Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) (8 page)

He smiles back. “You haven’t seen nothing yet.”

We get back down to the business of eating. He wolfs his burger down so fast it makes my head spin and then gets back up and orders another.

A few girls at a nearby table watch him stride over, then put their heads together and giggle. Can’t say I blame them, he really is that gorgeous.

When we’re finished, he grabs our trash and drops it in the garbage pail.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says brightly.

“Another one? If you think you’re getting me on another ride after I just ate …” I shake my head, showing him he’ll be disappointed. “Worst idea ever.”

“That isn’t it.” He starts walking away.

I catch up. “Okay then, where are we going?”

“Do I need to carry you again?” he asks in a playfully warning tone.

Yes.
“No.”

“Quinn,” he says, his tone suddenly totally serious, “duck into the clothing store, right now.”

I don’t have to be told twice. As I turn into the store, I can see the two police officers walking towards us. My heart thuds powerfully as I run walk between the racks of clothes.

“Can I help you find something?” a helpful salesclerk asks.

I snatch up something on a hanger. “Dressing room?”

She points to the back of the store and I move my ass to hide behind the closed door. I have a mixed sense of security from the fragile hook locking the door that seems to be my only defense. It makes me feel like a pheasant hiding in a scant bush with the hunter and his rifle inching closer.

Sitting silently, I try to think of anything but the possible fate about to befall me. I try not to think of St. Anne’s and how I should have never come out with Liam.

A few minutes later, I hear, “Damn, you know how to hide.”

It’s him.

“I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“I don’t blame you. Coast is clear now.”

“No, I can’t stay here, I have to go …” The word
home
hovers pathetically on the tip of my tongue.

“Don’t freak. You’re going to like what’s next,” he assures me.

“I don’t think so, Liam.” It’s like the protective bubble I’ve been feeling has burst. I need to go back to my hiding place.

“Whatever happens, you can’t stay in the dressing room. The lady is definitely starting to look over suspiciously.”

“Shit.” I come out while making sure I hold the shirt I grabbed away from me so she can see I didn’t try to stuff it in my jacket. That’s all I need is to have her
call
the cops or mall security because I lingered too long.

“Do you like that shirt?” Liam asks me.

“I don’t know.” I never really looked at it.

I do now as I hang it back on the rack. “It’s pretty.” It is. Light blue, a low v-neck and midriff cut—it would show my bellybutton. I’d have nowhere to wear it. “Not much use for it under a bridge.”

“Would you wear it if you owned it? It’s sexy. Is it your style?”

“Yes, I’d wear it.” I punch his arm. “Shut up!”

We take off and walk quickly to the end of the mall towards the exit. But instead of turning towards the door, Liam grabs my arm.

“Detour,” he says and pulls me through the double doors of the mall’s cinema.

“What are you doing?”

“I still have money to burn and I want to burn it on you.”

I look behind us. “Liam, the police could come back.”

“They’re not going to be looking for you, or anyone for that matter, in a dark theater,” he reasons. “Anyway, after the movie we can go out the theater exits, which lead directly outside, and it’ll be dusk.”

“You have a point,” I concede.

“Of course I do,” he states smugly. “And this movie is supposed to rock!”

A second later he speaks to the guy behind the glass ticket partition. “Two for
Cellular
.”

I look towards the marquee to check out the signage. The movie stars Chris Evans and Kim Basinger—and has something to do with a cell phone. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a movie.

Liam buys a vat of buttered popcorn, a Coke and a jumbo sized Snickers bar for us to share.
Perfect.

We find seats near the front of the theater. When it goes dark, Liam’s hand finds mine again. The movie is great—scary and thrilling—but the biggest thrill by far is Liam holding my hand. Again.

*****

2015

Quinn

I did it on purpose, coming here to The Core. I hoped so hard I’d see him; maybe he’d be working out with the kids, or by himself—I’d be able to get a glimpse of him, remember what he felt like, resurrect the memory of his love and pretend it was still alive to help me get through this.

But I hadn’t expected being trapped inside this little office, where I couldn’t escape the heat of his anger and the burning pain in his eyes.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry
. I swallow it. He doesn’t want to hear it, it’ll just sound like another lie, another betrayal from someone who told him they loved him and then left.

It’s all too much too fast.

My mom is dead. She made her choices, and now, for us, the past is completely unredeemable.

And here’s Liam. I made my own choices—choices that didn’t include him—and now for us … the past is …

I turn away from him as the tears come hot and fast. The word
unredeemable
sticks in my throat, cutting off my oxygen.

Oh God, what he must think of me … how much he must hate me.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”  He speaks, but it’s soulless.

“I appreciate that,” I respond, just above a whisper.

Two men crash through the doorway and I can’t help but look. It’s Ryder and Talon.

Do they hate me too?

“QUINN!!” Ryder scoops me into a suffocating bear hug. “Look at you, girl! Damn, you grew up beautiful.”

“There wasn’t any doubt that you would.” Talon smiles, and I’m so grateful for the peace I feel in him and in his expression. He grabs me away from Ryder and into a welcome-home kind of embrace. Talon could always sense people’s moods and somehow make things better—it was like his superpower.

“Quinn’s mom passed away this week,” Cade tells them. “She’s here for the funeral.”

“Damn, Quinny, I’m sorry.” Ryder takes my hand and holds it.

I smile in spite of the pain. “No one’s called me Quinny for a long time.”

He smiles back and I’m grateful for the friendliness in it. God knows I could use a friend right about now.

“Ten years,” Liam states coldly.

I can’t help but look up at him. His eyes are hard and unforgiving.

Talon says, “Quinn, do you need someone to accompany you to the funeral? I’d be glad to.”

A shaky breath escapes my lungs. “I did come alone. You guys were my only friends here.”

“We still are,” Ryder says with finality.

Talon nods in agreement.

Liam looks away.

I’ve longed for him … but I expected nothing else after what I did to him.

Liam Knight
was
my home … once, but I lost it. I haven’t been home since.

“Quinn, when is the funeral?” Cade asks, breaking the awkward silence that hangs in the air.

“Monday.”

“Today is only Friday,” Cade continues. “Where are you staying?”

“Motel 6,” I reply. “Student budget. I figured it was on the bus route too, so I could get from place to place.”

“Bullshit,” Ryder breaks in. “I’ll be your personal chauffer while you’re here.”

“I don’t know …”

“I do,” he says. “There is no reason for you to have to do this alone.”

“Thanks.” I know I’m going to cry again.
Shit! Here it comes.
My voice shudders. “My friend Shellie wanted to come with me, but final exams are looming … and I don’t know how long it will take to deal with my mom’s stuff.”

Cade steps forward and wraps me into his chest as the sobs break through me. “I’m sorry,” I whimper, feeling like the weak little girl I used to be—with no light in the darkness.

“Nonsense, you have nothing to be sorry about. And you are not staying at any motel. Ryder will take you to get your stuff, and then bring you back to the house. It’s always there as a home for you.”

Home.
I manage a nod. My
home
is the person standing within arm’s reach of me, yet we’re separated by a thousand miles.

“Well, it looks like you guys have this all taken care of,” Liam says, looking completely dumbstruck. “I’m late getting to work. I’m sorry again for your loss …”—he hesitates before he says my name—“Quinn.”

He turns and strides out of Cade’s office as if the building were on fire.

“He’s going through male PMS,” Ryder quips.

“Come on, let’s get you settled into North House. We’ll take my car,” Talon says. “Ryder is a robot and rides his bike even in February.”

They start their banter and I’m caught in the turbulence of the man Liam has become—and the memories of the boy I knew and loved …

Chapter Four

2015

Liam

The pain that clouds over her countenance because of my reaction is horribly apparent, yet I can’t stop the forward tumble I’m taking.

I let my eyes cut away from her—despite the fact that the act of doing so feels like a thousand tiny jagged splinters going through my iris.

Goddamnit, I’m crumbling … right here in front of her … I can’t. I can’t let myself be that vulnerable. Not again.

I watch as her pretty little mouth moves. Her thin, petal colored lips work, but no words take form as tears fall from her eyes.

I need a wall! I need a concrete and steel-fucking-reinforced wall.

Oh my God, I would rather die than stand here. I don’t think dying would hurt as much as this moment does. I want to grab her into my arms and hold her so tightly that our hearts would have no choice but to beat together. What kind of man am I that I can’t look at the best friend I ever had? How can I simultaneously hate someone so strongly and love them so incredibly ardently?

I loved her with everything I was, and she left me! She promised—
we promised
—we’d never leave each other, never! No matter what happened! I want to hate her, to loathe her.

I don’t want her to know that, when she stole away that fateful night, she took, right along with her, my breath and my heart. My very soul.

When Talon and Ryder come through the door, I know I have to get the fuck out of here!

I can’t get into my car fast enough. I tear out of the parking lot in a daze, the wheels of my 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R creating smoke on the blacktop.

What the fuck?
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” I shout at the windshield.

For seven years I couldn’t move on with my life. I waited for her, watched the phone, checked emails, begged Cade to tell me if he heard from her. Nothing, not one fucking word!

“I waited for you, Quinn!” I rage into the empty car. “I believed in you so much that I
knew
you’d come back, was
sure
you’d come back, but you didn’t! You obliterated me!!”

It’s been just over the past few years that I’ve been able to piece my life together. A future without her was never part of the plan. And it still hurts like hell, but I moved forward. I got my business up and running, started fighting professionally, got laid when I wanted to …

But everything I’ve done, everything I’ve accomplished, I’ve done as half of a whole.

With just one look from her, I feel like my fucking vital organs were just ripped open.

I’ve never gotten over her, not in the slightest.

*****

October, 2004

Liam

“That movie was frigging awesome!” Quinn crows happily.

“Yeah, it was,” I agree.

We talk about our favorite scenes as we walk out into the safety of dusk and hop the bus back to my foster home.

We’re almost there when she says. “I don’t know, Liam. I shouldn’t get too used to sleeping at your house … or being with you.” Quinn stares down as she picks at the frayed material of her jeans, exposing her knee. “I should go back … to where I belong.”

“You’re not stupid. You don’t belong on the street, and you know it. Give me a little time to figure out what to do.”

She eyes me skeptically. “No one belongs on the street,” she says.

I stand my ground. Quinn, considering what she’s been through, should be a hardened, street-tough girl, but she isn’t. Far from it. She’s sweet, soft and sensitive.

It’s not hard to talk her into coming with me. We pick up some Subway sandwiches and cookies for dinner and take them back to my room. All the cash I’d accumulated is gone, and I don’t mind at all. Money is liquid; I’ll get more.

We’re sitting on my bed when I take an intimate leap.

“I have something I want to show you if you promise you won’t laugh.” My tone is a lot more serious than I meant for it to be.

She takes in my countenance. “I won’t laugh.”

“I’ve never showed anyone before, not a soul,” I confess.

The nervousness that started deep in my stomach when I suggested it spreads through my entire body. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

I take out my backpack, unzip the back compartment and pull out my most prized possession.

Reaching towards her, I pass her my art portfolio. “I used to travel with my sketch pad only, but after a while, I had done so many drawings that I felt something about, I put them into a binder to protect them.”

I need a distraction. I can’t watch as she looks through it, so I plug my MP3 player into a mini speaker and put on Linkin Park’s
Meteora
album. Somehow they say everything in their lyrics that I feel. I start it at “Somewhere I Belong.” 

Peering back over at Quinn, I think maybe I shouldn’t have shown my deepest shit to her. What the fuck was I thinking?

I’m so fucking nervous I decide that the best thing to do—instead of watching her reactions—is draw. I sit beside her against the wall at the head of the bed, prop my pad on my knees and work a pencil against the paper.

“These are amazing!” Quinn exclaims.

“You think so?” Is she lying? Being polite?

She catches my eyes. “I know so.”

I take a deep breath.

She flips through the pages of dragons and knights, swords and fancy script. There are skulls, trees and flowers, old time ships, animals, sexy pin-up girls, fiery phoenixes, eyes dripping with tears or blood …

“I draw what I feel at the moment. Some of them are gruesome,” I say when she reaches a particularly dark drawing of a monster crushing a boy’s skull.

“Yeah, and some of them are beautiful. All of them are incredible. You’re so talented.”

“Thanks.” I almost want to tell her that if she studies the pictures she might be able to discern which are from my real life—like the boy and monster—and which are simply just for the hell of it, for the fun of drawing. “I think if I can get really good, I want to be a tattoo artist.”

“I think you already are
really
good. You could totally be a professional tattoo artist if you wanted to be.” She says this matter-of-factly, but the weight of her words and compliment impact me like a meteorite striking a planet. “Do you have any tattoos?” she asks.

“One. I made a homemade gun last place I was at.”

“You tattooed
yourself
?” She’s incredulous.

“Yeah.” I laugh.

“Didn’t it hurt?” Her eyes are so wide. “I hear they hurt wickedly!”

“Yeah it hurt.” I’m lost inside her blue oceans as they look back at me. I have the strongest urge to grab her face and kiss her.

“Can I see it?”

Can I kiss you?
“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Let me see it!”

After an exaggerated eye roll, I lift the left sleeve of my t-shirt.

As she studies the messy script above my bicep, her fingers reach up and gently trace the lettering I etched into my flesh. Her brow creases and her expression is pained.

“
Damned
?” she reads aloud with a questioning inflection.

“Everyone wanted to brand me, so I decided to brand myself.”

“You’re not damned,” she argues.

“Yeah, yeah I am,” I insist. “I have enough fuck-ups to fill a lifetime.”

“What have you done that’s so bad?” She’s still touching my shoulder and I don’t want her to stop.

“Enough, trust me.” I decide to rework the direction of our conversation “Anyway, I want to get some really cool tats with someone who’s willing to do my artwork on me.”

“Do you have a specific one in mind?” Quinn looks back to the portfolio, studying it carefully.

“Yeah, I want to do something great someday and have the horse and knight tatted on my arm or maybe my back,” I explain. “You know, as a play on my last name.”

“I love that idea, Liam Knight. And you know, you’ve already done something great,” she says.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I fire back.

“You became my friend and helped me when I needed it. That was pretty brave.”

I can’t answer her. I never thought that making friends with Quinn would’ve made her look at me or think of me that way.

I find my voice. “So you don’t loath me like you did when you first looked at me when I bothered you down by the angel.”

Gently she shakes her head. “I was only trying to protect myself.”

Of course she was.

“What tattoo would you put on me?” she asks.

“You’d get a tattoo?” I don’t believe her.

“If you did it I might.”

“I’ll think about it.” But I wouldn’t ink anything into that China-teacup-perfect porcelain skin of hers—I wouldn’t want to fuck it up!

“How do you become a tattoo artist?” she asks, passing me back my binder.

“I don’t have a fucking clue.” I shrug, putting it away again, into hiding. “Maybe an apprenticeship under another artist … I certainly don’t see an art degree at a university in my future. What about you Quinn, what do you want to do? What do you dream about?”

“My dreams are stupid.”

“No dream is stupid.”

“Okay, then it’s unrealistic,” she retorts.

“Hey, I just shared mine with you …”

“Fine. I want a family,” she says firmly. “When I was living with my dad and his new family I felt like an outsider the entire time. My stepmother wouldn’t let me sit next to my dad in the evening when we were supposed to be having family time and watching a movie or something. She’d tell me she was going to sit next to him, then she’d have one of her kids sit there instead. He never seemed to notice. After a while I stopped trying. And he never invited me to join him, either.” She leans her head against the wall. “She made sure we had no time together, ever. And like my mom, he worked all the time. Even when I got him to talk with me, it was never for any real length of time or very meaningful. I felt like he didn’t care if I was there or not, and my stepmother was usually criticizing me—telling me how fat I was, how ugly my nose was, or how stupid I was—I soon learned it was better to stay alone in my room and read books. On the rare occasion I actually got my dad to hug me, he’d do it for the quickest second before pushing me away saying, ‘That’s enough.’ But it was never enough.

“My mom didn’t want me, my dad didn’t want me, my stepmother didn’t want me … but to anyone looking in, it looked like I had a perfect life. Nice furniture, designer clothes, new cars and upper-middle-class money. Abuse isn’t always bruises and cuts; sometimes it’s selfish, materialistic, cold, unloving people who learn to inflict pain in ways others can’t see so easily. Being smacked around with a ping pong paddle, being refused physical affection and food, being told you’re fat and ugly and that no one would ever love you—how could they if your own mother doesn’t?”

Quinn wipes a tear. “I want a family and a home. That’s my dream.”

She’s right, that’s not a dream; it’s a
need
, a necessity for existence.

“You know when you go to someone’s house and see a family picture with all of them together in it? I’ve never been in one of those. I want to be.” She shrugs. “My dad, stepmom and her two kids have one—I wasn’t invited.”

“That sucks, Quinn, I’m sorry.” It feels natural to put my arm around her shoulder.

“I don’t belong anywhere, Liam.” I feel her tears against my arm.

“I get it,” I say. “My grandparents loved me; at least I thought they did when I was little, but my mom hated them.” I did too, now. “My grandmother’s the one who really raised me. My mom couldn’t stand looking at me and refused to take care of me. She took off completely when I was still a baby. My grandfather died when I was eight, and my gran died about a year later. The court found my mom and gave me back to her.” I go quiet as the buried memories threaten to crawl up out of their graves. “And that obviously hasn’t gone well.”

“So, you want a family too,” Quinn says decidedly.

“I guess maybe I do, probably. I don’t know. I gave up on the notion a long fucking time ago,” I snap. “Plus, a family isn’t a dream.”

“It’s my dream,” she whispers.

It bothers me terribly, like the gnawing when I saw her in the cemetery; I want to smash that stupid idea of a dream! She needs to know that homes aren’t real for kids like us. She needs to toughen up if she’s going to survive out here! But part of me hates myself for even thinking that. I like her tenderness … too much.

I don’t know what to say, so I move my arm and lay down. “Tomorrow is Sunday and I need to think.”

“What do you need to think about?”

“You, and how to get you somewhere better than under a fucking bridge.”

She lies next to me, but doesn’t turn and face the wall this time. Instead, she curls against me and lays her head on my chest.