by Somers, Jill
But how could Quinn help with what she didn’t fully understand?
“When you see these things,” Quinn asked, “do they seem like hallucinations? Like you’re tired; sleep deprived? Or do they seem like something you’re meant to be seeing—like a vision?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I do sort of feel like I’m supposed to be seeing them.”
The gravity of Rory’s statement hit Quinn like a brick. Savannah had been looking for her seer in the wrong places.
“Rory,” she said, voice suddenly dead-serious. “I need you to promise me something. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone else about these visions. Okay? Have you already?”
“No. I wanted to wait until I had someone I could trust—someone who was already working with me. I know Savannah’s trying to find a seer.”
Rory was even smarter than Quinn had thought.
“I don’t really think that I am one,” Rory added; “at least, not in the way she would want. But I know to keep it a secret.”
Quinn nodded. “Good. Listen, Rory… as far as the visions go… I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do to help you balance them. My best advice would be to do whatever you can to encourage the visions to last longer—to really see what it is they’re trying to tell you. Maybe spend a little more time alone, where you won’t be distracted, or maybe when you feel them coming on, excuse yourself and go to a private place?”
“There isn’t ever much warning. But I’ll try.”
“Just be careful, okay? Above all else, be careful.”
Quinn was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if anything happened to Rory.
• • •
Quinn and Rory spent a good hour practicing Rory’s electric abilities before calling it quits for the night. They made their way to the dining hall together, but Quinn took her food to go, sensing that the YA would be arriving from power tech any second. She made her way back to the dorms, deciding that if she could face anyone, it was Haley. But she didn’t even make it through the front door, because Reese was there, waiting.
“Try to remember,” he said when he saw her expression, “if it’s good cop/bad cop we’re playing, I’m the good one.”
“Oh?” she asked him skeptically. “And which one is the bad cop—your brother or your mother?”
Reese chuckled. “I was referring to my brother, whose class you skipped. But I’m sure my mother would also have been the bad cop. Really, you should consider yourself lucky all around for getting me.”
She didn’t consider herself lucky. All she wanted was to be left alone by all three of them. But she supposed he really was her best option.
She thought back to the stories Dash had told her that night. Most of them hadn’t had to do with Reese; they had been more incriminating toward Savannah. Then again, Reese had been the one to tell her stories about Dash and Savannah getting along, being partners, and so on—things that didn’t remotely line up with Dash’s stories. At the party, she had believed Dash. He had just seemed so genuine. But now she was back to wondering the same questions she had wondered for weeks.
“Why don’t we go somewhere?” Reese suggested. “We could go on another flight, if you’d like. Or maybe go up to the top of the wall and talk.”
She certainly didn’t want to hang around there and wait for the entire YA to see her talking to the other brother; there were enough rumors spreading about her and Dash already. But she wasn’t quite ready for another flight. That flight with Reese had been the closest thing to passion she had felt for him. And she’d had just about enough of Collins brothers’ passion.
“We can go to the wall,” she decided.
He nodded, reaching out his hands again, just as he had the last time. She accepted them, even more hesitant than she had been then, letting him hoist her into the air and up to the edge of the wall. There they took their seats, legs dangling just on the edge of freedom.
So much had happened since the last time Reese had taken her flying, she reminded herself. She had already changed her mind once after telling him she didn’t want to leave. Why not now?
Then again, it was just as it had been during her and Dash’s talk: where would she go? Freedom would never truly exist for her.
“I guess it wouldn’t be good for you all,” she said, glancing over at him. “Me leaving. The real world knowing people like us can escape from here.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Things might be forced to change around here if you did. Then again, sometimes I think things might be forced to change around here soon, anyway.”
She raised her eyebrows, curious what he meant by that. Was it another vague comment followed by no explanation, as his brother always seemed to give? Or was he actually going somewhere with it?
“What do you mean?” she asked him carefully.
“I wish I knew, honestly. I don’t know what Dash has been planning. I don’t know whether he’s got Savannah in on it or not. All I know is he seems to have others in on it with him.”
His assessment of Dash’s behavior mirrored her own. First Ridley, now Drax… It was almost like he was recruiting people to keep this little secret of his. Was it really possible Savannah was in on it, too?
“What could they be planning?” she asked him. “Some kind of uprising? Retaliation?”
“I guess, but against what? Against who? The way Dash runs his classes, the way my mother’s known to be—it’s almost like he’s building a small army. Not to protect us, but to hurt them.”
She assumed that by ‘them’ he meant everyone else. It was within the realm of possibility, she supposed. If Dash’s story about Crowley had been true, he had every right to wish harm upon him, just as she did. But how did it line up with Savannah, who was supposedly Crowley’s ally? Was she in on it? Double-crossing Crowley? Could she be double-crossing her own son? Or was Reese just wrong altogether?
“Look,” Reese said. “It’s no use, speculating on it. He won’t tell either of us anything, and neither will she. If you ask me, I say we both just keep our heads high. If they do something stupid, we’re here to make sure the rest of the island is protected from the aftermath. You with me?”
She thought of Rory, who reminded her so much of Kurt. She would do anything to protect Rory, just as she had sacrificed her freedom for Kurt. If Dash really was planning something that would endanger the rest of the island, she would do whatever it took to defend Rory and the rest of the innocents he left behind.
But was he? Or was Reese the one messing with her head?
“Bottom line,” Reese said, “whatever Dash is doing, if Savannah’s in on it and you turn against them—skip Dash’s classes, meddle behind their backs—you’re going to get in trouble. A different kind of trouble than you’ve known here. Savannah means business, Quinn.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be.”
Her mind flashed to Crowley. Him, she was scared of. If Savannah really had been in cahoots with him at any point, Quinn should be scared of her, too.
Scared, and angry.
“The two of you are enough to drive me insane,” she groaned. “One of you is lying. One of you isn’t. How am I supposed to know which is which?”
“Now that would be a nice ability, wouldn’t it? Look, Quinn, I’ve kept nothing from you. You know that Dash is keeping something from you. And the lies? I mean, hell, even that book you’ve been carrying around is a lie. He tell you it’s one of his favorites? That those are his writings in the margins?”
Her breath caught in her throat. That book meant so much to her. Those notes in the margins had been a huge part of what drew her to Dash. If they weren’t really his—if that had really been a lie—
“Page 77,” he said. “For hope is the thing that saves us from ourselves. I wrote that my second time reading it. Quinn, I never even gave that book to my brother. It disappeared from my bag a few months ago. He must have stolen it from me.”
She reme
mbered that scrawl. It had been one of the most personal notes in the margins she had read. She had almost asked Dash about it during their last meeting. What would he have said?
“Believe it or not, I love my brother,” Reese said. “But he never wanted to come here. He never wanted to leave Charlotte, and he blames himself for what happened to her. He’s been angry and resentful ever since. And Savannah’s stopped at nothing to try to win his favor back. They’re too far gone, Quinn. They can’t be trusted.”
“And you?” she asked, watching him closely.
“It may not be as exciting, but I’m an open book. I’m just like most of the others here. I was a normal guy, the event happened, and I became a monster.”
“You mean a maker. You can fly.”
“Splitting hairs like that doesn’t change the facts, does it?” he asked sadly. “We’re all monsters to them.”
• • •
Quinn sat on Reese’s information for several days, trying to decide what to make of it. If what he was saying was true, she had to be careful who she asked about it. The moment she started asking questions to the wrong person, she could get into trouble.
Then again… why should she care?
What did she have to lose at this point? Would Dash kill her? She dared him to try. Would his secret group, whoever they were, try to kill her? It was possible, but even if they did, what did she really have to live for these days? She was a prisoner, whether she was in chains or not. And sometimes she felt like she was getting farther and farther from any sort of answers.
She made up her mind to talk to Haley about it. Haley had been following her around with wide, concerned eyes all week, curious what had happened between her and Dash at the party and concerned by Quinn’s more-negative-than-usual attitude. Quinn had initially shrugged her questions off entirely, not wanting to open up about Dash, Reese, or even Drax. But she decided it might be worth it. There were some puzzle pieces her friend might be able to help her put together, and she highly doubted that Haley of all people was in some kind of evil league with Dash.
“How long have you been on the island?” she asked Haley, deciding bluntness and honesty were her best options in finding direct answers.
“A long time. Eight years, I think. Almost as long as it’s been around.”
Quinn found that surprising. “You look so normal. How’d they catch you so quickly?”
“Like I mentioned, it was hard for me to control my abilities. Pence’s parents tried to protect her, but mine weren’t around to. They both died in the event. No one at the orphanage tried to protect me, even for an instant.”
A wave of sadness washed over Quinn. Again, she was struck with the realization that she wasn’t the only one that had a hard life before Siloh. It seemed that just about everyone had. They hadn’t all been chased and hunted by the DCA for most of their lives, but they’d had their own demons—maybe worse demons than her own.
“Have you ever suspected more going on here?” she asked Haley. “Whether it’s Dash training some sort of army, or Savannah’s bizarre rules trying to control us a little too much?”
Haley glanced around as if debating whether it was safe to answer her there. Quinn found that odd. What was she worried about, their room being bugged?
“You have to be careful where you talk about these things,” Haley said quietly. “But, yes, Quinn. I have wondered. Savannah has been known to approach certain people. Shortly before they join the YA—before they start attending power tech classes with Dash.”
Approach them, how, she wondered? The way she had been approached about being a seer, or something else entirely? “Did she approach you?”
“She did. Not Charlie. Not Pence. I don’t know about the others… When I brought it up to Charlie and Pence, they told me not to speak of it to anyone else. For my own sake.”
Quinn couldn’t help but feel both flattered and guilty that now Haley was trusting her with this information. At least someone was.
“What did she say to you?” Quinn asked her.
“She told me that as I became more powerful, people would start approaching me. People who wanted me to become a part of some sort of rebellion, or resistance. She said she didn’t know who they were, but she knew that they were dangerous. She told me to come and tell her if they did. She said that one day, the conflict would come to the surface, and before it did, I should make sure I was on the right side of it.”
Quinn could hardly believe her ears. Resistance? Like the movement Charlotte had led? Did that mean that Dash was a part of it? Or was he on his mother’s side, protecting against people like…
People like who? Who was in this new resistance?
“What did Charlie and Pence say?” Quinn asked. “Exactly?”
“Not much. I wondered, too—whether they were a part of the resistance, or whether they worked for her. But, Quinn, they’re good people. The more I got to know them, the more I knew I could trust them.”
“But how could you trust someone you knew was keeping secrets from you? Did they ever say anything else to you about it?”
“They told me to never cross Savannah publicly and to never bring up the conversation to anyone again. Any time I tried to ask them more, they’d just say they couldn’t say anything more. That there were things—”
“—you’d come to understand eventually,” Quinn finished for her.
“It just doesn’t matter to me like it does to you, Quinn. They’re my friends. They have their secrets and I have mine. And that’s okay with me.”
In that moment, Quinn didn’t care what was or wasn’t okay with Haley. All she cared was that it wasn’t just Ridley, Dash, and Drax that were in on the big secret. It was Charlie and Pence, too. And regardless of which side they were all on, it meant one thing: there was a new resistance.
There was probably a war coming.
• • •
Breakfast was always the hardest. She did a good job of dodging Dash at power tech, where she avoided him like the plague and continued to duel Haley in class. But ever since her last meeting with Reese, Dash seemed intent on sitting just close enough to her at breakfast that she could feel the intensity of his glares. As if nothing had changed since the day they had met.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Pence were still giving her the third degree on her evening with Dash, despite a week having passed since then.
“What is going on with the two of you?” Pence asked her. “First you disappear at the party together, then you ditch power tech, then rumors spread that you were out flying with Reese again, and Dash glares daggers at you every second you’re in the same room together?”
“So what if I went flying with Reese? He’s the head of law enforcement around here, isn’t he?”
“It’s not about the law, Quinn,” Charlie said, eyeing her seriously. “It’s about Dash and Reese. Spending time with Reese, hurting Dash like that—you don’t know what kind of message that sends to everyone else here—or, frankly, what Reese is even capable of.”
“Oh, really,” she said, temper rising. It was becoming more and more apparent that whatever the big secret was, Charlie and Pence were in on it. If it was a resistance, shouldn’t she be the first who should be asked to join? And if it wasn’t—if Pence and Charlie and the rest of them were involved with Savannah’s controlling, anti-rebellion fears—then she hated them for it. “Tell me, then, Charlie. What is he capable of?”
He glanced over at Pence, who slowly shook her head. He turned back to Quinn, eyes serious. “You don’t need to know the details. You just need to know that you can’t trust him—you don’t know him like you think you do.”
“I don’t know him?” she demanded, slamming her hands on the table and unintentionally smashing the entire thing. Dishes shattered to the ground. She saw Dash stand, making a move to come over to them. She caught Haley out of the corner of her eye, warning him to stay back.
“Lately, I’m starting to think I think I know him better than I k
now the majority of you,” Quinn snapped at Charlie. “Every goddamn person I’ve gotten close to since coming here is keeping something from me. Why is it that you’re all so concerned who I talk to and who I don’t, and yet none of you give a shit what I actually know?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone rising from a table in the back, making his way to the door, watching her every step of the way. Almost like he had something to report. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was Shade…
Who would Shade be reporting to?
“Quinn,” Trent said, standing up and facing her. “Calm down. No one’s keeping anything from you, okay? Charlie and Pence have been on this island a long time. They just have different experiences…”
But Quinn had had enough. Maybe Trent was telling a truth he thought he knew; maybe he wasn’t. Regardless, everyone else seemed to be lying to her. And she’d had enough.
• • •
As the days passed, attending classes and pretending like everything was fine became harder and harder for Quinn. She was sick of embarrassing herself in class, sick of Haley and Trent being overly concerned for her, and sick of Drax avoiding her. More than anything, she was sick of having to be around Dash for an hour every day at power tech.
She felt herself checking out—not just out of class; not just out of power tech; out of everything. She spent her days in class staring out the window, thinking about Kurt, thinking about her mother, thinking about the few good memories she had to hang onto. She spent power tech letting Haley attack her without even bothering to attack back; of course, being Haley, this meant Haley’s attacks also dwindled to virtually nothing.
“What is going on with you?” Haley finally asked her one day at power tech when Quinn took three thorn-related assaults in a row without so much lifting a finger in return. “You’re barely checking in to classes. You’re ignoring everything and everyone around you. Is this because of what I told you about Charlie and Pence? Because like I told you, whatever is going on, our friends are still trustworthy, Quinn—the YA, Dash—”