Page 36 of Uncontrolled

I slept in yesterday’s jeans and a T-shirt. A quick touch proves my knife’s still at my hip. With a final longing look at Allie’s door, I wiggle my feet into my shoes and then decide to leave my pack against the side of the couch. I don’t want to give her the impression I’m taking off for good. Then again, if I get myself abducted by the assholes she specifically told me to avoid, she’ll probably track me down to kill me herself. I ghost into the hallway and use my key to lock up behind me. Once I’m outside, I’m in the clear.

The bird chatter wrestles against the sun’s brightness to set my head pounding.

A block and a half down and around the corner from Allie’s place, a cab idles where Quinn said it’d be waiting. I slip into the back seat beside him. “Sorry, man,” I say.

Quinn doesn’t acknowledge me for a solid minute. “You couldn’t text me back?” he asks.

“I was sleeping. You’re aware it’s like nine in the morning?”

I don’t get Quinn’s strange laugh. “Well, today’s an exciting day.”

I make a mental note of the month, the week. “Is it a holiday or something?” I ask.

He pauses as if he can’t decide if I’m screwing with him or not, then holds his phone between the seats to show the driver an address, which means I don’t know where we’re headed. Allie needs every detail about them.

“Why’s today a big day?” I ask again.

Quinn moves his phone to his lap, furiously texting with his thumbs. “You,” he says.

“Me?”

Only now does he glance at me, eyebrow raised in scathing appraisal. “You know we’ve spent almost two weeks working to find you, Ploy?”

Slightly creepy, I think. Unease curls in my gut. Today’s the day I’m supposed to meet the others, but I never thought they’d be making a big deal out of things. I don’t like the idea that they’ve prepared for me. I consider hopping out at the next stop sign. Worst case, I can tuck and roll from the moving vehicle. With all the pedestrians, it’s not like the driver’s hitting the speed limit. Stop being a damn coward, I tell myself.

Quinn fishes for his wallet, withdrawing a bill as the cabbie takes a quick right before drifting curbside at whatever cross streets Quinn showed him. We could have walked the distance in ten minutes instead of wasting the money. I open the cab’s door and clamber onto the sidewalk.

We’re in the Chariot District, but barely. Houses dot either side of the street. Their yards are squat rectangles choked with weeds, each ramshackle porch a mess of warped boards and peeling paint. Up the street, a couple houses are in an obvious state of repair and restoration. Two painters on scaffolding roll white onto replacement shake shingles.

At my side, Quinn grapples out of the cab and stands. “Ready?” he asks.

For what? I think, but I give him a nod, anyway.

I let Quinn ahead of me on the sidewalk so I can take a minute to pull myself together. They wanted to find me. They searched for me. I’m one of them, I remind myself.

Four houses down, Quinn lifts the latch on a chain-link fence and swings it open for me. I scoot onto a cracked and uneven walkway leading through a rare, mowed lawn and climb the bowed planks of the steps onto the porch. The crystal dome of the doorbell is broken, rounded in jagged glass, the inside a mess of rusted wires.

“Go ahead in,” he tells me. “No need to knock.”

I do what he says. The door opens into an old-fashioned parlor. The floor’s coated in a thick layer of dust, furniture covered with white sheets. It’s not a full-time residence, but it’s not trashed enough to be a squat.

His hands drop onto my shoulders to move me forward.

My brain dumps pictures of my father, his reared fist, alcohol on his breath as he coiled the neckline of my shirt, the strangle and choke, his grip as he hauled me into position to pummel me black and blue. My bones bear his marks, fissure-line cracks healed without hospital intervention.

I tear myself free of Quinn. “Don’t touch me,” I warn.

He splays his fingers, palms facing me. Leery, his posture stiffens as if he’s expecting violence and unsure what to do with me. “Sorry,” he says, sounding confused. “Christ, you’re jumpy.”

Don’t lose it, I tell myself, but it’s Allie’s voice I hear in my head. You’re safe. Allie’s voice quieting my raging heart rate to a quick staccato bump, even now slowing. He’s not here. You’re safe.

Well, not safe, but anything’s better than facing my father. My fingers ache. I shake my hands and stretch my neck to convince my muscles not to lock. It was Jamison who got me out of that house. Jamison who stood up to my father. I did nothing but cower.

But Jamison’s dead, and soon Allie might be, too, if I don’t get it together. Now’s not exactly the time to be working through this, I remind myself.

Voices flood the hall. I follow Quinn until he enters a boxy, old-fashioned study. The walls are paneled in dark stained wood. One is lined with bookshelves protected behind swinging cabinet doors, the glass inserts etched with flowering vines at the borders. Above, framed in gilded gold, hang painted portraits of uniformed military men. In the center, there’s a fancy etched pistol in a shadowbox, with a brass plaque underneath too small to read.

Claustrophobia edges through me, brought on by a combination of the room and the five people gathered into it. They’re behind and around an imposing desk, focused on a laptop open on its surface. Each face rises to look at me as we enter.

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