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40
QUINN
Something in the air just makes me feel nervous.
I lock up the bar. The streets around me are all quiet. It’s very late.
Not even the college kids are out driving causing chaos.
The wind is dead, and there is only summer heat. My phone goes off in my pocket. I check, and it’s just Rory wanting to hang out.
I feel somehow seen again. It reminds me of when things with Caspian were new, and he was the scary stalker lurking in the night, following me everywhere. Who would have thought that would turn out well?
But this feels different somehow.
“It’s probably nothing,” I tell myself. “Just keep walking.”
And I do. As fast as I can. I swear I hear footsteps behind me, and that transitions me into a swift powerwalk.
I really need to get my car fixed. Caspian said we’d get it figured out. At this point, maybe I just need to get another car, because everything keeps breaking.
What is this sensation? Why do I feel like somebody is observing me… following me… for the first time since the Moonlight Sentinels?
I shift through possible answers.
I know it isn’t Caspian, since he just called me from work.
And we rounded up all the Moonlight Sentinels, so surely that couldn’t be it either.
Could it be a copycat killer? Caspian reassured me that this town was pretty much dead now - any possible crime had diminished to nothing, which meant that I should be able to feel safe walking home at night.
But I don’t for some reason.
I feel the amulet around my neck, and its cool, smooth metal. Caspian tells me its magic is probably gone now, after how much it took to heal me. But it’s still a source of comfort for me - a reminder of how much he and I have been through.
I stop and breathe.
“Okay,” I tell myself. “You’re being crazy.”
I’m being stupid.
Even if some copycat killer is out on the prowl, I doubt that they would be active so soon. They’d probably need to bring their operations together - plan attacks. And it hasn’t been that long since the Moonlight Sentinels stopped operations.
There is a strange man approaching me now. He is not conventionally attractive, and really kind of reminds me of the rose deliverer from the first chapter of our relationship, when everything was new. But I still think to turn back, because I get an odd vibe from him.
“Please don’t,” he says, as my back turns to him. “I’ve been asked to give you this.”
He hands me a sheet of paper. Before I can press him for more information, he’s already walking away from me.
The paper is thick, and reminds me of glossy magazine stock. But what I find on the sheet disturbs even me.
It looks like a ransom note. There are letters cut out from magazines, just like in the movies.
I am every kind of color imaginable, and a place from whence your journey springs. I shelter many kinds of life, and I’m always growing. You’ll find the knowledge you need within my walls, but move to find me before night falls.
I think for a moment. I question the purpose of this riddle first and foremost, and the answer second.
But eventually, I settle on the greenhouse that Caspian left me as the answer. I head there into the night, paranoid that somebody might be following me.
