The Calling Of Quinn Taylor

Chapter Fifteen

“I knew,” Mia says, falling onto the sofa. “She came to me… a couple nights before prom.” 
Who? I want to scream. Who came to you? But I already know she’s talking about Maeve. The way her lips purse when she speaks and her eyebrows narrow in as her eyes close shut. 
“Maeve told me someone she trusts hurt her… that someone took advantage of her-her… body.” 
Holy shit. 
Her hands cup her face, covering her probably teary eyes. 
“I-I asked her who and she just-” she whimpers, catching her breath. “She just told me a man she told all her secrets to.”
Mia knew. She knew Maeve was hurting and she didn’t do anything. Instead, she was too focused on Brandon, on hurting Jessie’s heart. 
Jessie may have cheated, but I bet he still cared. There had to of been a shred of decency left in him and Mia just-- she just tore it from him; ripped it like paper. 
She did the same for Maeve. She should’ve went to someone, told her parents, even her brother… she should’ve went to the police. 
Mia Gulinski is the true reason why Maeve and Brandon are dead. 
“But Quinn,” she says, looking up with red eyes. “I swear to you, Brandon didn’t hurt you. You-you were passed out drunk and he brought you to bed. I know because…” She looks down, probably debating if she should carry on. “Because I helped him and I should’ve told you earlier… I’m sorry for that.” 
All this time, I was worrying. I was worried sick to my stomach. I went to Mr. Milgram for help! If I didn’t-- if I knew, I wouldn’t have gone; I wouldn’t have put myself in danger. 
All of this is her fault. 
***
    The next day, I drive to Wes’s house. 
    Today is June 4th-- an exact month since Maeve’s tragic death.
“You… you went through that? Maeve went to that?” Wes says, bringing his knees up to his chest. I sit next to him on his bed, rubbing my hand up and down his leg. 
    “Hey,” I say. “Milgram didn’t hurt me.” 
    He looks up with bloodshot eyes and dark circles reaching inches down his face. 
    “But he hurt Maeve! And-and Brandon… he shouldn’t have played you like that!” he shouts. When he rubs his face, his hands shake like a coffee addict. 
    “No he didn’t. Wes, he didn’t play me; I just never asked.” 
    “I never knew,” he whispers. “I never knew Maeve was getting used like that.” 
    I grab his hand. 
    “I remember when we first got her… Mom and I went to the foster home and I was six; she was just four. I-- I remember telling her happy I was to meet her. I told her I was her new brother.” He closes his eyes, making his eyes simply seem like a black hole. He seems like he’s barely surviving… not even maintaining. “The foster parents got in trouble and were forced to abandon the house… drugs.” 
    If his mom never adopted her, she could’ve been stuck in that house, exposed to drugs. She could’ve been worse off. Maybe she could’ve gotten to the point where dying was better than staying on Earth. 
    “You wanna’ go?” I say. “Where is it?”
    He opens his eyes.
    “The foster home? About an hour. Maeve used to want to check in occasionally, so we’d go… see how her old foster siblings were doing.”
    “Let’s go,” I say. “You need to get out… your mom’s here, she can stay with Grace.” 
    He hesitates at first, but then a gleam of light appears in his eyes. 
    “Okay,” he says. “Okay, let’s go.” 

    The foster home is small, consisting of only a couple bedrooms with multiple bunk beds and one room for the so called parents. 
    The floors are made of splintery wood that would scratch any barefoot brave enough to walk on it. The wallpaper has begun to chip away and the ceiling caves in from water damage and who-knows-what-else. 
    They must’ve left not much after Maeve was adopted. It has to be at least fifteen years abandoned. 
    “This was where I first saw her,” Wes says, leaning against the doorway leading into a bedroom with four bunkbeds. 
    The sheets are stripped from the beds, leaving only stained mattresses.
    I step in, examining the room. 
    “She was sleeping. Mom just wanted to look at her once more before filling out the paperwork. I knew she loved her already by the way she looked at her… the way she looks at me; the way she looks at her family,” he says, taking a step in. 
    “I can imagine,” I say, looking out the broken, cracked window. 
    After I say that, we stay silent for what feels like forever.
"Quinn?" Wesley's reassuring voice whispers from behind me. 
            I turn around, shifting my focus from the window to him. His head is brought to the floor, muffling his voice. What's he doing? Is he okay? 
           "Yeah?" I say, taking a step closer, making his charming eyes glare up at me. 
           "Why-" he starts, but stops himself when he brings his head back up. His eyes become red, fighting back the tears. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurting?"
           And in that instant, my heart shatters into a million broken pieces. 
           Why didn't I tell him? I did it to protect him-- having him worry about me would just stress him out. He's already going through so much and adding that on… it'd be catastrophic. 
          I was humiliated, knowing I was stupid enough to get so drunk I couldn't remember if I had sex or not. 
        That's why.
        That's why I didn't tell him. 
        "It wasn't important," I say, grazing my fingers against his. "We needed to find who hurt Maeve and that… that was important." 
        His broken eyes lock on mine and that's when I see the tears, building up inside his tormented mind; they've finally escaped. 
        A salty tear rolls down his cheek, but I let it slide onto my finger instead of trailing down his neck. After that one, more follow and all I do is wipe them away, one by one. 
        He's going to be okay. 
        And I'm okay. 
        "But you're important to me," he croaks. "I would've killed him… I-I would've set him straight, Quinn; I really would've. You deserve better, you're-you're-"
        "Shh," I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. "I'm okay." His heartbeat echoes into my ear as I rest my head on his chest. "It's all okay."
         Thump. Thump. Thump.
         With every beat of his heart, mine gets warmer. 
         Thump. Thump.
         The cold touch of his hand caresses my chin, pulling my head up. 
         His eyes have dried up and the only thing left is the swollen, dark circles drooping down. They've gotten worse… nearly black-- he hasn’t been sleeping. 
         When my hand instinctively falls behind his neck, a flashback from prom night makes my stomach flutter.
         The way we held each other and let the night engulf us, how we stared into each other with hungry eyes, and now… this seems like déjà vu.
         Wesley Kingston has done something to me; he's made me feel things I've never felt, done things I never thought I would, and he's-he's just perfect. 
         "Do you-" he stutters, backing up. "Do you wanna' go find sheriff-"
         "Dear Lord!" I exclaim, gripping his wrist. He's not getting away this time; I'm choosing. If he doesn't have the courage to be the man he once was, I'll step up. 
          So I spin him around until he's cornered and that's when I place my hands on his cheeks and give him one last look-- he's completely innocent right now.
          I haven't kissed him; my lips haven't touched his  since prom night. Things have changed and now-- now it's time to get back into a routine, to become normal again. 
          It's been a month.
          He can't keep sulking around like a depressed, old man. 
          I press my lips against his, with my fingers stroking through his messy hair.
          Oh, how I missed this.
          It's different now; we know each other. We've experienced things, been through so much shit together. 
          With my heart still racing, he pulls away and his face is full of fear. 
          "You just kissed me," he says, placing his hand on my waist. 
          "You're surprised?" I say, somehow being pulled closer to his body. 
          "I… I like you," he says, pressing my body against his. "God, I like you a lot." 
          He leans back in, craving more. 
          My body shakes, full of energy, and my heart threatens to jump out of my ribcage as we fall onto the bottom bunk, raging with passion.
          "I never thought I'd meet someone like you," I say, playing with a piece of his hair. 
         He plants a kiss on my lips and it only evokes me more. 
         I rip off his shirt, exposing his once toned body, but now pale and malnourished.
         "What?" he says, sitting up. "Someone who's broken? I know that look." 
         He fumbles for his shirt, falling back in frustration when he realizes it's in my hands. 
         No. Someone this perfect. 
        "Someone so strong," I mumble, handing him his shirt. 
        He yanks it out of my hand and falls to the side of the bed, placing his head in his hands. 
        That's when I see his spine digging through his skin, begging to rip free. It sends my heart spiraling, knowing the one guy I trust is suffering so much. 
        And to think… I thought he was doing better.
        My hand trails up his back, feeling the bones wanting to escape. 
        "You'll get through this," I say, wrapping my arms arms around his stomach. "And I'll be with you every step of the way." 

    We’re silently sitting in the front seats of his car, wondering who’s going to say the first word. 
    Then we both do.
    “Should we talk to Mia?” he asks, as I say,
    “I should probably talk to Keller.” 
    The tension between the two of us is extreme, burning like a match paired with acetone. 
    Was it a mistake to kiss him? Maybe I shouldn’t have done it… but it felt so good. Perhaps he just isn’t ready yet. I’ll give him time before something so problematic happens again. 
    I should’ve thought before I did it.
    “Why?” I say. “Milgram’s already in jail for it. We don’t need to solve it anymore.” 
    “But what if he didn’t kill Brandon? And why Keller? You said he needed to be with his family.”
    “Keller’s in a dark place,” I say. “He needs some friends… and why the hell would Mia kill Brandon?”
    My phone rings, making the tension between Wes and I ease up. 
    It’s an unknown number.
    “Quinn Taylor?” a woman says when I pick up.
    “Yes?”
    “This is Chief Emma Larsen. I’d like to ask a few questions about everything that happened yesterday. Are you available to talk?”
    What more does she need to know? Milgram deserves to be in jail and that’s all that matters. He murdered two kids. 
    No more questions need to be asked. 
    “Um,” I hesitate. But she’s the chief of police and if I don’t cooperate, that’ll just look bad on me. “Yeah, sure… I can uh-- I can be there in about an hour.” 
           So we drive. We drive until we reach the police station and there we wait. We wait until my name gets called and I follow Chief Larsen into an interrogation room where I'm offered water and told to relax.
           "We've notified your parents that you're here," Larsen says, entering the room with a bottle of water. Her hair sits in curled locks resting on her shoulders and she wears a police uniform, but nothing like yesterday’s uniform. "You're not a suspect or anything; we're simply trying to wrap our heads around all this." She sits down and opens the manilla envelope sitting in front of her. 
          "So we know you had your eye on a few people," she says, pulling out a piece of paper. "Carter Garcia, Cecilia James, Heath Prescott, Skye Richards, Riley Anderson, Jessie McFall," she pauses. "Brandon Hamilton." She doesn't mention herself. How does she even know this? I never told you. 
         "How do you-"  I begin. 
         "You're not the first we've questioned."
         I slump back. I shouldn't even be here; what more do they need to know? He killed her. Mr. Milgram killed Maeve Kingston and Brandon Hamilton. 
        "Can you tell me why you didn't go any further with Heath Prescott? He's fresh out of jail… and Carter? Or-or Skye? Isn't there a third friend there… Flynn Arlo, is it? Why didn't you question him?" 
         This seems like an interrogation; like I am being investigated. 
         "There wasn't a reason. It was obvious we found who-"
         "We?" she says, leaning forward. "Can you tell me who 'we' is?"
         "It doesn't matter," I say with a pulsing heart. The room is spinning and the sweat on my palms start to drip onto my pants. "We-we didn't hurt anyone."  
         She folds her hands together and leans back in her chair. 
         "This is a criminal investigation now, Quinn. You understand that, don't you? And going off by yourself, tampering with evidence… that's a law, Ms. Taylor."
    My chest tightens. Am I being arrested? I need a lawyer, yes that’s what I need. Where are my parents? I can’t be here alone; I’m not eighteen. 
    “Tell me about Mia Gulinski,” she says, leaning forward once again. “She knew, didn’t she? She knew what Joseph Milgram did to Maeve.”
    And how do you know?
    I stay silent. Mia may now have a mysterious motive, but it doesn’t change that she’s my friend. It doesn’t change that if I admit I’m hiding something that can help the investigation, I’ll get in huge trouble… jail maybe. Is that how it works?
    “Quinn, you can tell me. You can tell me everything you know.” 
    “You talked to her, didn’t you?” I say. She stares into my eyes, not moving an inch, making my skin itch with intimidation. 
    “I’m not supposed to tell you,” she says, unfolding her hands. “But no. No, I didn’t.”
    If she knows who we’ve investigated and if she said I’m not the first she’s spoken with, then who was before me? It’s not Mia and Wes has been with me since the arrest basically. 
    Keller. No, he wouldn’t tell her that, would he? 
    He would. 
    He’s the type of person who breaks under pressure. And Chief Larsen ptying him for answers would crack him. 
    Keller Avery sold us out.