by Susan Stoker
“Positive,” Driftwood said.
“So…they’ve been watching and following Quinn then. But why? Why her, and why wait so long to grab her?”
“Opportunity?” Quint asked.
Driftwood had no idea what Jen and her friends would want with Quinn. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
Turning on his heel, he walked past the manager, who was still hanging on every word, and headed toward the stairs. Quinn’s life was in danger. Of that he had no doubt. He didn’t know why, didn’t know where she was, but he knew the who. That had to be enough to find her. It had to be.
Chapter Sixteen
Quinn wasn’t surprised to see Jen the bitch enter the room. But she was completely shocked when she recognized the man who came into the room behind her.
The man from the bar. The asshole she’d confronted in the grocery store. Had he been following her even back then?
“You!” she hissed as Alaric leaned against the wall just inside the door. She’d been knocked out so fast she hadn’t had time to recognize who’d done it. But seeing the man she hadn’t really suspected at all was a shock.
Both Jen and the two men with her kept their distance, not giving Quinn any chance to try to head butt, bite, or otherwise hurt them. “Him,” Jen agreed with a smug smile.
“What are you d-doing?” Quinn asked, her voice stuttering from the cold. “Let me go.”
“I don’t think so. You see, we’re saving you.”
“S-Saving me? From what?”
Jen pushed off the wall and sauntered toward her, but not close enough to touch. “The devil.”
Quinn blinked. “What?”
“The devil, Quinn. You’ve been marked. I did what I could to save your soul, but it didn’t work.”
“Jen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, l-let me go, give me my clothes, and we can t-talk about this.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, you’re not going anywhere. We can’t have you walking around and spreading the devil’s word. We’re going to save you…help you repent, purge the devil lurking within you.”
Quinn could only stare at the woman in front of her. She was crazy. Seriously crazy. “Why would you think I’ve got the devil in me? I believe in God. I go to church when I can.”
“Because you’ve been marked,” she enunciated clearly. “Did you not hear me before?”
“Marked?” Quinn was genuinely confused.
Jen ran a hand down her own cheek and neck. “The devil’s mark. It was placed on your body by Satan himself, as a seal of your pledge to obey and service him.”
For a second, Quinn could only stare at her.
This was about her birthmark? Jen seriously thought that just because she was born with the mark, she was possessed by the devil? She was completely insane.
Shivering, she turned to the men behind Jen. “Please, untie me and let me go home.”
“Alaric,” Jen said, staring into Quinn’s eyes. “Please tell the marked one how the Bible has given us the clues and how we know she is a minion of Satan.”
“Gladly, sister,” the man with the blond beard said.
Sister? Oh shit, the man she’d taunted in the grocery story was Jen’s brother? This was not good. Not good at all.
“We know that red is the color of Satan. Revelation 17:4 says ‘And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.’ And we know the afflicted call their marks port-wine stains. Of course, on a ship, the port light is red and always on the left. Mark 10:40 says, ‘But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.’”
“And for whom is the left hand of God reserved?” Jen asked her brother.
Quinn shook her head and tried to wake herself up. This had to be a bad dream. A very bad dream. But Alaric kept talking.
“Matthew 25:33. ‘He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Mathew 25:41. Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
“Exactly right,” Jen praised. “So, there it is. The biblical prophecy that states those with red port-wine stains have the mark of the devil, and they should be cast into everlasting fire. You were marked because you are bad, Quinn. Plain and simple. You are a vessel of Satan, and we must cast him out!”
As Quinn listened to this woman, someone who she’d done her best to befriend and be nice to, use the name of the Lord to cast aspersions upon her character and judge her for something she had no control over, something snapped inside her.
She leaned forward in her chair as far as she could, reveling in the way Jen quickly stepped backward, and said, “You see my m-mark as something bad, but I see it as the opposite. I see it as being t-touched by God. I was a chosen one. I’m proud to have it! Only the very s-special and treasured get this mark. It’s people like you who’re treading on thin ice. You think God will approve of you judging me? I’m a test for you, Jen, and news f-flash—you’re failing.
“Matthew 7:12, ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you.’ Also, Luke 6:37. ‘Do not j-judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.’”
Jen crossed her arms over her chest. “So we’re going to have a battle of Bible verses? Fine. James 4:7. ‘Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ Repent, Quinn. Our church is trying to help you! Your protestations are just proving you’re on Satan’s side instead of ours.”
“Your church? You’re all b-bigots! You’ve bastardized the good and true meaning of the Bible for your own twisted beliefs. I’m no more m-marked by the devil than you. Do you not have any blemishes on your skin, Jen? No moles, no unusual dark spots?”
“No.”
“I d-don’t believe you,” Quinn said. “Corinthians 5:10. ‘For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or b-bad.’ When we finally stand before the Lord, which one of us do you think will be judged for the good and w-which do you think will be judged for the bad?”
Jen looked taken aback for a moment, then stubbornly shook her head. “I tried to save you!” she said. “When I first met you at that heathen bar, I gave you some of my special holy water, to try to make you see the light, to repent and repel the devil, but it didn’t work.”
“You spiked my drink?” Quinn asked, horrified.
Jen gave a nod. “But it wasn’t enough, so when you came to Hudson’s house, I gave you pure, undiluted holy water—and you still didn’t see the light.”
Quinn felt sick. She’d assumed her stomach hurting the morning after dinner was something simple. Stress from the way the night had ended up. Jen could’ve killed her. She could’ve put anything into her drink or food.
“I did my best to help you. Sharing the word of our Lord to get you to turn to Him to save you, but you ignored it all!”
“The f-fliers?” Quinn questioned.
“Yes. I tried, but you wouldn’t listen! And those other awful women weren’t helping. They turned you against me! If you’d only turned to me, this could’ve gone a different way. We could’ve prayed together. I would’ve helped you remove the mark from your face by using bleach and prayer. And you were supposed to call my friend. This would’ve been so much easier if you had come to us willingly.”
“You tried to lure me here?” Quinn asked in shock.
“Of course. But you looked at me with such contempt, I knew it was futile. That we would have to do things a different way. But make no mistake, we will eject Satan from your body, no matter the harm it does in trying.”
“So if my b-birthmark d-doesn’t go away, you’re going to kill me?” Quinn asked.
Quinn knew she should be scared. She should be terrified of Jen and her minions and what they had planned.
But instead, she was pissed.
She’d been told over the years that her birthmark was a sign that she was evil, but she’d also been told that it was a mark from God, that she was a test for humankind. Those who were benevolent and compassionate toward her passed His test. Those who were judgmental and ugly weren’t following His commands to love thy neighbor.
She hadn’t believed any of it. The birthmark was simply a discoloration caused by a capillary malformation in the skin. But sitting there, practically naked, freezing, and listening to Jen and her cronies tell her she was a minion of Satan, she had a revelation.
There wasn’t anything wrong with her.
She was just fine; it was everyone else who was broken. The women at the convenience store who’d stared at her. The men at the grocery store who did the same. Everyone who told her she’d be pretty if she just covered up the mark on her face.
Quinn was perfectly happy with her face the way it was, and she didn’t need her birthmark forcibly removed, thank you very much.
The people who were truly ugly were those like Jen. Like the boys at the softball game. Like the people who laughed at her and called her names. Quinn wasn’t the ugly one—it was all the close-minded people who couldn’t look beyond superficial imperfections.
And John loved her exactly how she was. She knew that down to the marrow of her being. She’d been around long enough to be able to tell when people were uncomfortable around her. When they were lying about not caring about the way she looked. John loved her. All of her.
Fuck these crazy assholes. They had to be in some sort of cult or something. There was no way normal, God-fearing people would be acting this insane.
“So, what’s your p-plan?” Quinn asked, figuring the more information she had, the better.
“Well, first we must make sure we keep you cold. Satan doesn’t like the cold, so we’re subduing him, making sure you can’t use his powers by keeping your body temperature down. Then we’ll see if we can’t remove the devil’s mark off your face.”
Quinn shivered, and not from the cold this time. “D-Don’t touch me, Jen. I mean it. You’ll r-regret it if you do.”
For just a second, Quinn saw fear cross the other woman’s face. But she recovered quickly. “I’m worried you’re already too far gone,” Jen said sadly. “That I found you too late.”
“You f-found me?” Quinn asked.
“Yes. Part of our mission is to find lost ones who need our help.”
“Our?”
“My church. Right now, we’ve only got a few dozen members, but we’re gaining momentum and fighting against the evils in this world.”
Quinn stared at Jen in disbelief. Her church? “You run this church?”
“Yes.”
“How do you find these lost ones?” Quinn asked, thinking that the more information she had, the better the chance she could talk her way out of this.
“We look for them. In grocery stores. At parks. On the streets. We even infiltrate other heathen churches.”
“And who are the lost ones, exactly?”
“People like you. Who have the mark of Satan. Or who have been led down the path of destruction…drugs, fornication…that sort of thing.”
“And how do you help them?”
“Just like I’m helping you,” Jen said without a shred of emotion.
Thinking about someone else being in the same position she was right now was horrifying. “What if they can’t be helped?”
Jen smiled then—and finally, Quinn was absolutely terrified.
“We send them to Hell where they belong.”
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.
If Quinn thought she could escape by telling Jen what she wanted to hear, she’d do it. But Jen wanted her birthmark gone. And since Quinn couldn’t control that, simply declaring that she’d expelled the devil, or whatever it was Jen wanted, wasn’t going to work.
She was screwed.
Jen turned to the man next to Alaric and nodded. He stepped outside the small room and returned seconds later—with a bucket in his hands.
Before Quinn could react, he’d thrown the contents of the bucket in her face.
Sputtering and gasping for air as the cold water dripped down her nose and into her lap, she stared at Jen in disbelief as renewed shivers racked her body.
The water, along with the air conditioning and the fans blowing on her, made the room seem twice as cold as it probably was.
“Come on,” Jen said. “We’ve spent enough time in her company. We need to go and pray for her soul…and to make sure Satan hasn’t somehow gotten his claws into us simply by being in her presence.”
The trio turned to leave and Quinn panicked. “You can’t leave me here!”
The men left the room, and Jen turned. “Why not?”
“Because! I’ll freeze to death. Let me go, Jen. You never have to see me again. Please.”
She tilted her head as if considering Quinn’s plea.
Then she said, “No,” and turned and left.
The door closing behind her sounded loud even with the fans blowing.
An image of a coffin closing flashed through Quinn’s head before she closed her eyes. She renewed her struggled to escape her bonds, but they were too tight.
Her body shivering nonstop now, Quinn kept her eyes closed and thought of John. Where was he? What was he doing? Had he realized that something was wrong?
“Please,” she whispered. “I’m here, wherever here is. Please find me. I’m not ready to die.”
The only answer to her plea was the sound of the fan motors.
Driftwood hadn’t slept at all. His house had been set up as a sort of mission central. He paced back and forth next to his dining room table. All of his friends from Station 7 were there, as well as most of his law enforcement friends. Dax, Cruz, Quint, Wes, TJ, and Hayden.
Cruz had called in an FBI specialist on cults, and Dax and Wes had called a colleague in the Texas Rangers who had extensively studied cults as well, specifically religious ones. A SWAT team was on standby and Beth was feverishly working with her friend, Tex, to find out as much information as possible about Jennifer Hale.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what Quinn might be going through. Beth had done a quick search on Jen and said she belonged to a church called The Edge Community Church. They had a website, but Beth said that it was a barebones thing with hardly any information. One thing it did say was that they didn’t have a building where they worshiped because they believed that God was everywhere, and they didn’t feel the need to limit themselves.
Which made finding Quinn all the more difficult.
“I’m sorry, man,” Taco said quietly, coming up to Driftwood.
“For what?”
“For bringing that bitch into our fold.”
“This is not your fault,” Driftwood told his friend. “I don’t know a lot about what’s going on, but I do know that.”
“Jen helped kidnap your girlfriend,” Taco said in anguish. “How could I not have seen the fact that she was bat-shit crazy?”
“Because you’re a good person who doesn’t go looking for the evil in people,” Driftwood told him.
“Well, maybe I should start from now on.” Taco shook his head. “If anything happens to Quinn, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Stop it,” Driftwood told him.
“How? I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I was the one who introduced her to Jen!”
“You know as well as I do that there’s evil everywhere. And if we concentrated on that, we’d never see the good in the world.”
Taco laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I’m done.”
“With what?”
“Women. You and the rest of
the guys might’ve all found someone, but I’m out.”
“You can’t give up on women just because of one bad apple,” Driftwood said.
“Watch me. I was so desperate to have someone in my life, I picked a bat-shit crazy cult member!” He shook his head. “When we get Quinn home safe and sound, I’ll just concentrate on making sure she and all our other friends’ women are happy. I don’t need a chick.”
Driftwood wasn’t sure what to say. He understood that Taco was a bit shell-shocked after hearing that Jen had been involved in Quinn’s kidnapping, but perhaps after some time went by, he’d change his mind.
He looked at his watch. Six in the morning. Driftwood was more than aware that time was ticking away. Kidnap victims rarely lived longer than twenty-four hours after they were taken.
Cruz’s phone rang.
Every single person in the room turned to look at him as he answered.
“Hello? Yeah. Okay…what? Oh shit. Hang on.” He held his cell phone against his chest and told Quint. “Tell SWAT they’re going to get an address any second. But they absolutely are not to move out until you say.” Then he turned to TJ. “Got your rifle?”
Driftwood instantly felt sick. TJ used to be a sniper when he was a Delta Force soldier, and as far as he knew, the man had only used his keenly honed skills once since he’d been out. And that was to save his fiancée, Milena, from the insane man who’d been about to kill her and take her son out of the country.
“Yes,” TJ said without hesitation.
Cruz put his cell back up to his ear. “Okay. Give it all to me.” He listened for several minutes as Driftwood got more and more impatient. Whoever was on the other end of the line obviously had more information about Quinn and possibly where she was. They should be moving out right now. Not sitting around staring at Cruz while he was on the phone. Not only that, but the FBI agent should’ve put the call on speaker.
Just when he thought he was going to burst, Cruz said, “Got it. Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” Then he clicked off the phone and turned to the group waiting impatiently for information.
“That was Beth,” he said. “Tex uncovered details about Jennifer. She was born Mary Magdalene Hale. She was raised in a commune in California and changed her name to Jennifer when she moved to Texas. Information is sketchy on why she left. We’ve got the address to her house, and Quint will lead the SWAT team on a raid there.”