Chapter 30
Lincoln
Four Years Ago
This cabin wasn’t built for months on end use, yet, here I am. At first I decided to stay in North Carolina to watch my niece, Salem, and make sure she’d settled okay after Quinnly took out her parents.
Living with the person who killed your parents–even if they were awful humans–messes with your mind. There was an abduction not long after the gala, and thankfully Quinnly was there to keep Salem safe. I’m certain that wasn’t her intent, but alas my heart longs for her evermore.
Now, if my sources are to be believed, Salem is about to have Tobias Rossi’s baby, and I’m still stuck in this shithole cabin waiting for Quinnly to move on.
I haven’t gone to the store in days and my food supply is nearly empty…
A knock sounds at my cabin door, unexpected given that no one knows I’m here, and when I open the door—
Her hair’s wild, falling from two ponytails. She kicks me straight in the stomach the moment I open the door and caught off guard, I stumble. Catching the edge of a table I manage to right myself only for the table to fall and crash into the hardwood of the floor.
She pounces, locking her legs around my neck in a move I’ve never seen her accomplish successfully before. Heaving her body backwards, she uses her weight and our downward momentum to throw my body over hers in a show of strength–and physics–I can’t help but be in awe of.
My body hits the floor beside the overturned table as she springs to her feet, scissors split and pointed my way. “Get up.”
Gone is the witty, fun-fueled woman I’ve followed for years. In her place is the assassin, the murderer, the psychopath.
With a smile I do as she asks, slowly rising to my feet, hands splayed in front of me palm up so she knows I won’t fight her. With a growl, she comes at me with everything she’s got. Her fists, carefully brandishing her precious scissors, split my flesh everywhere she lands a blow.
And I let her.
I allow her to land hit after hit. Slice after meticulous slice, into my skin. I let the pain build inside me, rage that was contained, freely flowing out of me in small shallow lines of blood, but I can’t hurt her.
I won’t.
She doesn’t know me, and yet, I still can’t hurt her.
Can’t stop her.
Her fists fly, cuts landing with intention, and for every slice, it’s like my heart accepts every gouge.
In a valiant display of will I manage to swing my leg out and hook it around her hip to flip our positions.
Pinning her wrists above her head, I bend down into her space.
Her head connects with my nose and I fly back, earning her a way out from under me.
On her feet now, she circles me as I kneel where I just had her below me.
I wish I could read thoughts, I want to know what she’s thinking as she looks at me. If she desires me, abhors me, or simply has no thoughts about me whatsoever. Her eyes are trained on me, scissors flipping over her fingers as she watches, calculates.
Launching myself at her, she carefully side steps me and plunges a part of her scissors into my back. Hot pain flares up my spine as she hops away from me and tuts.
“Ah, ah, ah. I don’t think so.”
“You,” I gasp sharply, the pain in my my back flaring with my attempt to speak, “don’t even know–”
“I know I’ve caught a mouse, and now it’s time to kill it.”
With a growl, I reach back and grip the blade, ripping it free of my skin. It will scar, but that’s not a concern.
In this moment, my only concern is that I may die without Quinnly Sage Adams knowing who I am.
Turning and throwing the half of her scissors past her, it lands embedded into the wood casing by the door. She turns to look at it, and when she turns back her smile is wild.
Vicious.
Leaping across the room, her hands circle my neck and pull something tight.
She has such delicate hands, and they pull at what I now know is a garrote until my knees crack against the floor, and my vision goes spotty.
I try like hell to focus on her as I lose the battle with consciousness.
The cherry scent of her breath, how blasé she appears, as if it’s any other day.
Softly, as if she is carefully lowering me, my back falls against the cold wooden floor and the light on the ceiling halos her in soft yellow.
The last part of her scissors rests against my throat, apparently she doesn’t plan to strangle me to death after all. I should’ve known, she prefers her scissors.
Maybe this is my penance. To know her, and never have her.
The cool blade rests against my skin pressed deep enough that I can already feel my hot blood rushing to the surface, but it doesn’t fill me with pain. I’m too lost in every other hurt I’ve been dealt tonight to feel any more.
Quinnly.
Bright, bold, beautiful Quinnly, runs her scissors across my throat, splitting open the soft tissue there and watching my blood flow from my neck to the floor.
I don’t choke, nor do I wail in sorrow.
She wouldn’t appreciate that.
I wish I could ask her to stay, to sit with me until I fall into the oblivion I’ve sent so many into. But, she offers me no chance as she lifts to her feet, smiles at a job well done, and clomps out the way she came.
My Quinnly left me, blood draining from my body, to die alone.