Page 32 of Drag You Down (Bloody Desires #2)

“Police have offered a thousand-dollar reward to anyone who has credible information about Dave Kline, a conman who has used the names Joshua Baker and Zachariah Carpenter, among others. He is currently wanted for his involvement in a cult that abused women and children right here in New Bristol.”

I tilt my head at the TV screen in the corner of the store, trying to recognize Father Zachariah in the picture the news shows. He’s clean shaven there, a few years younger than he was when I knew him.

“Are you buying?” the bodega owner asks. “If not, get out of the line and let others pay.”

I blink, coming back to reality, and I nod. I set the potatoes down on the counter in front of me, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. It hadn’t been at this exact bodega, but the similarities are enough to make that sensation tug at me.

“Yes.” I pull out my new credit card, the one linked to the account Gabriel had set up for me, and pay. It’s a small thing, and I know it isn’t really mine , but it feels like it is.

I take my receipt and hurry out, heading back to the small apartment Evelyn is living in.

It’s about thirty minutes from Gabriel’s, and I don’t think that the distance was accidental.

He doesn’t try to dissuade me from visiting her, and it’s still a nice place to live — nicer than the apartment complex we’d been living in before — so I don’t mind.

I knock on the door before letting myself in with my key, and I find her in the kitchen.

She’s gone back to the familiar, defaulting to what she’d learned at her time in the complex.

Sometimes, I don’t think she’s going to move forward. Other times, she surprises me, like when she’d told me she’d gotten a job at the nearby soup kitchen.

Both of us want to help others, but our methods are vastly different. She wants to help, to heal.

I want to destroy.

“I saw Ruth on TV,” I say as I set the potatoes down on the counter.

Evelyn snorts. “Again? She’s been doing interviews every single month since the complex was ‘discovered.’” She sneers lightly. “I think they pay her for the interviews. All of them feeding off of our suffering…”

Four months haven’t been enough for her wounds to heal. At least, not the emotional ones.

“I guess it’s better than getting tangled up in another cult,” I say.

I know some of the others have fallen prey to other scams. There’s always someone ready to take advantage of the vulnerable, and Zachariah kept all of us so isolated that there wasn’t much we knew how to do beyond care for him and his needs .

No wonder Ruth is capitalizing on her experiences. She probably doesn’t have many more opportunities than we would have if Gabriel hadn’t helped us.

Evelyn opens the bag of potatoes and starts washing a few. “I thought of reaching out to a few of the others. But I know they would blame me for destroying their good thing.” Her hands close tightly around a potato. “They’d say it was my fault that Father Zachariah ran away.”

I’m not sure if she believes the lie or if she’s lying to herself, but as long as she doesn’t go to the police and blame Gabriel — or me — for his disappearance, I can’t bring myself to care. It’s better for her to think that he ran off than to think that her brother is a murderer.

“He knew he was going to get caught,” I say. “He knew I wasn’t going to stand by and let him hurt you .”

Evelyn sets the potatoes down and turns to look at me, a sad smile on her face. “Thank you, Lev—Logan. Sorry, I don’t know why I keep slipping. You’d think I could remember my own brother’s name.”

Zachariah used to make us take penance every time we used our birth names, so it doesn’t surprise me that both of us are having trouble getting used to reverting to them. But neither of us wants to be associated with who we were before.

“It’s fine,” I assure her. “We both have to remember who we were before.”

Or come to terms with who we’re becoming, whatever that may be.

Sometimes I still resent Evelyn for having ratted me out to Zachariah, but it was because of that punishment that I was finally able to see the light and accept Gabriel. And I know if our situations had been reversed, I probably would have done the same thing.

Zachariah had made it clear what the punishment for disobedience was.

I still sometimes expect Gabriel to cast me aside when I argue with him, but he only smiles and seems happy that I’m willing to give him my opinion.

I help Evelyn chop vegetables and put together a quick soup. “Have you given thought to what I said? About getting your GED with me?”

Evelyn ignores me, continuing to cook.

I wait, and finally she says, “I don’t know if I can, Logan. Everybody will know that I’m so… dumb.”

“Do you think I’m dumb?” I ask her pointedly. “Because I’m having to do the same thing. I’ve been taking all the practice tests, and there’s a lot I don’t know.” I wrinkle my nose. “All the science.”

“No! But you have Gabriel to help you, and I know you have tutors, and I’m just…

” Eve sets everything down and turns to look at me.

“I don’t know how to do anything but cook and clean, all right?

I wasn’t supposed to do more than that. And imagining doing more…

I realize how much of my life was a waste, and how I should have run earlier, and how I betrayed you for… nothing.”

“I should’ve taken you and left when she did,” I say.

I can’t even call her our mother, not right now, not when I’ve become angry and bitter over the abandonment.

Gabriel has offered to track her down, but I know what would happen if he found her.

“Or when I turned eighteen. Or something. And I don’t know what I’m going to do, either. I was just an errand boy.”

Evelyn lets out a bitter laugh. “Some pair we are. But okay. Let’s just have a nice dinner.” She wipes at her eyes. “Does Gabriel want to join us? It’ll be another half hour before it’s done anyway.”

Gabriel still doesn’t like her, and I don’t particularly like putting them in the same room together. I shake my head. “No, he’s working late. But thank you.” I exhale slowly, then go to sit down at the kitchen table.

Evelyn tells me about what she’s been doing at the soup kitchen, and some gossip from the church she joined. I’m glad she can still find comfort in religion, but I can’t get myself to step inside a church.

Not only because I have a hard time listening to preachers without remembering Zachariah, but also because of how hypocritical I would feel doing so.

I distract Evelyn with pictures of Ichabod, and we have a pleasant dinner.

When I’m gearing up to leave, I get a text from Gabriel

Gabriel

I have a present for you.

My heartbeat picks up as I see the picture of a box, and I quickly say my goodbyes to Eve before setting out.

The bus ride back to Gabriel’s neighborhood feels like it takes forever. I’d try to wheedle to find out what’s in the box, but I have a feeling it’s not something we’d want to discuss via text.

When I let myself in, Ichabod is there to rub against my ankles, and I smile down at the cat and give him a few scritches behind his ear before finding Gabriel in the kitchen.

“What’s in the box?” I ask after pecking him on the cheek.

“Open it,” Gabriel says, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “I got it just for you.”

I pluck the small jewelry box from the nearby dresser. It looks similar to the box the watch had been in, but he’s already given that back to me. I raise an eyebrow, then lift the lid. On a piece of cushioned silk is a pinky finger, the end that should’ve been attached to the hand jaggedly cut.

He’d used the serrated blade, then, the one that truly makes his targets scream.

I wish I’d been there to hear it.

“Can you guess who it belonged to?” Gabriel asks, nuzzling my jaw.

I purse my lips, thinking through the case files he’d spread over the table the night before. “That’s an easy one,” I say. “It’s Allan Porter, that serial rapist. But I thought we were going to take care of him together.”

I can’t stop the pout from entering my voice.

Gabriel smiles. “We are. I have him chained up in a dark, concrete room. I left him with a single candle before I locked up. He’s waiting for us to come back and finish him off.”

I hum, turning around so I can face him. I brush my lips against his, and while I know I’m only imagining the familiar taste of blood, I know it’ll be reality soon enough. Allan Porter had thought he could get away with hurting others, but he hadn’t counted on coming to Gabriel’s attention.

Or mine.

“He’s out in the bunker in the woods,” Gabriel whispers. “We can take our time with him. We can make him scream .”

I shiver, the thought going straight to my cock.

The symphony of screams, the taste of blood, the allure of violence, the exultation that follows another kill… All of it coalesces into something I can’t get away from for long.

Why would I want to?

I don’t know if I still believe in heaven or hell.

But I know that I believe in Gabriel’s vision: a world where the evil get punished for their misdeeds. A world where people like me are avenged.

A world where blood and lust go hand in hand.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I say, kissing him again. “I love you.”

“I love you too, my lamb,” Gabriel answers.

I press my head against his shoulder, breathing in his rich scent.

I’m so happy I took a detour that day.

I didn’t know I needed a guardian angel, but he found me all the same.

Maybe I do believe in God.

But it’s with Gabriel, in the blood of sinners, that I worship.

Every drop we take is a sacrifice to the Lord.

Every kiss is a prayer.

And every time Gabriel takes me, I touch heaven.