by Emilia Finn
“Don’t worry. I have some stuff in the car Soph sent over. I’ve got it under control. You need to take care of you, and you need to let Soph help you. Because I can give Quinn food, I can give her water, and shelter, and keep her safe. But until you’re back and she knows you’re safe…”
He nods. “She’s gonna make this hard on you. Don’t quit on her, okay?”
“Never.”
“And when she starts hitting, when she gets mean…” His eyes fire with warning. “The first time you hit back, it’s hunting season, and I’m taking you out.”
“I’m not going to hit her. Jesus.” I adjust my hold under her weight and know that if I don’t get her into the car now, my shoulder’s gonna give out. “What’s your real first name?”
He snorts. “You don’t know? I thought Soph knew everything?”
I shake my head. “She’s looking, and we’ve figured out that Quinn’s name is Quinn. But there are no missing person records anywhere. We can’t find you.”
“That’s because we’re dead.” He winks. “No one is gonna search for a couple of kids who died in a house fire.”
He looks to Quinn, and replaces the worry in his eyes with something much more tender. Leaning forward, he presses a kiss to her forehead and hovers for a moment.
Standing tall again, he meets my eyes and lowers his chin. “My birth name was Emmett. But that was my father’s name too, and I don’t know if you know, but we don’t much like our folks.”
“So when this is all done and you’re free, what name will you use?”
He shrugs. “Bubbles got attached to calling me Will, so that’s the one we’re rolling with.”
“What she wants, she gets?”
He smirks. “Almost always. Go.”
He opens the front door and peeks out into the street. When it’s clear and there are no passersby snooping on our business, he leads me out and opens the passenger door of my rental so I can slide Quinn in.
Soph found me a sports SUV, and loaded it up with all sorts of fun shit, including a lifetime supply of sugar. As soon as I slide Quinn in and fasten her seatbelt around her body, I move to the back of the SUV and leave Will with her for just a moment.
He needs time for his goodbye. He needs a last moment of comfort. So I grab supplies, and snatch up the bags Will packed as I go. I toss them in the back, then closing the door, I make my way to the driver’s side and slide in.
Will’s eyes snap to the clanging silver metal I hold in my hand. Then to the bag of gummy worms I toss into the middle console. He only shakes his head, and presses one last kiss to Quinn’s forehead. Then, without another word, he slams the door and bolts back inside the apartment like he can’t bear to watch his sister drive away.
It doesn’t feel right for me to take her away from her home against her wishes. For her to be rendered unconscious, stolen, tricked. None of it feels right, but it’s what needs to be done.
Will spends all of his time trying to keep Quinn safe. Quinn puts herself in dangerous situations in hopes of keeping Will safe.
And all along, McGrady plays them both, because he’s always a step ahead. Always a little sneakier than everyone else around him.
Well, until Sophia Solomon entered the picture.
Now the game has changed, and McGrady stands no chance.
It’s ironic really, that he has such a hard-on for dancers, and his ultimate demise will come because of one.
Quinn
Wake-Up Call
Darkness surrounds me, but it’s not the scary kind. Warmth hugs me like a cocoon, like I’m cuddled up in bed on a lazy Saturday morning. A gentle humming fills my ears, white noise that encourages me to slumber and enjoy my rest.
I lay in my half-asleep, half-awake daze and catch up on the sleep I never normally have time for. To work at the club into the early hours of the morning, then to be up again and at the studio in time to teach toddlers; it’s exhausting, but rewarding.
I make less in my hour with twenty toddlers than I do in an hour onstage at Zeus’. But one is to pay the rent, while the other is to fill my soul, bring me comfort, and help excuse the dancing I do at night.
My neck hurts a little from sleeping while sitting up. My shoulder aches, but that’s been constant for a while now, so it’s not really something new or alarming. My bladder stings from needing to use the bathroom.
I think the third is the reason for waking when I’d rather stay asleep.
I try to turn to my side, to ignore my demanding bladder, and go back to sleep for just a little longer, but a deeper ache in my shoulder makes me whimper.
I tug at whatever is holding me, murmur “Ouch” when it hurts, then tug again, because my sleepy brain hasn’t yet figured out not to do that.
“Ow,” I moan under my breath.
I try one last time to turn over, to yank my arm around and pull my blankets up, but with the hiss of pain that escapes my lips comes a grunt from somewhere close by.
From dozing to alert, I snap my eyes open to catch a glimpse of darkness outside, of the reflective lights from a freeway, and then the blur of trees whizzing by. Then I flip over in my seat – not my bed, but a chair! – and scream.
A shadow sits in the seat beside mine, his shoulders large and imposing, his chest thick and commanding.
“Stop screaming!” the man’s voice attempts to carry over mine. “Jesus, Q. Quit it!”
“What the fuck is—”
I stop, and using the dashboard lights that illuminate the space in front of me, stare at my wrist. A silver handcuff flickers in the lights from the stereo, and beside my hand, Jamie’s is attached to the second cuff, and moves every time I move.
“What the fuck!”
Screw my pain, screw my sleepiness, screw it all.
I swing my arm out to try to get him off. “What the fuck, Secretary?” I yank again, and cry out when my shoulder burns. “What are you doing?”
But then it hits me. Like a sledgehammer on a watermelon. Like a freight train slamming against a wall. Realization hits me, and my gaze snaps back to the darkness outside and the trees whipping by.
“Where’s Will?”
“Quinn. You need to calm down.”
“Where the hell is Will?” I turn back to Jamie and shout, “Where is he?”
“Calm down!”
“Where is he?” I unsnap my seatbelt and fling it away so hard that the metal clip hits the window with a loud crack. “Where is he, Jamie? Where’s my brother?”
I turn in my seat, climb to my knees, and look into the dark backseat. “Will?” My heart races, aches, throbs. “Will!”
“Sit down!” Jamie yanks our joined hands and tries to force me to spin. “We are going seventy fucking miles an hour, Q. Sit down before we end up on the news.”
“Where is he?”
I spin back and drop down into my seat, but I lean against my door, lift my legs, and slam my feet against Jamie’s shoulder. His ribs. His thighs. I kick the shit out of his arms, his chest. I clip his jaw with a wild kick, and scream when my foot connects with the wheel, and the car jerks to the left.
We skid in the dark – burning tires, screeching brakes, roaring engine. Jamie wrestles to keep the car on the road, but he does it one-handed while using the other to pin my legs in his lap.
“Stop it!” he roars. “Q! Fuckin’ stop!”
“Where is he?” I scream. “Where’s Will?” I kick again. And again. And again, until we skid from the tarred freeway, onto the grass and dirt shoulder.
Moving too fast when the wheels touch the dirt, the car spins, bucks, jerks forward and back. Something heavy slams up against the bottom of the car, a thud, a screech, but we keep skidding. Dust plumes up even in the darkness, so the headlights cast an eerie glow into the night sky outside, and when we hit a pothole in the dirt, I bounce in my seat, and slam my forehead against the windshield until my vision turns spotty, and a cry rips past my lips.
Jamie unsnaps his belt, and dives ac
ross my body to hold me down as we spin, spin, bounce, and teeter onto two wheels. After a moment of terrifying suspension, the car falls flat again with a boom and a groan of the chassis beneath us.
Dust curls outside, and bugs zoom in front of the headlights to create a firelight-type glow. Hot breath, panting inhales, I lay bent like a pretzel, sideways in my seat, and on top of me, heavy as a tree, Jamie acts as my seatbelt. To keep me in place, and not smeared on the windshield.
My legs are folded under his weight, jammed at an awkward angle so my hips hurt, and my left knee feels just moments away from popping out of its socket. And my arm, cuffed and jammed between our bodies, feels like it’s on fire.
“Where’s Will?” I whimper. My breath races, shallow pants, because my lungs have no room to expand. “Jamie? You have to tell me.”
“You need to calm the hell down,” he grunts. The car has stopped moving, but he remains on top of me, holding me down. “You could have gotten us killed, Quinn. Because you wanted to throw a fucking tantrum instead of talk like a normal adult.”
From terrified, to angry, to weary, back to enraged. “Where is William?” I growl. “I will not ask anymore. I’ll go straight to cutting your throat out and leaving you here to die. Then I’ll find him my damn self.”
“He’s not here,” Jamie answers in a low, serious tone that he thinks brooks no argument. “He’s back at your apartment, taking care of business. But he’s safe, so stop freaking the fuck out.”
He’s home. He’s safe. “Okay.” Stay calm. Be calm. Sound calm. “And where are we?”
“We’re on the freeway.”
“Alright.” I remain stock-still, calm, pliable, but I use my right hand to feel around. The seat, the floor. I search for a weapon, and prepare to break my heart all over again. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going home.” He groans, and tries to push up just a little, but without giving me space. In the darkness but for the light coming from the dash, Jamie pulls back far enough I can see his eyes digging deep into mine. His nose is bleeding, his jaw shadowed from what might be a shoe-shaped bruise. “I’m getting you to safety. The rest can be figured out after that.”
“Safety?” I draw another breath. Faster. Deeper. Oxygenate my muscles, prepare to fight. “And Will?” My eyes flicker between Jamie’s. “He’s to stay out in the open? A target?”
“Not a target,” he growls. “A man able to move more freely because he’s not paralyzed with fear about his sister’s well-being.”
“So he’s… alone?” I swallow my pending panic. My rage. The betrayal I feel. “Will is alone?”
“Yes.” He pulls back just a little more, so now there’s an inch or two between his chest and mine. His eyes flicker to my forehead and darken. “You’re bleeding, Quinn.”
I gasp and reach up with my free hand. “I am? From the windshield?” I pull my hand away, and frown at the blood coating my fingertips. I’m trying to focus on Will, on Jamie, on my geographical location, on my burning arm. But then my brain goes to blood. To the fogginess that moves through my head. “I don’t remember hitting my head.”
“Yeah, well…” He huffs and pushes another inch or so away from me. “You were in the middle of a pretty big fucking meltdown. Are you good now? Can I sit up?”
“Yeah, I’m…” I reach up and collect more blood on my fingertips. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Nauseous?” Jamie’s eyes darken and flicker over my face. He’s pissed, but he can’t help his natural instincts to take care of me. “Do you need to vomit?”
“Um…” I swallow. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
He pulls back and unpins my legs from beneath his weight. Then pushing his door open, he goes to slide out, only to remember the cuffs when our arms jerk, and my breath comes out on a hiss.
“Shit.”
His eyes swing back to mine while he pats his pockets with his left. Finding what he’s looking for in his jeans pocket, he brings out a tiny, silver key, and undoes the cuff on his wrist so my arm flops down. Dead weight, torn ligament, fucked beyond repair at this stage.
His eyes scour the side of my face when my arm drops and all I can manage is a whimper of pain.
I don’t have the strength to cry anymore. I don’t have the energy to shout about how much it hurts. Instead, I lay my head back against the chair, and close my eyes when Jamie turns away from me and dashes around the car.
I don’t know what kind of car we’re in.
I don’t know where we are, except that we’re on a quiet highway.
I don’t know how long I was out, or what direction we’re driving in.
“Here we go.” Jamie opens my door slowly, since I’m still partially leaning against it, and takes my weight when he opens it all the way. He angles me around so my back plasters to his chest, then he slowly tugs me out an inch at a time.
He’s careful, and yet, my shoulder burns, and my forehead stings. His strong arms wrap around my stomach, his hot breath bathes my neck as he works.
When my legs come free and my shoes touch the dirt, I let Jamie hold my weight while I lean forward and rest my hands on the frame of the car.
Which is an SUV, now that I have a chance to see it from the outside.
I bend forward at a ninety-degree angle, in a very unladylike way, so my ass presses against Jamie’s junk, my hands rest on my chair, and my hair falls forward.
I stare at the blackness that is the ground, breathe through my panic, and for just a second, a single second, I enjoy the way Jamie takes care of me.
He leans over me, brushes my hair back, strokes my neck, and holds my weight when I turn heavier and heavier. “Get it up, Q. Puke and you might feel better. Do you feel dizzy?”
I nod. Gently, without swinging my head too hard.
“Can you see properly?”
I shake my head and increase my breathing. Build it up, build it up, prepare. “I think I’m going to…” I whisper.
“What?” Jamie leans closer. “What did you say?”
“I think I’m gonna…” I repeat on an almost silent whisper.
“Q?” He leans over me and brings his face closer to mine. “I can’t hear you. You have to sp—”
I swing my elbow back with a roar, slam it against his face the way I remember Izzy Kincaid doing to Kyle Baker forever ago, and when blood sprays from Jamie’s nose and soaks my shoulder, I spin out of his hold and sprint.
I take off toward the road with a cuff still on my arm, but at least it’s not attached to Jamie anymore. My head throbs, and real sobs tear up my chest, but I run, half-blinded by tears and the very real fear that my big brother is already dead.
I think I’ve seen maybe one car pass us while Jamie and I have been stopped. One single car, which doesn’t bode well for me, but I sprint anyway, and cry out when the ground changes from dirt to tar.
“Dammit, Quinn!” Jamie shouts from somewhere behind me. “For fuck’s sake!”
I stumble as I run, my knees buckle, and dizziness really does threaten to send me sprawling against the road, but I move as fast as I can, and start running back the way we came. I run in the opposite direction of traffic – the traffic that would be here, if Jamie didn’t choose the world’s quietest damn road.
“Quinn!” Heavy footsteps slam against the ground as Jamie runs after me. “Get off the road, idiot! Do you wanna get yourself killed?”
“Leave me alone!” I push harder, and pump my arms, even as the movement hurts my shoulder. “I’m not coming back with you!”
“Quinn!” Jamie’s voice comes closer still, meaner than anything I’ve ever known. “Stop. Running!” he shouts. “Fuck.”
“Go away!” Torrential tears take away my vision, and in place of the road, I see my brother lying dead on our living room floor. Or sitting all alone in a jail cell, serving time for a crime he never committed. “I can’t come with you! I won’t!”
“Quinn!”
A heavy arm wraps around my stomach, and swings me up so it almost feels like how I move on the silks at Zeus’. I step into air, my body moves, but instead of dancing around a pole, Jamie swings me around and into his arms.
I spasm, jerk, seize, and make it almost impossible for him to hold on. I bounce in his arms, scream so loud that I turn even my own hearing tinny, and swinging my elbows around, I do as much damage as I can manage.
Jamie’s face is covered in blood, his eyes fiery with rage. His hands are tight, painfully so, as they dig into my thigh and ribs. But his hold is like steel. Unrelenting, unforgiving.
“Let me go!” I shout. “Let me go, Jamie! I need to go to Will.”
“You need to stop fuckin’ screaming,” he snaps back. “Quit it, Q, or you’ll get us both arrested.”
“I didn’t ask to come with you!” I kick my legs out, scissor them, and attempt to make his hold falter. “You took me against my will!”
“I’m trying to save your fucking life,” he grunts, stumbling over a pothole in the ground. “Dammit, Quinn. Stop fighting me on this.”
“Put me down!” I sob. “Just let me go back to Will, and I’ll stop fighting you!”
“Your obsession with him is unhealthy.” Jamie stops by the side of the SUV and sets me on my feet, but he slams my back against the car, and crowds me so we touch from toe to nose. His breath races, from running, from carrying me. Probably a little from the mess I’ve made of his nose, and the fact he can’t breathe through it anymore. “It’s unhealthy, Q. He’s a grown man. He doesn’t need you to be his shield anymore.”
“He might already be dead!” I screech. “I should have turned up for a shift at the club by now. Evan will have come looking!”
“Evan won’t get anywhere near Will. Quinn!” He slams me back again when I try to shove him. “Stop fighting me!”
“He might be hurt!” I sob. “He might be in prison. He might have already adopted a new name and left, and now I’ll never find him.” I collapse between Jamie and the car, and simply sob. Weak from the pain in my head, the pain in my shoulder… the pain in my heart. I can’t stand anymore. I can’t be strong. “He might have left already, and I have no way of finding him.”