Page 61 of Intersect
“This is all your own fault,” she says with a shrug. “It could have been avoided if you’d just done what you should have. Or if you just stayed away from him in the first place. Do you know how often I’ve had to go back in time to try to reset things? Countless. I’m tired of being nice about it.” She stares at her nails, delicately flicking at dirt there. “It’s such a shame too. I’ve seen your twins, you know. Beautiful girls. Their power, together, could be staggering. Which is a bad thing, to be honest.” She smirks at me. “So this is kind of three for the price of one, isn’tit?”
My twins. They exist somewhere out in the world at the moment, somewhere in the future. And when she kills me they’ll just disappear. If Nick is raising them, he’s going to lose them both at once. Maybe he won’t realize they ever existed, but I think they’ll remain inside him somewhere, a longing he can’t explain, the same way I did. I curve forward as if it can ease the ache in my chest. “Why couldn’t you have done this before I met him?” I cry. “Why do thisnow?”
She looks surprised, like the answer should be as obvious to me as it is her. “Lots of reasons. I mean, would you have shackled yourself to the wall for that boy youweregoing to marry? Of course not. You had nothing to live for until you met Nick, and you certainly wouldn’t have flown all the way to Paris to chase the other onedown.”
I hate that she’s right. I hate that she knows me so well when I have no idea who she even is. If Jeff were in Paris depressed, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to come see him. And if someone trapped him, my reaction would have been pure logic. I’d have recognized I’m neither James Bond nor Bruce Lee, and I’d have called the cops despite her warning not to. “Why does it have to be Paris?” I ask, my lip curling. “Do you try to limit your murders to some distinct geographicarea?”
She frowns at me. “Sarcasm is an unbecoming trait, Quinn. It needed to be in Paris because I want my husband nearby when this finally ends,” she says. Her head tilts and the smile on her mouth is almost…affectionate? “He’s waited a long time forthis.”
I doubt she’s married to anyone I could actually appeal to, but my head swivels, looking for himanyway.
Her eyes follow mine and she laughs, as if I’m a child trying to read a book upside down. “He’s here, just not in this time. Some of us excel at traveling through time but not place. Places are difficult for me, while you were good at both, until you decided to give it all up. Such a waste. I understand you’ve somehow been able to jump back to previous lives too. I have no idea how, but that power you’re hiding must be tremendous. It could have ruined everything if you’d just remembered a little more.” Her mouth curves in disgust, and, seeming to remember her purpose here, she grabs duct tape off the desk and walks back to me. “I’d better muzzle you before he arrives. Not that he appears any more likely than you to care for his ownsafety.”
I swing my head away but there is little I can do and in moments, I’m effectivelysilenced.
If I could, I would curl up on the floor and weep, but instead I lean against the wall, trying not to choke on my sobs. I still don’t understand why she is forcing Nick to be here to watch me die, and I’m going to leave this world without ever knowing if he’s okay when it’s done. She is no longer interested in me. She returns the tape and gun to the desk—there’s a knife there too, which I suppose is for me—and busies herself around the room, cleaning up, going through a stack of papers on a desk nearby, ignoring mecompletely.
Upstairs, the door hinges creak. My heart climbs into my throat,beating beating beatinglike a battle drum. A wary footstep echoes across the marble floor above us, then another, andanother.
I want to shout into the tape but this will only gain his attention, so I sit, still andsilent.
Sarah just laughs at me, in no rush to alert him to our presence. “I lured him all the way here and you know what I’m capable of. Do you really think if you stay quiet I’d just let him walk out? That farmer and his wife did you a disservice if they raised you to be so naïve this time around. I should have given you to someone else. It’s not nearly as much fun as it could havebeen.”
I thrash against the wall, in agony over what Nick is about to see, and so frustrated by what she’s done and all the things I don’t know. Who did she take me from? Does my birth mother even know I’m alive? Did my father know I wasstolen?
I’m about to die without the answers to any ofit.
30
NICK
If you want to save her, you will come alone, the text said, accompanied by a photo of Quinn chained to a wall. The picture sends me into a rage so fierce I can barely function around it. How could I have let this happen? I should have hidden Quinn, kept her locked up somewhere and guarded within an inch of her life. All that fucking education and when it came down to protecting her, I was worse than useless. I still am, but there’s no choice anymore—Sarah has Quinn, which means she’s got us by thethroat.
I run to a main road and call a car, urging the driver to hurry in my pathetic French. “Vite, s’il vous plait. C’est un…emergency.” I don’t know the word foremergencyin French.Fuck. I can’t do anything here, can’t control a single fucking thing, not even my ability tospeak.
The driver seems to figure it out. My hands clench into fists as we fly back toward the sixth arrondissement, arriving at a home not too far from where I’ve been staying this entire time. Was Sarah nearby all along? Why is she going through all this? She could easily have killed Quinn, if that’s what she wants todo.
None of it makes sense, but whether it makes sense or not, I’m no longer thinking in terms of negotiation, of convincing Sarah to help us. As I reach the front door of the mansion Sarah directed me to, I’ve only got two goals: to save Quinn and to make Sarah pay for what she’s done. Killing Sarah no longer seems extreme. It seems well-deserved.
I push the door open and walk inside. The place must have been spectacular once, though it’s mostly empty now. I hear noise coming from the back of the house and creep toward it, over floors that squeak no matter how quietly I tread. I pass several doors until I get to a small salon and come to a stunned halt. The noise was just an open window. What stops me are the hundreds of photos hanging on the walls, every last one of Quinn. As a pink-cheeked toddler cradling a duckling. Her first day of kindergarten, with a wide, toothless grin. With rain boots on, ankle-deep in mud outside a barn. Her high school graduation, her prom. Every important event lovingly documented. It’s as if Sarah has been stalking her sincebirth.
Or as if Sarah lovesher.
31
QUINN
Down here, Nick,” Sarah sings, grabbing the gun from the desk. She sounds cheerful, like she’s inviting him to join herpotluck.
His legs come into view, then his chest, and with each step I’m futilely hoping he’ll suddenly turn andflee.
Hedoesn’t.
When he reaches the bottom step, he’s so relieved to find me alive he doesn’t even notice Sarah until the moment she raises the gun and pulls thetrigger.
His eyes meet mine as it happens. One last, panicked glance as the bullet hits his leg. He staggers and falls. All my screaming is silenced by thetape.
This can’t be happening. This is a dream.Wake up, I scream at myself.Wake up. But nothing changes. Nick’s on the ground, bleeding. He’s struggling to get to his feet, so Sarah walks to me and presses the gun to my head. “Shackle yourself and stop struggling,” she says to him with a click of her tongue. “Surely you realize that the more you struggle, the faster you’ll lose blood.” She waits until he’s shackled himself before she puts the gun in herwaistband.