Page 44 of Deliver us from Evil

Somehow, using my other fingers, tearing off nails, wailing through the pain, I manage to loosen the knot.

My face is wet with tears. I think I’ve chewed a hole in the side of my cheek, but after what feels like eons of struggling and trying to ignore the red-hot pain in my hand, both shoulders thump onto the mattress.

Time’s slipping away, but I allow myself a few minutes to just lie there. Regaining my strength. Trying to get back my composure.

When I sit up and start working on my legs, there’s a burning conviction inside me.

I don’t care what it takes—Gabriel’s going to pay for this.

Chapter Seventeen

Cass

“Igot a bad feeling about this,” Rube murmurs. “Something isn’t right.”

“Like the fact we’re still in the fucking car when we should be in there?” I say, rapping on the window with a knuckle. “Yeah, bud, I feel you. All sorts of fucking wrong.”

Rube throws me a glare. “We can’t just barge in there—”

“Guys, come on. This isn’t helping.” Apollo grabs my headrest and pulls himself closer, nestling between the sedan’s front seats.

We swapped out the liquor store’s truck for a silver VW someone left unlocked in a driveway. That was about an hour ago—whether it’s been reported stolen yet is anyone’s guess.

“What’s not helping is us sitting here like fucking spectators. I’m getting out.”

“Wait. Just fuckingwait.” Rube opens his door and climbs out of the car. It’s a testament to how big he is when the shocks let out a creak of relief.

I’m relieved too, because I was itching on the inside like a fucking junkie.

My love affair with heroin is an on-again-off-again thing. I’ve always been careful with my dosages after getting out of the basement—I started chipping straight away without even knowing it was a thing—but I’ve been through stages in my life where I’ve used religiously enough to get strung out.

That’s how I feel right now.

Strung out.

Long overdue.

Except my drug of choice isn’t black tar.

It’s her.

Trinity fucking Malone.

And she’s in that house. I can feel it. Right there, close enough to see if she was standing at a window, while we’re over here in this piece of shit car, sitting around like we’re scoping out the place for a fucking home invasion sometime next week.

I’ve been patient. We went with Rube’s plan at the church when I was all for locking whatever nun was creeping around the place in the bathroom while we rooted around in their files.

From what Rube tells us, that would have been futile. No trace of Trinity was left in that place.

But now?

Now we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our asses while Mr. Cautiously Careful out there triple-checks God knows what.

I climb out the car, ignoring Apollo’s bleated, “Wait, Cass!”

He climbs out a second later anyway, so what the fuck?

“Counting the tiles on the fucking roof?” I ask Reuben.

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