And how in the world was Ronald able to warn me? It was like he knew what I was—what I was capable of doing. And how was it that I found myself wandering near him just in the knick of time for him to warn me? Would I have even caught the countdown without Ronald’s help? I shuddered, fearing the worst.
Yet, there had been no attack on Quinn’s life. As far as I could tell, there hadn’t been an overt threat of any kind. That couldn’t have been the Second Incident, could it? Or was it just another inexplicable watch malfunction? But, then, what was the deal with the black limousine? I sincerely doubted that Brady’s visit, the limo, Ronald—any of it—was all just a coincidence.
I walked around the apartment and turned off all the lights before curling up next to Quinn’s slumbering body. I watched him sleep the rest of the night, silently apologizing to him over and over again.
* * *
Quinn entered the apartment with a huge smile stretched across his face after work the next day. He walked over to where I was standing by the stereo and kissed me on the cheek.
“What has you in such a good mood?” I asked, eyeing him strangely. I had ghosted him the entire way home from the office and hadn’t observed anything that would spark this unexpected show of happiness.
“I just realized something,” Quinn called out as he walked into his room, retrieved his iPod docking station, and set it up on the dining room table. “Today is our anniversary.”
“Our anniversary?” I asked, bewildered as I took a few steps towards the kitchen, curious to see what he was doing.
“Yup. It was exactly one month ago today that we had our first date,” Quinn explained as he searched for a song on his iPod. “And to celebrate, I thought I’d play you a song.”
He hit play, and the music started. I didn’t recognize the song, but I liked it. The rhythm was slow and sexy, the words were sultry … lustful. I wasn’t sure where Quinn was going with this, but I started to feel a little on edge as he peeled off his clothes layer by layer until he was wearing nothing but his boxers.
“And why would our one-month anniversary warrant a celebration with this particular song?” I asked nervously as Quinn began to walk across the room to where I was standing. There was a sparkle in his eye and a look on his face that screamed nothing but trouble. He flashed me a smile that would have taken my breath away were I alive, and I wondered if it ever did. I took a few steps backwards until I inadvertently bumped up against the front door. Quinn remained steadfast in his approach, stopping only when he was within an inch of me.
“Because,” he said as he leaned in, pressing his body against mine as he brushed his lips against my neck, “this is the song that was playing the first time we ever kissed.” He pulled back his head and looked at me; his eyes were blazing—they looked like blue flames. “A while ago.”
“Oh,” I barely managed.
He smiled at me again as he reached up and caressed my hair, drawing it gently behind me. His fingers lightly traced the contours of my neck, making me quiver slightly. I held my breath and shut my eyes.
“And,” Quinn said as he bent back down to kiss the nape of my neck, “it got me thinking,” he paused to kiss my neck again, “about how we never had a chance to have an anniversary.” I could hear the desire in his voice. My knees felt weak. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to try to calm myself down, but it was of no use. I had wanted Quinn so desperately, so completely, and for so long that I couldn’t fight it anymore. I tilted my head back and he kissed me from my neck down to my collarbone. His tongue danced on my skin until his mouth found its way back up near my ear. I felt like I was about to explode.
“So I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate this one,” Quinn whispered hoarsely in my ear, “this being our first anniversary and all,” he paused to nip playfully at my earlobe, “than by giving you a taste of what we were like … before.”
Quinn pressed his body into me, pinning me up against the door. I gasped when I felt every muscle in his body tense up. I could feel his heart pounding. I could hear him moaning softly. I dared to open my eyes in time to see Quinn looking at me just before he brushed his lips against mine, sending a tingling sensation rippling through every inch of me. He nuzzled my neck and kissed it again. I knew I should stop him, but I had no intention of doing so. I was at his mercy. I closed my eyes again, surrendering my body to him.
And then, out of blue, he stopped. Quinn let up and took a step backwards. Shocked, I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.
“Nothing,” he said calmly, smiling wickedly at me. “I said I would only give you a taste of what we were like. Now,” he sighed, “if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take a cold shower.” And with that, Quinn turned around and headed off to the bathroom.
Stunned, I just stood there wide-eyed and with my mouth hanging open as he walked away. I couldn’t believe he would tease me like that. Moreover, I couldn’t believe Quinn had the restraint to stop. My knees were still shaking and my head was spinning from the vortex that he had just sucked me into and then so abruptly spit me out of. All I could do was sink to the ground and listen to the rest of the song as it continued to play.
* * *
Several lighthearted apologies later, Quinn was back in my good graces again. We decided to celebrate the rest of our anniversary by taking an evening stroll. Wanting to avoid Ronald, I suggested that we try a new route, and Quinn agreed without hesitation. We held hands as we walked through the streets of the West Loop, pausing for a moment when we reached Marché. I couldn’t help but tease Quinn a little bit by referring to him as the Mystery Mind Invader.
“You’re never going to let me live that one down, are you?” he asked, laughing. “Just remember, I was five when I made up that name.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, laughing. “If you only knew what they called me up there, you wouldn’t feel so silly.”
“Who are they?” Quinn asked, intrigued. “And what do they call you?”
I stopped laughing, realizing I had unintentionally slipped up, again. I cleared my throat and looked away.
“I know … you can’t tell me who they are or what they call you, right?” he said bluntly.
“Quinn …” I didn’t know what else to say other than I was sorry—and he certainly didn’t need to hear that line pass through my lips anymore.
“Don’t worry about it.” His tone was sincere. “I know this is hard for you too. Come on, let’s go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“Home,” Quinn said. “Back to our place.”
Home … to our place, I repeated in my head. The words had rolled off Quinn’s tongue so naturally I didn’t think he even realized the impact of what he had just said. Or perhaps he did. Maybe he had thought of his summer apartment as our place all along. Oddly enough, the notion had never crossed my mind. I had always thought of it as his apartment, although I guess I had adopted my chair. But I certainly hadn’t expected him to think that he had been “sharing” his place with me. I liked the sound of it, nevertheless. Our place, I repeated again to myself and smiled.
Engrossed with the idea of officially being considered Quinn’s roommate, I hadn’t noticed I had stepped off the curb and out into the nearby intersection without so much as glancing in either direction. I hadn’t noticed the headlights of the car parked a block or so away, or even that it had pulled out into the street and begun accelerating towards the intersection … towards me.
“Evie, look out!” Quinn shouted as he grabbed my arm and yanked me back onto the sidewalk. A black Mercedes limousine careened past us, just barely missing me, and whipped around the next corner. I recognized the limousine as the same one that had been parked outside of Quinn’s apartment building the other night.
“Are you okay?” Quinn asked in alarm.
“Yeah … I’m fine … perfectly fine,” I answered in a daze.
“What the hell was that about?” Quinn e
xclaimed.
“I … I don’t know,” I said numbly. I quickly snapped out of my state of shock and looked at Quinn. “Are you okay?” I asked, examining him for any visible signs of injury.
“Yeah … Evie, I wasn’t even in the street. I was standing here on the sidewalk.”
“You—you weren’t standing in the street?”
“No,” Quinn responded uneasily.
“How can that be?” I asked in disbelief as I glanced down at my watch. Nothing had changed. The day and month numbers were still scrolling, which meant the next Incident could occur any time within the year … but, as far as I could tell, it wasn’t scheduled to occur now.
This wasn’t a random accident—the limo had been waiting for us. It had been a premeditated strike. Could it have been an impromptu follow-up to the botched surprise attack last night? Is that why it didn’t register on my watch? Was Quinn even the target tonight? … Or was I?
“Evie,” Quinn asked anxiously, “is everything all right?”
Everything was not all right. Everything was far from all right, and this was not the time to sugarcoat things for Quinn.
“No. We need to get you out of here now. We have to get you back to your place,” I said harshly. I thought about teleporting us back to his apartment, but I didn’t know if it was even possible for me to do that. I knew I could teleport with smaller objects, but I’d never tried to teleport anything of considerable size, much less anything living. Instead, I grabbed Quinn’s hand and began to run, with him literally tagging along.
“Evie, tell me what’s going on,” he demanded, pulling back on my hand, but I didn’t slow down.
“Wait a damn minute!” he yelled as he tried to free his hand from my grip for the next block. “Evie! Stop!” He yanked himself free from me and refused to take another step. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me why you’re freaking out like this … What was up with that limo?”
I looked around and saw no sign of the car, but I could sense it was still lurking about nearby—like a lion crouched down in the grass, waiting for the right time to pounce on its prey. We were so naked and exposed just standing there on the street corner. I looked down at my watch—no change. My stomach turned over as anxiety welled up inside of me.
“Quinn, we can’t stay here. Please. Listen to me on this one. I’ll explain when we get back to the loft. I promise.” I had hoped the urgency in my voice—in my eyes—was enough to convince him to follow me, but I was wrong.
“You promise?” Quinn scoffed. “How can you promise to tell me what’s going on when you can’t even tell me your nickname up in … wherever it is you’re from? What are you going to do? Give me some half-assed explanation of what went down tonight and then expect me to be grateful for the breadcrumbs you toss my way? Do you really think I’m just going to settle for that after tonight?”
Two blocks away, I saw the limo creep slowly around the corner and come to a stop.
“No. But I do think the only way you’re going to stay alive long enough for me to explain what's going on is by listening to me right now.”
Quinn turned around at the sound of the limo peeling out. It was heading straight for us, gaining speed the entire way.
“Oh shit,” Quinn mumbled in his frozen state.
“C’mon!” I practically dragged him by the arm as we ran down the block. The undercarriage of the limo scraped against the cement as it jumped up onto the curb behind us. I pulled Quinn into a nearby alley as the long, black missile just barely passed us by and came screeching to a halt. We didn’t have much time before it would be on us again.
“Great,” Quinn moaned. “You had to pick an alley, didn’t you?”
Humor? At a time like this? Really? I thought.
“Just look for a door!” I ordered.
“Over there!” Quinn yelled as he pointed across the way to what looked like the back entrance of a deserted warehouse. There was a huge, rusty metal door on a sliding track that was bolted shut by a huge padlock.
“Great.” I sighed heavily, feeling the need to create a little comic relief of my own. “You had to pick the door to a psycho’s lair, didn’t you?”
The mouth of the dark alley lit up. It was the limo.
“Here goes nothing.” I broke the lock with my bare hands and slid the door ajar just enough for Quinn and me to slip inside. I shut the door behind us and warped the metal sliding track, making it nearly impossible to reopen.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Old steel scraps, machines, and random parts and tools were scattered everywhere, creating a maze of obstacles for us to clear. I led Quinn behind a large, rusted-out machine. As soon as we crouched down behind it, a rat squeaked and ran by my foot. I almost screamed.
“What is this place?” I asked, horrified.
“I have no idea,” Quinn replied, his eyes also having now adjusted enough to make out the metal wasteland all around us.
A loud scraping noise echoed throughout the warehouse as the door to the alley was slowly pushed open a few minutes later. The driver had parked the limousine such that its headlights cast some light into the opening of our dark hideout.
“They gotta be in here!” someone cried. Instinctively, I sidled up closer to Quinn.
“You really wanna go lookin’ around in this craphole?” a grittier male voice asked.
“No,” the first voice responded. “But we don’t got no choice, now do we?”
“C’mon. Let’s just get this over with.”
I heard the door crank open even wider.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” one of the creeps called out in a sinister voice. “There’s nowhere for you to run.”
He was right. I scanned the warehouse; there was only one other door at the opposite end of where Quinn and I were hiding, and we’d never make it there undetected. I had to come up with another plan—fast.
“Wait here,” I barely whispered to Quinn. He nodded in agreement. I carefully inched around the corner, hoping I could draw the thugs away from Quinn if they saw me; but as far as I could tell, they didn’t. I phased out of view and located the two men near the entrance. I found a couple small, heavy pieces of metal hardware. As much as I wanted to throw them at the two guys, I didn’t want to break yet another Rule unless I had to. Injuring them would be a last resort, I decided.
I teleported myself into the alley and threw one of the metal pieces towards the entrance about fifty feet away. I was hoping to trick the guys into thinking we had escaped out another door to the warehouse. No such luck. They didn’t even stop to check out what had made that noise. For all I knew, they didn’t even hear it.
That’s when I spotted the brand new Bentley convertible parked across the street from the mouth of the alley. Sorry, I wanted to say to the owner of the car, as I chucked the second metal chunk through the car windshield. The car’s alarm blared. That should draw their attention.
I teleported myself inside the warehouse and waited for the goons’ reactions. Sure enough, they were not very happy to hear the nearby alarm. They were even less pleased to hear the sirens off in the distance heading this way.
“Damn it!” one of them snarled.
“C’mon, we gotta to get outta here before the cops come,” the other urged. “They’ll trace the car back to Chloe—and then we’ll have real hell to pay.”
“She’s such a kiss-ass. I would take her out if I could.” As the words left the thug’s mouth, I swore I saw a flash of red in his eyes. But that couldn’t be right, could it?
The other one chuckled. “I’d like to see you try. She’s second in command.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll give ya one guess as to how she earned that position. You see that body? I bet he’s all over that!” When I saw the red flash again, I knew my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. I was suddenly nervous. It was too dark to make out their auras, but I no longer suspected that I was dealing with ordinary thugs. I had a sinking feeling that these two w
eren’t human.
“Ya know the boss is gonna be pissed off when he finds out we didn’t do what we were s’posed to.”
“We’ll get another chance to finish the job soon enough.”
“If you say so—but you’re the one doing the explaining.”
I watched them walk out of the warehouse. Then I heard the car doors slam shut. The engine roared, and the limo sped away. I materialized and returned to Quinn’s side.
“Okay, now are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“I honestly have no idea.” I was just as confused and nervous as he was—especially since those two thugs … demons … whatever they were … were planning to attack again soon.
Quinn and I ran all the way back to his loft—this time without any protest on his part. Before he even opened his front door, I sensed the presence of someone, or something, already inside. Déjà vu all over again. I grabbed his hand and stopped him from opening the door.
“What? They found us?” he whispered nervously.
“I’m not sure,” I said quietly. “But something’s not right.”
Quinn moved aside without hesitation. I opened the door just wide enough for me to see Peter standing near Quinn’s sofa in the dark.
“Rooftop, now,” Peter said sternly, but in a voice that was barely audible even for me. I nodded my head slightly in confirmation and held up two fingers letting Peter know it would take a couple of minutes. I knew the conversation to be had with Peter would be unpleasant to say the least. He phased out, and I assumed he transported himself to Quinn’s rooftop to wait for me.
I opened the door wide, turned on the lights, and looked around to confirm that no other beings, human or otherwise, were lingering about. Once satisfied we were alone, I motioned that it was all right for Quinn to enter. I could tell he was still shaken by tonight’s events—and he should’ve been. I was.
“Listen to me, Quinn,” I said as I took both his hands in mine and led him to the couch. “Stay here—don’t go anywhere. And don’t open the door for anyone either. Okay?”
Borrowed Heart Page 33