CHAPTER 19 #4
But there was nothing. Just the dresser with the sticky drawer, the bookshelf full of young adult novels, the rocking chair in the corner where her grandmother used to sit and read to her.
Nothing heavy. Nothing sharp. Nothing useful.
The footsteps grew closer.
Paused.
Quinn held her breath, her lungs burning, not daring to make a sound. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure whoever was out there could hear it—that rhythmic thunder that seemed to shake her entire chest.
The hallway floorboards creaked. Once. Twice.
Then the footsteps moved toward her room.
Closer.
She could hear breathing now. Imagined a man. Steady. Controlled.
Closer.
Quinn’s vision was starting to tunnel, black spots dancing at the edges. She needed to breathe but couldn’t, her body locked in place by pure terror.
The doorknob turned.
The brass was old and loose, and Quinn heard every sound it made—the soft rattle, the click of the mechanism disengaging, the whisper of metal on metal.
Quinn’s scream died in her throat, strangled by fear, as the door swung open with a soft creak and a man stepped inside.
Big. Over six feet, broad-shouldered, moving with the controlled grace of someone trained in violence.
Professional. Wearing all black—tactical pants, long-sleeved shirt, gloves. A ski mask covered his face, leaving only his eyes visible. Dark eyes. Cold eyes. Empty of anything human.
In his right hand, held with casual competence, a syringe.
The sight of it—that small cylinder with its wicked needle catching the faint light from the street—broke Quinn’s paralysis.
She threw her phone at him in a desperate, wild motion.
It flew past his head—missed by inches—and hit the wall behind him with a crack of shattering glass and plastic. The screen sparked once and went dark.
Quinn ran for the window.
Maybe she could get it open. Maybe she could scream loud enough for neighbors to hear. Maybe—
But he was faster.
His hand closed around her arm like a vise, fingers digging into the soft flesh above her elbow hard enough to bruise. He yanked her back, and Quinn’s feet left the ground for a sickening moment before she crashed into his chest.
Quinn fought. Clawed. Kicked. Tried to scream.
But his other hand clamped over her mouth, palm pressed so hard against her face she couldn’t open her jaw, couldn’t breathe through her nose with her head tilted back at this angle.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said.
His voice was flat. Professional. Utterly devoid of emotion, like he was reading instructions from a manual. This was just a job to him. She was just a job.
Quinn bit down on his hand with all the strength she had, her teeth finding flesh through the thin tactical glove. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth—sharp and copper and wrong.
He swore—the first real emotion she’d heard from him—and threw her.
Quinn hit the bed hard, the air driven from her lungs with a whoosh. Stars exploded across her vision. She scrambled to get away, her hands slipping on the quilt, her grandmother’s quilt, but he was on her before she could move.
His weight pinned her down—knee pressing into her spine, one hand fisting in her hair and forcing her face into the mattress.
Quinn couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel the pressure and the terror and the knowledge that she was going to die here, in her childhood bedroom, in her grandmother’s house.
The syringe.
She saw it in her peripheral vision—that flash of metal and glass as he brought it around. Quinn tried to twist away, throwing her weight to the side, bucking like a wild animal.
But his grip was iron.
The needle bit into her arm, sliding through skin and muscle with a sharp sting that made Quinn gasp.
Then fire.
Whatever was in that syringe spread through her veins like liquid flame, burning its way from the injection site outward in waves. Her arm. Her shoulder. Her chest.
Quinn’s vision started to blur, the edges going soft and fuzzy like she was looking through frosted glass.
Her limbs went heavy. So heavy. Her fingers that had been clawing at the quilt went slack. Her legs, which had been kicking, went still.
No. No no no no—
She tried to fight but her body wasn’t responding. Wasn’t working. The disconnect between her brain screaming at her to move and her muscles refusing was terrifying in a way Quinn had never experienced.
She was trapped inside her own body, a prisoner in flesh that no longer obeyed her commands.
The man’s face swam above her, the ski mask making him look inhuman—just those cold, dark eyes staring down at her, assessing.
“Wheeler sends his regards,” he said.
His voice echoed strangely, like he was speaking from far away, like Quinn was underwater and he was on the surface.
The room was spinning now. Or maybe Quinn was spinning. She couldn’t tell anymore.
The ceiling. The water stain that looked like Italy. The shadows from the streetlight.
All of it tilting and whirling and fading.
Her grandmother’s face appeared in her mind—those blue eyes so much like Quinn’s own. Be brave, Quinny.
Dax’s face. His voice. I love you.
Her father’s smile from the video. Make him pay.
And then everything went dark.