Chapter 27
Quinn
I love how I can’t breathe if I’m more than an arm’s length away from you.
It was nice to hear last night.
And everything was so hot.
I loved that he desired me. That he saw me as a woman and liked what I did for his body.
But I’m ready to hear something different now.
I said it first, which was a mistake. He’s just going to think I’m na?ve and inexperienced.
Whatever happens next, doesn’t he want me to know how he feels?
The empty bridge opens before me, and I cruise across the river on my bike.
A quiet ride to work this morning sounded nice.
And I wanted the extra time to clear my head.
Lucas still slept when I left my parents’ earlier, and I’m glad I cleared away any evidence of us there together.
Of course, they would’ve assumed we were there together as they’re still unaware of my new house purchase, but I didn’t want them arriving back home from their trip to discover we were sleeping together.
I left no condom in the downstairs garbage after we got done on the couch, no trail of clothes to his guestroom, and turned back on the indoor and outdoor cameras as I left a couple of hours ago.
I’m surprised I haven’t gotten a call from Jax yet. With live feeds everywhere, there’s no way anyone who’s paying attention hasn’t noticed us together around town as much as we have been.
Cameras…
I stop pedaling. Jax might have footage of whoever attacked Lucas last night.
Someone attacked him. I didn’t need him to tell me that to notice the cuts and bruises.
Of course, he won’t talk to me about it. As if avoiding the truth makes him look any better in my eyes.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t notice the sound of the engine until it’s almost on me. Blinking, I swerve for the side of the bridge to let it pass, but when I look over my shoulder, there isn’t anything there.
Training my ears, I hear the car, but I can’t see it as the fog rolls in like a wave over the bridge. No headlights, no movement… I hop off my bike and look around, unable to even make out the banks of the river, and only one light from Weston. One among all the mills.
The car is gone, but I twist side to side, my skin crawling all the same. Visibility is scarce with the fog, it’s still dark, and I’m all alone.
The engine suddenly revs, and I jump, searching for the damn car on Weston’s side.
It’s so close. Where is it?
It fades away again, drifting off in one long, musical note.
Lightning flashes across the sky, and then a ring pierces my ear.
The hair on my arms shoots up straight. “Shit,” I grit out behind my teeth.
Digging it out of my pack, I swipe the screen.
“Where are you?” Lucas demands.
I try to calm my breathing. “I had to run back to my place. My work clothes were there.” I climb back on my seat. “I’m crossing the bridge back to the Falls now.”
“In the car?”
“On my bike.”
“Quinn.” He sounds scared. “I don’t want you out by yourself. A storm is coming.”
More thunder rolls overhead, but I know it’s not the rain he’s worried about.
“Just get to the bakery,” he tells me.
Fumbling in my backpack for some spare change, I throw several coins over the side. I haven’t been adhering to the tradition, and Winslet MacCreary may not be dead, but she could still be watching.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
He must hear my hard breathing, and I shiver at the dark road ahead that I can’t see.
“I don’t know.” I pedal fast, cool air sweeping over my legs. “There’s fog everywhere. I can’t see.”
I hear shuffling, keys jingling, doors slamming…
Holding the handlebar with one hand and the phone with the other, I keep my eyes peeled. “Lucas?”
Is he still there?
“I’m coming,” he says. “If there’s danger, hide.”
“Lucas…”
“Get to the bakery!” he shouts. “Stay on the line with me until you get there.”
I toss my phone into the basket, leaving the call connected, and pedal hard. No light appears on the road—no light at all—except for the sporadic overhead streetlamps. The thick fog cools my skin, droplets of water wetting my face.
In moments, my thighs burn, and my fingers ache from holding the handles so tightly.
I don’t risk a glance behind me.
I can’t go any faster, and if there is something or someone there, the fear will make me fall.
The road curves and drops, my bike coasting down the incline under its own momentum. The wind takes my hair, and my stomach swoops at the speed.
But I coast all the way into Shelburne Falls, pumping the pedals again once the street levels out. I don’t hear anyone. I don’t feel the heat of any headlights, or any change in the breeze, but just in case… I take turns I wouldn’t normally take, trying to lose whoever might be following me.
Swinging onto High Street, I round the corner into the alley and see Lucas barreling in behind me in one of my parents’ cars. No idea where the Boss is.
Dismounting, I grab my backpack and phone and let the bike fall to the ground. Lucas charges toward me, and I hurriedly unlock the back door, still seeing no one.
Once inside, I lock us in and actually back away from the door as if there was a ghost in the fog.
But there was no one. There probably wasn’t anyone near the bridge, on the bridge, or following me here. Just the dark emptiness messing with my imagination.
Lucas, though… He sounded afraid.
Twisting me around, he cups my cheeks, and I can’t catch my breath.
I need to know.
“What happened to you?” I pant. “What are you afraid of?”
Staring into my eyes, he opens his mouth, his body shaking. It’s on the tip of his tongue. I can tell.
I want to know everything. Every moment. Every detail that got him here.
He’s so loved. What brought him here?
“I wish I could shut off the world for an hour,” he whispers, “and stop it from spinning around us.”
I don’t know why he said it, but I do know what he means. Sometimes you need everyone else to stop moving so you can catch up.
I pull his hand away from my face and hold it as I lead him into the shop. Silently, he follows, his fingers laced with mine.
We pause at the mirror, I look back at him, and then I release the latch, pulling open the mirror.
His eyes widen. “What…?”
Stepping through the frame, I still hold his hand. “I’ll tell you something and then you tell me something.”
Gently, I guide him in, watching his gaze shoot everywhere to examine his new surroundings.
Closing the mirror, I walk us down the hallway, silently letting go of him as he drifts around, checking out the bedrooms, the small gym, the office, as well as the great room with its kitchen and door to Rivertown Grill.
He doesn’t ask a single question as he studies the words on the wall and all the evidence the others collected.
He even walks back down the way we came in to see how the mirror is two-way.
I wait for him in the great room until he wanders back in, looking at me like he’s almost suspicious of what I’ve been doing in here.
But I explain, “Hawke and the others knew this was here for years.” I pause a moment. “I just found out a week or so ago. They’ve been researching the link between urban legends in Weston and Shelburne Falls and found this place.”
“Years?” He scowls. “Why didn’t they tell you this was here?”
I quirk a knowing eyebrow.
He frowns. “Those little shits.”
Yeah, I was mad, but Deacon has only spoken to me, so now I have that. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” he fires back. “They shared this with friends, no doubt. Everyone coming and going from your place of business, strangers right under your nose.”
I know. I don’t reply, though, because I’ll just get angry at them again.
“What are you going to do with this?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet.” I gaze around at the high ceilings and ample floor space. “I want to use it, but I also want them to come back.”
“Hawke?”
I shake my head. “Deacon and Manas.”
I recount to him what we’ve learned about the urban legends so far. About this hideout being Carnival Tower, and my new house being where Winslet vanished from during Rivalry Week so long ago.
And about the Night Rides and the car following us both.
His breathing turns shallow, and I see at least three emotions fill his eyes in a single second—confusion, anger, fear...
I continue before he has a chance to react. “I think she’s alive,” I tell him. “And I think she’s in Shelburne Falls.”
Shaking his head, he walks over to me. “It’s been more than twenty years, Quinn. No one has that kind of patience.”
“Maybe it hasn’t been that long.” She was clearly getting revenge during the Night Rides, but maybe she didn’t know where the brothers ran off to and hoped the news of the murders would lure them back.
“Maybe when she killed the people who tried to kill her, the brothers heard about it and returned,” I tell him.
“The trail hasn’t gone cold yet. Maybe there’s another chapter, after the tower and Rivalry Week and the Night Ride. ”
Maybe a lot more has happened in the last twenty years.
But Lucas thinks I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. “She hasn’t been following you,” he states.
I continue, “Maybe they learned she was alive and had to come back for her. Maybe they weren’t runners.”
Like you, I don’t add out loud.
We stand there with the rain and thunder kicking up outside and the sky goes from black to gray as the sun tries to break through the clouds but fails.
He thinks, if someone is following us, it’s someone else. Who?
“So here we are,” I challenge him, keeping my distance. “The world has stopped spinning, nothing else exists but us…”
Why is he so afraid to tell me his story?
He drops his head, breathless. “You don’t want to know,” he breathes out. “You want to keep your little childhood crush going, so you can keep imagining I’m this idea I never really was.”
He lifts his eyes. “And I want you to keep thinking I’m the person you always thought I was because I was only ever a hero to you and no one else.”
“If you leave me, you’re no hero.”