Page 32 of Twelve
“I volunteer,” Quentin said, closing his eyes for just a moment, the expression on his face eerily wistful. “I coach. I work with the youth group at the church.”
He didn’t just have one point of access, one set of hunting grounds. He’d cultivated several.
“There have been others,” I stated, reading into that. “Over the years.”
“I’m there for them. I help when I can. And when I can’t…” He bowed his head, the motion bordering on ceremonial. “I offer release.”
Behind him, Mackenzie stopped dancing. Her eyes meeting mine, she sank slowly to a sitting position.
She’s coming in.
I tried not to show even a hint of relief.
“What I do is a duty,” Nichols was saying, “not a pleasure.”
“It’s mercy,” I said. I had to keep his attention on me. I couldn’t let him turn around.
For a moment, I thought it was working, and then, without warning, he whirled. He saw Mackenzie. She froze. Her legs were dangling into the room. She was almost safe.
You will save her.He moved.
I lunged forward, knowing even as I did that I couldn’t get to him before he reached her. A gunshot went off. My ears ringing, I hit the ground. The impact knocked the breath from my chest. I looked up, forcing my eyes to the ledge.
Mackenzie was sitting there.
Nichols was down.
Celine approached him, her freshly fired gun still in her hands. Taking use of the cover she provided, Michael knelt to feel for a pulse. I forced my eyes from the two of them, pulled myself up off the ground, and stumbled toward Mackenzie.
She slid off the ledge, into my arms. Beside us, Michael looked at Celine and shook his head.
Nichols was gone.
I wrapped my arms around Mackenzie, blocking the dead body from view, but she fought my hold and stepped aside. She wanted to see it.
To seehim.
“For the record…” Lia managed to pull Mackenzie’s attention away from the killer’s corpse. “When he said that what he tried to do to you—what he did to the others—wasn’t a pleasure?” Lia spat in the dead’s man direction. “He lied.”
The girl sits down, and her mother brushes her hair. Long, even strokes. “You’re lucky, you know.” The brush stills, then the woman wielding it corrects herself. “Blessed.”
Blessedbecause the leader has chosen her.
Blessedbecause she’s favored by God.
What a joke.
“Sadie.” Her mother says the name she was given at birth, the oneheknows. “Thisisa blessing.”
It would have been easier if she couldn’t hear, plain as day, that Mama believes that.
Believes in him.
The girl turns. She needs, just this once, for her mother to see the truth—to see her.
“I don’t have visions.” Truths get more potent the longer you keep them from your tongue. There’syearsof power in this one. “I never have. He doesn’t have them, either. He’s a liar. I’m a better one, and I will literally rip his eyes out of their sockets the next time he comes to my bed.”
She was nine the first time. With the right lies—the right truths—she put him off. Until she was twelve.
