Page 6 of Heartless Heathens

Everything Arlan stood for would die with him.

“I’m not sleeping in shared quarters.” I laughed at the old man before he wasted his time walking us halfway across campus.

“I’m sorry, would you prefermyroom in the cathedral?” he asked in a sarcastic tone, but I was tempted to tell him yes to see who'd break first.

I could already tell we were in for a hell of a year, destined to butt heads with Frollo at every turn. This was his domain, but our money was still louder.

“It’s not a bad idea, maybe you could clear out some of those private quarters for us. I’m sure our benefactor would be pleased to hear how well you’re accommodating us with all the funds he’s provided you,” Corvin said shamelessly and I choked out a laugh.

“You cannot be serious, I will not relocate teachers—” he began furiously, but Sonny cut him off.

“Nuns,” Sonny corrected, “Teachers go to school to teach. Nuns are just married to your God right? Except you’ve given them a curriculum.” Frollo’s upper lip twitched in a sneer and he angrily fisted the fabric of his robe in his hands.

“You cannot expect me to relocate my staff.” He huffed again, trying to grow taller but Sonny’s height was too significant for him to assert any authority over him.

“Settle down,” I waved him off, “No one’s going to make you move.” I assured him, and he let out an anxious exhale. “There’s gotta be an empty building on this campus though.” I raised an eyebrow at him, and his eyes quickly darted to the chapel in the distance.

“Unfortunately there is not.” He fumbled with his hands again, an easy tell for his lies.

“We’ll take the chapel.” Sonny grinned at him like he’d caught it too and I watched the color drain out of Frollo’s face.

“Absolutely not, the chapel is condemned. It is not habitable.” He stood up straight, once again doing his best to regain some sort of control over us.

“That’s not a problem, we can fix that.” Sonny chuckled and the archbishop began to quickly ramble, his mouth moving a million miles a second while he came up with a thousand reasons why we couldn’t live in the old chapel.

Sonny tapped a few buttons on his phone before flipping the screen over to us, “There. It’s ours.” The half-smile that draped over his face was creepy as hell, and it was the reason I loved the bastard so much.

No one could put fear into your heart quite as easily as when Sonny Santorini had decided on something.

“You can move in with the start of classes on Friday,” Frollo announced, turning to walk towards the old chapel.

“I don’t think you heard him,” Corvin said, putting his hand on the old man’s chest. “That’s no longer church property, that’s ours.” Frollo’s eyes widened, and his stutter got the best of him again.

“T-t-that’s preposterous. I-I have belongings to clear out of there, you can’t expect to just b-b-barge in and—”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing Claüde, you heard my brother. The chapel is ours, and so is anything inside of it. If we find your belongings and we don’t want to keep them, we’ll set them out front with the rest of the trash.” I winked at the old man before leading the three of us into our new home.

“Oh, and If I catch you in our house, you’ll be greeted with more than just the sharp end of my knife, catch my drift?” Corvin said, lifting up his shirt to expose the gun hiding in the waistband of his pants.

“That’sa threat,”Sonny said with zero inflection before turning his back on the archbishop.

“At least it’s far from campus. He’ll stay out of our business, and we’ll be able to see him coming.” I told both of them once we’d finished the long walk to the old chapel.

It looked rough as hell on the outside, and I was slightly concerned that proving our point here was going to come back to bite us in the ass.

“How’d you get this place so fast?” Corvin asked Sonny.

“Arlan took care of it. I just told him there was a good chance that what he was looking for was in here and that Frollo wouldn’t let us in.” He thumbed through his phone while we walked up the chapel stairs and opened the doors.

“Oh, fuck no.” Corvin groaned and I laughed out loud when the reality of the shitty chapel came crashing down on us in a dusty cloud.

“New plan, get this place gutted, cleaned, and furnished. I’ll be back Friday for the start of term. I’m not living in these conditions,” I joked trying to fake my leave but Sonny grabbed me by the back of the collar and pulled me back in before closing the chapel doors.

“This place…it’s where we need to be,” he said with that eerie way about him, his black hair draped over his bright blue eyes. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Don’t get ominous on me dude.” I plucked him off of me. “It’s just a shitty old chapel.”

“What we need is here. Which means we’ll get out of this place soon enough.” His tattooed fingers tapped at his bottom lip while he paced around the empty space, surveying what would be our new home.