CHAPTER 39
Time hasn’t been kind to the place, which sags under the weight of decay and neglect. It looks less like a building than something foul that’s emerged from the forest floor. A fungus. A poison. Leaves blanket the roof and surround the fieldstone chimney, which rises jaggedly, like a rotten tooth. The cabin’s exterior, weathered to a dull gray, is pockmarked with moss and dying plant sprouts that curl from nooks in the wood. Although the sign still hangs over the door, one of its nails has rusted away, slanting the words.
“I’m not going in there!” Hysteria colors my every word, which pop out in panicked squeaks. “You can’t make me go in there!”
“You don’t have to,” Tina says, much calmer than I. “Just tell me the truth.”
“I already told you what I know!”
She turns to me, elbow resting on the steering wheel. “Quinn, no one believes you can’t remember anything. I read that transcript. Those cops think you’re lying.”
“Coop believes me,” I say.
“Only because he wanted to fuck you.”
“Please believe me when I say I don’t remember anything,” I beg. “I swear to God, I don’t.”
Tina shakes her head and sighs. Opening her door, she says, “Then I guess we’re going in.”
My body starts to buzz. Adrenaline churns my blood. I see the knife on the dashboard and lunge for it. Tina does, too, snatching it away from my springing hand.
She’s right. She is faster.
I go for the keys next, aiming for the plastic key fob. Again, Tina beats me to it. Yanking the keys from the ignition, she carries them and the knife out of the car.
“I’m coming back in a second,” she says. “Don’t try to run. You won’t get far.”
She heads off to the cabin, leaving me alone in the car, scrambling to come up with a plan. I jam my thumb into the buckle at my hip and the seatbelt recoils with a snap. I then search my pockets for my phone.
It’s gone.
Tina took it.
But I have another. The memory of it is a whirling dervish in my drug-addled brain. I shove my hand into my shirt, fingers fumbling for the stolen phone still secured under a bra strap.
Through the windshield, I watch Tina at the cabin’s front door. She stands directly beneath the crooked Pine Cottage sign, trying to get inside by jiggling the doorknob. When that doesn’t work, she throws her body against the door, leading with her shoulder.
I check the phone’s battery level. It’s blinking red. There’s also barely any signal. A single bar appears and disappears in quick intervals. I estimate there’s enough juice and signal for one call.
I hope.
Calling 911 isn’t an option. Tina will hear me talking. She might take the phone away. Or worse. I can’t risk that, even if I suspect that worse part is going to arrive eventually anyway.
That leaves texting. Which leaves only Coop. Because I’m not using my phone, I know he won’t recognize the number. That might work to my advantage, considering what happened last night.
I look to the cabin again and see Tina still shoving herself against the door. Now’s my only chance.
I text Coop quickly, fingers skating across the quickly dying phone.
its quinn sams holding me hostage at pine cottage help me
The phone beeps when I hit send, confirming the text is on its way. It’s followed by another, sharper beep. The phone’s screen goes black in my hand, the battery giving up the ghost. I shove it into my pocket.
At the cabin, Tina succeeds in breaking through the front door. It yawns open, the threshold a dark and festering mouth, ready to swallow me whole. The car’s headlights point directly at it, the beams slicing the quickening dusk all the way into the cabin, where a patch of dusty floor basks in the glow.
That glimpse inside the cabin triples the dread that’s formed in my lungs. It feels like glass, puncturing the spongy tissue, cutting off airflow. When Tina marches back to the car, I have no choice but to run.
Only I can’t.
Standing is far different from sitting up. Now that I’m out of the car and on my feet, the drugs take hold again, knocking me off balance. I drift sideways, steeling myself for the inevitable fall. But Tina is there, holding me upright. The knife flies to my neck and hovers there, blade scritching my skin.
“Sorry, babe,” she says. “There’s no getting out of this.”
Tina hauls me toward the cabin as I thrash in her grip. My heels dig into the gravel, doing nothing to slow us, twin trails of resistance all I have to show for the effort. One of my arms is trapped under one of hers. The arm that holds the knife, which I can’t see but can certainly feel. My chin bumps the hilt every time I scream. Which is often.
When not screaming, I try to talk Tina out of doing whatever she intends to do.
“You can’t do this,” I say, huffing the words, spittle flying. “You’re like me. A survivor.”
Tina doesn’t answer. She just keeps dragging me to the cabin door, now only ten yards away.
“Your stepfather was abusing you, right? That’s why you killed him?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Tina says.
Her grip loosens. Just a hair. Enough to make me know I’m getting to her.
“But they sent you to Blackthorn,” I say. “Although you weren’t crazy. You were protecting yourself. From him. And that’s what you’ve been trying to do ever since. Protect women. Hurt the men who hurt them.”
“Stop talking,” Tina says.
I don’t. I can’t.
“And at Blackthorn, you met Him.”
I’m no longer talking about Earl Potash. Tina knows this, for she says, “He had a name, Quincy.”
“Were you close? Was He your boyfriend?”
“He was my friend,” Tina says. “My only fucking friend. Ever.”
She stops our tumultuous drag to the cabin. She tightens her grip around me, the knife’s edge pressing into the flesh right under my chin. I want to swallow but can’t out of fear it will cause the blade to break the skin.
“Say his name,” she orders. “You need to say it, Quincy.”
“I can’t,” I say. “Please don’t make me.”
“You can. And you will.”
“Please.” The word is choked out, barely audible. “Please, no.”
“Say his fucking name.”
I swallow against my will. A gulp that forces my neck further onto the knife blade. It stings like a burn. Hot and pulsing. Tears pop from my eyes.
“Joe Hannen.”
A rush of vomit follows, riding the words as they spew from my mouth. Tina keeps the knife where it is as even I heave up the contents of my stomach. Coffee and grape soda and parts of pills that haven’t yet wormed their way into my body.
When it’s over, I don’t feel any better. Not with the knife still at my neck. Not with five short yards separating me from Pine Cottage. I’m still sick, still dizzy. More than anything, I’m spent, my body weakened to the point of paralysis.
Tina resumes pulling me to the cabin and I comply. There’s no more fight left in me. All I can do is cry as strands of puke droop from my chin.
“Why?” I say.
But I already know why. She was here that night. With Him. She helped Him kill Janelle and all the others. Just as she had helped Him kill those campers in the woods. Just as she later killed Lisa, despite her claims to the contrary.
“Because I need to know how much you can remember,” Tina says.
“But why?”
Because it will help her decide if I need to be killed, too. Just like Lisa.
We’re at the door now, that insidious mouth. A chill whispers from deep inside, faint and shivery.
I begin to scream. Panicked ones that erupt from my bile-coated throat.
“No! Please, no!”
I grab the doorframe with my free hand, fingernails digging into the wood. Tina gives one sharp tug and the wood snaps in my grip, breaking away. I drop the splintered chunk and keep screaming.
Pine Cottage has welcomed me home.