Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Quinn
Desmond pushes me forward, and I stumble onto the narrow metal platform running between the trees.
The rust and general disrepair of this service area tell me Jim doesn’t know of its existence.
Leaves and gnarled branches obscure it from view when you’re on the gondola.
It wasn’t until Desmond opened the door and told me to get ready to step out that I saw it myself.
I damn near missed the step when I hopped off, too.
Something tells me this service entrance wasn’t known by many. There’s no way someone would have okayed this death trap. The only way onto this walkway is to hop from the gondola, which is definitely an OSHA violation. This is one of those theme park “secrets,” like the tunnels under Disney.
“Keep moving,” Desmond says as he rams the gun’s barrel between my shoulder blades.
I point at the gaping hole in the metal grate under our feet. “I’d fucking love to, but I forgot my winged shoes this morning.”
“It’s a damn shame I want to fuck you so badly. Otherwise, I’d send your stupid ass to the forest floor. Jump.”
My jaw drops, not because he told me to jump the gap but because he thinks he’s getting anywhere near my pussy. And I’m the idiot? I may not have a weapon, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go down without a fight. If my stubby little nails can claw out his icy eyes, it will be enough.
“Do you even know who you’re fucking with?” I say before making the leap. I turn to face him after I land safely. “Do you know who my father is?”
Instead of looking concerned, he merely smirks and jumps over, putting his chest level with my nose when I refuse to back up. “Oh, I know exactly who your father is. The question is, do you?”
He grips my shoulders and spins me around, and I roll my eyes. Up until a week ago, the answer would have been no. Thank fuck Aven came through with my very own Maury Povich moment. It’s just a shame Daddy Dearest wasn’t there to run off screen, screaming about how it’s not true.
How will my brothers and sister react when they learn of their new sibling? I want to smile when I think of it, but there is a very real chance they won’t even know until after I’m dead.
“How’d you do it?” I ask. The curiosity is too much to bear. If he killed Aven and took the tiny cell phone, I want to know so that I can just jump off this platform right now. “The text message, I mean.”
“Jim had to set up something special for the two of you to communicate on the island. I merely tapped into it via one of the lobby computers.” He pulls a small phone from his pocket.
It’s similar to the ones Aven and I use, but it’s not the same.
“This certainly helped. Jim really should invest in some better locks for his supply rooms. Now quit stalling and start walking.”
The walkway pushes through the trees a bit more before our destination is revealed.
Built into the canopy and completely hidden from view is a small wooden shack that looks like Satan’s Treehouse.
The red paint may be faded, but I can still make out the dancing demons plastered over the aged boards.
Their black eyes seem to stare at me as I draw closer.
As we step onto the porch, I hear a familiar screeching from inside.
“You plan to kill Kenny?” I turn to glare at Desmond. “You bastard.”
Desmond flicks the barrel toward the front door.
“Stop stalling. I stole the bird to keep Jim occupied so that I could go after what I really wanted. Now get inside and give me the show I’ve been waiting for.
I’ve even got a fun little setup for you in there so that your new friends can watch me rape you until you beg for death. ”
“You’re fucking gross, you know that?”
“You have no idea, princess. Now move those feet while you still can.”
As I grip the handle and open the metal door, the metallic stink of blood rushes toward me. I cover my nose and take an instinctive step backward, but Desmond blocks my exit. Then my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I see the reason for the smell.
In the corner, Desmond’s lanky friend lies in a crumpled pile. A discolored tongue lolls from his swollen, purple face. The skin on his neck nearly obscures the rope cinched around it. Blood pools beneath a few shallow defensive wounds in his arms.
“What the fuck did you do to him?” I ask as I move toward the opposite corner.
Desmond closes the door behind him and locks it. “He started asking too many questions, and when he followed me here, I had to take care of him.”
“And why me?”
Desmond steps toward me. When he reaches out to run his fingers through my hair, I pull away.
He lowers his hand with a scowl, then slaps me.
My head rocks to the side, but I don’t give him the pleasure of a yelp.
I straighten my spine and brush my hair out of my face, staring at him and daring him to do it again.
“Why you?” he says as he appraises me. “You’d love for it to be because you’re so beautiful, wouldn’t you? It should be some enigmatic quality that I see within, but it’s not. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my very specific needs.”
He places the gun on a side table near Kenny, who perches on a branch jutting through a broken board. A tiny chain around his scaly ankle keeps him fastened there. He keeps picking at the clip connecting the chain’s tail to itself, and I can only hope he figures it out and pulls a Lassie for me.
What is it, Kenny? Quinn’s stuck in the old treehouse?
A plastic zipper bag is shoved into my hands, pulling me out of the rescue fantasy. “Put this on,” Desmond says. “I’ll even give you a bit of privacy.” He motions toward a wooden door in the back wall.
“No thanks,” I say with a smirk, and I begin stripping off my shirt. I refuse to give him an ounce of power over me.
I pull the clothing from the bag. The shorts drop to the floor as I hold up the shirt and try to make out the design in the dim light. It looks like a vintage band tee from the eighties, but I don’t recognize the name of the band. Still, the shirt is somehow . . . familiar.
“Put it on,” Desmond says with a widening smile. “I can’t wait to see you in it.”
I roll my eyes and swallow the unease when I spy a dark stain near a slash in the shirt’s side. I’ve watched enough episodes of Criminal Minds to know what’s going on. He’s dressing me like one of his past victims so that he can relive some fantasy. Gross.
My gaze darts around the room, trying to focus on anything other than the asshole in front of me. A monitor and webcam sit on the floor on one side. An ax hangs above the side table beside Kenny. Aside from all that and the single dangling light bulb, the room is empty.
Seeing no way out, I ease the shirt over my body and pull the shorts from the floor with a cock of my head. “Have you seen the size of my ass, Lord Fuckwad? I can’t fit my right thigh in these things, let alone my waist.”
He nods and appraises me again. “Yes, you look just like her in the face. Same golden hair and bright green eyes. It’s a shame you didn’t learn how to push yourself away from the table.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t get indignant. Your mother might have been a fatty had she not loved meth more than she loved you.”
Rage coils low in my gut, and I breathe through the urge to hurl myself at him and claw out his stupid eyes. “You didn’t know my mother.”
“Oh, have I struck a nerve?” He chuckles and steps closer.
“I did know your mother, Quinn. I knew her before you did. My da sent me to America at a young age to learn all about his business, and your mother was one of our best clients. A beautiful, strung-out junkie who was willing to get dicked down for her next fix.”
“Shut up!”
“I wasn’t a killer when I met her. At the time, I didn’t even know what I was capable of. That didn’t come until your little boyfriend chose to murder my father.”
My chin begins to quiver, and I take a step back, then another.
Before I know it, my back is against the door in the most literal sense, and I have nowhere left to run.
I look down at the shirt, and a memory flashes in my mind.
I see my mother, smiling as she points at the starry sky.
Colors explode, and her hand slips from mine.
“This is the shirt my mother wore the night she disappeared.”
“That’s right, Quinn, but she didn’t disappear.
She’s been here the entire time.” He tosses his head back and laughs as I try not to puke on my feet.
“It was entirely too simple. I made an offer she couldn’t refuse, and she fell right into my lap.
While you were bleating like a little lost lamb, your mother was bleeding out.
I’ve been chasing that moment since that night, and I’ve never experienced it again, but when I heard that Jim planned to buy Laughter Park—”
“You thought you could recreate the moment with her daughter.”
“I’ve kept tabs on you all these years. When your little friends thought they were orchestrating my capture, I was the one plucking the strings. Who do you think tipped off King to my sudden reappearance? Who do you think sold this theme park to Jim?”
“But why my mother?”
Before he has a chance to answer, Kenny lets out an ear-piercing screech and begins flapping his wings.
Underneath all that squawking, I hear a familiar voice yell my name.
I can’t be certain if it’s my hopeful imagination or a miracle, but I don’t respond.
Kenny is louder than I ever could be, and I have to hope Desmond didn’t hear anything.
“Shut that damned animal up!” he yells as he flails his hands toward Kenny. That only makes the poor creature screech more loudly.
While he’s focused on the bird, I lean backward and unfasten the door lock. Now I just have to hope Aven gets here before Desmond realizes he’s on his way. Fighting him myself isn’t an option, and playing hopscotch on that crumbling walkway as I run for my life is not a possibility.
I glance back at the bird. The latch around his leg has come open, but it’s still hooked in place. With a little finesse, I could probably free him.
“Let me handle him,” I say. “He doesn’t like loud sounds, and you’re a fucking bullhorn.”
After grabbing the gun from the table, Desmond steps back with a scowl, and I use my back to block his line of sight as I stretch my arm toward the bird. Kenny eyes my arm, then quiets and steps up.
“Good boy,” I whisper.
“What are you telling him?” Desmond barks.
I roll my eyes and flick the latch away while gripping it so that the chain doesn’t fall to the floor. “The secrets of the fucking universe. He’s a bird, you moron. I’m just being nice to him so that he’ll calm down.”
I place Kenny on the branch, careful to keep the chain draped over it so that Desmond doesn’t realize the bird is free. Whether Aven shows up or not, a plan is forming in my mind.
I turn back to Desmond. “Now answer my question. Why did you choose my mother?”
“You seem to have forgotten who has the control here.” He wiggles the gun in the air, then motions for me to move to the other side of the room. “Get on your knees in front of the camera.”
I step toward the monitor and camera on the floor, then get to my knees. If being compliant can buy a little more time, so be it.
Desmond steps closer and turns on the devices. I fill the screen, though not with my usual glamor. The single dangling bulb above my head provides such shitty light. This is not at all flattering, and my stomach sinks to my ass when I see an active chat pop onto the screen.
EVE: We’re looking for you, honey.
CAT: Don’t give up hope!
I close my eyes. It’s not just me anymore. It’s not just Aven, either. We have friends, and I finally have family, and right now, they’re all hunkered down somewhere, giving me their support. As soon as they save me, I’m telling them everything.
“How touching,” Desmond coos. He kneels behind me, and I want to vomit when he leans closer and smells my hair. “Knowing that your friends will watch me destroy you is icing on the cake.”
Using the gun’s barrel, he pulls my hair to the side. I try to move away, but he brings the butt of the gun down on my shoulder and snatches me back in place by my hair.
“Is there anything you want to tell them before I kill you, you little brat?”
Aven should have gotten here by now. I must have wanted to hear his voice so badly that I imagined it. No one is going to find me out here. In case this is the last thing I get to say, I’d better make it good.
“I want everyone to know something about me. I’ve been keeping a secret, and no, I don’t mean my feelings for Aven.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Killing isn’t just a hobby I discovered here. It’s in my blood. I’m . . . a Carter sibling.”
The chat explodes, the words zipping by too quickly for me to read. Desmond starts laughing behind me, and an icy feeling grips my spine. The cold barrel presses against my nape and rakes up my skull.
“Killing is in your blood, that much is true,” Desmond says, “but Grantham Carter is not your father. I am.”
I lunge forward and disconnect the webcam, then rise to my feet and kick the monitor until it hisses. It can’t be true. It can’t, and I don’t want anyone else to hear his spurious bullshit.
“You’re a liar!” I grip the broken monitor and spin around to face him. “You’re only trying to piss me off!”
“Your response is certainly more than I hoped for.” He chuckles again, and my blood begins to boil. “Your mother answered my ad because she already knew me. She’d been dealing with me for years, just as I said. One of my best customers, and the whore to bear my demon seed.”
I shake my head and toss the monitor at him, but he ducks out of the way. “It’s not true.”
“How does it feel knowing your little boyfriend was the match that lit my fire? Had he not killed my father, I never would have discovered this glorious hobby.”
Aven’s story flashes through my mind. “Aven killed your dad in Scotland.”
“That’s right, princess. Now you’re putting it together.” He motions toward the ax on the wall. “With that very ax, he ended my father’s life. And now I’m going to use it to end yours.”
I blink up at him. “If I’m really your daughter, how have you been watching my fucking sex streams? And you want to rape me? I don’t buy it.”
“What can I say? I’m a disgusting man with a disgusting taste for revenge.” He raises the gun and points it at my chest. “I’m finished talking, princess. You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but you’re going to get what’s coming either way.”
“Wait!” I hold out my hands. “I have one more thing to say.”
Desmond rolls his eyes and drops the gun to his side, which is exactly what I hoped for. “Go on.”
“Kenny . . . bang, bang.”