Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
I held onto that feeling with an iron grip, especially five minutes in when the door opened and Max led in my new lockdown buddy.
“No,” Vivian snapped. “Absolutely not, Max. I’m serious.”
“And I don’t give a fuck. These are the rules. You didn’t want to be in lockdown, you should’ve thought about that out there.”
I peeked over the rim of the bathtub.
Vivian had planted her feet in the doorway, and she had her arms braced on the frame.
“Maybe I’m not being clear. No, that can’t possibly be it, so your ears must be clogged by your ego.
I am not going in there!” she shrieked, and then gritted her teeth and fought as Max tried nudging her into the bathroom. “Max, stop it!”
“Vivian, just quit being a brat,” Max growled. “I get it. You’re special and shouldn’t be treated like everyone else. Except you’re not and this is part of this.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole!”
My eyebrows rose because despite Max’s best effort to get her inside, Vivian refused to let go of the doorframe. How she’d gripped it to keep from being pushed inside, I had no idea. I assumed Max wasn’t trying that hard to force her, but still.
She really didn’t want to come in here.
Rolling my eyes and projecting my shit onto her, I called out from the tub. “We’re not allowed to speak to each other, if that helps.”
“This isn’t about you, Quinn,” Vivian growled.
Max shot me a puzzled glance over her head.
I shrugged and rested my head back against the rim of the tub again. Still able to see them if I wanted.
“No, Max. You can’t—” Her words ground out between clenched teeth, and a squeak told me her foot had just hit the tile. “Max, please!”
“What the fuck, V? If you don’t want to play along, then don’t. Say the magic words and you can leave.”
It took me a second to realize he meant our safe words. She could say I yield and get out of it, which meant quitting the trial over something like this. It would affect her total score for the Courage Challenge, and her ranking in the next.
“You know I can’t do that, Max!”
“Then get inside.”
She snapped her head in his direction, and light from the bedroom streaked across her face. The icy glare I’d been expecting wasn’t there, and I sat up higher in the tub. My eyes narrowed on her face.
Wide eyes. Sweat at her temples.
Rapid breathing.
Whether Max noticed it or not, I wasn’t sure. He had his eyes fixed over her head, one finger pointing at the shower stall in the back left corner of the bathroom. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her face.
Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she snapped her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut. The loudest alarm bell in my head was that Vivian did all this in front of me. I had no idea what she and Max were like around each other, but an adversary? Knowing I was right there?
But she still didn’t care.
She straightened her spine and forced her shoulders back, and I almost said something to Max. But she spun on her heels, saw my mouth opening, and shot out a warning.
“Don’t.”
Something in her tone overpowered the need to ignore an order from her, so I stayed silent. When Max eyed me, the quizzical look returning now that he refocused on me, I shook my head. Because I genuinely had no idea.
Vivian slammed the shower door so hard the glass rattled.
Max’s brow drew in, but he gestured over his shoulder, attempting to reassure me or himself before he left. “I’m right outside the door, if…”
“Oh fuck off, Max. She’ll be fine.”
He scrutinized her for a second, looked to me for a nod, and then left the bathroom.
I stayed quiet once the door shut, as Vivian shuffled around in the shower stall and found a comfortable place to sit. As soon as she did, she got up again. Trying a different spot in the tight space.
Nothing helped.
My attention fixed on her breathing.
It grew tighter. The pace quickening the longer she searched for comfort she knew she wouldn’t find.
I recognized it. I’d experienced it so many times, and it could only be one thing.
But I couldn’t pinpoint what had triggered her panic.
When a stifled moan escaped her, I sat up fully and searched for her outline in the shower stall, but it was too dark to see her from the bathtub in the middle of the room.
So, I climbed out of the tub slowly. Sliding my feet forward instead of taking steps. I moved with my arms extended until I bumped into where I’d guesstimated the shower stall should be against the back left wall.
Fumbling in the dark, I searched for the handle.
“What are you doing?” she croaked. “Go away, Quinn.”
She retreated to the far corner of the stall, the slide of cotton against the tile rustling as she sank down to the floor. When I stepped inside the shower, she snapped again.
“God, is this what you see in each other? Neither of you can hear when people speak?”
I ignored her jab because right now, she reminded me of a dog chained and snapping at anyone who came near it. She wasn’t trying to be a bitch. She was…protecting herself.
“Vivian, are you claustrophobic? Is that why this is freaking you out?”
She scoffed.
“Trade places with me. Take the tub.”
Her head snapped up so hard she hit the tile wall behind it. “Fuck.” She sniffled, and when I got closer to her, I sensed the movement as she shook her head. “I don’t want your help.”
Language mattered. Words had meaning. So I picked up on what she didn’t say.
“Yeah, but…I’m the only one here. And you need it.”
I held out my hand in front of her, sticking it out carefully so I didn’t smack her in the face. Accidentally.
I wasn’t a monster.
She didn’t take it, of course.
But she did resign herself to my insistence on helping her, and she pushed up to stand. “Fine. But I don’t owe you anything for this.”
My brow furrowed. “I never said you did.”
She stepped past me, moving carefully until she left the stall and slid into the tub. I didn’t expect a thank you, which was good because she didn’t give me one. And as we waited out the remainder of my time, I wondered what had happened to her.
Her breathing had slowed, but it still wasn’t normal.
Even in the tub, being in the dark bathroom was enough to trigger her. And the light blasting through the open door, as soon as Max came to get me, only made it worse.
She stared at the path to freedom like she’d been stuck in a desert for days and that was the first sign of water.
I had no idea what she’d do when that door closed and she was alone.
Max barked at Vivian. “What are you doing in there?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but then sealed it shut.
I stepped up to the glass door, facing Max without opening it. “I made her move. I thought she might keep banging on the glass, and I didn’t want it to break so…”
Max narrowed his eyes on my face, picking up on my bullshit lie immediately, but he nodded like it made perfect sense. He waved a hand as if releasing me from the shower stall. “Time’s up. You’re free to join your gang.”
“I like it here.”
“What?”
This came from both Max and Vivian.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not leaving. I’m not ready to deal with Elaine yet, and you’ll just end up throwing me right back in here, anyway, so. Just…get me when you come back for her.”
My eyes pleading with him to let it go, I breathed a small sigh of relief when he shook his head. I practically heard the word women filter through his mind.
But he threw his hands up and turned around.
Pursing my lips, I waited until he left to sit back down.
“You don’t owe me for that, either. Just so you know. But…if you wanted to distract me from my Elaine rage, you could tell me what I missed after I got thrown in here?”
Vivian stayed silent for so long, I assumed she wouldn’t take me up on my offer. But after another minute or two, she swallowed and started talking.
“Everyone had to start in their cells. They said they’d let us into the common area in twenty minutes, but they pulled out that creep early. He came around to all our cells, taunting us with information and how to get out.”
“That creep? You mean the one they called Silk?”
She scoffed. “God, I can just hear the joke that asshole made about his sheets when he picked that name. Silk sheets. The ladies love them. Something especially lame like that.”
I huffed a quiet laugh, unable to stop myself. Then I waited, hoping she’d give more information, but I had my suspicions about who it was because there was only one person here I’d heard make gross jokes. And inform everyone at the Honor Ceremony that Vivian refused to put out . “You mean Ben.”
“Don’t even speak that asshole’s name to me.”
The venom in her tone surprised me, but it wasn’t directed at me, even if her words had been.
“Okay, so…forget about him. What was the information you got on what we’re supposed to do?”
She huffed and thought over whether she wanted to share more before ultimately deciding to. I guessed she favored the idea of helping me over sitting in pitch-black silence.
Which, again, only increased my concern.
“When we have time in the common area, we’re supposed to plan with our group.
Everyone needs to either find a way out of our cells or find a way to escape when we’re all released in the shared space.
But they barely gave us more than that. And our helpful fellow inmate said the lowly prisoners like us only escape if they can give him what he wants.
One thing. We have to figure out what it is. ”
She made a sound of disgust and fell silent.
“That’s it?”
“I mean, it’s more than you had two minutes ago, so.”
I conceded her point. “True. You could be lying to me, for all I know, so I might be at square one either way.”
“I could be, but I’m not.”
“And what? I’m just supposed to trust you? Assume honor means anything to you because you made it through six days with some prick you probably avoided without even having to try?” I huffed. “Give me a break.”
“I don’t care what you think!” she snapped, her voice rising to a pitch I hadn’t expected. “Even then, you can do the opposite of what I said, if you’re that worried about it. Try to get through the challenge without giving him what he wants, for all I care. Go ahead and lose.”
Ignoring the bait, I mulled over what Silk had told her, my nose wrinkling each time I thought his name.
While I went over it in my head, Vivian breathed quietly, the pace still a little fast, but—surprise, surprise—lashing out at me had calmed her down a bit.
A few minutes later, she broke the silence. “Are you…” A forced puff of air came next, and I pictured her snapping her mouth shut and seething while her nostrils flared. “You better not tell anyone about this.”
I arched a brow, frowning at her implication, even though she couldn’t see it. “Why would I?”
“Oh, please. Like you wouldn’t jump at the chance to knock me down a few pegs after what I did to you?”
My brow rising higher, I shook my head as I realized she honestly believed that. I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t wanted to do it. Knock her down a few pegs.
But I wouldn’t broadcast someone’s trauma.
Not even hers.
Except...Vivian hadn’t questioned it.
As if everything in her world came down to a tit-for-tat mentality. One I never would’ve understood until Kingston had shared more about their world with me. If someone did something nice or helped her, did she automatically assume she’d owe them for it?
If someone knew her weaknesses, she seemed to genuinely believe they’d exploit that.
Maybe because she’d do the same.
Or maybe, thinking of what Izzy had shared with me, because of what she’d been shown.
That just made me… sad for her.
Had she never even had one friend who didn’t keep score? And what about her parents? Was that how they always were with her? Or, worse, were they like Kingston’s father?
Izzy had given the impression that her mother was hard on her, but how much further did it go than that?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
But Kingston had seemed puzzled by her motivations and intentions, so a part of me wanted to figure her out. I satisfied the war in my mind by declaring it was because of that.
Knowing my enemy was smart, that was all.
I needed to figure out what she was hiding, so I could make sure she didn’t get in our way.
That was it.
Wasn’t it?
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to think about it for long because Landon came to release us. And I didn’t know how to explain the unsettling feeling in my gut as Vivian scrambled from the tub and rushed out into the main area.
When it was just him and me, Landon arched a brow, and I shrugged.
“You okay?”
He stepped back to let me pass, holding out his hand.
But I didn’t move.
“Don’t put her back in here alone.”
“What—?”
“Just trust me. And know that if she comes in here, I’m coming, too. So, if you want me to win, keep us both out.”
“Quinn—”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
Landon searched my features, blowing out a breath before he finally nodded. “I can’t help you win without impacting you in the long run, so I’ll do my best, but I can make sure you’re brought with her if she gets put back in here.”
Though it was possible I’d regret it, I nodded. “Thank you.”
He pulled me into his arms for a quick hug, dropping a kiss on my head before releasing me.
And since I didn’t want to lose over a bleeding fucking heart, I went out to meet my group with my head firmly in the game.