Page 13 of Deliver us from Evil

Cass drops his gaze. “No answer.”

“What if he got him?” Apollo says, and from the frown that flashes over Cass’s face, he’s only stating what we’re all thinking. “He was supposed to keep tabs on Gabriel’s room. He could be—”

“Cass, go check.”

“Should we really be splitting up right now?” he asks.

I’m about to tell him to go check anyway, but he’s right. Even though we have a huge school to search, splitting up will leave us vulnerable and exposed.

The trick is working out where Gabriel will go. We have to get into his head and figure out his plan.

The fact that Trin had been lying there, waiting for Gabriel to come back…that makes me think she surprised him. Perhaps they fought over something. That room is so far out of the way—maybe that’s where they’d been meeting all this time.

The thought makes my heart calcify.

We’d trusted her.

But Apollo said she was injured. So things must have soured between her and her father. Now he’s taking her away, but where to? Where in Saint Amos could he—

“He’s leaving,” I say, already turning on my heel. “We have to get to the road, try and stop him.”

“How? We’ll never make it!” Cass calls after me, but I’m already sprinting down the library’s main aisle.

They’ll either follow me or go look for Zach. We shouldn’t split up, but I know deep down Gabriel’s leaving. We’d only be at risk if we tried to stop him. I can take him on my own, unless he has a gun. But if he had one, he’d have used it on Apollo.

Not every criminal runs around wearing a pistol on his belt. Not like in the movies. I’ve known plenty of bad people in my life, and not a single one of them would even know how to fire a weapon.

I do. We all do. But we don’t keep guns on us because we know there’s a chance one of them might go off. And who the fuck knows who’d be at the receiving end of that bullet?

Guns are too easy to use, and too difficult to keep hidden. Especially around a bunch of boys still struggling with the fact that they’re men.

The exertion of the sprint hits me when I’m halfway across the lawn. I circle around the side of the dormitory, heading straight for the road.

We don’t know how long Apollo was unconscious for, but the sun’s barely warming up the land yet. It feels like everything’sjusthappened.

I can’t bear to let her slip away. Not a second time.

When my legs and lungs start burning, I push harder.

And I’m rewarded for my effort. Despite my heart clanging like a race horse’s in my chest, despite the fact that I’m breathing fire, I make it in time.

I turn the corner.

I see the car.

Gabriel’s car.

I’m in exactly the right place to watch him drive off, a shadow slumped beside him in the passenger seat.

He doesn’t notice me because I’m yards away. If he did, I doubt he’d care.

Because I’m too late.

I ran too slow.

I didn’t give it my all.

My legs collapse. My teeth clack together as I go down.

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