by Kylar Wilde
“They found a bunch of notebooks and drawings,” Quinn said. “Right after you became his ex, he vowed revenge, as if you had stabbed him in the back. He wrote some nasty things, Ali, and he sketched drawings of him as Vlad the Impaler and the three of you as victims.”
“I’ve heard of Vlad the Impaler torturing people but I don’t know the details of his evil deeds,” Elle said in a curious tone. “What exactly did Vlad do to his victims?”
Quinn kept driving as if he hadn’t heard her and the conversation naturally dried up.
“Quinn?” Ali asked. “Answer her. Are you not telling us everything?”
He took his time. “Vlad the Impaler would sharpen a certain kind of tree to a point and drive it through a living person’s ass right up through their mouths then stick the other end of the tree into a hole in the ground. People were held up in the air on those spears and they don’t die immediately. I know it’s gruesome, but you insisted.”
“He’s a maniac,” Elle said. “Imagine drawing pictures of us three like that.”
“He’s batshit crazy!” Derek exclaimed.
“Crazier than two bags of hammers,” Quinn agreed. “But that’s why we’re going to drive over two thousand miles and set up shop. Remember, everybody, it’s silent running. Not even any social media.”
“That will be tough for Derek,” Elle said. “He’s checking his phone all the time.”
“I’m not that bad,” he complained playfully.
“Did you or did you not send fifteen hundred texts one day last week?”
“I did, but it was all work. I didn’t even inform Jeff about my sudden take off and he’s my best friend.”
“No texts, no contact from here on in,” Quinn added. “It’s time to be disciplined and patient. Let Matt be the one to make the mistake then we can all go back to normal.”
“Agreed,” they all said in unison.
They chatted occasionally during the long drive then fell into long periods of silence. Ali looked at the two men from the back and could not help noticing how the brothers looked alike in their own ways. Derek had short dirty-blond hair and blue eyes. He was a handsome man and he most certainly looked compatible with Elle. Ali then glanced over to see Elle half falling asleep while looking out of the window with wisps of brunette hair coming loose from her pony tail. Just then, Elle turned to look at Ali with her alluring gunmetal grey eyes as she gave Ali a reassuring smile and patted her hand. Elle is such a treasured friend and Ali was glad that she had her for company. Ali continued looking out of the window and found a kind of gentle comfort in the sound of the road and vehicles passing. The car felt like a little spaceship with the four of them traveling to some unknown galaxy. Everything would be different, especially the fact that she would be living in a house with Quinn, his wife or some relative for all intents and purposes. Elle would be shacking up with Derek. No, that’s not the right word. They weren’t shacking up, they would merely be living together, just like Ali and Quinn.
Twelve hours after starting, with Derek now behind the wheel, they pulled into a small establishment called The Bites Motel and it had units exactly the same as in the famous Hitchcock movie Psycho. There was even a poster on the office wall of the famous shower scene. Apparently, that worked because the parking lot was full, especially the restaurant. The special was their world-famous coconut cream pie. Quinn rented two rooms side by side and they walked into the restaurant, Quinn holding the door for the three of them, and all three of them thanking him. They shared a surprisingly good meal. The men then took one room and the women took the other. After a good sleep and shower, they resumed the next day at eight in the morning. They drove until eight at night, this time stopping at a much classier joint but agreeing the food was not nearly as good.
That routine continued for days and somehow, they began to feel like a family. Ali started really caring about Quinn, too. He was always cheerful, funny, smart, and he was so sweet to everyone. Some of his combat stories broke Ali’s heart and she just could not make up her mind whether to tell him or not that she had been raped multiple times. Would he look at her as a victim? Would it diminish her somehow in his eyes? She did not want either one. Someday, when she did find the right man, she wanted him to see her as an equal, not someone to be pitied. She could not imagine telling him what that man did to her! The humiliation. The degradation. It was disgusting, but would that make her disgusting? Could that horrible time in her life rob her of this warm glow growing in her heart? The reason for her glow was clear. It was Quinn Hawkins, a man of honor, dignity, pride. It was almost like a bonus point that he was handsome. Though he had rushed and not shaved, his scruffy day-old stubble made him even more desirable. She wanted to feel his stubbly chin with her fingertips and kiss his irresistible mouth.
“Here we are,” that mouth said as the descended down a hill past a sign on the side of the road.
Hidden Grove.
Chapter 3
Quinn grew solemn as they entered Hidden Grove, a place none of them had even heard of. Together they agreed that the closest any of them had ever been to Hidden Grove was five hundred miles. It was a town of four thousand with a mixture of farming, businesses and residences. When you approached Hidden Grove, you had to turn right off the main road, but there was no sign. They followed their GPS and found a town in the forest, kind of an enchanted place with beautiful old homes, a fine school, playground, even a duck pond and a one-mile trail around it. There was a baseball field, a small arena and a least half a dozen public basketball courts beside the tennis courts.
“32 Peppermint Avenue,” Quinn said, looking at the GPS and trying to find the right street.
“You just concentrate on the driving,” Ali told him, noticing him drifting over the center line. “I’ll tell you when.” She leaned forward. “There it is,” she said, “second next street on the right.”
Quinn laughed, but he did slow down, putting on the right blinker. “Second next street,” Quinn said with a chuckle, “that sounds like a rock album. I wonder if anyone ever used that?”
“You know what I meant,” Ali said.
“And it was appreciated,” he assured her, turning down Peppermint Avenue.
The street was long and tree-lined with beautiful homes spaced on large properties. Several had pools, there were three with tennis courts and even a lawn bowling facility parallel to the road. A number of people were playing, mostly over their fifties, but a group of them looked like were in their forties and half a dozen girls were playing at the back. The street made a long sweeping circle, emerging at another entrance one hundred yards away. Just sixty yards before that stood 32 Peppermint Avenue. They saw it simultaneously. It was a beautiful historic home, one storey, with spectacular grounds, including rare Japanese trees. The house was brown and green. It blended into the environment perfectly and was very private, abutting on a large wilderness area.
“So that’s where Ali and I would be,” Quinn said to Derek then gestured in Elle’s direction. “They don’t want us being seen together in public too much,” he said, “but if you’re feeling uncomfortable, any one of you, I need to know.”
“Aye Aye, Captain,” Derek said.
“Even if it’s not something obvious, keep each other informed. It may be somebody trying to take your picture, or somebody following you, anything like that.”
They exited Peppermint Avenue and turned right, eventually taking Derek and Elle to a lake along a quiet road. Quinn drove into a driveway and down a little hill, coming to a cottage on a rise overlooking a lake and a little rocky island right in the middle, about seventy-five yards distant. Quinn parked and all four of them got out, stretching after a long journey, though Derek and Elle stretched differently than Quinn and Ali. Derek and Elle stretched like the journey was over. Quinn and Ali knew it was far from the end.
It took no time to carry their things into the cottage, which, it instantly became apparent, was fully stocked with food. All four of them
looked out at the lake, marveling at the peace and quiet of it, though they did have television and internet. The house had a really neat fireplace and fine furniture.
“Remember,” Quinn said, “be good neighbors, but neighbors who mind their own business. You can order all your food and supplies online and pretend you’re in a kind of quarantine. Stick around the property. If you can’t stand that, be careful when you leave. Dress to look plain and don’t get in any big conversations with the locals.”
“What about you, Quinn?” Derek asked. “Are you going to be staying inside?”
“No,” he answered quickly, “but I’m willing to take the risk of being picked off by a sniper. When you’re a soldier or a cop, you take that chance every day.”
“But I can leave at my own risk?” Derek asked, wanting a definitive answer.
“You’re in hiding, you’re not a prisoner.”
Quinn hugged his brother and Ali hugged Elle. Then they were on the road again, driving back to Peppermint Avenue. All of a sudden it was very quiet. The four of them had traveled together so long that the car felt almost empty without Derek and Elle. Now Ali was also in the front seat, far removed from sitting directly behind Quinn. She could feel his presence much more strongly here and it seemed somehow extremely intimate. Fact was they were alone now, just the two of them, about to live in a house together as a fictional brother and sister.
According to the story, Quinn has been asked in for assistance on the serious criminal case and Ali was recently widowed, now looking to recover with quiet time, painting and writing. They reached the house in about twenty minutes and pulled into a gravel driveway alongside it. The back veranda was a few steps to the left and a big crab apple tree towered to the right. There was an old-fashioned rope swing tied to a huge branch, with a wide wooden seat attached to it. The back veranda, hidden from the road, had a swing set and faced the forest. Quinn took the keys out of his pocket and opened the door, holding it for Ali.
“Beauty before the beast,” he said with a handsome grin.
She chuckled as she passed him. “Look at this!” Ali exclaimed, surprised by the little castle into which she had just walked. “Gorgeous!”
“They say that when it comes to picking a house,” Quinn noted, “the female makes the choice. It’s the same as the female bird choosing the nest. I think I can tell by your reaction that you like it.”
She ignored him. “I’m claiming this room,” she said, pointing at one of the smallest rooms in the house. “That’s my woman cave.” She gave him a hard look. “The other room is twice as big. You can have that one for your man cave.”
“You’re easy to live with,” Quinn said, strolling into the house like the king of the castle.
“Take your shoes off,” Ali scolded him, showing her sock feet. “A clean floor does not start with dirty shoes and dirty boots. House rule.”
Quinn frowned and flipped off his shoes. “I get to make a house rule then.”
Ali considered his proposal, biting her lip. “Go ahead.”
“No complaining if I leave the seat up on the toilet.”
“Of all things,” she said with a tortured expression, “my biggest pet peeve. Let’s negotiate. You at least have to make an effort to remember to put the toilet seat down.”
“No, you have to remember to put the toilet seat up.”
“This is getting nowhere,” Ali said, hurrying away from him with a bemused look.
“Welcome to the real world of men and women living together,” Quinn said as he walked out the door to get his bags. “Need some help with your stuff?” he asked when he finished.
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” she replied, heading out to start the process of unloading.
Quinn took the first bedroom, a small one compared to the master at the back of the house, but it had a good view of both the front and back doors. The window looked out on the vehicle and the apple tree. Ali was surprised, but highly pleased, that she had been given the bigger bedroom, this one with a beautiful, huge bed carved from the finest wood. It looked like something out of New York’s grandest hotel. The bedroom was lovely, with a nice dresser and big mirror. The view showed a treed lot and behind it an old ballfield, now partially overgrown, the old backstop rusty and crumbling. Quinn was making coffee as Ali finished bringing in the rest of her stuff. She opened only one suitcase in her bedroom, putting away her underwear and socks as Quinn came in with two cups of coffee.
“My mother used to say never trust a man to make good coffee,” he said, handing her one, “but maybe you’ll beg to differ.”
She reached for the cup and dropped a pair of sheer lavender panties, the color you see on candy eggs at Easter. The panties fell right at Quinn’s feet and he instinctively stooped down to pick up what she dropped, but when he clasped them and stood, he rubbed his fingers over the soft, smooth texture, noting they were panties of the thong variety.
“Thank you,” she said, taking them with a blush and putting them into her drawer, closing it.
“Any time,” he responded.
They explored the house, checking out every closet, flushing the toilet, with Quinn lifting the seat as he left, only to watch Ali walk back into the bathroom and put it down. Quinn found a doorway to the basement and they descended the stairs. Below them was a dirt floor and huge beams holding up the house. Some things were stored there, such as an old pool table and some broken furniture, but other than that it was simply dim and dark. The outside was the exact opposite, with lots of room to play and explore.
“You know something,” Quinn said, looking at the old ballfield. “Even if you had to lie low here, you could have the whole wilderness back there to explore. You could probably walk for days without seeing another person.”
“Let’s go camping sometime,” Ali suggested. “I always wanted to do that when I was kid, but I never got a chance.”
“Would you be afraid of animals?”
“The only tent I ever stayed in was on the street,” she remarked distractedly then seemed to register what he said. “I was a lot more afraid of human animals than I am of non-human animals. People are terrified of bears and sharks, but bears and sharks only kill a handful of people. Humans kill thousands and even millions of people. They’re the ones you have to fear.”
Though she did not vocalize it, she had a flashback of Matt hitting her and calling her names that night he shot her. He was so cold, so vicious, that she wondered how she had ever befriended him in the first place. It was as if that person and the person she had first met were totally different people. Though he was not a big man, he was strong and he had such a temper. When he was sober, he treated Ali fairly but when he got riled up, Ali feared him, and she feared him enough not to go to the police.
Quinn tried to gently rub the back of his fingers across Ali’s face. “Do you fear me?”
“No,” she said, but she did move away before he could touch her. Then she spun around and faced him. “I’m sorry, Quinn. My boyfriend beat me up and shot me. I was captured by enemy forces and raped. Raped. You hear about women like me, but you don’t often see us.” She sighed deeply. “I am not just a statistic. I lived it. I survived it, though I can still smell his breath. But it’s his eyes that I’ll never forget. He was crazy when he dealt with me, but rational to all the others. I don’t know why, maybe I reminded him of someone he despised so much that he had to dominate and hurt me. Do you know what it felt like, Quinn, to have an ugly man with foul breath raping you whenever he felt like it? If you resist, death is not upon you but on others. I had to watch him slit the throat of every other prisoner. Their lives depended on me, Quinn. Either I accepted the disgusting humiliation, or they would never get to go home to their families. He was a skinny, ugly man with the face of a lizard. He had terrible acne, but the worst thing about him was that look, that condescending expression that said he was not only better than me, no, not just that, he was saying I was nothing. I was trash. And every time after he finishe
d his foul deed, that’s what I felt like. Trash. But you know something, Quinn? After a while it became clear to me that I was not only thinking about the others. I realized I wanted to live. I wanted to find a man to love. A man to marry, have a family, a nice house, like this. I wanted to live, Quinn. And do you want to know why?”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because hope dies last.”
Chapter 4
Quinn held out his big, coarse hand. Ali hesitated but then slowly moved her small, soft hand and met his. They looked into each other’s eyes, both tired, both beaten down by the world and all the evil machinations in it. But when they joined hands, holding on tightly, they found something special. Ali could sense that Quinn was attracted to her just as she was to him. They were both quite similar having seen the worst of the worst and then spat out on the other side. Somehow fate had thrown them together in a most intriguing way. Though they were under the guise of brother and sister, they would be sharing this house, living side by side, coping with mundane things like washing floors and taking out the garbage. It would not be a wild adventure; it would be living like a couple in real life. Even though Ali was in danger, she wanted nothing more than to be right there, right then with Quinn. What would happen, she did not know, but she was content in the process of discovery.
“You hungry, my baby sister?” Quinn asked with a compassionate smile, kissing the back of her hand like a gentleman before letting it go. “I can order us a pizza. I saw a joint just up the road.”
