Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3)(40)

He stopped when he saw her standing at the entrance to the pavilion.

Sasha swallowed her pride and crossed the room. She knelt and touched his feet.

“I am ready. Are you?”

~~~





CHAPTER

THIRTEEN





Quinn: Fall


Atlanta, Georgia


Quinn wandered along the familiar grassy slope. His dreams were restless, and he often found himself dreaming of home. But this version of his home was different. A gloomy cloud hung over the hillside near Sasha’s house. They’d grown up on this hillside, playing with their siblings. Quinn stood rooted to the spot, alone. The pull of home was so intense he almost couldn’t breathe. But this wasn’t home. Not really. It was a creepy substitute of the home he remembered.

He walked through the tall grass, yellowed and dying. The purple clouds hung low on the horizon and the roar of the waves breaking against the rocks far below the cliffs sounded like the crash of cymbals. The echo tinny and unnatural. He walked right up to the edge of the cliff, so focused on his misery and homesickness he almost didn’t see the person waiting for him there.

“What is this place?” Santi asked, turning to face him.

“Home.” He shrugged. “Or something like it, I guess.”

“Show me?” She smiled, taking his hand and pulling him away from the precipice.

As they turned, the landscape changed and Quinn stumbled at the sight of his house. They were no longer on the hillside. Now they walked hand in hand across the wide lawn to a ghostly replica of his childhood home. The two-story California Craftsman was his father’s pride and joy. He’d done much of the restoration work himself. All dark wood, natural stone and exposed joists with a subtle hint of Asian influence in the low rooflines and surrounding gardens. With the warm light glowing from within, it was all too much for Quinn. The surge of homesickness brought him to his knees. He could hear the faint sound of Graham’s laughter and their father yelling for them to come inside.

“You grew up here?” Santi asked, kneeling beside him. “It’s beautiful.”

“I spent my whole life here.” He nodded, staring at the vision before him. “It’s just a house, I know, but it’s been so long … I miss it so much. The thought of never returning….” He shook his head.

“I know how much our childhood homes mean to us,” she whispered. “It’s why I volunteered—back when I thought I was applying for a job as a Soma agent.” She laughed bitterly. “I wanted to save my family home from foreclosure. I can’t even remember the last time I saw it. It’s been so long. But I saved the house. It seems silly now. A pile of bricks and mortar isn’t a home.”

“It’s the people inside that matter.” Quinn stood, draping his arm around her waist as they crossed the front porch to the swing where his mother and father spent so much time together in the evenings. They never got into the bad habit of watching television or pursuing solitary endeavors. No, his parents still sat on the front porch swing in the summers, laughing and talking until the evenings grew late. He and Graham used to tease them about it, but Quinn would give anything to sit on this swing with his dad and have one of their philosophical discussions. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to go home again. If I’ll ever escape the clutches of Soma. I’m not even sure I could go back to the way it was before.”

“You’re not a kid anymore, Quinn.” Santi slid closer to his side as they rocked the swing into a slow rhythm. “Michael … and Soma took that from us. But we’ll get out and we’ll move on with our lives, and someday we’ll find a place to call home again. Do not lose hope. Not yet.”

He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but Quinn had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. But even in his dream, he couldn’t do that to Sasha. Not with the way they’d left things. The guilt would crush him. But in the short time they’d known each other, with their shared circumstances what they were, Santi had become the best part of his world. He liked where they were heading, but at the same time he didn’t know how to move on from Sasha. Or if it was even fair for him to consider loving someone else. In the chaos of his mind, his time with Sasha felt like the ancient history of first love.

Santi seemed to respond to his reservations, leaning her head against his shoulder, content just to sit quietly with his arm around her. She saw him so clearly, it was often disarming. All his life, his friends and family only saw what Quinn wanted them to see—the fa?ade he wore to hide the severity of his addiction. But Santi saw through him, right down to his soul, and she still liked what she saw.

“You are thinking big thoughts,” she whispered, reaching to stroke the crease of his brow. The clean scent of her like lavender and citrus. In Quinn’s dream, Santi was relaxed and free of the chains that bound her to Livia’s home. In his dream she was happy.

“Santi? What’s your real name?” Quinn frowned down at her. He’d never asked and it felt wrong not knowing her real name.

“Santi,” she said, her chin lifting stubbornly.

“What’s it short for?”

“Santi is short for my father’s surname, Santiago.”

He could tell by the way she fidgeted with her hair that she wasn’t about to tell him her full name because it was something completely dreadful.