Curtis. He was searching for her.
Daring to glance away from Adam’s reddened cheeks, she saw that the fire, the entire house engulfed in flames, was little more than an evil glow through the trees. The male, Gerry, had brought her much further than Quinn had realized. Moments could have been hours. Would anyone hear her if she screamed?
She could drop Adam. Take him and the dark gun still pressed against him out of the equation for the moment. Even from her short height, it was a long way down for a baby. He’d break something for sure. A leg, an arm… his neck. It could save him from a bullet, giving her a chance to scream for Curtis and the other faint voices calling into the darkness.
And if it killed him?
If that happened, she wouldn’t be long in this world, either. Wasn’t sure if she’d want to be. Smoke-thin images of a smiling little girl with brilliant white hair skimmed through her mind before she banished them.
There was no time to think about that.
It was all also moot. Quinn was barely able to take a decent breath around the arm that continued to crush her throat. A scream loud enough to reach wherever the others were would be impossible.
Gerry jerked her back several paces. Wrenched from his comfort, Adam began to make sounds of protest, growing louder. Quinn pulled him back into place, but he refused to latch on. His noises were only muffled.
“Shut it up or I take care of it,” Gerry hissed at her ear, spittle wetting her cheek.
“I can’t. He’s cold and hungry. He’s scared.”
“I don’t have time for this shit. Tina, take it and shut it up.”
“Just leave him, please!” Tightening her grip on Adam, Quinn tried to twist away from Tina as she advanced. Gerry pulled his arm up and back. Quinn’s mouth dropped open, silent as black rings began to seep into her vision.
Tina scurried forward, prying Quinn’s fingers away from Adam’s back only to have her palm gouged by Quinn’s nails when they tried to snap back into place. Hissing in pain, her restless gaze bounced between Quinn and Gerry.
“You’re wasting time, Tina.”
Dragging in a strangled gasp as Gerry loosened his hold, Quinn kicked out with watery legs at Tina to hold her at bay for just a moment longer. “They’ll… pay more attention to him… Give you time. Know it was… you if… you take him.”
“Please, I’ll go quietly,” Quinn croaked, ignoring the male to beseech Tina with eyes that welled with horror and grief. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She shouldn’t have had to worry about Adam, shouldn’t have had to offer herself like this, shouldn’t have even been there. If Kahler had never done this to her… The tears burned as they slipped down her frozen cheeks.
“She’s right, Gerry. It’d be weird if she disappeared with the kid, then we showed up right after he bought him back,” Tina said, the whine in her cracking voice showing the strain of speaking up against the Alpha.
“Quinn! Where are you? Answer me!”
Gerry didn’t say a word for a long moment, eyes trained on a break in the trees where Curtis’ voice came clearest. The crash of underbrush and bushes was coming ever closer, though not close enough yet. The rise and fall of his chest against Quinn’s back slowed, evened. There was time. Plenty of time if they left Adam behind. His indignant, terrified screams would cover a whole host of sounds.
“Put him out of the way. Don’t make it easy for them to find him.”
Unwilling to waste another second, Gerry clamped a hand over Quinn’s mouth as she handed Adam over to Tina. There was no fight, no protest. As soon as Adam was free of her, the Alpha swung Quinn up, arm crushing her middle as he moved stealthily through the trees. The boy’s screams followed, accusing and bereft.
Adam would be fine. She had another life to worry about.
Leaving Tina to catch up, Gerry made his way to a hard-packed dirt road that Quinn hadn’t even known existed. It must have been much further back into the woods than she had traveled that awful night. With no landmark to get her bearings from, there was no hope of trying to outrun him, even if she thought to try. Grief clogged the back of her throat.
Dark and sinister, a low black car waited in the shadows. Only the faint gleam of moonlight on glass gave any indication it was there at all until Gerry swung the back door open and flung her inside. Rough upholstery skinned her palms and knees as she tumbled to the floor. Before she could right herself, he was in beside her. A hand clamped to the back of her neck, pressing her face to the mildew scented cushion.
Minutes later, Tina scrambled into the front seat. The door closed with exaggerated care before she brought the car rumbling to life. The car swung wide, Quinn’s knees scraping across the carpet as her weight shifted. The physical pain was nothing. Heart a shredded ruin in her chest, Quinn swore she could still hear Adam screaming for her.
Miles went by under Quinn’s throbbing knees. Her stomach twisted and churned, breaths coming in pained gasps between clenched teeth. Every dip and bump in the dirt track bounced her body around the floor of the car. With her head pinned in place, her vision swam as bile burned her nose and throat.
“I’m gonna be sick.”
Hauled up to kneel on the seat, Quinn got a glimpse of cars zipping along in the near distance. The highway. Tina was steering the car away from the lights of the city, deeper into the less populated outskirts. Racking her brain to figure out where they could be taking her, Quinn couldn’t think of anything. A few campgrounds, a mobile home park, a nature preserve somewhere out there that connected to the ocean. It was a virtual desert between Alderbrook and Lancaster.
Coherent thoughts scattered as Gerry’s hand came up, fingers clenching over her breast.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here.” The hand slipped down, fingers tucked between the buttons of her dress before wrenching the two sides free of each other. With little fanfare, the bodice was ripped open, the delicate buttons not even daring to make much more than a muffled thud against the seats.
