“She’s a little girl, not a damaged product!” Santi balled her fists at her sides.
“Lennox knew it was only a matter of time before someone found out about her early Awakening. She’s grown up here, guys. And when you grow up at Soma, you get used to the idea that you don’t have a say in your own future. She’ll be okay. There’s a chance she might even earn her freedom one day.”
Quinn glared at his friend. James could be a good guy when he wanted. He had decency buried somewhere beneath the depravity this place had ingrained in him. But sometimes you had to dig deep to find the man he was supposed to be before Soma ruined him.
“We’re not letting them sell her. It’s not up for discussion,” Quinn said.
“She was sold at Amrita, guys. It’s a done deal,” James said.
“We have to get her out of here.” Santi shook her head stubbornly. “Like right now. We can’t risk waiting any longer.”
“What, you’re going to walk out the front door tomorrow?” James folded his arms across his chest.
“Yeah. Exactly,” Santi said after a long pause.
“What?” Quinn looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“I have an idea,” Santi said. “But we need James.” Except James wasn’t listening. His eyes held a faraway look, like he wasn’t quite there with them.
“Give him a minute. He’s seeing something,” Quinn said.
“Nope. Didn’t see nothing.” James shook his head, backing away. “Just … if you find a way to get Len out of here, don’t ever look back. That kid deserves a good life.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and took off along the path.
“Not so fast.” Quinn followed him. With a brush of his hand against James’s arm, he brought him back to the fallen log, shoving him down to sit. “What did you see?”
“I saw you walk out the front door with Livia. Just like Santi said. I don’t know what it means.”
“Santi, what are you thinking?” Quinn asked.
“Can I go now?” James tried to get up again. “I don’t want to be involved.”
“Stay right where you are.” Quinn shoved him back down. “You’re part of this friendship whether you want to be or not. If we get out, you’re coming with us. If Santi has a plan, I want to hear it.” But James gave him a look that said hoping was pointless. He was broken in a whole different kind of way.
“How much time do we have?” Santi asked. “Before her owners show up?”
“A few weeks. Maybe.”
“Then we don’t have much time to figure out our next move. So talk fast, Santi. What’s your plan?” Quinn asked.
Santi paced back and forth in front of them, chewing on her thumbnail. “If we escape, Livia will just reel us back in. But what if we escaped with her?”
“What? Like trick her?” James scoffed. “She’s not easily fooled, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“So we have to be convincing.”
“What could we possibly say to get her to go along with us?” Quinn asked, ignoring James.
“It’s risky. I’ve been thinking about it since Quinn dragged himself out of that tunnel in Cleveland. I was hoping we’d have more time to work out a better plan, but with Lennox’s situation, we have to act now. Can we trust you, James?”
“If you really think you can get Lennox out of here, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“It’s going to fall to you to get her out of here.”
“No dice.” James shook his head. “You’ve experienced how Livia pulls you back. You’ve met me, right? I am not strong enough to resist that. Hell, even you two couldn’t do it, and you’re way more motivated than me.”
“She doesn’t control your gift, so how can she pull you back?” Quinn asked.
“She owns me. She can pull me back by my Soma leash.” He pointed to the brand on his arm. “She owns us all and for those of us who live here, she controls our brands. If we try to escape she can use the brand to pull us back. If she has control of one of your gifts, her pull is even stronger.”
“I thought Ryan controlled the brands? It’s his gift that makes them.”
“And he passes his control to the owners. For us, that’s Livia. If we’re sold, she would pass ownership to the highest bidder, giving them that same kind of control. It’s how some of us are able to go out into the world to do Soma’s bidding. We come back because we are well-trained dogs who don’t like the tug of the master’s leash.”
“So let’s say we got her to take us out on another mission and we exhausted her ability?” Santi asked. “Theoretically, you could walk out the front door with Lennox and not look back, right?”
“There’s a chance Ryan would be able to stop us.” James ran his hands through his hair. “But if he were distracted too, it might work. Except for the hundreds of Coalition and Soma agents at Sterling Tower who would question why I was removing property from the building.”
“But you can come and go however you like,” Santi said. “You should be able to sneak her out.”
“That’s easier said than done,” James muttered.
“We will come up with a plan, James,” Santi said. “We’re not leaving you or Lennox behind. We’ll get Livia and her team occupied, and you’ll get Len out of the building. Then you come meet us.”
“Sure, no problem.” James laughed.
“This is happening, James.” Santi gave him a hard look. “We give you the chance to get her out and you take it. You hear me? You fail and you’ll have to deal with me.”
James nodded. “All right, I promise. If you two can pull this off, I’ll get Lennox out of here.”
“And what is our part in this?” Quinn asked, eager to hear what Santi had up her sleeve.
“Can you give me your absolute trust, Quinnton?”
“You have that in spades, Mina.”
“Say that again when you hear the rest of my plan.”
“I’m listening.”
“You have to let her push you over the edge. Give in to your addiction and she’ll break you.”
“No.” Quinn shook his head.
“Think about it before you say no. You succumb to the addiction and she’ll think she’s won. She’ll have no reason to think you aren’t completely hers.”
“And she’ll be right. That’s ridiculous, Santi. If I lose control of my power … I won’t be me anymore. I won’t have a reason not to tell her whatever she wants to know. She’ll go after my family.”
“Exactly. She will break you and you will tell her everything she wants to know. All you have to do is trust me to take care of the rest. Can you do that?”
“I trust you. But I don’t think you understand what you’re asking me to do.”
“When you tell her everything she’s been dying to know about Allie, she’s going to go after her and that’s exactly what we want. The point is for us to escape. To do that we need help. We take the fight to your family and we get the help we need.”
“You think if I let her attack my family that they’ll win, take her captive and free us.”
“I’ve never seen a family more well-connected and prepared than yours. She won’t expect it. You all have resources I couldn’t even fathom. You’ve turned Kelleys Island into an impenetrable fortress.”
“There’s one giant hole in your plan, Santi.”
“What’s that?”
“How do we know what I’ll do once she breaks me? How do we know I won’t tell her what we’re planning?”
“When she breaks you, your gift is going to take over, right?”
“Yes, and that version of myself is a lunatic.”
“A lunatic that will want to be a Soma slave?” she asked, her brow raised to make her point.
“No. He won’t want to be under Livia’s thumb any more than I do.”
“You guys are talking like there’s more than one Quinn in there.” James rapped his knuckles against Quinn’s head. “That’s worrisome.”
“You don’t know the ha
lf of it,” Quinn said. “That guy has been trying to take control since I was sixteen years old.”
“Multiple personalities?”
“It’s my power. It manifests as an alter ego. He wants the freedom to use my power his way and not mine. I keep him in check. What Santi is suggesting would mean letting him come out to play. And there is just no predicting what that asshole will do.”
“So the question of the hour is, would crazy-Q play along with our plan?” James asked.
“You know him best, Quinn. But it doesn’t sound like he’d blow the whistle on us if what he wants is freedom. He’s been a prisoner inside you all his life. He’s not going to want to trade one prison for another.”
“Do you think you can reason with him?” James asked.
“If Livia pushes me into my addiction, I’ll resist it. It’s just in my blood. I’ll hear the voice. He’ll tempt me, like always. I would have time to reason with him, but there’s no guarantee he’ll go along with the plan.”
“That’s where you’re going to have to trust me to do my part too,” Santi said. “I’ll make sure this goes our way.”
“I trust you, Santi. I do. But I don’t think I could come back to myself after that.”
“We don’t have time for your stubborn self-doubt, Quinnton. You really can’t see it, can you?” She shoved him hard, pushing him down on the log beside James. “You’re really that stupid?”
“Santi, I know what my limits are.”
“No. You know what scares you,” she accused. “Like a coward, you set your limits too low and you refuse to budge. But you are not a coward.” She cut right through him with her glare. “You can do this, Quinn. You have strength unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Her voice softened as she knelt beside him. “You are one of the kindest men I’ve ever known—and you’re hardly more than a boy. You have grace and humility. But you do not trust yourself. You let Livia break you and we’ll beat her at her own game. And then you’ll come back to me.”
“How do we know that, Santi? How do we know I wouldn’t just become the weapon she wants?”
“You failed once before, Quinn. When you came out of that tunnel, you failed. You won’t fail again.”
“I told you I had no idea when I turned back.” It wasn’t fair for her to throw that in his face now. It wasn’t like her to be so cruel. “It wasn’t a conscious choice to turn back.”
“That’s not when you failed.” Her eyes blazed with fury. “When you realized you were back where you started, why didn’t you turn around again? They couldn’t get to you through that concrete wall. When I opened the door and went back to her, I was no longer in control of myself. I fought until the last second. But why did you walk out of that tunnel on your own?”
“I was at the end of my rope, Santi. I couldn’t turn back and do it all over again. I opened the door and went back with my tail tucked between my legs because she controls me.”
“Because you refused to fight, Quinn. You failed to escape because you refused to cross that line you set for yourself when you were sixteen years old. I know you. I know you sat in that tunnel and thought about pushing yourself. To keep going. But your fear of losing control is what stopped you. Len’s life is on the line. If you won’t risk this for yourself, will you risk it for her?”
“Santi … I can try, but you don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“No. There is no trying. You will do this and you will believe in yourself. You have to step across that line. Give in to the addiction and the madness of your gift. Let Livia think she has won. And then trust in yourself to come back from it. And you will, Quinnton Loukas, because I need you to come back to me.”
“Santi, I know if anyone could bring me back it would be you. But I don’t see how the rest of your plan is going to work.”
“What does Livia want more than anything in this world?” Santi asked.
“Her demented father’s approval,” Quinn said.
“No. She breaks her back to give him what he wants, not for his approval, but to maintain some sort of peace with him and to keep her mother safe. I think she got this way because at one point all she wanted was to make Marcus proud, but that ship sailed a long time ago and he never noticed. So what does she want?”
“She wants out,” James said. “Even more than we do.”
“Exactly.” Santi’s eyes gleamed in triumph. “But she’s trapped. He’ll never let her go. He’d chase her to the ends of the earth.”
“And if my family takes her captive, he’ll come after them,” Quinn said, still not liking her plan.
“That is a fight for another day. You can’t tell me you would walk out of Soma and go back to your old life and forget the suffering that man brings? No, our families will bring an end to Marcus and all of Soma.”
“Do you really think she’ll fall for it?”
“What’s the one thing Livia wants from you? The thing she is dying to get her hands on?”
“Allie. And she thinks I’m the key to getting her.” Quinn sighed. “But I don’t want to use my friend as bait to save my own ass.”
“You don’t have to. We’re not going to give her what she wants. We’re just going to tempt her with it. Then we walk out the front door with her and none of us ever come back.”
Quinn started to see the merit of Santi’s plan. “You’re right. If I let her break me, she’ll immediately go after Allie. But I can’t take her to my home. Santi, I can’t do it.”
“You don’t have to,” James said quietly as he sketched furiously with a stick in the dirt at their feet. His eyes narrowed to slits, glowing like cat’s eyes, and his voice sounded deceptively calm. “The heir will gather the Anchors under the blood moon. Her rage will bring death to her enemies the moment she comes into her inheritance.”
“What is he babbling about?” Santi asked.
“Shhh. Let him draw.” Quinn rose to stand behind James.
“It begins here,” James whispered, pointing with his stick.
“What does?” Quinn watched James’s robotic movements.
“The future. A new age begins this night.” He thumped his drawing with a fist of triumph.
“Is he having a fit?” Santi whispered.
“He is speaking prophecy,” Quinn said softly.
“Oh shit.”
“She already sees. This will happen. The two will meet in a confluence. Then it will be up to the children of prophecy to lead us into this new era.” James shook his head, his eyes widening as he came out of his prophetic haze.
“What does it mean?” Quinn asked.
“It means this will happen whether it’s you pulling the strings or someone else,” James said. “The events were set in motion a long time ago, but they solidified the moment you made the choice to open that tunnel door and come back to Livia. It will happen. So you might as well be the one driving this bus.”
“But what does it mean? The blood moon? The heir? Anchors? What’s a confluence? Who are the children of prophecy?” Quinn felt hopelessly inadequate, but Santi and James were looking to him for answers.
James shrugged. “I just draw it, man. I’m acting completely on instinct without a mentor to guide me. But I do know this is a reference to another prophecy … I just don’t know which one.”
Quinn looked down at the drawing of a map. He saw a house at the end of a winding drive. A beach cottage along the lake. “The orchard,” Quinn whispered, tracing the lines of the roughly sketched barn. “This is Imogen’s house in New York.”
“This confrontation you’re talking about forcing between Livia and your family,” James said. “It could happen in this place in just a few weeks. Your redheaded friend is already dreaming of it. She will figure it out and she’ll react. Do nothing and it will still happen. But it will be somewhere else. Maybe in a few months, or even a few years. And it will most likely happen at your home. My prophetic gut tells me forcing this version now will yield the better outcome than waiting it out.
”
“Allie would help them prepare,” Quinn murmured. It was all coming together despite his reservations. It could work. If he trusted himself enough. If he trusted Allie to figure it out in time.
“You can do this, Quinn,” Santi whispered. “We’ll lead Livia there. She’ll have absolutely no reason to suspect they might be prepared.”
“When will this happen?”
“I see a blood moon every time I close my eyes,” James said. “This is about so much more than your escape. It’s about Livia and Allie coming to a head. It’s going to happen no matter what you do. But you can use this to our advantage. The next blood moon is in two weeks.”
“When we leave for New York, you get Lennox out of here and you two head for Cleveland as fast as you can,” Quinn said. “If everything goes right, you’ll never even feel the pull of your brands.”
“How do I find you once we’re there?”
“Go to the docks at Edgewater Park. Our sentries will find you.”
“Are we doing this?” Santi asked.
“I think we have to,” Quinn said. “When this is all over, I’m going to need you to pull me back. It’s never easy for a broken Immortal to come back. It could take years until I’m myself again, but it’s worth it to get us all out of here and put an end to this.”
“We’ll take it one moment at a time.” Santi stared up at him, her touch a soothing balm to his racing heart. “One breath at a time.” She took a step back, holding his hands.
“We better go,” Quinn said. “We have a lot of planning to do.”
“I trust you’ll keep me in the loop on a need-to-know basis?” James kicked the dirt over his drawing and made his way along the path through the woods. He would wander into his own dreams and wake in the morning remembering every detail of their conversations here.
“We begin tomorrow,” Santi said as she drifted back to her own dreamscape.
Quinn set off to his library to plan until it was time to wake. I am not Livia’s slave. I’m no one’s slave. It was time to take a risk. Lennox deserved a chance at life with a family that loved her. If we can get Lennox out of here, I’m going to see to it she gets a family of her own. And he had just the family in mind.
Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3) Page 25
