Page 20 of Their Will be Done

Killing Gabriel won’t make the pain go away, Mason.

Not for you, not for them, not forher.

When I don’t find what I’m looking for, I clamp my lips over the filter of my cigarette and shove both hands into that cool dark as smoke burns my eyes.

“Looking for something?” Cass asks, sinuous as a fucking serpent.

I rock back on my heels and snatch my cigarette from between dry lips. “Where is it?” I grate out.

“If I can’t have my smack, then you can’t have your—”

I spin around and grab him by the throat, pressing him into the solid wall. He chokes, and then chuckles into my face. “That shit’s unhygienic as fuck,” he says hoarsely.

“Where. Is. It?”

“You don’t scare me, Boss. Never have, never will.”

I can barely see anything in the dark, but there’s a glimmer of light where his eyes are.

I bring my cigarette up, instantly mesmerized by the red glow on his wet corneas. He blinks, but he doesn’t close his eyes.

“She’s messing with all of our heads,” Cass whispers. “Let’s get her out of here. We don’t need her.”

“Youneed her,” I counter, bringing that glowing ember closer to his eye. His cheek lights up faintly but he doesn’t even bat a fucking eyelid.

“Do we?” He shrugs and lays his hand casually over the stiff arm pinning him against the wall. “I thought we didn’t need anyone.”

“Just tell me where it is,” I say through my teeth. I hate how my voice shakes, but I’m past the point of being able to control it.

“That shit’s like slapping a fucking Hello Kitty band-aid on a gunshot wound,” he says. His voice drops low. “Come on, Zach.”

He’s right, and that makes me feel even more pathetic for allowing myself to be caught between shame and guilt and utter desperation. “I just need—”

“Iknowwhat you need,” Cass cuts in quietly. “And I told you before, all you gotta do is ask.”

His hand slips off my arm. Fabric rustles. Then he grabs hold of the hand holding my glowing cigarette. “Just not the face, bro. That’s my moneymaker.”

I clamp down on a near-hysterical bark of a laugh as I let him guide my hand down.

“We should try for a smiley face. Nirvana style. What do you say?” His voice is tight, light, steady.

I don’t know how the fuck he so easily accepts my breakdowns.

“Fuck,” I grate, squeezing my eyes shut so I can’t see that tempting glowing ash. “Cass, no.”

“Come on, you pussy. I’ve had worse.”

“Fuck off.”

“Jesus, the tension’s killing me,” he says through a grin I can hear but not see.

So fucking easy for him. For them. I should never have drawn the short straw. Rube would have made a better leader than me any day. Any of them would have. But it was me. So I had to man-up and fucking lead them.

“You know it’s the worst part, right? The waiting? You fucking know it, Zach. So just do it, you cunt.”

He guides my hand lower and closer, until my knuckles graze his bare skin where he’s hiking up his shirt. I trail his skin with the pad of my thumb. My chest is so tight I can barely breathe, and what little air does come in feels like I’m sucking it from a fucking chimney.

Hot. Full of ash.

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