Page 55 of Their Will be Done

Checking in on the children he has holed up in a basement somewhere of course—children like Zachary and Reuben and Apollo and Cass. Maybe the Keepers in his newest hidey-hole fucked up and he had to go sort some shit out. Or maybe he brought some new Ghosts through for a tour of the premises.

These are the bunk beds our little sex slaves sleep in. Here are their chains. This is where we feed them, but only if they’ve been good little boys.

Jesusfuck, Trinity. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re here to prove Gabriel is innocent, or did you forget?

Still, I hear myself blurting out, “Wheredidyou go?”

Gabriel lets out a soft laugh. “Nowhere interesting. I had a last-minute meeting with the construction company fixing up this old place.” A rueful smile touches his mouth. “I truly hope their estimate is accurate. I can’t have them gutting the school’s finances.”

Repair estimates and finances? Pointless. I have to get him talking about something personal. So I ask him the first thing that pops into my head.

“Were my parents good people?” I ask.

He frowns at me, and then slowly sinks into his chair. His eyes never leave me as he nips at the tip of a cigarette from his box and draws it out with his teeth to light it.

“Sit, child.”

I obey without thinking. Thankfully there’s already a chair near my ass else I’d have ended up on the floor because I obey without thinking.

“Would you like a drink?”

I nod. Gabriel sits forward in his armchair, twists to the side, and pours out two glasses of wine. One is little more than a splash in the glass, the other is close to the brim.

The sissy inside me wants to refuse his offer, but I push aside Trinity the Wimp just as she starts yelling about how wrong this is.

“Why didn’t you attend Father Quinn’s counseling session?” Gabriel asks.

I had just brought the glass to my lips, but I snatch it away again. “He told you?”

Father Quinn replaced Gabriel when he’d left Redmond. I’d never liked him—he stank of Fisherman’s Friend sweets because he somehow thought it would cover up his halitosis.

I don’t remember much about the week after my parents were killed. Idoremember hearing words like “shock” and “therapy” bandied around everywhere I went.

I’d also forgotten that he’d offered counseling. More than once.

“I couldn’t talk to him,” I say truthfully.

“Can you talk to me?”

I look up. He’s watching me with a most familiar look in his warm, brown eyes.

Patience.

Sympathy.

And with the wholehearted belief that whatever sins I had committed, we could overcome them together.

How the hell can a man like this possibly be involved with Ghosts and Keepers?

I almost want to tell him everything, just so we can have a good laugh about it and the world can go back to normal.

But I know my life will never be the same again, so does it matter what degree of fucked up I land on?

We’re all mad here.

No, we’re all fucked up crazy here.

“Trinity?”

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