Quiet Ones (Hellbent Book 3), page 11
I keep climbing up Hill Street, past Finch, and take a right on Lake, the area less populated.
And a little darker.
Lights from houses spill into their yards, and I see kids roasting marshmallows around a firepit, the adults with drinks in their hands.
Such a good town. Such a nice way to live.
I guess that’s what I should think.
Yet, all I can think about are Jared, Madoc, and Jax. They lived here and grew up in nice houses, but they didn’t always have nice people inside. My dad was rich and young and entitled with his first wife.
And my mom took her pain and drowned it in bottle after bottle.
None of this I’m supposed to know, but she made sure I knew exactly what her mistakes cost her.
She wrote her memoir and slipped me a copy years ago. She wanted me to learn through her.
All of them so scared of mistakes, so why am I dying to make one? I’d love to have a secret they’d all disapprove of because I’m tired of being quiet. No one hears my heart beat, least of all me.
I’m so lost in thought as I run that I hear the engine behind me rumble for half a minute before I actually register it.
I glance back, seeing a dark car coming up. Do they know their headlights are off?
I’m on the gravel, off the highway, but I inch over a little more to let the car pass safely.
Seconds pass, then thirty, and I look behind me again, still seeing it back there. Traveling slowly on an empty road, a lone figure in the driver’s seat.
I breathe faster, my mouth going dry. I take out my earbuds and cut right, back into a brighter section of town.
I beat the pavement, my legs burning as I hear the car speed up.
Shit. I glance behind me, seeing it there again. It’s following me?
Running, I make a sharp right down Pine toward Astrophysics. It’s the one place I know is open twenty-four hours.
I charge ahead, reach the gym, and then stop, watching the car tread slowly down the lane I turned. It passes me, and I look, but the windows are tinted enough that I only see the silhouette of someone driving. No one else appears to be in the vehicle.
An old, black two-door. I spy the make on the rear, not needing to read it to recognize the font. My brothers tested me on every family road trip.
Dodge. It’s an old, black Dodge. Maybe ’70s model.
It takes another right when it hits the corner, heading back up Hill Street, and I dash over one more block until I hit my shop. I really don’t want to be alone—I should’ve just gone to the gym—but I can’t bring myself to call my brothers for help. I’d never live it down.
What if I lived in a city with no family? Or I find myself in a situation with no one to help me? I have to deal with things on my own.
I scurry down the alley, unlock my shop as I jerk my head every other second to check for sight of the car, and dive inside. I twist the lock.
I walk across my kitchen, through the door, and into the storefront, looking out the window for any clue that I was followed.
What the hell was that?
I heave breath after breath, feeling like I have a basketball bouncing inside my chest. What would I have done if someone had cornered me alone?
Air pours in and out of my lungs until finally, every muscle it takes to breathe is too tired to keep up the pace, and I force myself to slow down.
I don’t think I should ride my bike home. It’s too far. I could try for an Uber, but this town doesn’t have many. They mostly operate on the weekends.
Shit. I wish I had an e-bike. Jax suggested it last Christmas when he was thinking about what to get me, but I resisted. They’re so expensive.
Dammit.
I could crash in Dylan’s bed since she’s at camp. Her parents’ house is only a block away. I’m sure Jared would love to know I’m tucked in safe behind his locked front door.
I turn to leave—to make a run for his house—but I look up and stop dead in my tracks.
A scream lodges in my throat as I gape at the wall in my shop. Thunder rolls overhead.
The mirror… It’s open.
Quinn
Rain hits the windows like darts, and I jolt, coming out of my trance.
“What the hell…” I breathe out, gaping at the wall mirror that’s open like an actual door.
I pat my leg, feeling for my phone. Quickly, I snatch it out of my leg pocket.
Between this and the scene with the old Dodge, I can’t catch my breath.
I unlock my screen, thinking. Jared? Jax? I could call them. They’re closer.
They’ll overreact, though. There has to be a better option.
Dylan? One of my nephews?
But I scroll my phone, lingering over Lucas’s name.
He would come. Immediately.
I try to push away the suspicion in the back of my mind that it’s just a reason to see him, but it’s not that. I… I just don’t want to ask my family for anything. Before I know what I’m going to say, I dial Lucas.
I hold the phone to my ear, hearing it ring, but as if I’m waking up, I quickly jerk it away from my ear. “Shit.”
I hang up before he answers, even though he’s going to see that I called. I don’t want his help, either. Not after this morning.
Taking a step, I start to move toward the kitchen, but I stop. Someone could be in there. Someone had to open the mirror. Were they going in or coming out?
I could go out the front door, but the car could be out there.
I dial Hawke. He’s the one who made me keep the damn mirror in the first place.
But as the line rings, realization swirls in my head.
He made me keep the mirror...
Actually, he was adamant about it. It’s beautiful…it adds character…a great Instagram shot for customers…
And you have no idea what problems are behind it. Deal with it down the road, he’d said.
My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out any other noise.
He knew about this.
They all knew about this. Kade, Aro, Hunter, Dylan…
Memories surge of the times they just seemed to show up and I hadn’t seen them enter the shop. Or when food would go missing overnight, but I hadn’t gotten a notification of anyone entering on the exterior security cameras.
My mouth falls open as shock and rage flood my chest and head.
The ringing stops, Hawke picking up the line. “You’re up late.”
I just stand there, words on the tip of my tongue, but they’re the wrong words, and I don’t know how to be sly. I’m not like them.
Do I want to call him out?
“Y–yeah,” I stutter. “Sorry.”
I’m not sure a fight is the way I want to go yet. I need to be certain he lied to me.
“Just wanted to touch base before I forget,” I tell him, swallowing to wet my throat. “You seemed to love the mirror in my shop. Do you want it before I donate it? I’m having it removed tomorrow—”
“No, don’t…”
Heat instantly courses through my muscles, and I exhale.
Oh, he knew all right. The whole damn time.
I open my mouth to yell at him, not just because I should’ve known about a secret entrance to my business, but he lied to me. They all lied to me. For how long?
My mind races, going back over the years and knowing they were in and out of the shop while I was away at school, but I just assumed they were being protective and checking on things for me. Or having some fun with the kitchen.
Why didn’t they tell me?
My eyes sting. They didn’t trust me.
“Why shouldn’t I get rid of it?” I ask him.
“It’s…” He pauses, then continues. “It’s a surprise. Your birthday is coming up, so be patient.”
A surprise…
I approach the open mirror, the ache in my chest steeling hard and cold. “Sure.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then asks. “You won’t remove the mirror?”
“Nope.”
There’s a tense silence, and I don’t think his mind is eased. Once we hang up, he’ll probably call Dylan to panic. I might smile if I weren’t so pissed.
I stop at the entrance. “Goodnight,” I say.
“’Night.”
I hang up, Hawke forgotten before I even take the phone away from my ear. If they’ve been in here, then it must be safe.
Heading to the opening, I stop myself just before I put a foot in and peek inside. “Hello?”
A long black tunnel lies before me, and I think I see an opening, but I can’t make out much else. Black walls, dark floor, and it smells like a cave. Wet rock, earth, deep…
I open the flashlight on my phone, shining it inside.
The tunnel is bare and empty, the long walls a black or deep gray. I step inside and spin back around, pulling the door closed and seeing my shop through the two-way mirror.
“Those little shits,” I grit out under my breath.
It’s not a mirror from the inside. It’s a window. I can see everything in the shop. Who comes and goes, who’s working, what’s stocked on the shelves, the register with the cash… But no one out there would be able to see me in here.
Raising my phone, I find the latch on the upper left and secure it, now knowing why the fingerprints I found last night looked like they were made from someone gripping the mirror from behind.
I unlatch it again and open the mirror, making sure I know how to get out. I close it again, just in case one of my family members with keys come in. I turn, light from my phone showing me the way.
My running shoes squeak on the floors as I step down the long corridor, the faint light at the end getting bigger.
I stop at the end, spinning my flashlight to the hallway to my right and back again to the room that spreads before me.
All at once, everything looms—the expanse of the massive space. The ceiling as high as three floors, bigger and taller than my parents’ foyer. The high windows, wet with rain. The rusted, spiral staircase to the far-left corner, leading to a door in the ceiling. The kitchen with half-eaten bags of chips on the counter, and the living room beyond with the massive TV, couches, PlayStation, and liquor bottles on the coffee table. I run my eyes over some Latin words drawn in thick white paint on the back wall. Vivamus moriendum, est.
‘Let us live, since we must die.’
It’s an inscription on some statue at City Hall. I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere else too.
There’s also some diagram with documents, pictures, and writing posted on the brick. Yarn links one idea to the other, creating a web, as if mapping a story.
I don’t know how long I stand there, but it must only be about four seconds because I press my foot to the floor, realizing I stopped mid-step.
But still, I take all that in, fire spitting from my eyes. “Little. Shits.”
They’ve been crashing here.
Hiding out to party and drink and have sex, and they were doing it in high school! I charge into the kitchen, whip open the fridge, seeing all the food. Sandwich stuff, condiments, leftover pizza, beer…
In a matter of minutes, I walk down the hallway, through the workout room and the two bedrooms, seeing clothes, a tube of Aro’s red lipstick in one room and one of Kade’s baseball caps in another. Not to mention a nightstand with at least five empty condom wrappers. I cringe. “Goddammit!”
Barreling out of the room and charging back into the great room, I head up the spiral staircase, open the hatch, and peek out onto my roof.
Or Rivertown’s, I don’t know. I need to find blueprints and see who actually owns this hideout.
I take in the scope of the space and the escape routes, and I descend the stairs, noticing another door. I peek inside, taking in another hallway. At the end is more light, and I make out Rivertown Bar & Grill through a window that I know before I even get there is another mirror just like the one in my shop.
So…
There are three entrances. Two mirrors and a roof hatch.
Is only my family using this space, then? They moved in the exercise equipment, the beds, and the TV. I recognize most of this stuff.
Heading back out to the great room, I scan the event map-slash-timeline they’re puzzling together.
Carnival Tower…
Rivalry Week…
Winslet MacCreary…
I knew Hawke was researching the urban legends. This must be home base. I shake my head, turning my eyes away.
I start to walk out. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. My gut wants to react. Call them all and start screaming, but then what?
I pass the kitchen counter, heading to the hallway that leads back to my shop, but I put my hand on the cover of a book I don’t remember seeing when I passed by here just a minute ago.
The brown leather is soft and flimsy, like a journal, and I can tell before I open it that the paper is old. The edges are yellowed and tattered. I pick it up, seeing a thin gap inside, as if something is stuck between the pages.
I look around the hideout again. I remember smoothing my hand over this counter when I came in. Was this sitting here then? Shit, I don’t remember. I was high on adrenaline.
“Hello?” I call out. “Hello?”
No answer.
Flipping it open, the pages immediately spread to where a photograph sits. I lift it out, staring at a young blonde. She sits on the edge of a bed, I think. The headboard rests behind her, her bare arms stretched in front of her, just covering her naked torso. I can’t see anything else of her. Long locks drape in her eyes, and a pink neon light casts a glow on her hair from somewhere behind.
I narrow my eyes, studying her. She kind of looks like me.
I turn the picture over.
Don’t look at me like that. You make me wanna die.
-M
Who’s M? Not Madoc.
I fan through the pages, looking for a name, but there’s so much writing, it’s so small, and I can’t make out anything. The writing looks different in the journal versus on the back of the picture, though.
I stick the photo back inside, but her eyes catch me before I close the book. I stop, gazing at her hair too long until I feel my own tickling my cheek. And the soft lips as if they’re mine, swollen from a thousand kisses.
For a moment, I’m there—sitting on the edge of that bed, my body alive, and goosebumps spreading over my body as he takes my picture.
I peer closer, studying the headboard. There’s a crack in the wall behind it. I remove the photo again and hurry back down the hallway, dipping inside the bedroom with Aro’s lipstick. I flash my phone behind her and Hawke’s bed, darting my eyes between the break in the wall and the one in the photograph. Sweat dampens my body.
This photo was taken here.
Different bed, but same room.
Who is this girl? How old is this photo? “M” isn’t Kade, Hunter, Hawke, Dylan, or Aro. It’s not Noah or Farrow. Who—
My phone rings, making me jump.
I clear my throat as I glance at the screen.
Lucas.
Then someone bellows, “Quinn!”
I spin around, running back to the hideout kitchen and slipping the picture between the pages of the book. Leaving the journal on the counter, I return down the hall. Lucas stands in my shop, his black track pants and white T-shirt soaked and dripping on my floor. He was clearly at the gym and ran here in the rain. Shit, I shouldn’t have called him.
He looks around. “Quinn!”
Turning back and forth, he holds his phone to his ear. Patches of his wet hair look almost brown as he runs a hand through it, droplets of rain glimmering across his face. My cell vibrates in my hand, and I scramble to ignore the call before it rings. Then, I mute it.
He can’t see me.
I ball my fists, feeling nerves fire underneath my skin because he’s six feet away, and…
He can’t see me.
I bite my bottom lip to keep the smile at bay.
Letting my eyes fall down the T-shirt that sticks to his taut stomach, I imagine my hands running over the dips and muscles. What does his waist feel like? His arms?
It’s nice to just look at him.
Without being caught.
“Quinn!” someone else shouts.
I flit my eyes to the left, seeing Madoc push through the kitchen door.
He’s dressed in sweats and a hoodie. They must’ve been working out together.
I turn off the flashlight on my phone.
“She didn’t leave a message?” Madoc asks Lucas.
He shakes his head. “No.” Then he disappears to the left and I hear a knock as he checks the bathroom.
“Well, her phone’s here.” My brother clicks away on his. “Somewhere…”
I tighten my fist around my cell. I forgot we can all track each other.
Lucas appears again, rubbing the back of his neck. I memorize the veins in his hands, the cords in arms, his long, tan neck…
He leaves tomorrow night, and I drink him in one last time.
“Her bike is still outside,” he tells my brother.
It only takes Madoc two seconds to heave a sigh. “Fuck, she went jogging,” he states. “Probably got caught in the rain. And without her goddamn phone.”
Because I make irresponsible decisions all the time, right, Madoc?
My brother starts to leave. “I’m gonna jump in the car and go pick her up.”
“Wait,” Lucas barks. “I’ll stay in case she shows up, but leave me the key in case you don’t come back.”
If Madoc finds me, he’ll just take me straight home. Lucas will have to lock my shop up.
Madoc hands my key to Lucas before heading back through the kitchen. After about fifteen seconds, I see my brother’s silver Audi cruise down High Street.
I watch Lucas, every inch of my body coursing with heat as sweat cools my neck. This reminds me of that day hiding in the attic at the summer camp. There’s something about watching people. We might be afraid of what we’ll see, but it’s also the only way to find out what they’re so desperate to protect you from.
