"At the end of the day it's about how much you can bear, how much you can endure. Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves."
― Tabitha Suzuma
Quinn pulled Aiko's soup boxes off her lap as we touched the tarmac of the airport. She had insisted we had good food on our travels or she would not sleep soundly. We had bowed and said our goodbyes as well as we could. But I knew the phone call would come.
It rang in my pocket as we ascended the stairs of the jet.
"Get some sleep, Quinn. You'll need it for the next 24 hours." I told her ahead of me as the engines hummed to life and the wind picked up in the night.
She did not protest and I knew she craved it. She threw me a nod and slightly curious look as I took the phone out and pressed it to my ear.
"London."
I froze on the stairs as the brisk air whipped around my dark hair. The collar of my jacket scrapped my cheeks as I watched Quinn pass through the door and be greeted by staff.
"Is that an issue?" The operator inquired calmly, after my pause.
"That's–unexpected. My leave caused a stir." I remarked slowly, thinking of all the headlines, the bodies, the fire left in the wake of that tragic accident. I couldn't be seen in public so soon–
"That has been handled. This way you can return the mortal and business can be carried forward."
I tripped on a metal stair before the doorway and a steward rushed forward to assist me. I threw out a hand and waved them off. My breathing became uneven. Not only did they know about Quinn's existence in my life–they dismissed her just as quickly. Return her. Like she was no more than a piece of luggage to be disregarded.
"I'm not sure–"
"Is that an issue?" The operator repeated, maddeningly calm once more.
I inhaled through my nose and glanced across the runway as planes launched themselves into the night or approached from the blackness. Make them believe I mean absolutely nothing to you...
"Does it matter if she's still in one piece?" I retorted bored.
A chuckle sounded down the end of the line and I rolled my shoulders in disgust.
"Not our concern. Get her out the way and we can discuss our asset's details at leisure."
"Acknowledged." I stated calmly.
"Splendid. Will be in touch."
The line went dead.
I snapped the phone in my hand and launched it out into the night. I didn't care which direction. Only that the insidious voice and implication of those words were far from my touch.
"Fletcher?"
I flinched and glanced up at Quinn who watched me with concern written on a frown. I flexed my jaw and shook my head, taking the stairs two at a time. I took her elbow in my hand and pulled her briskly through the plane.
"Shall we prepare for depart–"
"Yes." I grunted behind me in the stewards general direction. Manners were at the back of my mind. Quinn didn't fail to notice it and threw the staff a polite smile.
I threw the door open and released Quinn quickly. She stumbled forward and whirled on me with something closer to a glare now. I kicked the door shut with my heel and paced before her.
"So it wasn't a happy chat?"
My returning glare made her reconsider her words.
"Fletcher, say it as it is."
My eyes scanned every inch of the room around her but never landed on her.
"Return her." I muttered, tightening a fist. "Like you were little more than a piece of damn furniture."
A warm hand landed on my stomach and stopped my furious pace. I stared out the window behind her as the engines grew louder outside.
"What do you mean?" She asked softly.
I met her eyes briefly and grit my teeth.
"London. I'm to return you to London so we can proceed."
She stilled before me and her hand gripped my shirt between her fingers. Her pulse betrayed how she felt instantly–yet her face remained impassive.
"So we stay apart for a few days while you–"
"It's not that simple, Quinn. I've just been told directly to separate you. From Paragon."
"So what?" She pressed more animated. Her blood was shifting faster. The emotions moving and the understanding clicking into place. Something I knew that was inevitable at some point. I just thought we'd get more time.
"Fletcher..?" She murmured, unsure now.
I scanned her face without an answer and it made something crack in that calm expression. She took her hands from my shirt and drew them around my neck. I clenched my jaw and tried to think of the words I would say next. The ones that explained that this immortal order couldn't be denied. The alternative was to ask for death. My own and hers.
The latter wasn't acceptable.
I carefully set my hands on her waist and breathed.
"We were always on borrowed time Quinn–"
"No." She dismissed, gripping the back of my neck like I would vanish before her eyes if she let go. "Don't suddenly throw it all away for this."
"There's no where we can go they will not find." I told her quietly, holding her more frantic look. "Every single one of us that has tried has met an end. They do not allow it, Quinn."
"You weren't even needed until Mumbai!" She exclaimed, pushing herself off me suddenly and pacing before the bed now as I had. "You weren't even in their scope until that bloody immortal."
I reached for her shoulder but she stepped past. "Saying that changes nothing. I am on their radar now. I am needed now. Whatever William was involved in might go deeper than just a fleeting obsession, Quinn."
"Then they will lose interest again!" She scoffed, whirling on me with her hands splayed.
The jet jolted forward suddenly and she lost her balance. I moved faster and caught her waist and made her look at me.
"Stop." I growled, shaking her slightly.
Her eyes were alert but tired. There was pain and fear in them now. Something I never wanted for her in my presence. But it wasn't fear for what I was now... It was fear of how near this future was. One where I disappeared back into the shadows of immortality.
"Fletcher–you can't. Not now. Not after..." Her voice broke and she dragged a hand through her hair.
It cracked the coldest parts of me wide open. This is why we were meant to avoid this. The attachment. The feelings for those doomed to pass through our lives so quickly. But Quinn burned everything she touched. There was no part of my future I could see in the light without her. No colour.
I shut my eyes from it all and pressed my head into her shoulder. Lost.
I didn't have the answers she needed. I didn't know how to process the gravity of it all. But I also knew I would never let her become immortal collateral that Paragon went straight through to control me. I couldn't let Quinn know as much for now. For now we needed each other's closeness. The presence and the current moment. To live in the now and not the future where it was cold and endless.
I felt her arms wrap tightly around my back and close the space between us. Her breathing was uneven as the jet prepared for takeoff on the runway.
I led us to the edge of the bed wanting to sink through it. Wanting our transfer flight not to make it at all. To slip off the grid. To escape the inescapable. My pilot only had instructions for a return to Dubai. What if he never received more to London?
"Fletcher." She mumbled into my neck. The warmth made me want to shudder. But it also made me savour it like I would never feel it again.
The engines hummed louder and we moved forward suddenly. I drew her back down against the bed and stared above us.
"They knew about you before I said anything."
She watched the side of my face silently as the world rushed by out the windows.
"–they knew where you were from. They probably know everything else." I murmured. "Lying would be pointless."
"What about the truth?" She said quietly.
I turned to her as I felt us leave the ground. Those eyes that burned like a forest in high summer. That smile that usually touched her lips was a ghost. Lost to better times behind us. I grazed her cheek carefully with the back of my knuckles. I watched it curiously as it tinted a faint pink.
Maybe I could return to London in the years to come. Just to check on her. Hidden in our realm but satisfied to know she lived on... Maybe she would be happy again. With another mortal. A normal existence–
"Stop looking at me like that." She growled, drawing my gaze off her cheek.
"I'm sorry Quinn–"
She grabbed my jaw and levelled her fury at me. "You're speaking like the decision has been made. You're not going anywhere yet."
"If there was a way you were safe and in my life I would take it in a heartbeat." I stated.
"Who the hell says I ever cared about playing it safe?"
"I won't lose you to them Quinn."
"What difference does it make if you agree to this?" She demanded. "We won't be together. I won't ever see you again. I may as well be..."
"You don't realise what you're saying." I sighed, "–there's so much you can still do, Quinn. So many you could still..."
"Love?" She said as clear as day.
My body flashed ice cold and I avoided her piercing gaze. She was saying it to make an obvious point not confessing feelings but it hit just as sharply. Just as starkly in the air between us. You couldn't throw words into the air like that at a time like this.
"You need to be realistic." I answered, hollow.
"So, wanting to be with you is that unrealistic?" She asked slowly.
No, no it's not. It's perfection. It is everything I want and need. You're the only thing running through my mind, my senses, my being... I want to kiss you every day and savour every smile, every look, all of it.
"Yes." I whispered.
The words left me. The acidic lie floating into the silence. She watched me for a heartbeat before her hands and body left my reach. She walked from that room without a word and was through the door before I could even take my eyes off the empty space where she had been seconds ago.
Time worked so painfully like that.
* * * * *
I didn't know how to separate the space between us. It wasn't a physical thing anymore. But time was running short.
She knew this too.
But it felt like a trap for both of us. One that said, lose her for yourself or lose her from the world entirely. How could I act selfishly? Couldn't she see that. See that fighting this wasn't about my lack of investment or feelings. It was the opposite.
The thoughts plagued me in the night. When the clouds gave way to stars in the sky and the lights dimmed to the night flight. I lay in the same position she left me, wondering if she sat propped in one of the plush chairs gazing out as I did and mapping out where her future went next. Or if she was reliving our brief existence together.
At least she could return to a London with no Epsom. She could piece her career together after the stint of time away and chalk it up to family emergency or whatever issues mortals could manufacture to jump back into normalcy–
The door clicked and opened quickly. My eyes landed on Quinn.
She was a fast moving shadow and one that had a quicker heartbeat than a mortal should in the depths of night. Her breathing was more uneven than before. I sat up on the edge of the bed and she collided against me in a tangled heat of what felt like anger and something else.
Her lips hit me first and my senses burst into heightened existence.
I pulled back but she found my lower lip without hesitating again and kissed me deeply. There was no restraint–no consideration this time. It spoke louder volumes. It said that she was finished holding back now, whatever happened... because how much time did we have?
I wished I had the same luxury of losing total control. That I could throw it all to hell and respond to her with all the desire I had. But that monster wanted more.
I drew her face back sharply and dragged in a quick breath. But she beat me to my words.
"Did you really think I bought that?" She growled down to me, pressed dangerously on my hips and full of more darkness than I had even considered. "What really gets me Fletcher–is that you're trying to convince yourself more than me."
"I–"
She covered my lips with her hand and shook her head, making strands of her smooth hair kiss my face.
"What is the point in any of it if you only live for someone else. Not yourself?" She demanded, not giving me a chance to think or even form the next sentence.
Her lips crashed against mine and her fingers pushed my shoulder down onto the sheets. The darkness, the desire and the speed of it all was bringing something much worse out of me to the surface and I had to control the situation soon. But then how many more times would I get time like this. A moment between us. I made a low sound when her hands slipped under my shirt.
She seemed like she had given up caring.
"Quinn–" I ripped my mouth away and finally took a sip of air that burned like her.
"You'd just accept it." She pushed me back again and I caught her wrists.
"It's not about that." I hissed.
She ignored my expression and took my lip in her teeth, making a savage part of me rise to the surface faster than anything else she had done. I dropped her wrists and gripped her hips tightly without fully registering the move.
"At least one part of you is still honest." She growled against my lips before going for my jeans.
"You still don't understand–"
Her hand went for the zip.
"You're making this choice, Fletcher. So I'm going to make my own too." She stated, before ripping it down and sending my blood to ice. My teeth became sharp as I ripped her hands away from the most dangerous place. One that would kill her.
I flipped her easily and yanked her down before the snarl was on my mouth, inches from her.
Her heart didn't even miss a beat as I stared her down.
"I've seen worse." She whispered.
"You shouldn't need to." I stated, calming my breathing and the predator in me.
I watched in no small horror as that steady expression broke and something glistened down the side of her face. I shook my head before feeling my teeth retract and I drew her tightly into my chest.
"Quinn, no..." I whispered, hearing my own voice break.
Her breathing hitched and cracked as she dragged in a heavy breath and shook in my arms. It tore my being in half.
"You–can't–"
I tightened my hold on her and buried her head in my shoulder. Feeling her break was a pain that hit me harder than I was ever prepared for.
"Please don't... for–me." She whispered, between broken breaths.
It was killing me. It was murdering my soul more than the transformation into a demon. Into an endless living hell. How could I do this? How could I sit here and tell her no–break her more? I had to remind myself desperately. Emotions. Feelings are just temporary. Death is permanent.
It became a steady chant in my head as I rocked her slowly against my chest.
"Fletcher–promise me–you won't. You'll fight–for us." She got out.
Her tears were soaking through my shirt. Scalding my skin in accusation. If I lied she would never forgive me... But at least she would live. If I lied I gave her up for them. But she had a chance for herself.
"We'll be together. Quinn." I kissed her head, closing my eyes and savouring the feel of her as her hands gripped me tightly and her body loosened.
"I'll do what I need to." I whispered, feeling her body fall closer to the grips of sleep and oblivion.
Her tears stopped eventually. Her body relaxed into me soon enough. She was once more at peace and beautifully oblivious to the dangers around her. It might take years. But at least I could give her the chance... to let myself act selfishly and steal that from her was a worse fate than death. Paragon could have me.
They couldn't have her.