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“Don’t touch me! You ruin everything!”
Then her mom swung at her with the trophy.
Quinn didn’t even see it coming. The marble base caught her square in the face. She saw stars. Constellations. Whole frigging galaxies. Then blackness.
She wasn’t out for long. She came to in Tyler’s arms, still in her apartment foyer. Her mother was shrieking at them to get out, to get the f**k out, to get that whore out of her apartment.
Quinn couldn’t seem to get her eyes to focus on anything, from Tyler’s face, to the doorway, to the dashboard in front of her when Tyler buckled her into the seat.
“Fuck this,” he said, starting his ignition, but not shifting into gear. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Quinn struggled to get her limbs to respond. “No,” she said.
“No police.”
Tyler sucked in a long breath and touched her face. “Sweetheart, I think you need an ambulance.”
“No. Please. No. They’ll call—they’ll call—”
She couldn’t get her voice to work, and she realized she was crying.
“Shh,” said Tyler. “It’s all right. I’ll just drive you to the hospital. Okay?” He shifted into gear.
“No. No. They’ll make me go to a foster home or something.
Please, Tyler. Please.” She was hiccupping now, ugly crying, full out. “Please. No.”
He stopped at the end of the parking lot and looked at her.
“You need help. She might have broken your cheekbone.” He winced. “Your face is already swelling.”
She knew it was. She could feel it all the way into her eye.
“Can’t you heal it?”
He looked back at the road. His voice was suddenly hollow.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I could.”
“Nick healed me once. Please, Tyler. Please, I can’t—I can’t—”
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.” He rubbed at his temples, then pulled out of the parking lot.
“No hospital,” she said. Her words were slurring, and it reminded her of her mother. That made fresh tears well.
You ruin everything.
Her breath caught and stuttered.
“Easy,” said Tyler. “No hospital, okay?”
“Then where?” He hit a bump and a wave of pain swept through her face, and she almost reconsidered.
“The beach,” he said. “I need fire.”
Quinn felt like time somehow vanished.
Stars scattered overhead, spinning wildly every time she moved her eyes. She lay in the sand, beside a roaring bonfire that seemed to stretch a mile high. The heat was intense, forcing sweat from her skin. Her head pounded like her mother kept swinging that trophy over and over again.
