Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (4 page)

How could she tell Zander that she’d kissed William?

She looked back up at him, saw the pain in his eyes – yes, he had heard at least some of what she hadn’t said. Several emotions warred in his features. When he finally spoke, he knew that he wasn’t voicing his first reaction. “I know,” he said. “Just talk to me okay?”

She nodded, feeling like a traitor.

Another emotion passed over his already conflicted face; she couldn’t get a read on it, until his next words nearly knocked her off the couch. “I love you, Quinn.”

She looked up, shocked. He’d never said that before. It was true they’d been getting more serious, but she hadn’t thought they’d gotten to
that
point yet.
Now
what was she supposed to do? Lie to him in one breath and tell him that she loved him in the next?

She never got the chance to decide. At that moment, the door between the garage and the kitchen opened, and the high-pitched squeals of her little sister, Annie, filled the house.

“Quinn! Guess what Grama gave me?” she yelled, barreling into the living room, full force, right into Quinn’s lap. “Zander! You’re here! Guess what my Grama gave me?”

Annie never stopped for a response. She was happy for any kind of an audience who would look at her new sparkly necklace and ring, prizes from a vending machine in a restaurant in Denver. Richard and Denise had apparently taken them out to lunch earlier.

“Quinn, you left the garage door open,” her mother called from the kitchen. Her voice carried an edge that set the anger coursing through Quinn’s veins again. Zander looked over at her in alarm.

“Sorry,” she yelled back, even though she wasn’t. She had to work to keep her voice from shaking.

It was like her mom didn’t even hear her. Without acknowledging Quinn at all, she told Owen and Annie to hurry and put their overnight bags up in their rooms and then to get back in the car. When she walked into the living room, her eyes never met Quinn’s.

“Your mom is serving dinner in twenty minutes,” she said to Zander.

Zander looked over at Quinn. “Do you want to ride in my car?”

“Quinn has too much homework to catch up on after missing school on Friday.”

Quinn gaped at her mother in astonishment. “I know you have a lot of World History you need to study for,” Megan said pointedly, before she turned and walked back into the kitchen, yelling for Annie and Owen to hurry up.

By the time she could bring herself to look back up at Zander, his expression was stunned, his eyebrows raised so high it was almost comical. Almost. “What is that about?” he whispered.

She shrugged.

“Is it about this weekend? I thought she knew where you were the whole time.”

Quinn shrugged again.

“Do you want me to stay here with you? We can talk?”

Though he’d spoken far too quietly for her to have heard, Megan’s voice came from the kitchen with uncanny timing. “Zander, I just got off the phone with your mom a few minutes ago. She wants you home for dinner. Now.”

Zander looked back at Quinn with a helpless expression. “Go,” she said, burying her head in her hands.

“Are you sure?”

Megan came back into the living room and stood at the bottom of the stairs, calling for Annie to hurry up, but her eyes were on Quinn and Zander the entire time. Finally, Quinn stood and almost ran for the stairs, brushing shoulders with her mother as she passed.

*          *          *

Quinn was surprised when the shrill ringing of her alarm woke her the next morning. She had anticipated a quick return to the wild dreams and debilitating insomnia that had plagued her for so long now, but she had awakened feeling like she could have gone right back to sleep. The fact that she was dreading what the day might hold didn’t help.

Only the thought of getting to school and talking to William helped her drag herself out of bed. She wanted to know how Thomas was doing, after ten more days in Eirentheos and his trip through the gate the evening before. She’d wanted to go with them, to be there when Thomas came through and maybe spend some time with him last night, but William had convinced her that staying out for longer wasn’t going to help the situation with her mom, and in any case, she wasn’t sure that she was prepared to deal with Nathaniel yet.

It didn’t surprise her, as she made her way to the kitchen to grab something quick for breakfast, to discover that she was alone in the house. It did bring her anger rushing back, though. Exactly how long was her mother planning on avoiding her completely and not answering any of Quinn’s questions? She had always had a close relationship with her mom. In her entire life, they’d never been angry with one another for more than a couple of hours.

Tonight, after her mother returned from work, she was going to confront her, and not back down until she had some answers.

The sound of the doorbell ringing startled her enough that it took her a second to figure out what it was. After the second insistent chime, she ran to answer it. Zander stood on the porch with the same strained expression he had been wearing the evening before.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning.”

“I figured you’d need a ride,” he said.

She frowned. “Well, I do appreciate it.”

Zander looked confused. “How were you
planning
on getting to school?”

“Um, I was going to drive?”

“Your mom didn’t
tell
you she took the keys to the Pilot with her to work?”

Raw anger, more fierce than anything she’d ever felt before washed over her entire body. “No! The last time she said a word to me was last night while you were still here.”

His eyes popped open wide. “Oh my gosh, Quinn. What is going on between the two of you? Your mom was all upset at dinner last night at my house, and she was there half the morning, too. You never told me that you didn’t have your mom’s permission to go running off with William Rose this weekend. What else are you not telling me?”

“I’m telling you everything I know to tell you, Zander. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you to begin with.”

 *          *          *

The ride to school was tense, with Zander still wanting answers to his questions, and Quinn too enraged at her mother to think clearly. It was bad enough that her mom was avoiding her – did she have to keep saying things around Zander that complicated the situation more?

Once they arrived, her hopes of talking to William were dashed. Zander walked with her everywhere, delivering her to the door of World History, where Abigail was waiting for her expectantly.

She swallowed hard at the sight of her best friend – she never had actually called or texted her back yesterday. Sometime over the weekend, Abigail had dyed several strands of her hair a violent shade of red. Quinn supposed it was futile to hope that wasn’t an indicator of her friend’s mood.

“What in the heck, Quinn?” Abigail hissed as she and Zander approached. “You can’t even be bothered to
text me back?
” 

She knew she deserved every bit of her friend’s anger, that Abbie had done nothing to deserve this. At the moment, though, she was so wrapped up in her own rage and confusion that she had no idea how to respond. In fact, it was taking every ounce of strength she could muster to stand there at all. All she really wanted to do was run, to get as far away from here as possible so she could have a few minutes just to think.

At that moment, the one-minute warning bell sounded overhead, relieving her of the need to explain things to Abigail right then. For the hundredth time that morning, she took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts and emotions.

“I will talk later, Abbie, I promise. Just … not at school, okay?”

Abigail’s eyes narrowed; it was clear that she wasn’t going to let Quinn keep getting away with this.

She turned around to look at Zander, a heavy feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. “I’ll talk to you more later, too. Can you just be patient with me for a little while?”

He nodded, and bent to kiss her on the top of her head, though she could feel the gap between them grow wider.

Although she knew that she absolutely needed to pay attention today in World History – more, even than in any of her other classes, she struggled to do it. Her thoughts were a tangled mess as she worried about her relationships with Zander and Abigail, stewed in her anger at her mother. For a few minutes, she felt sorry for herself, wishing she’d left well enough alone and never followed William through that gate.

As soon as her thoughts drifted to the gate, though, she remembered that Thomas had come through last night, and she shifted to worrying about whether or not Nathaniel had managed to get the surgery scheduled today. Then all she wanted to do was get to William, talk to him, and if he was worried, she wanted to be there to comfort him.

Somehow, as she thought about Thomas’ surgery, about Nathaniel and William working to get him through the gate and taken care of, her mind cleared a little, and she realized what she needed to do – at least as far as school and her friends were concerned. In a way, a big way, really, dealing with the details of her life here was no different than what she’d just had to do in William’s world as they searched for Thomas, waiting to be able to rescue him.

There were smaller, but important, things that had to be taken care of while she waited to solve the bigger ones. She just had to do them. And freaking out wasn’t going to help anything.

By the time the bell rang again, she was calm. Her rage towards her mother was carefully tucked away, waiting for later. Her friends didn’t deserve the way she had been treating them lately, and she wasn’t going to take her confusion out on them anymore.

She shoved her notebook into her backpack and looked up at her friend. “I’m really sorry, Abbie. There’s no excuse for my not calling you or texting you back. I could say it’s because I didn’t have my phone with me this weekend, but that doesn’t explain why I didn’t call you yesterday. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and I’ll tell you as much as I can later, okay?

Abigail looked a little stunned at the sudden change in Quinn’s demeanor, but she nodded.

“I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Quinn turned toward the door, knowing that Zander would appear soon. She was ready for him when he arrived, relaxed and smiling, carefully forming her expression so he could see that she was happy to see him.

And she found that she was actually happy to see him. Regardless of whatever else was going on, she really and truly cared about Zander; even though she wasn’t quite sure where her feelings stood on the relationship front, she did love him, and she always had. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him.

He seemed to notice the change, and he visibly relaxed as they walked through the hallway together, carrying her books, and slipping his hand inside hers.

*          *          *

The day passed more quickly than she had imagined it would, given the way it had started. She didn’t even have the same trouble she usually had re-acclimating to her classes after a trip to Eirentheos. She wondered if she would make the trip enough times that the transition would become second nature, the way it seemed to be for William.

The one downside was that she never got the chance to talk to William. Although she had caught a few glimpses of him in the hallways between her morning classes as she walked with Zander, he wasn’t in the cafeteria at lunchtime. And after lunch, she never saw him again.

In keeping with her new attitude, she figured it was better not to worry about it. Whatever else they were, they were friends now, and she could call him tonight and ask.