Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3)(13)

“Let me help you inside, Eva.” He stood and reached for her but she recoiled.

“Don’t touch. I don’t like people touching me. Please go, Quinn. I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m barely holding it together.”

Quinn turned from his friend, wondering if they’d ever be friends like they were. He’d done something to her. As he crossed the lawn in a daze, her manic screams echoed behind him. That sound would haunt him forever.

Quinn sat on his front porch with his head in his hands, wondering how he could have been so careless.

It’s not our fault—it’s just what we are.

“No. This is not what I am,” he whispered, gripping the porch railing in his fist.

It’s our nature. Get used to it.

“I will not be … a monster who preys on the sanity of others.” But that was the only way he could describe what happened with Eva. The lure of using his power had been so strong, he couldn’t resist it. But even now, like a true junkie, he couldn’t wait for another taste. I can never let this happen again.

But we will. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. You can’t deny it or stop it.

“This is not my gift,” he whispered into the silent afternoon. My gift is not going to be this.

Our gift is strong. We induce madness. You crave it already. We could feel that girl’s sanity at our fingertips. We were almost there and you chickened out.

“Stop!” He leapt to his feet, his fists clenched as if to fight the half of himself he was now at war with. “I will never give in to this. I will not be a monster.” He caught his reflection in the window and wondered if he wasn’t the one losing his mind.

~~~





CHAPTER

FIVE





Quinn: Summer


Atlanta, Georgia


“Did you even know what you’d done?” Livia’s mocking tone almost hid the fact that she was impressed with what Quinn had been capable of such a short time after his Awakening.

“Not really.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat back in the white room.

“You are a talented young man.” Livia released his hands.

Quinn hung his head in exhaustion. She’d made him relive every moment of the worst mistake of his life. Like he didn’t already do that every single day. She made him listen to that voice again. The voice he’d conquered years ago.

“You have so much potential, Quinn. But you mistakenly believe your gifts make you a monster. You have an ability to induce madness. Can you not see how much of an asset that makes you in a place like this? You could go far if you allowed yourself to embrace your power for what it is. Your gifts don’t define you. It’s what you do with them that makes you who you are.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” He’d heard those same words from his family for years, but from her, it didn’t make any sense.

“It’s my job to teach you not to fear this gift, but to use it as it was meant to be used. Don’t hide it. Don’t suppress it. That’s weak. And you are not weak, Quinn.”

“I will never use that gift against anyone. For any reason. Ever. Do what you will with me, but you will never defeat me on this.”

“You’re focusing on the gift as a weapon because that is how it manifested. Have you never thought about what positive things you might be able to do with it if you fully understood your gift? How you might be able to help those with mental illness?”

“No. It would mean unleashing this gift I’ve fought to control. I won’t do that.”

“Your gift could give you a unique understanding of the human psyche, but you have to master it, not suppress it. Suppressing it will keep the gift from developing.”

“It will only develop into something worse.” Quinn dug his heels in. He didn’t want to hope that his gift could become something good. He’d longed for a gift like Aidan’s or Sasha’s. Something truly remarkable. But he seemed to only manifest gifts that fed his addiction and fueled the darkness inside him.

“Maybe I should just take it from you permanently since you clearly don’t want it.”

“It is my burden to bear, and I will not see it in the hands of an evil woman with zero moral compass.”

“So naive. And so easy to read. Your moral compass is black and white. You haven’t lived long enough to see the gray areas yet. But you will.” She was back to looking at him like he was a science experiment. Something to deconstruct and reassemble to her liking. “Your tortured mind speaks volumes. I know exactly what to do with you now. You’re the heroic type that will withstand anything we do to you. Pain won’t work with you. Physical pain, psychological, emotional, you’ll withstand it all because you think you deserve it. No, you need a different kind of coaxing.”

Livia fixed him with her mesmerizing gaze, like a snake hypnotizing its prey. She clutched his forearms, her nails digging into his skin before he even realized she’d moved. She searched his mind, looking for his other abilities. He could feel her, sifting through his body without his permission. Anything she wanted to know about his power, she could find. She didn’t need to torture it out of him.

He felt it the moment she discovered his gift for attracting metals and minerals from the earth. A harmless gift she discarded as useless. She moved on, digging deeper and deeper, looking for the thing he protected at the core of his being. The gift he never wanted her to find.