Page 85 of Their Will be Done

“What?” I snap. “Ex-communicate me?” I glare at him from the bed where I’m sprawled on my back.

As part of my pious disguise, I took a room more befitting a first-year student than a teacher. That’s Zachary fucking Rutherford for you. Groveling would-be priest who couldn’t swat a fly.

I’m not scared of you.

But she sure fucking looked it. Trembling like a newly born foal. It had taken every atom of self-control I still possessed not to pin her to my desk exactly like in Cass’s drawing, and fuck her into submission.

Monsters breed monsters.

Rube shakes his head when I pass the joint to him after lighting it up.

“I insist,” I say, pushing the words through my teeth.

He could have argued. He might have won. Instead, he takes the joint, studies it, and hits it like a champ.

That’s what I love about Rube. He knows when to say yes, and when to say no.

That’s how he stayed sane with his Ghost. That evil motherfucker broke him over and over again. Eventually Rube stopped fighting. Every “no” turned into a “yes”. He taught himself to submit.

We’d all have been a lot better off if we hadn’t fought so hard. But then everyone except Cass would be as broken as him. Days like today I don’t know how Reuben can stand to look at himself in the mirror.

He hands back the joint without making eye contact.

“She won’t do it,” I tell him before taking a drag.

“Why?”

“Because sometime in the last twenty-four hours, she decided we’re full of shit and Gabriel’s a fucking saint.”

“She said that?”

“Pretty much.” I study the tip of the joint, and then move my focus to Rube’s face. He’s staring at nothing again—most convincingly. “He got in her head.”

Rube lets out a soft sigh through his nose before leaning back to dig in his pocket.

He exchanges a piece of mangled paper and his red rosary for the joint.

I read the note and then toy with the rosary while Rube helps himself to the rest of the joint.

She was lying to me. Not only is Gabriel not busy, heaskedto see her tonight. I’m not sure I like this version of Trinity. It takes a special skill set to manipulate people with backbone. I don’t think I have the energy to play that game.

“Guess we should have seen it coming,” I say.

“So we’re back to Plan A?” Rube exhales a plume of smoke.

“Not yet.”

He looks across at me, frowning hard. “Then what?”

I wriggle my shoulders under me, pressing my head into my pillow. “I’ll go.”

“To see Gabriel?” Reuben sounds uneasy.

“She told me where he hid his laptop.”

“How will you get in?”

“I’ll figure out a way.” I wave my hand at him. “Leave it to Beaver.”

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