My chest closes up, squeezing my heart like a fist.
“I just—”
“Gabriel will be back tomorrow,” he cuts in. “How about you start focusing on that instead of sticking that pretty nose where it doesn’t belong?” He stands without waiting for my reply.
I drop my head, willing myself to disappear into the armchair. I hadn’t meant to be nosy. I just want to understand what I’m dealing with. I get that it’s probably a horrible subject for them, but Apollo and Cass had told me theirs without biting my head off.
Maybe that’s why they spoke up yesterday, and not Reuben and Zachary.
Holy shit…what did Zachary and Reuben go through?
I hug myself and risk peeking at Reuben through my lashes. He has a hand flat on his chest, his eyes boring into me. I hurriedly look away and on instinct reach for the rosary around my neck.
Then I freeze and look back at him.
His rosary. I’ve had it this whole time. Should I—?
“Keep it. I bought him another one,” Zachary says.
I jump at the sound of his voice.
Dear Lord. Whatever nerves I had, they’re shot again. Keeping cool around these guys is impossible. It’s like trying to keep an eye on four moving targets. I’ll just have to get used to the fact that they’ll always have an advantage over me.
Strength in numbers, I guess.
I drop the rosary I’d been about to pull over my head.
Zachary hands a slim case to Reuben, and he stares at it for a few seconds before opening it. He lifts out a dull black rosary and slips it over his head. Then he tucks it away under his t-shirt.
They’re all in casual clothes today.
Zachary is wearing a button-up shirt, pale blue, and jeans that look like he bought them at a thrift store. In fact, all the guys look like they got their clothes from the Salvation Army.
I’m assuming it’s on purpose, seeing as Zachary just bought a brand-new laptop. Then there’re the two video cameras…
Either he’s rich, or he has a ton of credit card debt. I guess if you’re planning on offing someone, you wouldn’t really care about your finances.
“Do that later. I need you to set this up.” Zachary leans across and hands Apollo the laptop.
Apollo flicks his hair out his eyes as he looks up at Zachary, and then gives a grim nod.
Zachary takes out a much smaller box and goes back to his seat. He toys with it as he watches Apollo remove the laptop’s packaging and start it up.
I tip my glass against my lips and look down in surprise. It’s empty. I hurriedly wrap my fingers around it, trying to hide the fact, but I’m too slow.
Reuben gets to his feet.
“In a bit,” Zachary says as if he’s reading Reuben’s mind. “We need her to focus.”
My throat moves as I swallow. With Zachary handing things out to the guys, there’d been an almost festive air inside this strange lair. For a moment, I’d forgotten where I was. Who I was with.
These are not normal people, Trinity. Your life is the furthest thing from ordinary right now.
I drop my head and snort quietly to myself. Like I’d ever had a claim to being normal.
“Gabriel has a laptop,” Reuben says.
I start fidgeting with my glass. “Okay.”
“It’s hidden somewhere in his room.”
I nod and glance at the other boys. Cass is smoking what’s left of the weed, leaning an elbow on the armchair and slouching like he’s waiting for his photoshoot to 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.”