begin. He’s wearing a white t-shirt made of flimsy fabric that drapes his body like silk. If it weren’t for the hole in it, I’d have thought it was an expensive designer piece. But the hole is big and ugly—it definitely didn’t ship like that.
Apollo’s still busy with the laptop. His long fingers fly over the keyboard, his shoulders hunched and his hair hiding his face.
Zachary toys with the box while his eyes search me.
“So you want me to steal it?” I ask, when it seems Reuben’s done talking.
“Of course not,” Zachary says through an impatient sigh. “We need you to clone the hard drive.”
I frown at him. “I don’t know how—”
“It’s easy,” Apollo says without looking up. “Zach will give you the drive. You just plug it into a USB slot and it’ll do the rest.”
I nod, my eyes going to the box Zachary has. I’m not going to ask what a USB drive is—I’m hoping it will be one of those self-explanatory types of things.
“How am I supposed to sneak that into his room?” But then I hold up a hand, briefly closing my eyes. “How am I even supposed to get into his room?”
Zachary gives me half a smile. “You’re a bright girl,” he says, his smile turning sarcastic. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
I clench my jaw as I tap a finger against my glass. “Why do you need me? Couldn’t one of you just—?”
“You’re so convinced he’s a saint,” Zachary says. “Time to prove it.” He tosses the box to me.
I fumble it before opening it up and taking out a thin device barely longer than my thumb. “So I just plug this in,” I mumble, turning it over in my hands. “After I sneak into his room and track down his hidden laptop.”
“You have until Wednesday.”
I look up at Zachary. “Why Wednesday?”
His smile is anything but merry. “Because by then, I would have lost my patience with you.”
Chapter Eight
Zach
Trinity gets up to leave. I scan her body as she does, and she folds in on herself like an origami swan. “Where do you think you’re going?” I ask lightly, shaking out another cigarette.
“I have the thing,” she says, holding up the thumb drive. “I know what do to. Surely I can…” She trails off before glancing at the exit.
“Leave?” I finish for her, getting slowly to my feet as I drag at the cigarette. “Now why would we let you do that?”
Her mouth opens, but she says nothing. Instead she grabs the blood-red crucifix around her neck.
Reuben would have preferred to have his rosary back but he needs to learn to let go of things. The crucifix is a start. A good start. I could never get him to abandon it. But all it took was a desperate soul and he handed it over like it was nothing.
Although I suppose he expected to get it back.
We all have to learn some hard lessons if we’re to piece together the remnants of ourselves. Reuben has to understand that his past isn’t encompassed in that cheap trinket.
We’re his past.
Trinity flinches when I grab her wrist.
I drag my eyes down her body again. She looks up and meets my eyes, but there’s uneasiness in those amber irises. “I think you should dance for us,” I tell her.
“W-what?” she splutters out, her mouth lifting into an incredulous smile. “No.”
“Fucking fantastic idea,” Cass says.
“I can’t dance,” she says through a laugh. “And even if I could…” Her eyes dart around before she puts her hands on her hips and tries to look casual. “There’s no music.”
“You don’t need music,” I say, drawing her closer.
She steps back hurriedly, pulling her wrist free and letting out a huff. “I’m not dancing.” Her eyes flicker over my brothers. Then they flash back to me and narrow. “Not unless I get something in return.”
Cass whistles through his teeth. Apollo even stops messing around with the laptop long enough to look up at her with wide eyes and a slack mouth. Reuben snorts and rubs his jaw like he’s trying to hide his faint smile.
I tilt my head at her. “Do you really think you’re in a position to bargain with us?”
“Hang on,” Cassius says through a chuckle. “Let’s hear her out. What’s your offer, Trin?”
She replies without taking her eyes off me. “I want to know how you factor into all of this,” she says. An absent wave of her hand takes in my brothers, then the packages against the wall. “You’re older