Innocent Until Found Dead

Chapter Eleven

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." -Winnie the Poo

(Listen to the song after the first time break(Those little dots) it'll make ya cry)

The hot water streamed over Quinn's shoulders, rolling down her back in rivulets as she leaned against the shower wall, her forehead pressed to the cool tiles. Steam swirled thickly around her, clinging to her skin, but it did nothing to ease the tension coiled tight in her chest.

Laura and Hunter were hiding something. She couldn't explain how she knew—it wasn't one thing but the accumulation of small, careful actions. The way their eyes flickered when she mentioned her dreams, the looks they exchanged when they thought she wasn't paying attention, the carefully casual tone they used, as though they were stepping around broken glass.

Her jaw tightened as the thoughts pressed harder, louder. Everything about this move to Riverford felt too perfect, too well-timed to be chance. A secluded family property she barely knew existed, left to her after her parents' deaths. A place that seemed to beckon her with answers she didn't fully understand, tangled with the strange dreams that clung to her like ghostly fragments of a life just out of reach.

This wasn't a coincidence. It couldn't be.

The water began to cool, snapping Quinn out of her spiraling thoughts. She turned off the shower and stepped out, wrapping herself in a towel. Wiping her hand across the fogged mirror, she cleared a streak large enough to see her reflection.

For a moment, she studied the faint scars that mapped her body, pale lines that crisscrossed her arms, shoulders, and collarbone. Her skin still bore the evidence of the car crash that had taken her brother and nearly claimed her life. Some of the scars were faint now, faded with time, while others remained stubbornly pronounced.

Her gaze lingered on the scar running diagonally across her left shoulder, a thin ridge of puckered skin. It had healed, but no amount of healing could erase the memory of the crash—or the hollow ache it left behind.

She exhaled slowly, her fingers gripping the edge of the sink. The faint scars scattered across her body stared back at her, pale and jagged against her skin, illuminated under the soft light. They were her history, etched into her flesh—a brutal map of what she had survived and lost. Each one carried a memory she didn't ask for and couldn't forget, but together, they felt like fragments of a story she still didn't fully understand.

Her gaze drifted to the scar running diagonally across her left shoulder, a stubborn ridge of puckered skin that had faded but never disappeared. It was a reminder of the car crash that had claimed her brother's life and left her clinging to her own. The crash had marked her in ways that went beyond the physical.

She met her own eyes in the mirror, green and sharp despite the faint shadow of exhaustion beneath them. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. This is my life now, she thought, the absurdity hitting her all at once. A serial killer was stalking her—had already murdered her parents—and Laura and Hunter thought they could fix everything by feeding her a vague, sanitized story and pretending things were fine.

It wasn't fine. None of it was.

It felt like her life had been ripped straight from a thriller movie, the kind where the main character was constantly one step behind the truth. Only this wasn't fiction. It was messy, painful, and terrifyingly real.

Her fingers trailed over the scars on her arms one last time before she straightened, her jaw tightening as her resolve hardened. She wouldn't let herself be the passive character anymore. If her parents had left behind clues, she would find them.