Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
QUENTIN
A feeling of agony tore through me, as if a steamroller had crushed my soul multiple times. Each breath brought an ache to my chest.
“Fuck!” I yelled, running my fingers through my hair for the umpteenth time. I hadn’t left my bed since the night Anora left me, which was three days ago. I’d thrown on a pair of sweats and flopped on my back. The ceiling had been the only thing I’d looked at in thirty-six hours.
The insomnia I’d been dealing with since Leila died was rearing its ugly head more than ever. Flashes of my beautiful little moon went through my head. Every single time I blinked, I saw the hurt and confusion on her face as the dots connected and the ugly truth came to the surface.
It was one thing to spill my guts about the things I liked to do in the cloak of darkness, but it was another for her to find out about the murder of a man whom she’d gone out with. I don’t think there would have been a right moment to explain that to her, but I knew I would have, eventually. Instead, the truth pummeled her all at once.
I’d tried my best to come up with some way to get her back, or at least to speak to me. But every time I came up with something, it didn’t seem good enough. Anora deserved the world, and I wanted to give it to her more than anything, but that self-doubt just continued to eat away at me, telling me I wasn’t good enough. That she deserved better than someone like me. I had become a monster in the last several years, and she was a bright light that I so badly didn’t want to dull.
Fuck, I miss you, little moon.
I thought about the night I’d met Anora, and how beautiful she’d looked under the light of the moon. How her silver hair shone despite the darkness surrounding her. She seemed to glow like a fucking goddess. And don’t even get me started on how her eyes sparkled in that same moonlight. Her presence embedded itself forever in my mind, unlikely to ever leave. This woman had me in so deep, yet I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell her.
A memory flashed to the front of my mind of simpler and happier times.
“Look! It’s a full moon,” Leila said as she pointed toward the white spot in the otherwise dark night sky. “The moon shines in the darkness, Quentin. It was made to be cloaked in the shadows, because that’s when it’s the brightest. It’s not scared of the dark; it embraces it.”
I could hear my sister’s voice as the small fragment of memory played in my head. My grandma lived on a large expanse of land, and Leila loved to lay in the meadows. She would look up at the stars and the moon and spout God knew what about zodiac signs and constellations. She was big into all that stuff. She was wise beyond her years, and that moment was just more proof of how much the world was missing out on.
When I thought of what Leila had said, about the moon and the darkness, I thought of Anora. My little moon. She was the bright patch in every bit of darkness that consumed her, and I couldn’t let myself be the one to snuff her out.
So, I had a decision to make. I either had to give up my vengeance mission and become a better person, excel in my tech career, or stay exactly where I was and lose the woman I loved.
The choice should have been simple, but it still felt hard to think of giving up the mission I’d been involved in for so long to avenge my sister. To make sure that nobody else’s sister or brother, aunt or uncle, or mom or dad got taken away from them, either.
But was it up to me? Did I really need to take the entire weight of the world on my shoulders? Would I feel like I wasn’t making a difference in the world if I stopped? Would I be able to stop cold turkey and give up my murderous tendencies?
But I’d already let Anora go and felt absolutely miserable because of it. Was I willing to do it again? Would I survive doing it again? I couldn’t have the best of both worlds, because if I carried out my hits with Anora by my side, it would put her in immediate danger.
I knew she was confused about who I was and what I had done, and I was frustrated at myself for not being able to explain it better to her.
When Leila had died, it felt like I would never be able to put myself back together again. I went through the motions of my day like a zombie, feeling like everything I did was for nothing. My sister was still dead, and the world was still full of evil.
Then one day I started watching old slasher films with Joey and The Arrow TV show, and suddenly it all made sense to me.
If Oliver Queen could bring justice to the world, then why couldn’t I?
Why couldn’t I take the pain away from someone else’s mother, father, brother, or sister who might be feeling the same kind of agony I had suffered over my sister’s murder?
So, I planned, and I plotted, and I found Brendan Parker, and the rest was history. This had been my life for so long now, it felt almost like giving up a part of myself.
But no matter what choice I made, Anora deserved to know where my heart was, and what I’d chosen. I didn’t want to leave her without closure. She deserved at least that much.
With that thought in mind, I threw on a shirt and my shoes, grabbed my keys, and made my way to my car.
* * *
Pulling up to Anora’s apartment building made me feel like I was going to vomit all over my car.
On the outside, my glare could kill with a single look, but inside, an emotional wreck lurked. Years of practice had perfected the art of hiding it. Letting anyone see weakness was not an option. Others might exploit vulnerabilities, so mine remained closely guarded secrets.
Taking the stairs to Anora’s floor gave me time to decide what to say. Yet, standing before her door, words still eluded me.
I took the first step and knocked on the door.
My knuckles rapped against the wood, and I could have sworn the sound echoed, but I could hardly hear it with my heart beating so damn loud. I had never been so anxious in my entire life. Ending the lives of many men had left no emotional impact. Even the first hit after avenging Leila’s murderers hadn’t triggered nerves like this.
But I was nervous standing outside the home of the woman I loved and worried that she wouldn’t answer. Maybe she wouldn’t be here and had run as far away from me as she could. There was nothing holding her down to Portland. She could go anywhere, and I wouldn’t know.
Well, that’s not true. Brendan was a resourceful tracker. There was nothing and no one he couldn’t find.
But with Anora, it felt like a breach of her privacy that I didn’t dare take.
Minutes ticked by and still there was no answer on the other side of the door. I hadn’t paid attention to whether Rory was at our apartment with Joey—even if she was here, I wasn’t sure she’d answer the door for me. I knew Rory and Anora were attached at the hip, so Rory most definitely knew we had broken up. Or at least stopped seeing each other. I refused to believe we weren’t together anymore. I didn’t want to let Anora go, and I didn’t think I ever would.
She was one of the first women I’d ever loved. Anora gave me hope and made me feel like I could be a better person, like all of the darkness swimming inside of me wasn’t the only thing that mattered. That there was more to me than the killing and the blood. She made me believe I could have a different future.
I brought my hand up to knock for the second time when the door swung open. The air left my lungs as I took in the sight of the woman before me.
Anora’s hair, usually long and flowing, was thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head, and not a speck of makeup graced her features, bringing her freckles to the forefront. She was wearing an old, faded horror movie T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and her big, beautiful eyes were rimmed with red.
Fuck.
I hated that I had done this to her. That I’d caused her to be an emotional wreck. I wanted to bring her nothing but happiness and pleasure, not sadness like this.
“Hi, little moon,” I croaked, forgetting everything I had come to say at that moment.
“What do you want, Quentin?” Anora asked, getting straight to the point. The arm that was stretched to hold the door open dropped, and she crossed her hands over her chest. Although the look in her eyes spoke volumes, the tone of her voice oozed distaste at the sight of me.
“I came to talk to you,” I explained, keeping my tone even and not letting her icy stare get to me. I had the urge to laugh; even when she was pissed at me, she still looked so damn cute.
“I don’t have anything to say, Quentin,” she replied. “I thought I made that pretty clear three days ago.”
“You may not have anything to say, but that doesn’t mean I don’t.”
I watched as a flash of shock washed across her face, but it was gone just as fast. Like she didn’t think I’d come to fight for her, and I’d leave willingly and without saying what I needed to.
We both stood there for a moment, staring at each other, neither of us speaking a word, waiting to see which one of us would break first.
I smirked at her, and she huffed out a sigh and moved away from the door. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
I made my way past her, grateful for the short amount of time I had and knowing I was fortunate to get any at all. I knew that this was my one and only chance to make it right.