Chapter 42
Seph
I froze. My whole body went still, like my off switch had flipped.
On the couch sat Jess, her arms wrapped around her knees, guards standing like statues around her.
“Jess. Are you—are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She tried for a smile, but her eyes flicked to the guards. “They let me out and I came straight here, but—”
“No one hurt you?” I stepped forward before I could stop myself.
“Of course not, Persephone. What an idea,” Gideon drawled, dripping contempt. I shot him a glare, instinctive and sharp.
Jess ignored him. “I’m fine. I’m sorry, Seph. I didn’t know he’d be here. I would have warned you.”
Gideon walked the perimeter like he was inspecting a crime scene. His expression twisted as he touched the wall, rubbed his fingers together, and found something to dislike.
“So,” he said. “This is where they put you. And with the Firestarter who killed a child.” His lip curled. “I’ll be having a conversation with Warden Wild about this lapse in judgment.”
“Hey!” Jess snapped.
Gideon didn’t even bother looking at her. He stepped around her like she was something he might accidentally tread in.
“It’s just a room, Father,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I’m fine here. With Jess. I don’t care where I sleep.”
“That was acceptable,” he said coldly, “when no one knew who you were. We were all fine. And then you had to tell them, didn’t you?”
I hadn’t. But what was the point? He wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“Why are you here, Father?”
Gideon didn’t answer. He just flicked his fingers toward the guards. “Come. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Seph—” Jess rose slightly, watching him with open disgust. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“I—”
“Of course not,” Gideon cut in, derision dripping. The idea seemed to physically repulse him.
Jess’s glare could have scorched the walls. “I was talking to Seph,” she said flatly.
Two guards shifted, hands inching toward their weapons.
“No!” I blurted. “It’s fine. I’m… I’m okay, Jess.”
“Seph—”
I forced a bright smile, too sharp at the edges. “If the guys come here—I think the guards are watching them—tell them I’m safe. And okay. Please.”
Jess didn’t believe me. But she nodded anyway.
Gideon scowled, like the mere exchange offended him.
“Fine,” she muttered under her breath.
“Come along, Persephone.” Gideon turned toward the door. “I do not enjoy this room. There’s something about it…”
A warm presence flickered near my ear.
Echo.
I wished I could reach out and soothe her. She was terrified for me—I could feel it pulsing through the air like a second heartbeat.
Across from me, behind my father, a pen rose, pointed like a dagger. She aimed it for my father’s back.
I lifted my hand low, twisting so I stepped between it and him.
The pen struck me between the shoulder blades. I winced at the impact.
My father caught the sound with a scowl.
“What are you doing?” he growled.
“Just getting my coat,” I said, covering smoothly as I grabbed my jacket from the couch.
He didn’t even notice Echo.
Good.
Father straightened, and the guards moved at once, opening the door. I followed him out, head down, avoiding every pair of eyes on me.
I felt the stares anyway.
And I knew exactly what he was doing.
Parading me like property.
Making sure everyone saw whose I was — so they wouldn’t touch me.
Each step felt like walking toward a sentence already decided.
He finally stopped at a large office overlooking the flower garden behind the building. Sunlight streamed through an entire wall of windows, catching on the hulking mahogany desk in the centre.
Gideon stepped inside and leaned against the desk, his gaze dragging over me from head to toe.
I stayed where I was, arms folded tight over Ash’s sweatshirt like it was armour and I was already under attack.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I echoed.
Gideon nodded once, like something had just been confirmed in his mind.
“I’m assuming, from the recent communication, that things have not gone well here.”
“You could say that,” I replied flatly.
“I hear you’ve been spending time with the wrong people,” his voice sharpened. “Is that why you went out of your way to get my attention? Is that why you’ve embarrassed me yet again?”
The anger hit so fast it almost knocked me off balance.
“Embarrassed you?”
“Do you know how much money I had to spend to get you out of this mess?” he snapped. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? Jesus Christ, Persephone, I knew it was a mistake letting you leave the house. You can’t just follow instructions. You can’t just do what you’re told!”
“I was attacked, Father!” My voice cracked open, raw and furious. “Lured into the woods and beaten. For what? For breathing? For being a Quinn?”
“You are not a Quinn!” he roared.
The words hit me harder than Ollie’s fists.
Gideon stepped forward, eyes blazing. “Real Quinns do not behave the way you do.”
Something in my chest went cold.
Hollow.
Fractured.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out at first.
Then, softly:
“That’s the part you hate the most, isn’t it? That I’m a part of you. That I came from you.”
“I don’t know where you came from,” Gideon said, his voice thinning with something that almost sounded like exhaustion. “I don’t know why you had to be so… different.”
A blade slipped under my ribs.
I forced my chin up. “A father should love their children regardless.”
“Love?” He barked a bitter laugh. “You want to speak to me about loving a child after what you did to Sable?”
Ice swept through my veins. “I did nothing to her.”
His eyes hardened into stone. “It’s your fault she’s dead. It’s because of you.”
I stumbled back and hit the wall.
The air punched out of me.
How did he still have this power?
How could I not shut him out?
“And not just that, Persephone…” Gideon stepped closer, each word a deliberate strike. “The night Sable came for you, she wasn’t alone. Someone broke into our house and stole files. My files.”
I blinked, confused. “What files—?”
“I need to show you something.” Gideon’s tone was flat, clinical. “Security footage. From our own system. They knew exactly where the cameras were — except one.”
He gestured to a guard, who stepped forward and slid a small thumb drive into the computer monitor on the desk.
The screen lit up.
Our house appeared — the lounge.
Mother on the couch with Beth, watching TV.
Then three men, dressed head to toe in black, burst into the room and opened fire.
I watched the guards fall.
One.
Then another.
Then the last.
Mother screamed as she was thrown to the floor. One of the men kicked her — vicious, careless.
Beth was hurled into a wall and knocked out cold.
Then the men ransacked the place quickly and were gone within seconds, like they had known exactly where to look.
My stomach twisted.
“Father—”
“Don’t interrupt.” His voice cracked like a whip. “More were stolen from Phillip just the other day. Do you want to know what was inside those files, Persephone? Data. Samples. Tests. From you.”
“From me?” The words barely made it out.
“How do you think those ferals are being created?” Gideon’s eyes burned with a hatred so sharp it made my skin crawl. “They’re using my research to do it. Those villages, all those attacks—”
He stepped closer, towering over me.
“—it’s all because of you.”
The world tilted.
My vision blurred.
I felt the wall at my back, but it didn’t feel real anymore.
“No,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he hissed. “All. Because. Of. You.”
I stared at him. Something inside me shifted—hardened, or maybe shattered so cleanly it left only steel behind. Because I straightened. Because I finally stood against him instead of beneath him.
“You’re blaming me for this?”
“There is no one else, Persephone. Only you.”
The disgust in his eyes was so sharp it made me feel physically sick.
“You couldn’t just fade away, could you?” he went on, voice tightening. “You had to be different. You had to kill that boy. Do you know his father is on the council? He wants answers. What am I supposed to tell him, Persephone? That my daughter murdered another child in a tantrum?”
“Murdered? I didn’t murder—”
“No more!” He raised his hand, silencing me like I was an unruly dog. “No more back talk. I’m done with you, Persephone.”
He slumped into the chair behind the desk, as if the weight of me was what exhausted him.
I couldn’t help it—I stepped toward him.
“Do you see me, Father?” I asked.
“What?” he snapped. “What a stupid question.”
But he still wouldn’t look at me.
“Look at me,” I said again, lower, steadier.
He kept rearranging things on the desk, shifting papers, straightening pens—anything to avoid my face.
Anything to pretend I wasn’t his.
I took another step.
“Goddamn it, Father—look at me!”
Gideon spun, fury snapping across his face. He glared at me.
Good.
I met his gaze and lifted my shirt.
“You want to know what Ollie did to me in those woods? You want to know why my power reacted the way it did? Then look at me.”
My stomach was a storm of bruises and welts—sick, spreading colours of pain. One whole side had gone nearly black.
I stripped off Ash’s sweatshirt and peeled away my gloves.
The needle tracks on my forearms stood out stark under the fluorescent lights. Some still red. Some white and puckered. The scars along my fingers were jagged—gifts from potions that tore me apart from the inside out while he took notes.
My whole body was a map of the things done to me.
“You did this,” I said, my voice steady in a way that didn’t feel human. “Not me. You. You made me this way because you couldn’t accept who I was.”
“What—what, a null?” he sneered.
But something flickered in his eyes.
Guilt.
Or maybe I only wanted it to be guilt.
Maybe I was imagining it, the way a starving person imagines food.
“No,” I whispered. “Your daughter. I’m your daughter.”
For the first time in my life, something broke across Gideon Quinn’s expression.
A flicker.
A shimmer.
Grief.
“My daughter died months ago,” he said quietly. “You—” his voice curdled, hardening again “—you’re just a problem. One I finally have a solution to.”
My stomach dropped.
Cold.
Hollow.
Final.
“So what will it be this time?” My voice shook. “Are you going to lock me up again? Is that it?” I was tired. Drained. Scared.
He shook his head, voice soft in a way that felt like another trap. “Not this time. No. Phillip has made me an offer I think will work for everyone. I’m transferring your care to him. Permanently.”
“Permanently? No!”
I stumbled back, panic clawing up my throat.
Gideon simply stood and sighed, as though I were an inconvenience. “He can help you, Persephone. He can help you control it. Properly.”
“He’s going to turn me into a lab rat!”
“Better in here than out there with people, don’t you think?” His tone sharpened, slicing through me. “Tell me the truth, Persephone. Do you honestly think someone like you should be out in public? With people?”
“Father, please. Please don’t do this. Don’t give me to him.”
A knock sounded on the door. Gideon sagged slightly, like the performance of caring had exhausted him. “It’s already done. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” My voice broke. “You aren’t sorry!”
I scanned the room wildly.
There—the window.
It was open only a sliver, but I could fit. I knew I could. I sprinted toward it, Ash’s loose sweatshirt flaring around me.
I had only just reached the frame when hands seized me from behind.
“Whatever you do, don’t touch her skin!” Dr Marr barked.
I clawed at the window.
I kicked.
I dragged myself toward the air, toward the sky, toward anything that wasn’t this room.
They were too strong.
So I did the only thing left to me.
I screamed.
“Ash! SY! DEV! HELP ME! HELP ME—!”
The wind caught my voice and tore it from my throat, carrying it out, away, please let them hear—
Something slammed into the back of my skull.
Air vanished.
The world tilted—
And everything went dark.