Chapter 32 Quinn #2
“Just don’t go,” Brit said as if it were that simple. “Camp out with Quinn. She’ll need support after those fuck’n bat-shite McDonalds. She was a mess yesterday.”
I took Everly’s hands between mine. “I’ll send a scrawl if that helps.”
Everly took a deep breath. “Just, I need some time to think on it. I don’t want to go back to my family, but my contracts and, I mean, family is family, right?” She turned to her twin. “And then Hero…”
Hero lifted his hands. “Don’t drag me in. The more freedom you get, the more I get. If it blows up, that’s on you. I can’t lose.”
Everly sighed. “Why is being a man always so damn easy?”
Hero glared at his twin and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Anyway, your test tonight.” Everly changed the topic. “I heard a rumor that the McDonalds were bringing animals, like sheep and horses into The Pit.”
I rolled my eyes. “They are not. That would be too big a coincidence.”
“How would that be a coincidence?” Everly asked.
I broke into “Old McDonald”—full animal noises included. By the time I sang the last note, Everly was rolling around on the floor laughing. “It’s a song from my time that no one even knows here.”
“Oink, oink here and an oink, oink there,” Brit recited, an eyebrow raised.
I nodded.
“Does Alex know this song?” Ezra’s voice came from behind me.
Everly screeched, and Brit and Hero sprang into fighting stances. Although Brit relaxed immediately, Hero studied Ezra while Everly clasped her heart.
“Why would you…” she trailed off, and her eyes bugged. “Commander Ezra?”
“Shh.” I pressed a finger to my lips. “He’s just one of Ravana’s cousins right now.”
Everly bit her lips together, and Hero finally sheathed his sword. We all returned to our seats, though Ezra still hovered at my back.
“Do I need to repeat my question?” Ezra put a hand on my shoulder.
“Um, he probably knows,” I answered, trying to understand why Ezra asked. “I mean, he went through my mind. He knows everything.”
My heart fell. I didn’t like thinking about that. It reminded me of the three half-formed tethers carved into my back, and how much had been stolen from me. But I was doing something about it this time. I had a name, Teivel. Once I proved my free will, I was coming for him.
“Be ready to face your past.” Ezra tilted my chin, locked eyes with Hero, and kissed me; hard, fast, claiming. My body lit up, toes curling.
Just as fast, he stepped back and vanished into the shadows.
I licked my lips, loving the taste of him despite the obvious marking of his territory. Me. A rush curled my toes all over again. I was his territory.
“You’re telling me you let me spend the last hour complaining about my family while...” She gestured at me, then behind me, and everywhere. “Girl, spill. Now.”
I took a deep breath. Alex knew all my secrets. My test could be anything, but Ezra was probably right. I needed to be prepared to defend every decision, good or bad, that I’d made in my life.
I expected my world to come crashing down with the realization, but it didn’t. My anxiety didn’t spike. Fear didn’t twist my stomach. Every choice, good or bad, had led me here. Maybe it was the calm before the storm, or maybe this was what confidence felt like.
I found my friend's hands and squeezed. “So, you know the saying distance makes the heart grow fonder? I know what I want now. And I’m going for it.”
Everly whooped, and I prayed Ezra found something else to do while I poured my heart out to my friends.
If the gasps when I entered The Pit, flanked by Everly as well, were dramatic, the outrage midway through my test was deafening.
I couldn’t defend joining this madness. Ezra’s warning about confronting my past?
Bullshit.
The cow across from me mooed. Fine—udder bullshit.
I sat on a throne-like chair at the center of the ring, leaving a stretch of empty elevated space at my front.
Smooth gold circled my ankles and wrists, keeping me in place, but not truly restrained.
I could pull out of them by sliding my limbs to the inside.
Alex designed the chair to maintain close contact with my skin and monitor the energy coming in and out of me.
Did it actually do that?
I had no idea, and I was pretty sure no one else did either.
Above me, a massive chart swirled orange and blue, like some warped lie detector from BT.
“That is a sheep,” the McDonald standing to my left with a scrawl in his hands repeated.
I looked at the cow standing right in front of me. “That is a cow.”
The man’s scowl disappeared into his bushy tangerine beard. His tinfoil hat nearly toppled as he glanced at the chart, which hadn’t budged at my answer.
“What sound does a sheep make?” the McDonald asked.
“Baaa,” I said.
The sound of Everly holding back laughter made me smile.
“What sound does the sheep in front of you make?” he pressed.
I looked at the cow. “Moo.”
“Look at that!” someone shouted. “No control over her mind. Sheep don’t moo.”
Someone laughed.
I just blinked as the cow, which was definitely a cow, was led off the platform to be replaced with a goat. The gray, cloven-hooved creature’s eerie eyes locked on me, and a shiver ran down my spine. I’d never seen a goat in person and was pretty happy never to again after this.
The McDonald pointed. “This is a cow.”
I blinked. I didn’t understand what the McDonalds were attempting to accomplish. “It looks like a goat. It’s got little goat horns and creepy eyes and everything.”
“Okay.” The McDonald grinned. “What noise does a goat make?”
I blinked a few times. “Um, they bleat, right?”
“You’re not going to make the noise for us?” The McDonald asked.
“Um… bleeeeat, ble-bleeeat,” I said, my hands bumping against the gold as if to act it out.
The McDonald shook his head. “That is not what a cow sounds like.”
The goat was led away, only to be replaced with a parade of animals, sheep, pigs, chickens, each “misnamed,” each “proved wrong.” Whether I agreed with their lies or told the truth, I lost every time.
A man wearing a silver slave collar was led into the ring, exactly like the livestock before him. He stood firm, dressed in brown pants and a simple orange tunic that did not match his glowing light green eyes.
“This is a man,” the McDonald said.
I hesitantly nodded, waiting for the trap.
The McDonald grinned. “What sound does a man make?”
I took a deep breath. “Men speak and make various sounds. They can even mimic animals, as I’ve demonstrated over and over.”
The McDonald’s grin widened. “Please, show us.”
I tried to put my hands up in the air. “Um.” I opened and closed my mouth a few times before just addressing the man. “Hi, my name’s Quinn, what’s your name?”
The man inclined his head. “Fionn.”
I looked at the McDonald, who gestured for me to continue.
“Right. Ah, what do you do, Fionn?” I asked.
The man made a fist and moved it up and down. “I’m a builder.”
The chart above me bounced. The McDonald’s eyes gleamed.
Fionn was led away, only to be replaced by another man.
This one wore a garish suit of purple and green that made him look like a cartoon character.
I asked the same question, trying to be consistent with whatever this was.
The man answered and was led away, only to be replaced again and again.
Builders, blacksmiths, two power slaves, and someone who made cook pads all came and went.
Unlike with the animals, the meter above my head bounced wildly.
The final man vanished down the ramp, and the McDonald addressed The Pit. “Animals confused Quinn, yet didn’t change her magical activity.”
I rolled my eyes and took this to mean I could pull my limbs out of the chair.
“But the moment men entered—creatures of free will—she didn’t question their chains, their comfort, their families. No. She asked how they could serve her.”
My jaw dropped. I’d just wanted them to talk. Everyone does something. Logical. Harmless. And now twisted into proof of corruption.
“A true woman would have asked about families,” the McDonald said, voice sharp as glass.
“A woman against slavery would care for suffering. But her? Only usefulness. No mercy. No dignity. Not even clothes, though she prattled about the hides and horns of beasts.” His arms rose.
“This isn’t Quinn. This is the Architect’s hand, guiding her every word. ”
I leaned forward, eyes wide as my disbelief curdled into outrage.
“You all saw it.” The McDonald pointed above him. “The meter bares every lie. The Architect’s rot festers in her already. Let her return to his walls, and she’ll be his weapon, the one that ends us all.”
The Pit exploded with conversation.
The McDonald tilted his head, eyes gleaming. “We will save you from him and place you in your proper position within our family.” His voice didn’t need volume; the quiet cut was worse.
Proper position? The words slithered over me, foul and absurd.
He turned back to the crowd.
Voices roared around me, too many to pick out a single one.
Brit and Everly stepped to my side.
“Well, that was something,” Everly said.
I stood, still blinking at the arguing dark sea around me. “I thought that was the safest question I could ask.”
“I don’t think it mattered what you asked. They would have twisted it.” Everly’s gaze drifted toward the box her family sat in.
I slipped my arm around my friend. “Let’s get out of here. You’re staying with me, right?”
Everly grinned.
A smidge of disappointment wrinkled my nose. Ezra and I were definitely not doing anything tonight. But that was fine. I had one more trial, and then I would be back at the castle where I wanted to be… I hoped.
I left The Pit with the McDonald venom still echoing. The world hadn’t ended. No thunder. No collapse. Just cold air biting at my skin, like a warning.
Teivel hadn’t struck. Not yet. But he would, and I wasn’t nearly as ready as I wanted to believe.
The McDonalds thought they could twist my words into chains. Decide where I belonged.
They were wrong.
But the truth no longer felt like a shield. It felt like something fragile I had to protect.