Page 18 of Never Again

Clearing her throat, Bailey said, “Please don’t kill me.”

“God, you really are a pain in the ass,” Quinn said, sighing heavily as she watched his silhouette reach over and grab the bottle of painkillers off the nightstand.

“Wait! We can talk about this!” Bailey said as panic quickly took over, only to wince when fresh pain shot through her head.

Pressing her hands against her head, Bailey squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe through the pain. A moment later, she felt a pill pressed against her lips. For a moment, she considered pushing the pill away, only to part her lips and take the pill in her mouth when sharp pain made it difficult to remember how to breathe. When he pressed a bottle of water in her hand a few seconds later, she took a sip, swallowed the pill, and handed it back to him so that she could go back to wincing.

“That should kick in soon,” Quinn murmured quietly.

“May the odds be in your favor,” Bailey said, deciding that this would be a good time to burrow beneath the pillows when the soft moonlight spilling in through the windows started to make her eyes hurt.

“Get some sleep, Bailey,” Quinn said softly as she felt the comforter pulled over her shoulders.

“I can’t sleep,” she mumbled sadly as she closed her eyes and slowly exhaled while she waited for the pain to go away.

“Try,” Quinn said, clearly not understanding the problem here.

She normally worked until she dropped, but since she’d been stuck here…

She was bored out of her mind.

She needed to get her hands on a computer, an iPad, a phone, something. At this point, she’d settle for a calculator, but the large man watching her every move refused to see to her needs. Nathan would have folded by now, Bailey thought with a wistful sigh that made her head ache, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been a few minutes ago.

Knowing that she really didn’t have a choice, Bailey pulled the pillow off her head, shifted to get more comfortable as she hugged the pillow against her chest. Slowly exhaling, she counted back from a hundred and when that didn’t work, she counted sheep, thought about everything that she needed to do for work, counted sheep again, and when nothing else worked, she opened her eyes so that she could squint in the direction of the couch.

There was a heavy sigh, and then…

“Why are you still awake?”

“Because I like to be difficult,” Bailey mumbled absently as she went back to staring up at the ceiling.

“The pill should kick in soon,” Quinn said, sounding really hopeful as she heard him shift on the couch to get more comfortable.

“You should probably mentally prepare yourself for what’s about to come,” Bailey said, wondering why he wasn’t making a run for it while he still had a chance.

“Believe me, I am,” he drawled as she lay there, bored out of her mind.

For a moment, she considered checking out the books that he had stacked on the nightstand, but the thought of trying to squint down at the tiny print made her head hurt, which left…

“Start talking,” Bailey said, and when he didn’t say anything, she raised her hand and gestured for him to get on with it.

“About?” came the hesitant reply.

“Everything.”

* * *

“It’s late,”Quinn said as he lay there, hoping that she took pity on him this time and passed out before the painkillers kicked in.

“And I’m wide awake,” Bailey murmured, sounding bored and-

“What do you want to know?” he asked as he rubbed his hands down his face, beyond fucking exhausted.

“What happened after I left you on that platform, utterly destroyed and struggling to hold back the tears?” came the question that had him dropping his hands away so that he could glare at the little brat.

“I had my first homicidal fantasy,” Quinn bit out, only to feel his lips twitch when she said, “That happened way before that.”

“I was late reporting to basic training,” he said, thinking about the moment that he showed up late at the base.

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