But before I could say anything, she was already heading toward the booth I’d just exited.
Grabbing her arm, I pulled her back. “Don’t go to him.”
She looked at me for a long time before nodding and stepping back next to me. “All the other ones are full. Daddy, Mommy, and Wyatt went in.”
I looked around the cathedral and in the wooden rows were all of Mom and Dad’s people. Two were directly behind Dona, speaking to each other, and a few others moved through the crowd to be closer to one of the stalls where I guessed Dad, Mom, or Wyatt were.
“Just wait for another one.”
“Okay,” she agreed, sliding into one of the rows, her green dress puffing up when she did.
Just when I sat down next to her to wait, another person moved to the stall, but jerk face Santa Claus came out. He didn’t look at me. Well, I think he couldn’t see me over all the other people. He apologized to the guy trying to go in next. For some reason I couldn’t look away. I had this feeling in me and I didn’t know what it was.
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t realize I was standing and moving until Dona spoke.
“To the bathroom,” I lied and started to walk through the crowd.
“Ethan!” one of my dad’s guards called out to me.
“Bathroom!” I lifted my phone for him to see. I knew he was still following me, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t doing anything bad. Plus, all the people made it hard for him to catch up.
When I made it out of the main chapel, I looked to my left and right, but the fatso was gone. I went right because…well, why would he go to the church gift shop? The farther down the hall I went, the darker it became, and the light coming in from the blue stained glass made it look like the sky before it rained. I walked and walked until I got to a hall with a sign that said ‘priests only.’ Ignoring it, I walked down the hall. Most of the doors were closed, but one was cracked open the tinniest bit. I heard his voice.
“What do you mean the audio did not work?”
Tilting my head and looking through the slit, the fatso stood near the glass window, trying to look out at someone, gripping the phone in his hand.
“Fine. Fine. That doesn’t matter. The boy confessed it. I heard him say with his own mouth that he and his parents were murderers.”
What?
It was only then did I notice the wires on his desk.
It clicked.
He was new.
He was new and came to this church, my parents’ church, hating my parents.
“So you’re saying even if I testify it’s not enough? What do you want me to do? Catch them in the act?” he yelled so loudly I guessed he didn’t hear the door as I came in.
But then again it was even quieter than I thought it was.
“Look, the deal was…no, you listen to me! The deal was I do this and no one finds out about Ohio. I will not—ugh—ahh!”
“—ugh—ahh!” Those were the sounds he made as my knife went into his back.
Thump.
The phone slipped out of his hands as he tried to turn. I pulled the knife from his back and I watched as his red robe got darker and darker as the blood left his body.
“What…what…what did you…?”
“This.” I stabbed him over and over again, anywhere I could, his huge body falling backward, trying to grab onto the desk but crashing to the floor.
“Aww, man!” I groaned at my now broken knife. “I just got this one too!”