Page 45 of Night Fall (The Quantico Files 1)

“Not dangerous?” She stared at him, wondering if she should tell him everything. “At first it was just ... frightening. House full of trash. Empty refrigerator and cupboards. A woman living mostly on junk food. The food she’d tried to cook was left on the stove, no doubt for days. The smell was horrific. Dirty dishes piled up. Clothes all over the floor. I’d just found my mother’s dead body. I was alone in the world, shipped off to live in another town with a crazy aunt. I worked hard to overcome it. I cleaned and cleaned ... Finally, things were better. I didn’t complain about cleaning up after her. At least I had a roof over my head. And then one night I woke up, probably because I heard my door open. Willow was standing over my bed ... with a knife.”

Unable to look at Logan for his reaction, Alex picked up the most recent pages Harrison had faxed. She shuffled through them until she found what she wanted and read aloud.

“‘When the Virgin who shall be washed in blood, the final sacrifice, is offered to the Master, the demons will be unleashed, and the angels will make war with the evil ones. This sacrifice will be holy, and the one who offers it will be elevated in the Master’s kingdom. He is the Destroyer. The one called to fulfill the will of the Master. Long live the Master!’”

“Isn’t part of that one of the verses Walker wrote on a train car?”

Alex nodded.

“Your aunt thought you were the virgin to be sacrificed?”

“That night, I think she did.”

Logan looked stunned. “What did you do to protect yourself?”

Alex looked down at the floor. “I was seventeen when this happened. A senior. I know I said Mike and I weren’t close, but I had no one else to turn to, so I told him. I was too scared to tell his parents, and so was he. We were afraid I could end up in the system. Even though I would be eighteen in two months, the idea of ending up somewhere even worse than Willow’s terrified me. Mike knew a guy at school....”

She looked up at him. She’d gone this far. She might as well finish it. “Mike got me a gun—a loaded gun. I slept with it under my pillow until the day I left, when I dropped it in one dumpster and the bullets in another.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Like I said, I couldn’t take the chance that some social worker would take over my life. Willow had no memory of what happened.” Alex sighed. “I realized then how sick she really was. I really didn’t want to get her in trouble, and frankly, I was afraid of the Circle. If I called the police, would they retaliate? Would I have more problems than I already had?”

She clasped her hands together. Talking about this was harder than she thought it would be, yet she felt like some of the anger inside her had been released. “I’d forgotten about that night until we were on this case. I guess it just popped out from behind that door you mentioned. That memory is probably why I’ve seemed so angry with Willow. It was fear masquerading as something else, I guess.”

“I’m glad I was here to talk to. It will stay between us.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. “I imagine I’ll have to be nice to you from now on.”

Logan laughed. She loved his laugh. It was one of his best features. “Nah, no blackmail. You can still be mean to me if you want.”

She smiled at him. “I feel much better.”

He grinned at her but then grew serious again. “Hey, I thought there had to be five sacrifices before the virgin is sacrificed. So how could Willow get it in her head you were ... you know.”

“I think it must have been a combination of reading that stupid book and being overmedicated. I’m not sure the doctor she saw from time to time truly cared about her well-being. She seemed shocked when I told her what happened. In my opinion, she was walking in her sleep. Now that I know more about how people with her illness think, I’m almost certain she wouldn’t have actually stabbed me. I know she felt bad about it. Neither one of us ever mentioned it again.”

She sighed. “As soon as I graduated from high school, I moved out. I got a job at a local restaurant. It was barely enough to get by on, but I found a room to rent and was able to buy food. Willow had given me a small, white Chevy Aveo that had been parked in her garage for years. The car needed to be repaired, but I worked out a deal with a nearby garage. They got the car going and let me make payments.” She smiled. “That thing got me to college in Lawrence, Kansas, that fall, where I’d been granted a scholarship. But then it died, and I didn’t have the money to revive it. I did a lot of walking, but thankfully friends at school chauffeured me around quite a bit.”

“Did you go all through college without a car?” Logan asked.

“No. In my senior year, a girl offered to sell me her Volkswagen Bug for four hundred dollars. She even let me make payments. That’s how I ended up with my first Volkswagen. I liked it so much that when it broke down, I bought another one. It made me feel good to take care of myself.”

Thankfully, the rush of words finally slowed. Alex had no plan to talk about some of the hurt that had imprisoned her because of the trauma she’d endured. But these were small things. Even waking up to see Willow standing over her with a knife. She could have handled that. She understood it even though she might not be able to truly forgive it. But the big monsters were still behind that door. The things that gave her nightmares. One in particular. One she would never tell anyone. She would keep it locked and shuttered away. If she ever let it out...

She pushed the thought away. It would never happen. She’d defeated everything the past had thrown at her. She’d do it again, and she’d do it alone. “Let’s get back to work now. And ... and thanks for listening, Logan.”

“No problem. I’m here anytime you need to talk.” When she didn’t say anything else, he picked up the papers and stacked them on the table.

Alex lifted her pen and opened her notebook. All she wanted to do was figure out this Walker guy and ensure he was caught before he killed anyone else. Nothing could interfere with that goal.

Nothing.

---