The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,257

Cass stretches out his arm, turning the knife and holding it out handle-first to Apollo.

“Cass—” I start.

“It’s the price we pay for serenity,” Zachary says. He’s leaning in Cass’s place beside the fireplace where flames sputter and shoot sparks as they chew through the dirty wood we found stacked in one corner of the cabin. “It must be him.”

“I’ll do it,” Trinity murmurs, but before she can take more than a step forward, Cass puts out an arm to stop her. “This is his cross to bear.”

I don’t know what the fuck comes over me, but before I can stop it, a bark of laughter escapes me. Everyone turns to look at me. I shrug. “Most religious thing I’ve ever heard coming out of your mouth,” I tell Cass.

He quirks an eyebrow. “Then you obviously haven’t been paying attention. I say holy shit all the time.”

Before he finishes speaking, Apollo snatches the blade from his hand and slashes out with it, a grisly sneer stretching his mouth.

A ragged line of red appears on Adam’s throat an instant before his head falls back. Bright blood fountains into the air. Trinity claps her hands over her eyes, but Cass, Zachary, Apollo, and I merely watch as the Ghost’s life force pumps out of his severed flesh.

The gurgles begin immediately, but either he doesn’t want to hang around any longer in this world, or he just didn’t have that much fight in him, because a second later his head sags forward, a permanent slump in his now lifeless body.

A clatter draws my eyes. The knife lays by Apollo’s grimy sneakers, his hand dangling limply at his side. His eyes are glazed, his lips parted. He looks like he’s high, but he hasn’t touched a joint in weeks.

We’ve had other things on our minds.

“That’s it,” he says, his voice thick and unusually grim. “It’s over.”

Zach grunts. “There’ll always be more of these sick—”

“It’s. Over.”

I know I’m not the only one who gets goosebumps at the steel underlying Apollo’s declaration.

Cass glances back at me, his mouth working for a second, but he’s at a loss for words.

Trinity’s eyes are glowing, and when she blinks a crystal tear races down her cheek. She steps forward and lays a hand on Apollo’s shoulder. When he doesn’t react, when he just keeps staring at the bruised, beaten, bloodied body a foot away from him, she runs her hand down his arm and laces her fingers through his bloody hand.

Some of the man’s life juice must have splashed on him when he slashed his throat, but Apollo doesn’t even seem to notice.

Usually, he’d be on his back, practically comatose. I’ve never seen him stare down this much blood and not be in a parallel dimension.

But it’s as if he’s shed a skin that’s been constricting him his entire life. Finally free, his phobias no longer plague him. He’s walked away from the scared, pathetic boy he used to be…and grown-up to this. To a man who can tell it’s over with the kind of authority that makes us believe him.

“It’s over,” I say, starting to nod.

Apollo looks up at me through his sandy lashes, flicking his head to send a chunk of the same color hair from his eyes. His lips close, and the tiniest crease forms alongside his mouth. It’s not a smile, but it’s getting there.

“About fucking time it’s over,” Cass mutters, dusting down his clothes. “I want to travel before it’s too late.” He cuts his gaze to Trinity, but she only has eyes for Apollo right now. Squeezing his hand, beaming up at him with dare I say almost motherly pride. I can’t blame her—my breath is starting to seize up with how my chest constricts.

Zachary pushes away from the wall and rushes out of the cabin, slamming the door open so hard that Trinity yelps in surprise when it crashes against the wall.

“Zach!” she calls out, and for fuck’s sake she’s about to go after him before Cass grabs hold of her wrist and keeps her back.

I go instead, my jaw already creaking with how my jaw locks.

Of course he’s pissed. Zachary could saw off the dick of every molester in the United States and still feel like he hasn’t done enough. It’s become his obsession, his undying vow, to single-handedly wipe out the surge of pedophiles in this country.

I follow the sound of his boots crunching through the snow. Thank God, he’s not heading into the forest—he’s heading for the car. Which makes