Shelter for Quinn

by Susan Stoker

  “I want to be there,” Driftwood said immediately.

  “No,” Cruz said flatly.

  Driftwood opened his mouth to complain, but Cruz continued.

  “Tex found out where Jen lives, but Beth discovered that The Edge Community website has a secret backdoor. Apparently, the members have a special login they use to find out when and where meetings will be held.” Cruz paused.

  “And?” Taco asked.

  “There’s been a special meeting called for tonight. An exorcism.”

  “Fuck,” Driftwood swore.

  “Where?” Moose asked.

  “What time?” Chief growled.

  He heard his friends, but Driftwood couldn’t look away from Cruz. He needed this information. Needed to be there. Needed this to be done and for Quinn to be back in his arms.

  “Beth doesn’t know where yet,” Cruz informed the group.

  Driftwood turned away and put his hands on the counter and dropped his head.

  He felt a large hand on his back, supporting him, but he couldn’t think. Couldn’t appreciate the friends who were by his side at that moment.

  “She’s working on it though. The location is in code. It’s taking her some time to crack it. But hopefully, Jen’ll be at her house and the SWAT team will get her to talk.”

  “Jen’s smart,” Taco said. “I never went to her house, and she never really told me anything super personal. I don’t know anything about her family, she wouldn’t talk about her friends.”

  “Well, maybe if she thinks her friends are in danger, she will talk,” Cruz says. “Tex is working on tracing the people who have logged into the site in the hopes of finding out who they are and where they live. If Jen won’t talk, then maybe the others in the congregation will.”

  “And Quinn?” Driftwood asked, still looking at his countertop. “Where is she? What’s happening to her?”

  No one had an answer for him.

  An hour later, the San Antonio Police Department’s SWAT team made entry into Jennifer Hale’s residence. The house was completely empty…except for a back room with a boarded-up window, some chains on the floor, half a dozen electric fans, and a puddle on the floor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Quinn was confused. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d seen Jen. One hour? Three? Twelve? A week? She knew she’d been going in and out of consciousness. She’d pass out from the cold, then be shocked back into wakefulness when a bucket of water was poured over her head. Then she’d pass back out until the next time.

  She remembered someone coming in and holding a knife to her neck as someone else took a pair of scissors to her hair. Quinn had the vague thought that she should be upset about her hair being cut off, as she’d had long hair her entire life—better to hide her birthmark—but she was more offended by the fact that the women sent in to do the deed had been wearing gloves so they didn’t have any skin-on-skin contact with her.

  Every single person she’d come into contact with was wacked. Every encounter just hammered home even more that it wasn’t her who was possessed by the devil. It was Jen and all of her crazy followers.

  The one time a couple of the crazies had come near her with a bottle of bleach, Quinn had lost her mind. She’d fought against her restraints so hard, she’d felt blood dripping from her wrists and ankles. Her frantic actions had scared the crap out of the women who’d been sent in to attempt to remove the “devil’s mark,” and they’d left without trying to bleach her skin.

  But the cold had finally done its job. Quinn was lethargic, and it was extremely difficult to summon an ounce of energy to fight when three men, including Alaric, came into the room and unattached the chair from the floor. They picked her up, chair and all, and carried her out.

  She vaguely remembered Jen warning the men to make sure Satan didn’t touch them. They put her into a vehicle and drove off. It could’ve been hours or minutes, but when they stopped, all Quinn could think about was how glorious the warm air felt on her frozen body. Being out of the torture chamber with the fans and water felt outstanding.

  She heard people talking around her, but couldn’t make out the words. It felt as if she were floating, and she was so exhausted. Quinn closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

  The number of people in his house had drastically reduced from earlier that morning. After the SWAT team had made the raid on Jennifer’s house, and hadn’t found Quinn, all of the firefighters had hung around with him until he’d finally kicked them out. Hanging around his house wasn’t going to do anything to bring Quinn home and Driftwood knew the others were worried about their own women. The cops had also all left, except for TJ and Cruz. Taco was also still there as he was convinced it was his fault Quinn had been taken, and he wasn’t leaving until she was found.

  Driftwood appreciated the support, but he still couldn’t think about anyone but Quinn. It was lunchtime. Had she been fed? She hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. Had the assholes from The Edge Community Church given her anything to drink?

  He knew Beth and Cruz were keeping information from him, but at the moment, he didn’t think he could handle hearing anything if it was bad news.

  They had the time for the supposed exorcism that was going to happen in around four hours, but still no location. Beth had been working nonstop to try to crack the code. Apparently, it had something to do with the Bible, but so far, she hadn’t figured it out.

  The most disturbing piece of information hadn’t come from Beth, however. It came from Cruz’s FBI contact. There had been a string of disappearances in the area recently. Enough that it raised questions at several local police departments, and they’d contacted the FBI to investigate.

  A sixteen-year-old boy with a bad case of acne.

  A three-year-old with a cleft lip.

  A forty-seven-year-old man with neurofibromatosis.

  Every case had involved some sort of facial disfigurement.

  And the scarier part was that none of the missing people had been found.

  Not one.

  Driftwood refused to think about that.

  No, they’d find Quinn. There were no less than five different law enforcement agencies actively looking for her. Word had also gotten around to the fire stations in the city, and every available search and rescue team was also on the lookout, not to mention the men and women searching on foot.

  Quinn would be found. And she’d be fine. She had to be.

  It took another three hours, but Cruz’s phone finally rang once more. This time he put it on speaker.

  “Tell me you found the location,” Cruz said in lieu of a greeting.

  “Done. It took Tex, me, two pastors, and a local priest to crack the code though.” She rattled off an address. “I looked it up on one of the government’s satellites. There isn’t a building on the premises, it’s just a patch of land in the middle of nowhere. It hadn’t drawn much attention because it’s located next to one of the city dumps. No one’s interested in buying and developing it because of the stench from the trash.”

  “Holy shit. The dump? That’s a perfect place to hide a dead body,” Cruz said.

  Driftwood stood up so fast, his chair crashed to the floor behind him. He clenched his fists, his fingernails digging into his palms.

  “Sorry, Driftwood,” Cruz muttered.

  “Exactly,” Beth said. “If The Edge Community Church is responsible for the disappearance of all those other people, they could’ve easily done their ‘exorcisms’ on this property and, when they didn’t work,” her voice hitched, as if she didn’t want to say the rest, “just buried the bodies in all the trash next door. If they did, no one would smell anything off because of the dump. It’s almost the perfect location…if you’re torturing and killing people.”

  That was it. Driftwood was done. He stalked over to his front closet and pulled out the shotgun he kept there.

  As soon as he had it in his hands, TJ grabbed it and tore it away.

  “G
ive it back,” Driftwood said in a low, controlled tone.

  “No. I’m not going to let you do anything that will get you put in jail. Quinn needs you, man. Here. With her.”

  Driftwood knew he was on the verge of exploding. He’d been calm for over twelve hours now. He’d been patient. Let Beth do her thing. But he was done with that. No one was going to fucking burn Quinn’s body. No fucking way.

  “Besides,” TJ continued, “this shotgun isn’t going to do you any good. I’ve got this, Driftwood. Trust me.”

  Driftwood looked into TJ’s eyes—and saw what he was looking for.

  Steadfast confidence with a touch of anger.

  He needed to know that his friends were just as pissed as he was when it came to Quinn’s situation. Whatever it was.

  “Promise me you’ll make sure that bitch doesn’t get near her.”

  “I promise,” TJ vowed.

  Taking a deep breath, Driftwood nodded.

  “Driftwood?” He heard Beth calling from the phone.

  He turned to the table, where Cruz was now standing and holding his phone.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes to meet Dax, Wes, and the rest of the task force and SWAT team. They’re gathering at Station 7 to come up with a plan before heading out. They agreed to let you and Taco go with them…for medical backup, just in case. There will be a ton of other ambulances on standby, but I knew you needed to be there.”

  “Thank you,” Driftwood choked out. He did need to be there.

  “There was talk about seeing if we could sneak someone in undercover, but with the small number of people in the congregation, that would be almost impossible. Not to mention, Jen has seen literally all of us because she was at the softball game,” Cruz said.

  Driftwood nodded. He’d thought about that too. If they had more time, Cruz could’ve infiltrated the church group to try to see what was really going on and who was involved, but because of the situation, their time was up.

  “I offered to call her and try to get back together with her,” Taco said. “But no one thought she’d go for it. Speculation is that she was just dating me to get to Quinn.”

  Driftwood heard the pain in his friend’s voice, but didn’t have time to reassure him.

  “So now the plan is to surround the main meeting space and go in all at once. From what Beth was able to see through the trees and using the satellites, there’s only one road in and out. We’ll block that and surround the clearing they usually use for their sermons or whatever. We’ll use smoke bombs and flash bangs to confuse and subdue everyone. We’re gonna get Quinn out of there,” Cruz said.

  Driftwood nodded. He couldn’t speak. His throat was tight and even though he hadn’t eaten anything, he felt like throwing up. He could charge into a burning building without a second thought, put a tourniquet on a leg that had been severed without wanting to barf, but the thought of Quinn being in the middle of what was obviously going to be a huge tactical takedown was making him physically ill.

  “Thirteen minutes, guys,” Beth warned. “Get a move on.”

  Without a word, everyone headed for the door. They had very little time. Quinn had very little time. Every second counted.

  Quinn felt warmer than she had in what seemed like forever. She still couldn’t move her arms or legs, but the warmth she felt on her face was like bliss.

  She forced her eyes open—her eyelids felt like they were held down with lead—and had to close them again when a bright light sent shooting pains into her skull.

  Squinting this time, she tried again.

  Fire.

  A nice, big fire crackled in front of her. The heat from the flames felt delicious after being cold for so long.

  She closed her eyes and reveled in the warmth seeping into her skin.

  “She’s coming around!” a voice yelled.

  Groggily, Quinn squinted her eyes open once more and turned her head toward the voice. It took a minute for things to fall into place, but as soon as they did, the terror Quinn had felt earlier, however long ago that was, returned tenfold.

  Jen was standing in a clearing wearing a long white robe. There were about twenty or so people standing around her, each wearing the same robe. Men, women, and even a couple of children.

  Jen was preaching. She was talking about the devil taking root and how she’d done her best to cast out Satan, but it had been no use. That the devil had too firm of a grip and must be destroyed.

  She talked about how it wasn’t a sin, because God was good and just, and was supportive of any deeds done in His name and in the name of destroying evil.

  Quinn tried to open her mouth to protest, but realized she couldn’t. Something was covering her mouth, preventing her from saying a word.

  The heat from the fire was quickly growing uncomfortable. What had felt good moments earlier now almost burned.

  Figures I work with burned skin for a living and now I’m going to be on the other side of my research, Quinn thought bitterly.

  Jen turned to face her, and Quinn could barely keep her eyes open, even squinting. The heat felt as if it were melting her face.

  “In the name of Jesus, we denounce you, evil one! We gave you a chance to leave this body and go back to your own realm, but you didn’t. You’ve given us no choice but to send you back to Hell. Light it!”

  Light it? Quinn was confused. The fire was already lit.

  She heard a whoosh behind her. Then to her right and left.

  Whipping her head around, she saw Alaric, then another man she’d never seen before, both stepping away from piles of burning sticks and wood.

  Realization hit.

  She was still strapped to the same chair she’d been stuck on since Jen had grabbed and drugged her, but it was now sitting in the middle of a massive pile of debris. Sticks, paper, straw, firewood, and cardboard. There were four other fires set to the north, east, south, and west of her. A line of flammable materials led from each of the burning piles—straight to the one she was sitting in the middle of.

  Jen was burning her alive.

  Quinn tried to scream, but with her mouth taped, all that came out was a muffled screech.

  The heat was unbearable, but now it was hitting her from all sides. Crazily, Quinn longed for the cold she’d experienced not too long ago.

  Throwing her head back, Quinn let out another muffled shriek. It was supposed to be John’s name, but instead it just sounded like a pathetic moan.

  By the time Driftwood and the other arrived at the abandoned property, most of the SWAT team had already surrounded the area. FBI agents as well as Texas Rangers had also gotten into position. There was absolutely no way anyone would be escaping from law enforcement.

  But Driftwood didn’t care about that. All he cared about was Quinn. Was she here? Was she all right? He had no idea what was happening since he wasn’t wearing a radio. He couldn’t talk to or hear the communications between the different teams.

  He and Taco were standing at the edge of the parking area…waiting. They could see smoke from a small fire, and hear voices, but not what they were saying. The hardest thing he’d ever done in his life was stand there.

  “Fuck this!” he muttered. “I’m going in.”

  Taco put his hand on Driftwood’s arm. They were both wearing their bunker gear, as it was almost second nature to put it on when they got to the station. “Careful,” was all he said.

  Driftwood nodded. Both men walked silently through the parked cars toward ground zero, as the SWAT team had named the area where the group had their meetings. He had every intention of staying back and watching everyone get taken down, and being there for Quinn…

  But what he saw from the surrounding trees had every good intention flying from his head.

  Jen was standing in front of a small group of people. They were all wearing white robes and she was gesturing wildly. But it was the woman sitting in a chair behind her that drew Driftwood’s attention.

  Quin
n.

  He was relieved to see her for a split second, but then the scene sank in. Jen yelled something, and four men holding torches each leaned over and lit small bonfires at their feet. That might not have been so bad—until streaks of flame shot from each small bonfire toward Quinn.

  Driftwood was moving before he’d even thought about it.

  About the same time he started running, all hell broke loose. Flash bangs went off all around the area, deafening Driftwood, but he didn’t stop. His eyes were locked on Quinn. Smoke filled the air, both from the fires and from the devices the task forces had thrown.

  Flames shot up from the debris around the chair Quinn was sitting in, and he heard a muffled sound coming from her.

  Faster. He had to fun faster.

  Ignoring the screams of terror and forceful commands from the officers all around him, Driftwood’s eyes stayed on the woman he loved.

  He wasn’t going to make it to her in time. He almost couldn’t see her because of the flames surrounding her now.

  As if in slow motion, Driftwood leaped over the smaller fire to Quinn’s left and barreled toward her. Without slowing down, and not feeling the heat through his bunker gear, Driftwood grabbed Quinn around the waist, chair and all, and continued running.

  In the back of his mind, he heard sounds coming from her, but all he could think of was getting her out of the flames. The yelling continued but Driftwood didn’t stop. He plunged into the cool shade of the trees. Breathing heavily—from stress, not exertion—he finally stopped and put the chair down on the dusty ground underneath a grove of trees.

  He barely noticed Taco at his side, beating at his shoulders and back.

  “You’re on fire, man,” his friend said.

  Driftwood ignored him, trying to figure out how to free Quinn.