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Besides, it wasn’t like Adam had asked what was wrong when she’d texted him earlier. He’d almost brushed her off like he’d expected her to space out. Suddenly furious, Quinn picked up her phone to read the text again.
No worries, he’d said. Let me know when you can meet again.
Okay, maybe she was reading negativity into that. He didn’t know what was going on. Maybe she should have texted something like, Sorry. My room was turned into a crack den. Catch you tomorrow maybe?
Yeah, and then what would have happened? He probably wouldn’t have believed her.
Quinn remembered this one time her mom had thrown a knife at her head. Two years ago, the first week of freshman year. They’d been screaming about something inconsequential—
as usual—and her mother had grabbed a steak knife from the block on the counter and flung it at her.
Quinn had run to Becca’s, using the key her best friend’s mom had provided, sitting shaking in a kitchen chair until Becca came home.
Becca had thought she was being overdramatic. “A knife,”
she’d said, her voice ringing with skepticism. “Come on, Quinn.”
And Quinn had been worried she’d alienate the only friend she had, so she’d recanted her story.
Becca never brought it up again.
Admittedly, it was rarely that bad back in those days. Her mom had been normal enough, coming to Quinn’s school events on occasion, mingling with other parents like she didn’t come home and knock back a bottle of Jack Daniel’s every other night.
Then their lives had started a downward spiral.
Or continued down it, depending on your perspective.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door, and Quinn jumped.
Tyler spoke from the other side. “You okay in there?”
“I’m a girl. Takes a while.” But Quinn hurriedly started pulling her hair into a messy knot at the back of her head. She untied the towel wrapped around her body and threw it over the shower rod.
“I’m not trying to rush you,” he said. “Just checking.”
Quinn glanced at her folded clothes waiting by the sink: the old dance sweats she usually slept in, plus a flimsy T-shirt that would leave a few inches of midriff bare.
She glanced at her na**d body in the mirror. The other dance girls were full of angles. Graceful angles, but angles nonetheless: a hip bone here, a sharp edge of shoulder there, a jawline practically cut from marble.
Quinn’s body was all sloping lines and curves.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She had a new worry: keeping Tyler interested so she had a place to sleep.
He’d been quiet in the truck, but it was an anxious sort of quiet. A nervous tension had clung to the vehicle, worrying her that any minute he’d pull over and demand that she get out.
“You’re like them,” she’d whispered finally, terrified that he’d snap and demand that she keep his secret.
“Like them?” he’d said flatly.
She’d had to lick her lips. “A full Elemental.”
But he hadn’t snapped. He’d just nodded.
That same tension was hanging around his apartment now.
What would he do, now that she knew? It seemed like enough of a reason to put her out. Quinn pulled on the T-shirt and a pair of lace panties, then slapped a coy smile on her face and strolled out the door.
It sounded like all the air left Tyler’s lungs at once. Quinn kept walking, picked up a copy of Maxim magazine on her way to the couch, then sprawled suggestively against the cushions.
