he cuts off. With a huff, he slumps in his chair and runs his hands through his hair, unsuccessfully tucking the bulk of it behind his ears. He’s almost twenty-two, but you’d think he’s the youngest of the Brotherhood.
I stare at each of my brothers in turn.
“She’s not a threat.”
“You saw her file?” Cass sits forward, a blunt dangling from his fingertips. “What does it say?”
Sister Stella had sent a message for me this afternoon. Trinity’s file had been faxed through.
From her social worker.
Trinity Malone was an orphan, like I’d suspected. Homeschooled by her parents since she was a kid, her file only had a few report cards and some very basic details. Addresses, contact numbers, that kind of thing. All useless, since both her emergency contacts were now deceased.
No referral. No indication why she’d ended up here at Saint Amos.
“Someone wants us to think she’s a nobody.”
Cass and Apollo groan. Reuben says quietly. It takes a lot for him to involve himself in a conversation.
“If there’s some kind of relationship between her and Gabriel, the file doesn’t mention it.”
“We’re doin’ this?” Apollo asks, his voice warbling with nerves. Putting his camera down by his feet, he shoves his hands under his armpits and narrows his eyes at me.
I flick my fingers at Cass, and he passes me the blunt. I glance at each of them in turn as I hit it, diagnosing their mental states best I can.
I’m a year into my psychology major. The human psyche has fascinated me ever since I realized how fucked up a person could be.
Or, become.
Nature versus nurture.
We need to have our shit together before we act. Asking my brothers straight out if they’re of sound frame of mind will earn me anything from the unvarnished truth to a flat out lie. But I’ve known them for fifteen years. We’re brothers through and through. I can read them like I read scripture—cutting through all the bullshit metaphors and anecdotes, straight to the bone.
“You’re wrong. She is somebody,” Reuben says, as soon as my gaze settles on him.
He could put any of us on the ground in a heartbeat. But he’s always been cautious. Sometimes too cautious for his own good, just like Apollo does shit without thinking things through.
Cass and I, we’re somewhere in the middle. Sometimes cautious, sometimes rash.
“Why?” I say.
“He’s known her a long time.”
I don’t even try and second guess him. Honest to God, I wish Reuben would join my psych class. What he understands on an intuitive level about most people, it would take me years to learn. Maybe it’s because he listens before he speaks. He’s the one that put us onto Father Gabriel in the first place, through a happenstance meeting at one of the provost’s parishes.
For close to a decade, we’d been chasing a ghost. After Reuben met Gabriel in person. Then our ghost suddenly had a name and a face.
“Don’t mean she’s—” Apollo begins.
Reuben doesn’t even pause. When he speaks, he doesn’t allow himself to get interrupted. “He treats her like family.”
Everyone tenses up at that.
Everyone.
Gabriel doesn’t have any family. DNA like his isn’t meant to be passed on. God only knows what evil his offspring would bring to this world. If he ever knocked up some chick, she’d give birth to a two-headed goat.
There’s a pause while everyone makes sure Reuben is done. Then Apollo sits forward in his seat and clicks his fingers at me. I pass him the blunt without taking my eyes from Rube. “Nothing in her file indicates that he even knows her.”
But, like Rube, I’m convinced that’s intentional.
“If you saw what I did, you wouldn’t think she was so fucking special,” Apollo says in a tight voice as he passes the blunt to Cass. When he continues, smoke leaks from his lips. “That hag stripped her down like she’s one of those window dolls.” Apollo gestures with long hands and spindly fingers. “Wasn’t being polite about it, neither.”
“Get that on tape?” Cass passes the blunt to Rube, but the guy ignores him.
“Nah, man. I was working.” Apollo scratches his arm. “Guys don’t like it when I film them in the kitchen.”
“‘Cos then we’d all know who spits in our food,” Cass says through a smirk.
Apollo barks out a laugh.
I’m still watching Rube. And he’s watching me.
“Even if she’s his fucking daughter,” I say, “how could she fuck this up for us?”
Reuben shrugs—an impressive gesture on a guy with his shoulders. “We can’t risk it. This is the last chance