Chapter 33
Quinn
Ithought I was dreaming. My body—if I even had a body—felt heavy. Sometimes, I thought I opened my eyes, getting flashes of bright lights in the darkness. Sometimes, I opened my eyes and it was just dark: a consuming, crushing dark.
And the cold. It was so, so cold. Like I’d floated to the very bottom of the ocean and was living where no warmth or light touched.
I got whiffs of something sharp and damp. But every time my nose wrinkled or I tried to place the smell, my thoughts floated away again.
In my dream, I saw Graham—his smile, the feel of his soft hair in my hands and his skin beneath my fingertips.
But then, the dreams changed. They always changed.
To a spring day and a crushing weight on top of me.
To the smell of that man.
To my muffled screams.
Then I saw Mara’s face, heard her muttered voice.
Mara.
There was something about Mara, but I couldn’t remember.
I needed to wake up, but every time I thought I was finally awake, it was just another dream. Another nightmare where unknown hands were pulling me, crushing me, hurting me.
It wasn’t until I saw my brother’s face that the raw fear hit me.
I didn’t often dream about him. In the beginning, he visited me often while I slept. But then…it became too painful to see his face even there.
When his body materialized through the flickering darkness, I wanted to cry.
“Austin?” I called for him, reaching out my hand, but he was too far away to touch.
He was always too far away.
His form was vivid, though. Stark against the darkness, his body almost glowing around the edges.
“You have to wake up, Quinn,” he said.
The sound of his voice almost broke me. I hadn’t heard it in so long. I’d almost forgotten it. The smooth cadence was reminiscent of our father’s, but softer, more caring.
I wanted to say something to him, but no words came out of my mouth when I opened it.
Austin tilted his head, and that slightly mischievous grin—the one I knew so well and missed more than anything—pulled up his lip.
“I miss you—” he started to say, but I blinked and he was gone. Vanished like wisps of smoke in the night.
I screamed.
Or…I wanted to scream. I wanted him to stay. He had been gone for so long.
Wake up…
I finally opened my eyes. This time I knew it was real, because the pain was setting in. My eyes stung, dry and scraping against my eyelids as I looked around. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.
Then the smell hit me—old hay, dust, something sharp and metallic—and my stomach dropped. Early morning light filtered through the holes in the roof—thin, fractured beams cutting through the dimness. A barn.
An old one.
Empty stalls lined the walls. Scattered, molding hay covered the uneven floor. My back was pressed against the rough wood of one of the support posts. Panic fluttered up my chest as the rest of the pain rushed in.
My shoulders felt like they were on fire.
My hands were numb, tingling violently as they were bound behind my back around the pole.
Every time I shifted, pain shot up my arms so sharp it stole my breath.
A rope was wrapped around my chest, pinning me secure against the beam.
My neck throbbed, head swimming. My brain felt full and heavy, like it was stuffed with cotton.
Even if I weren’t tied up, I wasn’t sure I could stand.
I wasn’t sure I could even crawl.
Blinking hard, I tried to clear the blur from my vision. Colors smeared and edges wavered. I dragged in a shaky breath and forced myself to look around again.
That’s when I saw her.
Mara sat about ten feet away, perched on an old, overturned bucket. Her red coat looked almost cheerful against the muted browns of the barn. She blinked at me, tilting her head to the side like a curious child.
“Are you awake now?” she asked softly, as if this were the most natural conversation in the world.
I stared back, every muscle in my body wanting to run as it sensed the imminent danger. I shivered, the cold sinking in. It was freezing. My heart lurched into overdrive, pumping so fast another wave of dizziness hit me.
I tried to stay calm, but my breaths stuck in my lungs. Nausea rolled through me, and I swallowed against the saliva that flooded my mouth, my throat somehow parched despite that.
“Your eyes kept fluttering open, and you kept mumbling so…I didn’t know if you were finally awake for real,” Mara continued.
I fought back another wave of nausea. When I opened them again, Mara was still patiently waiting.
“What—” I tried to say. My voice was nothing but a whispering rasp.
I tried to clear my throat, and pain reverberated down my spine.
My entire body rebelled against the subtle jostle of it.
I stared down at my lap. I was filthy and wet, my jeans caked in dirt and mud.
There were tears in the fabric and I was missing a shoe, like I had literally been dragged to wherever we were. Maybe I had been.
I tried to speak again, and this time, I managed a crackling murmur. “What happened, Mara?” I didn’t want to sound accusing, even though the memories were starting to surface. Mara had come to me in the library. She had given me some hot chocolate while I waited for Graham—
I jerked upright at the thought of him, crying out at the pain that followed the motion.
Graham.
I looked wildly around me, at the sunlight filtering in through the cracks and holes in the siding of the barn.
Sun.
It had been evening when I was in the library. Had I been here all night?
Reeling, my eyes fell again on Mara. She frowned at me.
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” Mara said, and I stiffened at what sounded like genuine regret. “But I didn’t have another choice. I tried. I really did, but things were just getting worse.” Her voice cracked. “You aren’t good for him. You have to know that.”
It felt as if a knife had lodged between my ribs. I blinked at Mara, trying to comprehend what she was talking about. Nothing made sense.
“Why did you—where are we? Why am I tied up?”
Mara’s sympathy ebbed like the tide, leaving behind a craggy indifference with an undercurrent of rage. “I have to protect him, Quinn. He deserves to have someone look out for him.”
I gritted my teeth as another pulse of pain rippled through me. My entire body ached sharply; my wrist and arms and shoulders screamed. I tried to recall what she’d said in the library, what we’d been talking about while I drank that hot chocolate.
The hot chocolate.
“You drugged me,” I said, the truth dawning.
Mara lifted her shoulder. “I had to get you away somehow. My grandma had some sleeping medication that worked really well.” She raised her brows, like she was impressed with herself.
I wanted to be sick.
I wanted to cry.
But I didn’t do either of those things. I fixed her with a stare. “You need to let me go.”
Mara’s expression darkened. She folded her arms over her chest. She wore a winter coat and gloves, and I longed for how warm she looked. I had nothing but my ripped jeans and sweatshirt. It did nothing to keep out the cold. I shivered, almost convulsing.
“I cannot,” she snapped. “You don’t get it.”
“What—” I swallowed a gasp as I shifted against the beam. “What don’t I understand, Mara?”
Mara’s eyes narrowed. Then, she reached for something behind her, and my entire world shifted as unbridled terror shot through me. My body went numb.
Mara placed a gun on her lap. A heavy, metal pistol that looked like something out of a movie. But I had seen enough weapons in my life. As a defense attorney, there was never any shortage of them in evidence.
It was very real. Very lethal.
She stroked the barrel with a fingertip like it was a beloved pet. “What has Graham told you about me?” she asked, her tone light, as if she wasn’t holding a gun and me hostage.
My muscles trembled, fresh adrenaline pumping through me. I needed to run. To get out of here. But my wrists were bound so tight behind the beam. Something sharp and hard dug into my skin, making warm blood seep down my hands.
“I—not much,” I confessed.
The tops of her cheeks flared pink.
Before she could say anything, I continued, “But Graham doesn’t talk about people like that. He keeps people’s secrets.”
Some of the angry flush faded as she blinked. “Yes,” she mused, her eyes darting away for a moment. “You’re right, he does. He is trustworthy.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I breathed. “He is.”
When she looked back at me, her expression was strangely blank. “I haven’t always lived at the library with my grandmother,” she said, her voice softer. “I was married once. I thought…” She let out an empty, haunted laugh. “I thought I was happy. That I was so lucky.”
Her expression soured, her lip curling over her teeth. “But he wasn’t my hero. He took me away from my home, from my friends and my…family. He started hurting me, and when I was finally ready to leave and escape…”
She trailed off, her eyes going glassy. She stayed like that, silent and gazing off into nowhere for so long I wondered whether she was going to ever continue.
But she did.
“My father and my sister came one day. He was supposed to be at work and they were going to help me pack and bring me back home. But he—he had known. I don’t know how.
Maybe he was monitoring my communication somehow, but he knew.
” She shivered, even in that thick, red coat.
“He was waiting. When my dad and sister got there, he came back to the house.”
She looked back down at the gun in her lap. Her fingertips trembled as she touched the grip. “He killed my father first. Shot him in the chest three times.”
I flinched. Despite being tied here and helpless, at her mercy, my heart broke.
“Then he killed my sister,” she let out a sigh—a heavy, grief laden breath of air, “and when he pointed the gun at me, I begged him to kill me.” She blinked back tears.
“It was too much, and I didn’t want to walk out of there without my family.
He pointed the gun at me, and I knew I was going to die. ” She closed her eyes.
My heart raced, fear and pity for her coursing through me.
“Then the gun went off.” She opened her eyes; they were hard with malice so potent I almost tasted it on my tongue. “He didn’t shoot me,” she spat. “He killed himself instead.”
My mouth gaped. “Oh, Mara,” I breathed. Her devastation hit me square in the chest. The horror of it. “I’m so sorry.”
She ignored me.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go after that, and the only family left was my grandma. So, I came to Ember Hollow. I worked in the library and I—I met Graham.” Her stony face went soft when she said his name.
My stomach twisted.
“Graham was always at the library. He was so kind. It was like…like he could see me, see everything shattered inside me and knew what to say to ease the pain.”
I went limp against the beam. I knew that feeling. Knew exactly what she meant.
“We started the survivors group and he—he was always there for me.”
When she looked up at me again, her gaze was so sharp it cut me to the bone. “But then you came.”
“Mara, I didn’t do anything—”
“You did.” She sneered, silencing me. “You distracted him. You took him from me.”
I shook my head despite the pain the movement caused. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes,” she spat. “And you have to know the truth, don’t you?
You are not good for him. You work for monstrous people.
I’ve seen it. I’ve looked up the cases you’ve won.
” Her teeth clashed together. “You help monsters get away with crimes they never should. People like…like the Shadow Stalker. People like my husband.”
I saw it then, the burning hate. The unforgiveness. The disgust.
“If the man who took everything from me hadn’t killed himself, you would’ve defended him.”
Maybe she was right.
A small, exhausted part of my brain agreed with her. Maybe I did deserve to die. I wasn’t good enough for Graham. I never had been.
Maybe I was a monster too.