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“I don’t think it’s going to be hidden where we think it’s going to be,” I say, finally focusing enough to speak clearly.
“What do you mean?”
“You think this guy is smuggling stuff, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, tell me something, Quinn,” I say slowly. “We have this great, amazing kitchen, right?”
“We do,” he says.
“So why have we been eating dehydrated food the whole time I’ve been here?”
“The ovens don’t work,” he shrugs. “I tried turning them on the first day, but nothing. I think there may be a problem with the electrical line.”
“In a ship like this?” I raise an eyebrow. “You think this guy bought this incredible ship with this style of kitchen and didn’t bother to fix the electrical lines?”
“You think?”
“Quinn,” I whisper. “It’s the ovens.”
He practically runs to the first oven and opens the door. He reaches inside and feels around, but there’s nothing. He squats down and opens the drawer beneath the oven, but still, there’s nothing there.
Quinn growls in frustration as he looks at the second oven and then the third. By the time he reaches the fourth one, he’s getting irritated. I just know it has to be here, though. This has to be it. It just has to be.
Quinn opens the door of the fourth oven and everything changes.
“Fiona,” he whispers, but he doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to. When he opened the door to the oven, the entire appliance shifted to the right, revealing a secret staircase that leads down to a lower level of the ship.
“This is it,” I tell him. “This is what you’ve been searching for, right?”
He nods, but doesn’t move. He hesitates, and I wonder why. Is he excited? Scared? Nervous? Overwhelmed?
Quinn has been searching the ship for a long time. It’s been close to a month, and that’s a long time to spend looking for one thing. He could have given up and he could have quit long ago. He could have torched the ship and considered it a big “fuck you” to Hector LeBlaie, but he didn’t.
He kept going.
He kept looking.
He kept trying to find a way to get vengeance for Hayden.
He didn’t give up.
I could learn a lot from a guy like Quinn, I realize. He starts heading down the stairs. He’s completely fearless, at least from what I can see. He doesn’t let anything bother him, doesn’t let anything get to him. He’s brave. He’s kind of a total badass, and I love that about him.
When I was with Darin, I never felt anything. He was pleasant enough to be around and always brought me gifts and flowers, but his doting was never enough to make me feel anything. I felt numb and platonic about the entire situation. I was supposed to marry him, yeah, but then what?
What was I supposed to do?
Have little babies?
Qu
it my job to be a housewife?
Attend social events?
None of that matters now. I don’t know where my head was or why I thought that sort of life was going to bring me any sort of peace. Obviously, it wasn’t. Obviously, I was built for something more.
