The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,230

the others arrive.

“Fuck,” Cass mutters somewhere behind me. “There a light or something?”

“Probably one down there,” Apollo says. “But, like, you’d have to find it first.”

“Anyone have a flashlight?” Zach’s voice is tight.

“Got one on my phone,” Cass replies absently.

But none of us move.

We just stand there, staring into the dark.

Which is absurd.

It’s just a dark room.

A few stairs.

If Cass gives me his phone, there’ll be light. Then I can go down there.

But it doesn’t matter what logic my fucking brain throws at me, I override it every time with, “it’s a fucking pitch-black basement.”

Maybe I wouldn’t have had an issue if Zach hadn’t told me that this was where our Ghost lived.

Because then it would just have been a normal basement. A cavity at the bottom of a house. Nothing to it.

But it’s not.

It’s our fucking Ghost’s basement, and that changes everything.

Apollo clears his throat. “So…uh…are we going down?”

“Yeah, course,” Cass says, but as if he’s lost in a dream.

“Why wouldn’t we?” The words come out by themselves—I wasn’t even aware I was going to speak.

My skin starts crawling. I take a step back. And as if that breaks the spell, Cass and Zach and Apollo all move back with me.

We press up against the wall, staring at the rectangle of night in front of us.

Cass fidgets in his pocket. Pulls out his phone. He turns on the light and shines it at the hole.

It’s like it hits an invisible door someone painted black.

Fuck.

“Okay,” Apollo whispers. “Look, it’s just a room, right?”

He takes a step forward. Then another. I stare at him, taking in his long blond hair, his lean frame. He puts his arm out behind him. “Phone.”

In that moment, I’ve never had greater respect for him.

And he doesn’t even look back. Doesn’t take even a second to see what we think. He just grabs the phone as soon as Cass puts it his palm, pushes back his shoulders, and heads for the darkness.

The second it swallows him, the three of us surge forward and cluster around the dark doorway.

“Apollo!” Cass calls out, like he’s convinced Apollo’s already been murdered.

“Yeah?” With the phone shining ahead, he’s a starkly contrasted silhouette. The beam of light from the cell isn’t as powerful as a flashlight, but it chases away the shadows long enough for Apollo to pick out a few shapes in the darkness.

Stairs.

Plastic flooring.

As soon as he reaches the ground, he points the light across the room.

“Mother of God,” Zach murmurs.

“Nope,” Cass says, sounding like he’s about to get sick. “Try, Father of Hell.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Apollo

I wonder if they can see how much I’m shaking? I’m holding Cass’s phone as tight as I can, but there’s nothing I can do about the way the light shimmies and shakes all over the place.

If my brothers weren’t all standing there at the top of the stairs, I wouldn’t even have thought about setting foot down here.

Yeah, it’s just a basement, but come on.

It’s as much a basement as we’re a bunch of friends.

Every inch of this place is dripping sinister and oozing malevolence. I suddenly wish I had some kind of biblical training so I could exorcise this place and be done.

But instead I have to creep around and look for a damn light.

I find it, eventually. It takes me a lot longer than it should have, but that’s because I can’t stop looking at everything else in here.

The bed.

The teeny tiny little toilet.

The camera on its stand.

Especially the camera.

But I can’t think electronics right now. This isn’t the time to veer off on a tangent.

As soon as I spot the string for the light, I tug it.

Light blooms, but the way that swinging lightbulb makes the shadows dance and weave is giving me the heebie-jeebies.

“Okay, guys, it’s safe!” I call up.

I don’t dare turn my back, because I know how that ends. So I just back up a little as I wait for them to join me.

But they don’t.

And when I finally have enough courage to look behind me, I see the terror on each of those three faces.

Crap.

Why the hell did I have to choose this moment to be so damn stupid?

“Really?” I purse my lips. “Just me then?”

“You’re doing so well, buddy!” Cass calls out. “Just keep going.”

I shake my head, throw them the finger, and go back to staring at the room. “What am I looking for?”

They don’t answer, because I guess it’s obvious.

A fucking clue, idiot.

But like…what?

Hair? DNA? Fingerprints?

Or stuff like whether the bed was chosen at