The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,14

privileges. I guess there’s no way he’d consider showing me any kind of special treatment.

After a short sermon, Father Gabriel leads us in the Father’s Prayer.

Our father, who art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name.

I barely murmur the words loud enough to move my lips. I wouldn’t be praying along at all, but I guess it won’t hurt.

What else is there to do but keep playing along like I have been all my life? What’s a few more weeks, months, years?

Maybe by becoming the perfect student, I’ll earn myself a private room. Perhaps even some kind of protection against the boys.

It’s a lot to hope for, but I have Mom’s stubbornness on my side.

I duck my head and squeeze closed my eyes. My lips tremble as I fight with myself. But this time, I lose the battle.

Thoughts pour into my mind like rancid oil.

How could you abandon me like this?

You weren’t even supposed to be in that car with him.

You were supposed to be at home, with me.

You’re my mother.

You told me you loved me, and then you chose him over me.

You always did.

I bite the inside of my lip until I taste copper.

I hate you.

I hate you!

I fucking hate—!

A hand lands on my shoulder. “Trinity?”

I jerk away from the touch, and turn brimming eyes up to Gabriel. “Father,” I manage in a wobbly voice.

“May I join you in prayer?”

I’m vaguely aware of boys streaming past him in the aisle watching us intently.

If I spoke, I’d start sobbing like a kid so I scoot silently aside. Father Gabriel takes a seat beside me, his thigh warm and hard where it presses against mine. With a quick smile at me, he sits forward and rests his elbows on the backrest in front of our pew. Then he clasps his hands and bows his head.

Guilt eats through me like a heap of maggots.

He thought I was praying when he walked past, when in truth I was cursing my dead mother.

I fold down, pressing the tips of my steepled fingers to the skin between my brows hard enough to bruise. It helps with the shaking, and at least now I’m hidden behind Gabriel’s figure. If the boys walking past want to gape at me, they won’t be able to see much.

But even now, like this—shielded by the provost—someone’s watching me.

Are they waiting for me to fuck up and expose myself as the heretic I am?

Or are they intrigued by this stranger in their midst?

Well fuck them.

Whoever they are, they can go straight to hell.

Chapter Seven

Trinity

I don’t bother trying to find anyone to sit with at breakfast. I hadn’t even planned on going to the dining hall after the terrible time I’d had at the chapel. But on my way back to the main building, Sister Miriam makes a beeline for me and falls in step beside me.

“I trust you are keeping well, Miss Malone?”

Miss Malone.

A faint tingle works its way deep inside me. I don’t know why, but my entire body came alive when Brother Zachary had spoken my name yesterday. In fact, that had happened every time he’d looked at me too.

“Yes, thank you.” My voice is still thick with emotion. I don’t know how long Father Gabriel and I sat praying in the chapel. It felt like hours had gone by before he shifted in his seat and let out a soft, “Amen,” before excusing himself.

“What are you wearing?” Miriam asks, in exactly the same tone she’d used to greet me with.

“A uniform?” I look down at myself. My tie has shifted, exposing my cleavage.

I turn bright red. It must have been the run over here that did it. So was it like this the entire time Gabriel sat beside me in prayer?

Despite what I’d always thought, dying from shame is not only a possibility, but it seems destined to be Miss Malone’s fate.

“Come see me after breakfast.” She breaks away and heads for the classrooms.

Someone’s watching me again. I scan all around me.

There’s no one sight.

I stare at the distant trees. It’s so dark under that dense canopy, they could easily move around on the edges of the grounds without being seen.

Goosebumps break out on my skin.

I almost get all the way through breakfast without incident.

En route to the table to put down on my empty tray, I feel eyes on me again. This time I don’t hesitate—I immediately scan the entire dining hall to see who’s looking in my direction.

Quite a few of the boys still seated at the benches