The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,258

me speed up, because he has the keys to the junker. I’m not sure if he’d leave us stranded, but I wouldn’t gamble anything when his mind is in such a wild state.

All of us need a day or two—sometimes longer—to process a killing. And we all do it in our own way. But Zach? There’s a brief moment of raging victory, and then he’s back to himself. Like a switch flips for a few minutes, and then it’s back to business as usual.

It’s not healthy. It’s not close to normal. But it’s Zach…and honestly, I have no idea what normal has ever looked like for him.

I grab hold of the driver’s side door of the battered mini-van a second before Zach tries to slam it closed. When I wrench it open, he releases the handle with a warning growl, but I just wedge my body in the gap instead.

He opens his mouth, his face a twisted mask of anger, but I don’t let him speak. I grab the front of his throat and shove him back into the seat so hard that it creaks in a warning.

His army green eyes go to slits, his nostrils flaring like an animal hunting out a prey’s scent.

But I’m not prey.

Not anymore.

“It’s over,” I tell him.

His lips seal into a thin line, like he’ll never allow himself to utter those words. But he doesn’t grab my wrists, he doesn’t do anything to lessen the pressure around his throat. I’m squeezing hard enough that his face is starting to go red, but he just sits there as if he’d accept his fate if I decided to end him.

“You could go on doing this for the rest of your life, Mason, but then you wouldn’t have a life. And wasn’t that the fucking point? To get our goddamn lives back?”

His lips pop open, and a small cough comes out. He starts to speak, but I know the kind of bullshit he’ll spout, so I squeeze even harder.

I’m dimly aware that someone’s approaching but I can’t break eye contact. This isn’t the first time Zachary and I have been on opposite ends of an argument. I know how quickly he can get the upper hand, especially if I’m distracted.

“It’s not just you anymore. It hasn’t been for years. You’d be a selfish fucking prick if you didn’t accept that Adam was the last.”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch….crunch.

Judging from the footsteps, it’s Cass. He knows to stay back. Knows to let this duel play out.

“So you’re going to say it. Agree that it’s over. Close the door to that basement in your mind, and fucking lock it, and swallow the key.”

Zach’s eyes flare, his lips quirking into a snarl. There’s a vein throbbing on his temple, his skin even redder than before. I can hear his breath wheezing through his constricted trachea.

“And if you don’t, then I’ll just keep squeezing.”

He glares at me for a long second, and then croaks out, “Fuck you.”

If Cass hadn’t jumped onto my back, I’d have killed Zach. I’d have fucking crushed his throat and been done.

But Cass’s weight, negligible as it is, breaks my concentration. Zach slams a fist into my solar plexus, winding me and causing a bolt of pain to slice through me.

I stumble back, wrestling Cass off my back and throwing him to the ground so I can get back to Zach. But Zach’s out of the van, another fist already flying for my face.

My head snaps to the side when he makes contact, the click ricocheting through my skull like a gunshot. But when he comes at me again, I duck and tackle him to the dirty snow with a roar.

We roll once, twice, slam into the base of a nearby tree. I’m on top, sitting up and straddling Zach’s waist as I punch him. He grunts when my knuckles make contact with his cheek, and starts bucking in a futile attempt to get me off him.

He doesn’t stand a chance. I have over twenty pounds on him, and a biblical fucking amount of rage boiling through me.

“After everything, you can’t even give us this?” I roar, punctuating the sentence with a fist to the other side of his face.

He laughs at me with blood-stained teeth, and then hacks up a mouthful of pink spittle and sprays it on my face. “If you four want to live your perfect fucking lives without me, then do it!” he yells. “I’d never ask you to stop! Never!”

“Because you can’t!” Our voices