Page 15 of Never Again

There was a sniffle, and then, “I’ll talk!”

“Please, don’t,” he said, feeling a headache coming on as he prayed that she took pity on him and passed out again.

He never should have put those pills in her coffee, but at the time, it had been his only option, and now…

“W-Why is it so dark in here?” came the mumbled demand that had him dropping his hand away so that he could reach down and pull the comforter away, only to have Bailey gasp, pull the comforter back over her head and promptly curl up into a ball with a whispered,“Shhhhh! They’ll see me!”

“There’s no one else here,” Quinn reminded her, beyond fucking exhausted. Between taking care of her all night and finding out everything that he could about this job, he was ready to pass the fuck out.

“That’s what they want you to think!” came the paranoid announcement that had him realizing that this actually explained a lot.

When they were kids, she’d been banned from the vending machines at school, but he never understood why until this moment. Some days, she acted like a pain in the ass, and other days…

She was like the Energizer-fucking-Bunny.

“I need to know who broke into your apartment, Bailey,” Quinn said, taking the chance that she might say something that would help him figure this out quickly so that he could wash his hands of her and move on to the next job.

“They’ll be mad if I tell you,” came the softly mumbled announcement that had him damn near sighing with relief as Bailey pulled the comforter down just far enough so that she could peek up at him.

“You can tell me,” he said soothingly, trying for a reassuring smile, only to watch her eyes narrow as she slowly pulled the comforter back up.

“They said you’d say that,” she said, and god, was she a pain in the fucking ass.

“And who are they?” Quinn asked only to mutter, “Fucking hell,” when Bailey said, “Leprechauns.”

Deciding that he’d wasted enough time trying to get answers out of her, Quinn pulled his phone out and scrolled through his contacts to call her brother when she said something that had him going still.

“I’m really sorry about the train, but I couldn’t keep letting them hit me,” Bailey mumbled around a heavy sigh as she moved to turn over only to realize that she couldn’t and settled for curling on her side with a grumble.

“Kelly?” Quinn asked, watching her closely.

Shaking her head, she said, “Jennifer and Steve.”

“They hit you?” Quinn asked, swallowing hard as he thought about all those times that she showed up at school covered in bruises and assumed that Kelly and her group of bitches were making her life a living hell.

“I didn’t move fast enough,” Bailey mumbled sadly, only to add, “Can’t tell Nathan. Don’t want him to know,” changing everything.

CHAPTER8

“Did I mention that my head really hurts?” Bailey asked, deciding that the bathroom floor was her new best friend as she pressed her forehead against the cool tiles.

“Which is why the doctor prescribed painkillers,” Quinn, the man that had been looking at her funny since she woke up, said softly as he tried to place more pills in her hand, only to sigh heavily when she shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut on a pained gasp and turned her head as far away from those offending pills as the pain shooting through her skull would allow.

“Bailey…”

“No, I’m a good girl,” Bailey whispered weakly as she willed her aching head to stop pounding.

“This will help,” the man determined to keep her drugged said.

“I-I don’t want to play in traffic again,” she mumbled against the bathroom floor, really hoping that it was clean.

“You weren’t playing in traffic. You ran out of the house, tripped over your own two feet, mumbled something incoherently, and then threw yourself on the hood of my parked car, where you sobbed hysterically, begging me to slow down so that you could get off,” Quinn said, giving up trying to press the pills into her hand and-

“This is for your own good,” came the quietly murmured words as she found herself turned over onto her back, her nose pinched shut, and the pills that were guaranteed to make things more interesting shoved in her mouth. Before she had a chance to spit them back out, he was placing his large hand over her mouth, giving her no other choice but to swallow them. Eyes narrowing on the man who’d just doomed them all, she finished swallowing the pills before accepting a bottle of water from the man who should have saved himself when he had the chance.

“Stop drugging me,” Bailey bit out, glaring up at the large man only to wince, close her eyes, roll over onto her side and mumble sadly, “My glare.”

“I’m sure that your glare is normally quite terrifying,” Quinn murmured absently as she took a sip of water, grumbled, and handed the bottle back before she curled back into a ball, praying that he took pity on her and left her alone so that she could die in peace.

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