Page 32 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

Any normal guy might have dropped his eyes at this point. Apollo’s grin grows wider. “She did a good job. I’m sure there wasn’t a single spot she?—”

As soon as I move my gaze from Apollo’s eyes, he cuts off. With a huff, he slumps in his chair and runs his hands through his hair, unsuccessfully tucking the bulk of it behind his ears. He’s almost twenty-two, but you’d think he’s the youngest of the Brotherhood.

I stare at each of my brothers in turn.

“She’s not a threat.”

“You saw her file?” Cass sits forward, a blunt dangling from his fingertips. “What does it say?”

Sister Stella sent a message to me this afternoon. Trinity’s file had been faxed through.

From her social worker.

Trinity Malone is an orphan, like I’d suspected. Homeschooled by her parents since she was a kid, her file only had a few report cards and some very basic details. Addresses, contact numbers, that kind of thing. All useless, since both her emergency contacts were now deceased.

No referral. No indication why she’d ended up at Saint Amos.

“Someone wants us to think she’s a nobody.”

Cass and Apollo groan.

Reuben says nothing. It takes a lot for him to involve himself in a conversation.

“If there’s some kind of relationship between her and Gabriel, the file doesn’t mention it.”

“So we’re doin’ this?” Apollo asks, his voice warbling with nerves. Putting his camera down by his feet, he shoves his hands under his armpits and narrows his eyes at me.

I flick my fingers at Cass, and he passes me the blunt. I glance at each of them in turn as I hit it, diagnosing their mental states best I can.

I’m a year into my psychology major. The human psyche has fascinated me ever since I realized how fucked up a person could be.

Or, become.

Nature versus nurture.

We need to have our shit together before we act. Asking my brothers straight out if they’re of sound frame of mind will earn me anything from the unvarnished truth to a flat out lie. But I’ve known them for fifteen years. We’re brothers through and through. I can read them like I read scripture—cutting through all the bullshit metaphors and anecdotes, straight to the bone.

“Sheissomebody,” Reuben says, as soon as my gaze settles on him.

He could put any of us on the ground in a heartbeat. But he’s always been cautious. Sometimes too cautious for his own good, just like Apollo does shit without thinking things through.

Cass and I, we’re somewhere in the middle. Sometimes cautious, sometimes rash.

“What makes you so sure?” I ask.

“Father Gabriel’s known her a long time.”

I don’t even try to second guess him. Honest to God, I wish Reuben would join my psych class. What he understands on an intuitive level about most people, it would take me years to learn. Maybe it’s because he listens before he speaks. He’s the one that put us onto Father Gabriel in the first place, through a happenstance meeting at one of the provost’s parishes.

For close to a decade, we’d been chasing a ghost. After Reuben met Gabriel in person. Then our ghost suddenly had a name and a face.

“Don’t mean she’s—” Apollo begins.

Reuben doesn’t even pause. When he speaks, he doesn’t allow himself to get interrupted. “He treats her like family.”

Everyone tenses up at that.

Everyone.

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