The Church (The Cloister Trilogy 3)

I press my back into the corner as she shuffles closer. “Grace, listen to me. You can leave here. Start new. This is your chance. Forget about me. Forget about Adam.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re fruitless. She’s destroyed herself—Jenny or Grace or whoever she is—there’s nothing left.

She sways and holds the knife out as she approaches. “I won’t let you have him. I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She cocks her head to the side. “Sorry for being the thieving cunt who stole my man?”

“No.” I take a deep breath. “Sorry for this.” I propel myself off the wall and stab the knife deep into her chest.

Her eyes open wide, surprise turning her face into a caricature as she falls backward onto the child-sized bed. I follow her down, keeping the knife embedded.

She sputters and drops the curved blade to the floor with a clatter. “You—” A blood bubble pops on her lips.

Sorrow is a funny thing. You can feel it so deeply for someone you love, as if their tears are your own. But you can feel it for others, too. Your vilest enemy. I look down at her and remember my mother saying that the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. That’s one emotion I’ve never had toward Grace. I’ve hated her with the strength of a bursting star. Because she’s horrible and cruel, and also because… under the right circumstances, I could have been her.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my eyes surprisingly wet.

She grips my knife hand with her bloody one, her eyes closing. Her breath surges. “Hate you.” With one more gasp, she stops moving, her chest going completely still.

I wait, but she never breathes again, and I know she’s gone.

Smoothing her hair back, I kiss her forehead. “Burn in hell, bitch.”

I hesitate over leaving the knife in her chest, but in the end I do and grab the curved one from the floor instead. Turning it over in my hands, I wonder if it’s the one that took Georgia’s life. The thought sends a rush of white hot anger through me. Grace is all paid up. Now it’s Rachel’s turn.

Easing from the door, I hurry to the room across the hall and round up the children in there. Taking them with me, I go room to room. The other kids are more accepting of my plan when they see their brothers and sisters in tow. Once they’re rounded up, I send them all to the kitchen, herding them like precious lambs—hopefully not to slaughter. They run to the woods and hide. Ezekiel peeks out from behind his tree with a shy smile, and I give him a thumbs up.

It’s time. I’m lucky Rachel hasn’t finished her work yet. I race back down the hall and open the door to the nursery again. The stack of dynamite sits in the center of the hall, several of the sticks joined at the fuses. With no Rachel in sight, I push through the doors and hurry in. A baby hiccups and another cries. All of their cribs are placed in a half circle around the dynamite.

A Spinner lies dead in the corner, her throat slashed.

I grab the closest cribs and roll them back toward the children’s area.

“I don’t think so.” Rachel bursts through the doors from the wives’ dormitory area, a pistol in her hand. She fires a shot, and I have no choice but to backpedal through the double doors. Staying would risk the babies from either gunfire or explosion. She fires another shot that splinters the wood as I fall backward.

But I don’t hit the ground. Someone grabs me and pulls me to the floor.

“Where do you think you’re going, little lamb?”

Chapter 35

Adam

Emily is finally in my arms where she belongs. Another bullet flies through the doors ahead of us.

“Who’d you piss off?” I pull her to the side, and we crawl through one of the side doors into a child’s room.

She faces me and grips my shirt. “Your mom.”

“I figured as much.” I take her face in my mangled hands and kiss her.

She clutches me close, her mouth opening for me. I take and take as more shots reverberate through the hall. Pulling away, she says, “The babies are still in there. We have to—”

I kiss her again, unable to help myself, needing to feel her alive and warm.

When she melts for me, her body going lax, her breaths mingling with mine, I relinquish her mouth, but keep my hold on her.

“She’s got a stack of dynamite.” Her tongue darts out to her bruised lips, and it takes all I have to keep from claiming her mouth again. “She’ll blow it any second and kill all of them. And us.”

“Stay here.” I stand and limp into the doorway. “She’s my mom. Maybe she’ll listen to me.”