“Camps?” Cade grimaces. “What kind of conversion therapy bullshit is going on here?”
“Not conversion therapy,” Seba explains. “More like… reform schools. But that’s an entirely different beast. Basically, everything comes down to money.”
“Doesn’t it always?” Cade mutters.
I wipe my nose on Seba’s shoulder. “We can’t just sit here. We have to dosomething.”
“We are,” he promises. “Sinclair charged me with the pick up. He’s been setting me up as the fall guy for a while now, without knowing I’ve been in contact with the Feds. Ashby said they got the warrant. Darren is meeting me at the chapel. All I have to do is show up and let the cops take care of the rest.”
I glare at him. “You’re not going alone.”
“Andrea—”
“No.” Cade snaps. “We go together, or we don’t go at all.”
Seba closes his eyes. Grinds his teeth. Shakes his head.
“Fuck. Fine. But no martyrs this time. Got it?”
“Coming from the martyr himself,” I mutter. His stare dares me to challenge him but my fight isn’t with him anymore. It never should’ve been.
“Ok, got it. Now let’s take the pastor where he belongs.”
Hell.
Seventy-Two
CADE
Crime scene tapedraped across the door sways in the gentle breeze like a forgotten party streamer. Gnats and bugs swarm in the twin headlight beams, illuminating the disturbing stigmata emblem of St. Gemma’s Chapel. Under the hazy moonlight, the blood weeping from the open palms looks too real. I can almost hear itsplat…splat…splaton the steps.
This place is a vortex for some evil,evilshit.
Or maybe a breeding ground.
A breeding vortex…
“It’s a trap.” I blurt. “I’m calling it now. He’s not coming. He’s too much of a pussy to take Sebastian out himself, so it’s probably a hitman. Or a bomb. Definitely a bomb.”
Sebastian inhales. Holds. Exhales. “Cade, baby, I love you, but I’m gonna need you to shut the fuck up.”
“You can’t go in there. If you die, then I’ll die, then Andrea will die and we’ll all be ghosts and Icannothaunt this place! It’s tied with bathtubs for shittiest places Cade’s almost died?—”
His hand snaps out and catches my jaw. “Take a breath.”
I try. It’s kind of a huff.
“Good. What color?”
So hedoeslisten to my rambling after therapy. I could cry. Still might.
“Hella blue with a dash of red. So technically purple.”
He tilts my face to meet his intense gaze. Everyone always talks about how pretty light colored eyes are. But pretty does nothing for me. I’m drawn to dark depths— bottomless pits of curiosity and sincerity. Give me the deep soil, the stuff from far beneath the surface. I crave the warmth they radiate like slow-burning coals. Let me lap up every emotion swirled in molten chocolate. Wrap me in the safety of unrelenting love pouring from warm, brown eyes.
“I can work with purple,” Sebastian murmurs, his thumb stroking my cheek.
“But when I’m right— and I will be, because pattern recognition is my super power— I vote we burn this place to the ground. If we don’t get blown up first.”
