Page 46 of Hell Breaks Loose

And with my mostly one-sided conversation puttering out, I stretch, pondering what I might fill the rest of my day with. The theater room has just about every movie imaginable. I’ll probably take a bath. Explore the upper floor.

A bored, resolved sigh slips through my lips.

Sing blatantly ignores it.

With his typical smooth grace, he slips out a newspaper from inside his coat, spreading the pages open and dropping his eyes to read. I swear he doesn’t actually read any of it.

It’s just to get me to shut up or to keep me from pursuing conversation.

But today, I read the front page headlines as he scans some article inside.

“What the hell?” I whisper, genuinely stunned, but maybe leaning into it a bit.

Sing looks up to my tone, his brow furrowing more than I’ve ever seen it. A tilt of his head asks the question and I point to the front page.

“‘Zombie Found on Venice Beach, New Drug Suspected’. I didn’t realize you read tabloid garbage, Singy,” I comment as he turns the paper to read the headline.

After reading the first few lines, he glances up, his lips tightening.

“What?”

He sighs, sliding the paper toward me.

The article is mostly fluff. Speculating where the guy came from, the strange, mindless, wild behavior witnesses noted the man displaying before he dropped dead on the sand.

Until I get to the description of the body found.

Desiccated, like he hadn’t eaten in days. Signs of infection ignored.

Raving, unintelligible speech. Skin and clothes appearing stained with mud.

But none of that strikes as sharply as the picture of the patch on the ratty jacket the guy was wearing.

“Holy shit…”

It’s undeniably the emblem of the Holy Ghosts.

I’d recognize the hooded, white, skull-like design anywhere.

How the hell did one of them wind up in North Cali?

And what does it mean for Sanctum?

The paper is dropping to the table when I see the last quote at the end of the article.

“The only thing I understood him say clearly, right before he died, was, ‘Seven! Seven! Seven! They’ll be the death of us all!’”

A cloud passes over the vibrant sun, darkening the sunroom. But more than that, a shadow passes through me.

For a moment, I forget Sing is there, staring in stunned silence at the page.

“Miss Michaels?” he says, and I jerk, looking up at him, second-guessing that he spoke at all.

“I–I’m fine. Just creeped out.”

Without another word, he scoops up the paper, tucking it under his arm and sweeping from the room like a specter. The way he moves without a single sound makes me shiver again, rubbing my arms.

Or maybe it’s the sudden, deep, lonely feeling that settles over me.

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