by Lacey Thor
“I found her,” Quinn corrected.
“The point is, we all know why he’d leave you with open wounds. He was up to something, and it definitely wasn’t anything good.”
“So, what? You want me to bust in and demand answers? He’s not going to give them to me. At most, I’ll give him a good laugh.”
“They’re keeping him in a cage. I doubt he’d laugh,” Amia fired back.
“Like I said, you don’t know him.”
Quinn liked the idea of him in a cage. Something small and confining like the ones he was fond of locking shifters inside. Easier to drug them. Easier to break them down. Only the strongest could survive the cages without breaking down and screaming, begging for release. Talbot definitely loved the mind games. He didn’t care so much about breaking the body. Anyone could do that. He was about breaking the mind. In any and every way he could. She knew that firsthand.
No! Please! No more! He can’t take anymore! Please! I’ll do anything you say! I swear. Please. I swear. Just leave him alone.
She’d been in the corner of the room, back to the wall, knees to her chest, fist pressed to her mouth to try to hold in the sobs threatening to tear free while Talbot had Lander or one of the other shifters chained down on a table. She still smelled the blood that saturated the air. Mixed with the scents of piss and sweat and body odor. The screams had ripped through the air when those tortured could no longer hold them in. Lander always lasted the longest, passing out before he’d give in to the need to cry aloud. It was always worse for him. Talbot always took things another step further until there was no hope of survival left. Until Lander had stared at her while death finally took him away from the hell he’d lived in.
Then Talbot had left her locked in the room with his body. Ordered her to clean him up, so they could bury him, only to laugh at her as he had the body thrown out for the animals. She hadn’t eaten for a week afterward, gagging at the mere thought of food. She’d finally passed out only to wake up chained down herself with an IV pumping her full of fluids as the mad doctor cut her open…while she was still awake.
“Quinn?”
She shook herself out of the memory, pushing it back down deep, shoving it in the darkest corner of her mind.
“We’re here.”
They walked up the steps and entered the clinic. By habit, Quinn turned and looked toward the room she’d stayed in. She hadn’t gone back in since the shooting. Had pushed it all away, compartmentalizing. She was the queen of compartmentalization. She couldn’t miss the bullet holes and reddish-brown stains from the blood that had been spilled.
“So much blood and chaos.”
The thought left her mind and spilled across her tongue. It was too reminiscent of what she’d left when she’d gained her freedom from Talbot. Instead, she’d brought it with her, let it spill over into the pride.
“Quinn!” Diane moved toward them, drawing her attention from the room. “I’m glad you came in. I’ll take you downstairs, and we’ll give you both a checkup.”
“Not me. Emery. Make sure everything’s good with him, please. I need to know he’s okay.”
“Are you worried about something?” Diane immediately looked over the baby.
“No.”
Quinn’s reply was true, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared out of her mind. No, she hadn’t seen anything to indicate Emery might have any health issues to worry about. But it was early days. Who knew what surprises Talbot had waiting for her down the road? Things she couldn’t possibly prepare for.
“Okay.” Diane gazed at her as if she were waiting for a longer answer, which Quinn wasn’t going to give. After a pause, Diane continued. “I’d still like to take a look at you, too. Your body’s been through a lot in a short amount of time.”
“I’m fine,” Quinn promised then handed her baby to Diane. “Go ahead and take him down. I’ll be there shortly.”
Quinn’s gaze went back toward the bullet-riddled door.
Diane nodded toward the room. “We haven’t had a chance to do much since everything happened. I didn’t think to grab your backpack. I don’t even know where you put it.”
“I’ll grab it real quick and meet you both downstairs.”
She paused at the door, emotions boiling up inside her. Still, she pressed inside then paused on the threshold, taking in everything. There were bullet holes and remnants of spilled blood that no amount of cleaning would ever remove. She moved through it all, going to the bathroom and opening the cabinet under the sink to grab her pack and remove it.
She’d stuffed it away when she’d awoken that first morning and found it on the chair in the corner. She hadn’t pulled it out since. It was past time she did. She carried it to the other room, so reminiscent of another room where blood had stained the floor. She sank to her knees and hugged the bag close. Once she opened it, there would be no going back. No more pretending her best friend, the father of her son, wasn’t gone. No more shoving down the guilt she felt. It was the moment of truth, and it took every bit of will she possessed to unzip the bag and reach her hand inside.
She escaped into the past. Memories filled with quiet conversations and shared dreams. Lander’s smiles. His big blue eyes that always showed kindness. The way he spoke about the girl he’d loved. The one who’d never known how he felt. The way he’d spoken of his home, his family and friends. The way he’d described the trees and grass and blue skies he hadn’t seen in so long. The way he’d urged her to stay strong no matter what Talbot did. The way he’d begged her to end his suffering. There was no way to keep out the pain. No way to stop it from bleeding in and wrapping around her.
I can’t keep surviving. He’s winning, Quinn. Some days I think I’m already dead.
I wish the bastard would just kill me and let me stay gone.
He’s done playing, Quinn. No matter how much you beg, he won’t stop this time. Don’t let him break us both.
She shuddered as it all came back to her. Talbot’s words flooding her mind.
Wake him up. Now. What do you mean he won’t wake up?
The way they’d beaten Lander while he hung there, limp. The rage in Talbot’s gaze when Lander wouldn’t open his eyes. The way he’d ordered them to bleed him out while she screamed and fought against the hands holding her back. The blood. So much blood. But the worst was knowing he’d never open his eyes again. Never find the girl who’d made him smile at just the memory of her. How he’d never see the grass and trees and sky again.
She pulled out the paper crane Lander had made her and clutched it tight in her hands. He’d told her the crane was a symbol of good fortune, and when it was folded into origami, it was believed that a person’s heart’s desire would come true. His was that she’d get free and live happily ever after. She tried desperately to swallow the emotion back down. To pull herself together. But she couldn’t.
She couldn’t hold in the cry. There was too much pain spilling out of her. Too much loss. Too much death for no reason other than hate. She opened her mouth and screamed her fury to the world. Screamed until her throat was raw, her soul gutted. Until she was shattered from the inside out and wondered if she’d ever be whole again.
Chapter Fifteen
Mitch was the first to enter the room, though several lingered outside, drawn by the wounded cries. Diane had gone below with Emery, saying she’d let Miles know. Mitch merely nodded and pushed inside. Quinn was on her knees, slumped forward with her head resting on the floor. She appeared broken, from the inside out, and it twisted him up inside.
“Quinn.”
“You should leave.”
She didn’t look up. Never even lifted her head, but he had no problem hearing her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised as he crossed to her.
“Then you’re already dead.”
He went to his knees beside her but wasn’t prepared when she lifted her face and met his gaze. Her grief was raw and painful to see.
“That’s w
hat I do,” she told him. “I watch the people who matter to me die.”
“All I hear is that I matter.”
“Don’t you get it! People who matter to me die. Brutally. Usually right in front of my eyes.”
She surged to her feet, hair tumbling around her in wild chaos while her eyes glowed as if burning with a fever. Laughter spilled from her lips, but it was anything but humorous.
“I can’t get away from him. I’ll never be free. Not really.”
“That’s not true,” Mitch argued, having no need to ask who she referred to. Talbot.
“Why? Because I’m here? I’m still not free. He’s still pulling the strings. And everyone around me is at risk. Look at this room. People went down in a hail of bullets because of me. Don’t! Just Don’t!” She held up her hand, cutting him off before he could speak. “It doesn’t matter if it was all leading to this point or not. What matters is they were here for me. I did this. Four people are fighting for their lives because of me. My son’s father is dead because of me.” Sobs tore from her, but she backed away when he stood and reached for her, shaking her head and waving him away. “No. I poison everything that touches me. If this pride loses their alpha, it’s my fault.”
“My mate isn’t going anywhere.”
Abby and several others had joined them while Mitch had been focused on Quinn. The alpha’s mate had no problem setting Quinn straight.
“Maybe, you’re the reason they came when they did, but you’re not the reason they aimed for Tah. They’ve been after him since he was more myth than man. Hell, if anything, we could say I brought us here to that moment. I woke the lion inside Tah and set us on this path.”
“Or maybe’s it’s my fault.” Amia joined the fray. “I’m Marcus Blane’s daughter. The one he hates but can’t seem to let go. Hell, I’m the reason the pride had to leave a safe place in Colorado. The reason Finn almost died. The reason Murphy is gone, and Daniel almost died.”
“What the fuck!” Reno growled as he moved to his mate and jerked her to him. “None of this is your goddamned fault!”
“Exactly,” Abby agreed. “There’s enough blame to go around for everyone if that’s what we want to do, but the truth is they’re to blame. Talbot and Blane and the group that won’t let us live in peace. This war was going long before any of us existed, and the blame lies solely at the feet of those who choose hate. That’s not us. It’s never been us.”
“You don’t know what he did to me,” Quinn whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mitch assured her. “Not to me. Not to any of us. None of us have clean hands.”
“I can’t forget the things I’ve done. I’m a monster. I’m no better than they are. I’ll get all of you killed.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Reno murmured, squeezing his mate. “It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t now. Have some faith in us, Quinn.”
“I have faith in you. I’m the one who’s let you down. Bringing them here. Not being able to help you find your friend. It kills me. I know what they’re capable of. I’ve witnessed it firsthand.”
“I know what hunters are capable of. I know the torture they’re capable of.” Amia punctuated her words by jerking up her shirt and revealing an ugly jagged scar that looked like a claw mark. It ran from her hip across her body to the underside of her breast.
“And I know if they have him, they’re torturing Murphy right now,” she added.
“It would be even worse for him,” Quinn told them softly. “He’s a shifter who matters to you. Blane knows that. Your friend will take the place of the shifter Blane wants to get his hands on. He’ll kill him over and over and over again until they can’t bring him back anymore. He’ll break him in ways you won’t be able to put back together.”
“Murphy is too strong to break,” Reno countered. “You don’t know Murphy. Trust me. He’s more than a match for Marcus Blane.”
“I hope so.” Quinn didn’t look as if she believed it, though. “I don’t think you understand the extent of the hell they can put you through. What it means to be the experiment instead of in the experiment.”
As she had been. Hadn’t she said that several times? That she was Talbot’s pet project. That he’d kept her by his side, dragging her along with him wherever he went. What the hell had Talbot done to Quinn? Mitch knew they needed those answers soon.
“Quinn.”
She held something in her hand. A piece of white paper folded into origami. A crane. A paper crane.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell him what he meant to me. There was so much left to say. He was my sanity, my only friend. He was there. Then he was gone. I’ll never get the chance to tell him about Emery.” She paused, tears streaming down her cheeks unchecked. “There’s no making this right. My son will never know his father.”
“He’ll know him through you,” Abby vowed, but Quinn shook her head vigorously.
“He’ll know of him, but my son will never know the sound of his father’s voice. He’ll never know the strength of his hug. Or the way his dad craved a blue sky and green grass and the feel of the sun on his face. Lander will be no more than a paper figure to Emery. He’ll never know the man Lander was. He’ll only know what I can share, and it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough. Someday, I’ll have to tell him how his father died and hope he doesn’t hate me for not being able to save him.”
“How could you have saved him?” Mitch asked, wanting Quinn to see that she’d never had that ability. He had no doubt it had just been another mind fuck by Talbot.
“I always stayed in the corner, hugging the shadows. Staying quiet. Don’t let him break us both. Those were the last words Lander spoke to me.”
She paused, obviously lost in memory. One that weighed heavy on her mind.
“I could have begged Talbot to make them stop. I could have fought harder to get to Lander.”
Mitch knew there was more to it. He could see it in her eyes. Shadows and pain and remorse. He shook his head before anyone else could say something into the silence. This was for Quinn. She needed to purge everything she was holding inside her. All the guilt. All the pain. Everything that tore her apart.
“Most of the time, Talbot’s men forgot I was there,” Quinn whispered. “They would beat Lander. I heard the bones breaking. Saw the spray of blood. They hurt him as if he weren’t someone alive. Then they left him tied there, wiping his blood off their hands and walking away, discussing what they’d eat for dinner. As if they hadn’t just tried to kill a man. Leaving me alone in the room with him.”
Her gaze blanked as if she weren’t with them but was reliving a piece of the past she’d never be able to fully leave behind.
“I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t… He moaned, and I was afraid they’d come back and start again. I had to get to him. Urge him to be quiet. I gave him water. Tried to help him as much as I could. He was healing. His animal DNA kicking in. Hunters talk about that, how shifters heal. But they don’t admit how much pain it causes shifters when they do. The toll it takes. Mentally and physically. They just hurt and hurt and hurt until they drive out the humanity. Until only the animal is left behind. Then they torture some more. Always a push to see how much a shifter can take before they break.”
“Did they break Lander?” Mitch asked, keeping his voice just as soft as hers was.
“He wanted to see the sky. Feel the grass. Bask in the sun. He wanted to run. To shift and feel the air on his fur. But he couldn’t do any of it. Years, Mitch. They had him for years. He didn’t know how long he’d been there.”
Mitch’s heart broke for a man he’d never known. One who’d meant a lot to Quinn. Hell, the man was Emery’s father, though Mitch still wasn’t sure how that had happened.
“They hid Lander for a week while Talbot told me he was dead. After I finally broke down, screaming and crying until I passed out, I woke to find him tied up in the room with me. Then they started all over again. And I did nothing to stop it.”
F
ucking bastard! He’d given her a friend, just as a way to manipulate her. A way to break her down, so she’d be more compliant.
“Talbot and Blane and all the people like them are sick and twisted, Quinn.” Reno’s voice rang with disgust. “They’re the ones to blame. No one else. Certainly not you. How would you have been able to stop them?”
She whipped her gaze back toward them, and her eyes held that feverish glow again.
“They broke him. This big, hulk of a man with a lion inside him, a lion who couldn’t save him. They kept breaking him until there was nothing left but a shell that only wanted to die. No matter how hard I pleaded with him to hang on, that we’d find a way out. There was no way out of that hell. No one was coming to save us. I understood that within my first few months with Talbot. He could do what he wanted, and no one cared.”
“That’s not true, Quinn. You know that,” Mitch reminded her.
“We were looking for you,” Abby promised.
“Too late. Don’t you understand. Talbot destroys everything he touches. The Quinn who listened to Isaac Erikson died on the table while a doctor cut her open and played God with her body. She died, and something else woke up.”
She flicked her claws out and let a growl rumble in her throat.
“Quinn was human. I’m… I don’t think any of us know for sure what the hell I am.”
“Who,” Mitch corrected, and she turned toward him, her brow puckered. “You’re still you, Quinn. Still human. Enhanced, maybe. But we’ll figure all that out. I can’t speak for the pride, but I’ll tell you this. Tony will leave no stone unturned to find answers for you. He won’t stop. Not until he knows everything there is to know.”
“The same goes for this pride, Quinn. A pride you and your son are a part of. You’ll be surrounded by love from a group of people, who know who they are and can show Emery how to embrace who he is. We can do the same for you.” Reno took several steps toward her before pausing. “No, you’re not fully human. If I believed it was possible, I’d say Talbot found a way to put an animal spirit inside you. But I can’t believe that. The horror of what they could do with that type of power is too much for me to entertain. I do know he’s managed to manifest physical changes within you. But that doesn’t make you a possession. You don’t belong to him. You belong to yourself, Quinn. As much now as you did before you disappeared.”