Page 69 of Deliver us from Evil

And then Rube leaves. I stare at his retreating back, my eyebrows shooting up to my hairline.

So much for moral support.

“Can we hurry this up?” Trinity says.

I turn back to her, my lips thinning. But then I remember what Rube said before he went into the bathroom to talk to her.

Don’t let her get in your head.

He doesn’t know she’s been in there since day one. Wasn’t able to get her out back then, sure as fuck won’t be happening now.

I start off the only way I know how. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffs, crosses her legs, and stares out the window at the black ocean. There’s a moon out tonight, so the beach glows under its pale light, but I’m sure she’s watching the waves. They’re hypnotic at night.

But nothing compares to her.

With her eyes off me, I have a rare opportunity to study her. Her dark curls, heavy with water, cling to the side of her neck. I want nothing more than to peel it away and lick up the beads of water it will leave behind.

With the apology out of the way, I can get onto the good stuff.

“I’m not going to defend what I did. Or try and reason with you. It was wrong. Dead wrong. And I shouldn’t have done it. But I can’t go back. I can’t change what I did.”

But she says nothing. Just keeps staring out the window.

“Trinity.”

I bite my tongue, keeping back another prompt.

When she finally turns to me, her amber eyes are fucking luminescent. “That’s it?” she murmurs. “I was wrong, I shouldn’t have done it.That’syour apology?”

I open my mouth, but she doesn’t give me a chance to speak.

“You’re right, Zach. You can’t change the past. But what’s stopping you from doing it again? Leaving them again?”

“I just said—”

Wait…Them?

That’s what this is about? She’s pissed because I left my brothers behind?

I frown at her, stand, hesitate. And she tips back her head to stare at me, as if daring me to walk away from the conversation.

Because that will be the end of it. Then I might as well keep walking until I’m out the fucking door.

I move around the coffee table, slow so she doesn’t bolt. And she lets me sit next to her, which is the closest I’ve been since I shoved her out of the way of Gabriel’s bullet.

“I was protecting them,” I tell her. I reach for her, but she pulls back, eyes slitting warily. “I’d…” I trail off, and then it’s my turn to look away because I’m not sure I can bring myself to tell her the next part. Not if I’m still trying to get her to trust me.

“You what? Thought they’d be better off without you? That they’d just go on with their lives?” She twists, facing me, her knees knocking against mine. Then she stabs a finger into my chest, ruthless, no concern for the scar less than an inch away.

“If that’s the case, then you should never have come back because it’s obvious you don’t give a fuck about them.”

I open my mouth. She cuts me off.

“If you did, you wouldn’t have left them when they needed you the most. They almost got killed, and that’s onyou.”

I can’t take another stab in my chest, so I grab her wrist. But as gently as I can, only tightening my grip when she tries to tug her arm free.

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