AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’snotjust between you and him,” Callum erupted. He was falling for the act I was putting on for Jason, and I couldn’t correct him.
I would have to tell him later. For now, I just had to get Jason out. I jumped down from the stage.
“Quinn?” Renee’s voice caught with confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Working this out, once and for all,” I dug my car keys out of my back pocket and looked only at Jason. “Come on. I know a place we can go.”
“It better not be the counselor’s little mansion at 10908 Waterford Street.” Jason smiled when Noah gasped, recognizing his address.
“It’s not,” I said quickly. I desperately wished there was a way to communicate with Callum, who was boring holes in the side of my face with his angry, disbelieving eyes, but there wasn’t. He’d just have to trust me. I started to follow Jason out, but suddenly, a band of steel closed around my forearm. I looked down in surprise and saw Callum’s fingers were the culprit.
“Callum, I have to do this,” I said as evenly as possible, trying to tell him with my eyes that it would be okay, that I would figure this out somehow. Behind him, on the stage, Noah watched with wide eyes. He didn’t look like he was trying to be tough anymore; he looked scared. My heart broke. I never should have brought my mess to his doorstep. He was just a kid.
“Callum, let me go,” I said more forcefully as he continued to stare at me with a strange burning intensity that unnerved me. He hadn’t even responded when Jason recited his address. What was going on?
Then his gaze shifted past me, and I thought maybe he was looking at Jason, but then I realized he was staring out the window. The rain was still pummeling the parking lot, and it was so heavy that it created a gray mist, almost like fog. “No,” he said in a voice I almost didn’t recognize.
I felt every vertebrae in my spine stiffen, stacking rigidly on top of one another until I was drawn up to my full height. It didn’tmatter who it was. After years of being managed, being told I couldn’t do something put a low, simmering fire in my belly. “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. And then in a lower voice,“Trust me.”
I couldn’t tell if he didn’t hear me or if the answer was just a silent, unequivocalno, but his grip didn’t loosen. When I yanked my arm away, his blank gaze shifted to mine, but he still wasn’t seeing me. He was seeing the past. Cold, sick sadness swamped me as I realized it wasn’t just the past–he was seeing Emma. Had it been her all along he was trying to save?
“QC,” Renee said helplessly.
“Quinn,” Jason said from the doorway. He’d pushed it open, and now the sound of the storm was gusting in, along with the cool and earthy scent of the ozone mixed with wet trash.
I stared at Callum, waiting for any sign that he recognized me. For a moment, I thought I saw his gaze starting to clear, but then a crack of thunder exploded above us and the rain redoubled its efforts. A streak of lightning briefly flushed bright, white light through the dim bar, and in that moment, I lost him.
I fled, pushing past Jason and running into the parking lot, heedless of the rain. I heard someone yell my name, but his voice was swallowed up by the pounding rain. As I drove off, too fast for the weather, I tried to puzzle out whose voice it had been. Then I realized it didn’t matter anymore.
Both had wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.
CHAPTER 28
CALLUM
It took the bright red slash of taillights through the gray haze that enveloped Jimmy’s parking lot to snap me out of my trance. By the time I started running, it was too late. Quinn was gone. I didn’t even try to figure out which way she had turned out of the parking lot–even if I shielded my eyes against the pelting rain, visibility was too bad. It was like the storm had swallowed her up.
But it hadn’t swallowed Jason up, not yet. I could hear his ripe curses as he ran through the rain to his sleek red sports car. I ran after him, catching him just as he yanked the door open. “You fucking asshole,” I swore, collaring him.
“I don’t think I’m the one she was running from, counselor,” he yelled back over the sound of the downpour. He shoved me back hard, breaking my hold on the edges of his leather jacket.
Blind from more than the rain, I lowered my head and charged at him, but before I could make contact, a swarm of people descended. Hands caught my arms, pulling me back. A large, Jimmy-shaped form pushed between us. I struggled againstthem, unable to think about anything but getting my hands on Jason Cain.
“This is assault and battery,” Renee yelled in my ear.
“Not yet,” I yelled back, furious at her interference. I knew it couldn’t be just her. She was here, gripping my shoulder, but there were at least six hands on me. I caught a glimpse of Joanne in my periphery, and then she was replaced by my mother, who I hadn’t even seen arrive.
“He will get youdisbarred,” she yelled in my other ear. “How is that going to help Quinn?”
“Quinn wouldn’t want you to do this.” Moira appeared in front of me. She wasn’t trying to protect the hem of her long skirt anymore. It was wet up to her knees. She pushed her face right into mine so only I could hear her. “She loves you, Callum. She must have left to protect you.”
“Iwas supposed to protecther,” I snarled. And I would, too. As soon as I could shake off whoever had a grip on me, I was going to make sure nothing ever hurt her again. I was going to protect her. But even as the furious images of what I would do to Jason Cain flashed through my mind, I saw Emma’s face.
It hit me like a blow to the head.
The horde around me took advantage of my temporary confusion to pull me back. Jimmy and a few other men from the old neighborhood were forming a wall between Jason and me, but I saw another red slash through the gray as he slammed his door closed. I thought I saw him shoot me a triumphant grin through his rain-smeared window, just before he roared off.
“They let him go,” I yelled furiously as they pulled me backward. “He’s going to go after Quinn!”
