The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,60

lifts the crucifix dangling around my neck and rubs his thumb along the wood. It releases a sweet, heady scent that makes me squirm on Cass’s lap.

Which, in turn, makes his erection even harder.

“Enough!” I snap. I yank the crucifix from Reuben’s finger and turn to glare at Zachary. “Tell me what the hell I’m doing here.”

Now my head’s thumping like a bass drum. I press the heel of my hand against my temple, wincing, but I don’t break eye contact with Zachary.

He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. “You, Trinity Malone, are going to help us take down a sex trafficker.”

I laugh, because what the hell else am I supposed to do? “Me? How?”

Zachary goes on as if I hadn’t spoken. “They called him ‘Guardian’.” His jaw ticks. “You know him as Gabriel.”

There’s a beat of silence where even my heart stops beating.

Zachary gives me a grim smile. “Sorry. Father Gabriel.”

My coffee’s gone cold in my hands. They gave it back to me a few minutes after they’d started telling me their story.

Apollo begins.

“My parents got shot when I was six. Mugging gone wrong kind of thing. I’d been an altar boy for like a month before that happened. Somehow, I ended up at an orphanage in Redmond instead of foster care.

“Not that I minded. I thought it was kinda cool. Had a lot of friends to play with. I was there for like a year before it happened.”

He pauses, and starts collecting all the bits and pieces in his lap and putting them on the floor, arranging them around his bare feet.

“One of my teachers told me I’d done so well in class that he was taking me out for pizza.” Apollo lets out a sardonic laugh. “Fucking idiot I was, I believed him. That’s how easy it is to get a kid into your car. Fucking pizza, man.”

He sniffs, and drags his hair out of his face. It flops back again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Zachary lights something. I first think it’s weed, but then cigarette smoke billows into the air between us. They start passing it between them, each taking a drag or two before passing it on.

“We drove for hours. What it felt like, anyway. I started getting cranky. He slammed my head into the dashboard so hard I passed out.” Apollo scratches at the scar on his forehead like he can still feel that pain through the years.

And here I’d thought it was an old sports injury or something.

“When I came to, I was tied up in a basement.” He starts arranging the various mechanics of his broken camera around his feet in a halo.

It feels like someone’s pouring cold water down my spine. He takes a deep breath, and glances up at Zachary.

Zachary nods at him.

Apollo looks at me.

That icy water freezes, and my entire body goes stiff.

“I had two Ghosts. They’d come every Saturday and Sunday, alternating like.” He sticks out his fingers and twists them back and forth. “Never saw each other, but they timed their shit so well, they had to have wiped each other’s cum off their dicks more than once.”

My mouth fills with saliva. For a moment, I’m convinced I’m going to puke. Cass takes my wrist and urges my cup to my mouth.

I take a sip. “Ghosts?” The word slips out before I can stop it.

Apollo’s eyes dart up. His foot starts tapping. “Yeah, Ghosts.” He points at Reuben. “He came up with it.”

“It’s what we called the men who visited us,” Reuben says. I glance at him, but he’s still staring at Apollo. “We never knew who they were, or how long they’d stay. They weren’t supposed to speak to us.”

“But some of them couldn’t shut up,” Cass says.

I look at him over my shoulder. His blue eyes could have bored a hole through my head. “I got there a few months before Apollo arrived,” he says.

“Where? In the basement?” I glance over at Apollo. “The same one?” Apollo seems to have forgotten I exist. He’s busy with his camera again.

“Yup,” Cass says. “Now snuggle up, honey tits. It’s my turn.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Zac

I need another blunt, but I light a cigarette instead. We know we don’t smoke less when we share, but it’s been a habit of ours for years already. Back when we first met, it took a lot for us to share anything, even our names.

Trust becomes addictive. Dangerously so.

Cass drags Trinity against his chest, arranging