“Go to hell,” she snarled.
“I told you I’d find you,” he said again.
“I told you . . .”
“I told you . . .”
“I told you . . .”
Sara came awake with a start—she was alone in the bed.
Some dreams she forgot before she ever woke.
Some dreams lingered with her for days. She wasn’t entirely sure which one this was. A jumbled mess of images bounced around in her mind and she slowly forced her body upright. Various aches and pains made themselves known and she grimaced. The muscles in her legs screamed at her and between her thighs, she was swollen and sore.
It was dim in the room, only the faintest light seeping in from under the curtains. There was one wall sconce on, the light so faint it served no purpose other than illuminating the way should somebody need to make a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. She squinted at the clock on the bedside table and blanched as she realized it was past ten.
Shit. She should already be on a train, heading to New Mexico by now.
Pushing her hair back from her face, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. That was when she saw Quinn.
He was standing at the door, his back resting against it.
She swallowed the yelp that tried to come free and made herself smile. “Hey.”
He didn’t respond.
It was quiet in the room, one of those awful, weighted silences. She hated it. Frowning, she reached out and grabbed the blanket, wrapping it around herself. “The silent treatment is starting to piss me off, Quinn.”
He shrugged. “I asked you some questions earlier and you wouldn’t answer them.”
“I can’t.” Or at least, she wasn’t supposed to . . . but she could, and she wanted to, and if he’d just stop acting so fucking weird . . .
“Maybe if I give you an idea on where to you start, it might be easier for you to answer those questions.”
His voice sounded almost normal. Her heart skipped a beat. Seeking out his face in the dim room, she strained to pick up some kind of clue. Some kind of warmth. Tell him—
It was time. That was for damn sure.
She licked her lips and tried to figure out where in the hell to start.
He reached out and hit the light switch. She flinched at the sudden brightness, turning her head away. That was when she saw it. A piece of paper sitting on the little bedside table. It had several creases on it, like it had been folded up for a while.
Dread flooded her. Blood roared in her ears as she stared at the paper. It looked so innocuous—something she could tear to shreds, something she could set a match to and it would be gone in seconds.
A piece of paper and just the sight of it made her gut clench. She recognized the picture immediately. One very similar to it had been carried in her wallet for ages. It had been two years since she’d seen that image the last time.
She skimmed the brief paragraphs on the page, the blood in her veins turning to ice. Her heart went crashing down to her feet and suddenly, Quinn’s bizarre behavior didn’t seem so bizarre.
Sure hoped you remembered to pay Theresa her rent before you split.
We shouldn’t do this.
You shouldn’t do this.
You can’t be mine.
There was a laugh bubbling up in her throat, hysterical laughter, the kind that too easily turned to tears. Closing her eyes, she thought silently, You fucking moron.
But she didn’t know if it was directed at him . . . or at her.
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