by Emilia Finn
Quinn Eloise Wilson… twenty-three years old, five feet, six-and-a-half inches tall, blue eyes that remind me of the jeans she always wears, and dark brown hair that hangs a little past her shoulder blades.
All of that, now, is verifiable fact. Her eyes, I saw with my own. Her hair. Her height.
I know she wasn’t lying about her dreams to one day choreograph and dance, for when she danced, she couldn’t hide the heart she kept on her sleeve.
Her age, according to the data Soph received just this morning about the baby that wasn’t wanted, matches exactly what Quinn herself told me. We’re both Pisces. Always swimming in opposite directions.
“Jamie?” Lucy steps up behind me at the police station hours after Quinn and Will raced out of my life all over again. She places her hand on my good shoulder, and squeezes.
Cops race around us. Dozens of them, all working hard to piece together the events that led to an execution.
“Hey.” She pulls out the chair beside mine, and sits down on the very edge. Her gaze meets mine, but despite me being the one who lost the most today, her eyes are bloodshot and tear-filled.
She’s been crying for hours. Reliving. Justifying.
“How are you doing?” she asks shakily.
I reach out with sluggish movements and take her hand between mine. I need the contact. The comfort. Because each time I let myself still for just a second, my lips tremble, and my heart bleeds.
“Do you remember back when Mac had that fight?” I ask.
Her eyes darken with pain.
“The fight where his…” I exhale. “The time his heart gave out.”
“When he died?” she whispers as fresh tears slide over her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Do you remember exactly how your heart felt when he dropped? And later, when we waited at the hospital?”
“Like it was my muscle, torn from my bones,” she continues to whisper. “It felt like an actual pain, like my heart beat too hard, too fast, and actually tore itself from my chest.”
She quiets for a minute, and looks down at our joined hands. “Yes. I remember exactly how it felt.”
“I think…” My voice cracks. “I think maybe that’s how I feel now. But maybe worse.”
“Worse?”
“He didn’t choose to leave you.”
“Oh, Jamie.” A desperate sob tears along her throat as she reaches forward and pulls me in for a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“It hurts.” I squeeze my sister tight, and cry into her hair. “She chooses to leave me. Which means it’s not the real kind of love, is it? It can’t be. It’s not possible that she loves me the way I love her if she willingly leaves.”
“It’s not that simple,” she protests. “It can’t be that simple. She’s special. We can’t all be wrong about it.”
“Jamie?” Uncle Oz steps forward and sits on the edge of his desk with his arms folded. He’s not a bad guy. Truly, he’s not. He’s just the bad guy in Will’s world. “How are you doing, bud?”
Bean pulls away and sits back in her chair, then reaches up and swipes the tears from her eyes.
“I’m…” Discreetly, I swipe a hand over my own eyes, and vow not to cry anymore. “Um…” Then, because I have no true answer, I shrug.
Oz looks to Bean. “Nice job with the panic button on the watch today.” He smiles, small and fake, but does his best to comfort us. “Everyone knew she’d swiped his watch, and everyone but her knew that watch was being monitored by Checkmate Security.”
“Soph mentioned it earlier,” Bean murmurs. “She said it was Jamie’s, and that it was ironic the thief would swipe the one brand of watch on this planet that has a panic button and a tracking GPS.”
“Not all that easy to hide, if you’re wearing a watch that tracks your whereabouts around the clock.” Oz folds his arms, and looks to me with a smirk. “Jay told me to tell you he’ll start searching for her as soon as you want him to. If she keeps hold of the watch, they can find her almost immediately.”
“No.” I shake my head, and drop my gaze down to my shoes. “She chooses to leave, Uncle Oz. She chooses. She knows where I am if she wants to come home.”
“So until then…?” he prompts.
I sigh and accept what I’ve been preparing myself for this entire past week. The bar fight, the bathroom windows, the sandwich shop in some backward town. She’s been saying all along that she’s not staying.
“Until then… I have to let her fly free.”
There isn’t really a lot left to do once a man admits to all of his crimes in front of a dozen witnesses, two of which are cops, and another two who wear surveillance gear on their guns.
Evan McGrady – despite what some may call mental incapacity or some such thing – admitted to killing his wife, their unborn child, Nate Hardy, Nate’s girl – who was Evan’s girl – their unborn child, and his plans to woo both my sister and my girlfriend.
Something about dancers. Something about innocence and ownership.
He admitted to the crime Will has been running from for years, he placed a gun to Quinn’s temple, and then… he died for his crimes.
Vigilante justice; an action I will never call wrong.
After saying goodbye to Oz, to my sister, to my mom and dad, who begged to follow me home and stay for the night, I shrug everyone off and make my way to my truck in the parking lot.
Giselle is still at the gym with her siblings and mom, so I swing by there and simply open my passenger door. I don’t get out, I don’t dare walk inside and face the rest of my family. I simply idle in the parking lot for a moment, and seconds later, Giselle prances out and climbs up into her seat.
Leaning across her, I close the door again, and just as Smalls and Ben make their way to the front doors with concern in their eyes, I push the truck into gear and amble back onto the road.
I’ll face them all tomorrow. I’ll talk it out, admit that I may have picked wrong all those years ago, and then I’ll move the fuck on with my life, until, like a comet, Quinn flies over again.
The sun is still above the horizon, barely, so the cicadas are screaming, and the air is cooling off – marginally. I pull into my driveway less than ten minutes after leaving the gym, and killing the engine, I sit and stare at my home for a minute.
The two stories; enough for a family. The porch swing; wide enough for me and Quinn. The dog to my right; Quinn said she’s never had a pet, since they’re expensive and hard to move around with when you’re trying to sneak.
Bringing my hand up to scratch Giselle’s flopping ears, I sigh and push the truck door open. I wait for her to climb out after me, then I close it up, and together, alone, we head up the porch steps to my front door.
I push the key into the lock, and nudge my front door open in a daze, only for Giselle to barrel through with her hackles raised, and a growl in her throat.
I follow her in with a frown, step into the front foyer, and stop when I find the shadow of someone sitting on my bottom stair.
It’s dark in here, the lights are off, the curtains drawn, so I reach back and slap my palm to the light switch, then I look again and barely stop short of dropping to my ass.
“Quinn?” My voice bubbles and cracks.
My heart races and slams.
I stumble my way forward, drop to my knees in front of her, and reach forward to cup her face. “Quinn? What the… what…” I look into her bloodshot eyes. “What are you… What happened? Why are you crying?”
A million worst-case scenarios play out through my mind. Will is dead. Quinn was actually shot today. The highway police caught Will, and tossed him into prison.
“I don’t understand…” I can’t form whole sentences.
“I choose you,” she chokes out. She looks up and meets my eyes with tears in hers. “I choose you. I want to stay with you.” She swallows. “Forever.”
Quinn
Evie had her baby ten days past her due date. A baby boy that weighed in at ten pounds, eleven ounc
es… she mentioned something about a watermelon and a ‘tiny giney,’ and how she vows to never, ever, everrrrrrr have sex with Ben again.
I suspect that’s a lie, if the way they look at each other across the living room is any indication.
Wes is now three months old. He weighs a lot more than ten pounds already, and for right now, right this second, he sleeps on Jamie’s chest while everyone else plays poker on the coffee table in the middle of Isabelle Kincaid’s living room.
My arm is in a sling – surgery is set for only a few days from now, and once all that is done, my surgeon claims I should be ‘right as rain’ and able to lift my arm above my head again. After that, Soph says we have a show to finish choreographing, and tickets to sell to unsuspecting idiots who’ll pay fifty bucks to watch something they’ve already seen in their living room a bajillion times.
She said ‘bajillion,’ not me.
I snuggle in close to Jamie’s side while I play with Wes’ fat bottom lip, and smile when Jamie presses a kiss to my temple, my cheek, my shoulder; last night, he bit my clit, and showed me again that he’s both a gentleman and… not. Soft when he needs to be, and hard when he doesn’t. Kind when he wants to be, and rough when he wants to hype me up.
I’ve lived most of my life in a state of hyper awareness, always in fight or flight mode, but the last few months have been so much calmer. For the first time in my life, things are finally easy, routine, pleasant, so when the doorbell rings, I don’t do much more than glance across the room with mild curiosity. It’s not Will. I know that, but I don’t expect it when, a moment later, Jamie’s mom comes in with a man I recognize from a lifetime ago. My heart skips for just a second; not a panicked skip, not a bad thing, but when my eyes meet our visitor’s and his smile transforms to wariness, I straighten up so my shoulder rubs against Lucy’s as she sits to my left, and on her left, Mac watches over us. He lowers his cards and smiles for our guest. “Troop? You’re early this year.”
“Troop?” I look from Mac, to Jamie, to our visitor. “Your name is Troop?”
“Um…” His eyes flicker between mine. “Miss Tori?”
“Uh,” I squeak. But then my attention is mercifully drawn to the phone vibrating on my thigh. Today has nothing to do with cards. It has nothing to do with arguing over the rules of a game called eleusis, or eating all of the jerky and chips on the planet.
It’s not even about being called Miss Tori and nearly losing my dinner because then my gentlemanly cowboy is once again in the same room as I. Instead, I swipe to answer my incoming call, bring the device up to my ear, and will my heart to slow. “Hello?”
“Bubbles?”
“Will.” Tears form in my eyes; relief that he’s called again, and confirmation that although he’s far away, wherever he is, he’s alive and okay. “Are you ready to come home yet?” I whisper. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Continue the Stacked Deck Series in Eleusis
Also by EMILIA FINN
(in reading order)
The Rollin On Series
Finding Home
Finding Victory
Finding Forever
Finding Peace
Finding Redemption
Finding Hope
The Survivor Series
Because of You
Surviving You
Without You
Rewriting You
Always You
Take A Chance On Me
The Checkmate Series
Pawns In The Bishop’s Game
Till The Sun Dies
Castling The Rook
Playing For Keeps
Rise Of The King
Sacrifice The Knight
Winner Takes All
Checkmate
Stacked Deck - Rollin On Next Gen
Wildcard
Reshuffle
Game of Hearts
Full House
No Limits
Bluff
Seven Card Stud
Crazy Eights
Eleusis
Rollin On Novellas
(Do not read before finishing the Rollin On Series)
Begin Again – A Short Story
Written in the Stars – A Short Story
Full Circle – A Short Story
Worth Fighting For – A Bobby & Kit Novella