—color, but edging toward sepia and slightly out of focus. It’s a school photo showing a small class of about twenty girls and boys dressed in school uniformed lined up on sports benches with two adults.

Behind them rears the majestic turrets of Saint Amos.

Friends of Faith Children’s Home

CLASS OF 1991

My heart sinks like a stone tossed into a deep well. It still hasn’t hit the black bottom when Apollo says, “Recognize him?” and drags my finger to one of the boy’s faces.

“I do.”

But it’s not the only face I recognize. I swallow hard and then glance at Apollo. He’s looking at me, not the board. “Why are you showing me