*16 Years Ago*
"One last push, Carla," the nurse encouraged sweetly. Though, it was hard to be so kind when this family was so terrible. If it weren't for the incredibly violent threat she received at the beginning of the night, she would've called DCS on them. The father was a powerful man the whole town feared, and while his girlfriend was in labour with triplets, all he was doing was smoking weed and egging on his older two sons, who were still only infants themselves, to stab each other with the very real knifes he had bought them for Christmas.
"Whoever reaches an organ first is free from a head-uh tonight," he said.
The nurse wasn't too sure what a 'head-uh' was, but by the looks on the young boys' faces, it couldn't have been very good.
Two out of three triplets had already came out - two girls; one, sobbing and screeching for the attention her distracted father wasn't giving her; and the other sleeping peacefully after verociously tearing up half of her mother's stomach.
Although she wasn't nearly as bad as the father, the mother wasn't the greatest either. The other two boys weren't hers, and she openly admitted that if she knew she were having three from the start, she would've aborted them. Which was fine, obviously, but when the first girl came out, she said that was the only one she wanted. And when the next girl came, she simply scowled and tossed her aside in disgust. She didn't want to raise a Quinn - 'their blood is poison' was her exact words. She was convinced that these three children were going to be nightmares, and she was already secretly planning her escape with only one child. The nurse wasn't quite sure how the woman was going to escape Nathan Quinn, though - nobody had ever done that before. That was why all of his exes were dead. But Carla Limbrey was clearly raised on wealth and upper-class, and had stupidly gave it all up for the Quinns. Maybe she would find her way back to her real family - the nurse truly hoped she would - but Nathan Quinn wasn't known for letting them get away.
"Here he is," the nurse said joyfully, holding up the very last baby - a boy. He didn't cause as much destruction as the sister before, but the way he was thrashing, you could tell he certainly was a Quinn.
"Put him down," the mother ordered. "Give me the first one."
"But don't you want to -"
"The first one."
And so it happened. The triplets were born. But still, Thomas and Tatum were always twins. Just the two of them - blocked out by the family they didn't fit in with, but would do anything for them to love them. The male baby slowly wrapped his small hand around his sister, swearing to protect her forever.
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*15 Years Ago*
"Happy birthday, my baby girl," Carla Limbrey cooed, bouncing Tilly on her knee as she gave her a stuffed animal.
From the couch, Nathan rolled his eyes and let out a scoff, snatching the thing off the baby and handing her a small pocket knife. He shook the kid on the arm. "No kid of mine's gonna be a pussy, ain't that right, Tills?"
Leroy and Joseph were carelessly shooting guns on the front lawn, arguing over who could kill more birds. They didn't care if anybody caught them - they were Quinns; they could do whatever they wanted and not give a shit about the consequences. Even as lousy infants, people feared them for their name.
"Honestly, you raise them like animals," Carla commented, scowling at the dirty weapon in her daughter's hand.
Nathan shrugged, cheering on the boys as they began to fist fight on the main road. "No kid of mine's gonna be a pussy," he repeated.
Sitting at the back of the room, trapped in old, dirty baby carseats, Thomas and Tatum turned to each other. The girl giggled as she stabbed her brother in the shoulder.
"Ah, that's my girl!" their father encouraged, stroking her face. He slapped Thomas across the cheek. "Stab her back then, ya puss!"
And Thomas did. At one years old, the twins were already wounding each other. But their mom didn't care when it was them - they were the children she didn't want. Tilly was her baby, and the other two were their dad's. She'd get away one day. Take Tilly to the luxury life she deserved.
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*12 Years Ago*
"A-ha! The bitch is gone!" Nathan raised his fist triumphantly when Carla and Tilly left for a meal at the wreck. He sat his other four children down at the couch. "Now, you two are four today. You know what that means?" he asked Thomas and Tatum, who were both bleeding from young Leroy's shooting practice.
"History lesson," Joseph answered, shaking Thomas' shoulder excitedly.
Nathan looked up and glared at his son. He took out his knife, and plunged it into the boy's shoulder. "Did I ask you to speak?" At Joe's whimper, he scoffed. "Don't you dare cry at me, boy! You act like a pussy, you're not welcome in this house! Understand?"
Thomas placed his hand comfortly over his shaking sister's hand. Though they were only toddlers, they knew exactly of the horrors their father loved to act out.
"Time for you to learn about the Camerons."
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*10 Years Ago*
"Leave then, you fucking slut!" screamed Nathan Quinn, launching another hard rock at his girlfriend and daughter. "I'll find you one day, Carla! And I'll kill both of you!"
Six-year-old Thomas and Tatum sat on their bunk beds, staring to each other in realisation. Their mom had left them. With the evil man they called their father.
A tear slid down the girl's cheek, causing their teenage brother, Leroy, to laugh at her. "Pussy," he muttered, shaking his head. Joseph chuckled in agreement while Thomas left the room.
Minutes later, the boy came back with a bloody eye and a shining white coat. He placed it on his sister's knee. "It was all she left," he told her.
Their father stormed into the room furiously, his knuckles red - but something told his children the blood didn't belong to him. "Your mom's gone," he told the twins. "Ready to become a real Quinn?"
"Tilly, too?" asked Thomas with furrowed brows. Why would their mom take her without them?
Their dad laughed in his face, and slapped the tears off Tatum's. "Who the fuck's Tilly?"
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*5 Years Ago*
Tatum screamed as she lifted up the rotting head - Joe's first kill. Currently, she was sitting at the bottom of the well, drowning in the blood and flesh of the dead bodies that filled the water. She couldn't stand - her dad had broken her leg throwing her down.
Three hours later, and she was still shivering in nothing but her laced bra and thongs. Even though she was only eleven, her dad assured her that she had a growing, fantastic body, just like her mom, and insisted that she wore big girl's underwear. She didn't argue - she never argued. She just...let it happen. She was powerless in those moments.
Even more time passed, and now, she was pounding on the walls, breaking her knuckles, going mad under the darkness and hearing the voices that drove her insane.
She took the knife out of her bra - the same knife she used on herself every night at 7:30. One cut for everytime he did it. One cut for everytime she felt trapped. The pain, the blood - it freed her in a way she couldn't explain. The rush, the adrenaline - it was the only reminder that she was alive.
But maybe that wasn't what she wanted anymore.
She pointed the kife at the side of her neck. Four seconds. One - for John Booker Routledge. Two - for Pope Heyward. Three - for JJ Maybank. Four - for Kiara Carrera.
With a choking sob, she begun to drag the blade over her bare skin.
"Tate!"
A rope was thrown down the well. She looked up to find her twin brother. Thomas Quinn.
Over the years, the two had grown apart the way Quinns did. The only time they spoke was to fight each other to gain their father's attention. But he had been sitting there all night, listening to his sister sobbing and screaming, slowly losing her mind once again, and all because of their father.
And it reminded him of the promise he made for himself the day they were born. He would always protect his sister, whether they were close or not.
"Hurry the fuck up before you catch a disease down there! And bring a body with you - me and Joe are going over to make Rafe Cameron shit himself tonight!"
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*3 Years Ago*
"That's my girl!" cheered Nathan, watching his youngest daughter beat the living shit out of five police officers. At the same time.
They had come in to arrest Leroy for yet another armed robbery. But when Tatum seen the pack of pigs, she assumed it was for the bonfire she had started in Kelce's insanely large home. In her defence, he shouldn't have embarrassed Kiara in front of the whole middle school, showing everyone that she was on her period. Tatum went crazy when she found out what that boy had done to her girl. So she set his house on fire, while his little brother was still inside. And then she laughed and danced to music as she watched the flames grow.
So, since she dumbly decided to tackle to cops, she was now getting arrested, too. Nathan was almost crying in joy. Two of his kids going into the slammer - at the same time. Leroy and Tatum would always be his favourites. They were true Quinns. Thomas and Joe were pussies - that was why they stuck together all the time, pretending to be scary and ruthless. But his oldest boy and his only daughter - they were the real ones to fear.
Thomas glared at his sister as the whole family cheering for her. No matter what he did or who he threatened, she was always the shinning star. She always took things that little step further. Because she wasn't afraid of the consequences. Not like he was. He may have acted like the scary Quinn, but he would never be as crazy as his twin sister. He thought about things too much. Worried too much. He would always envie Tatum for that.
𑁍𑁍𑁍
*1 Year Ago*
Thomas Quinn wrapped his arms tightly around his boyfriend at the OBX annual summer barbecue. His father was visiting Joe in juvie, allowing his other son to show off his long-term boyfriend in public.
"Is that your sister?" Ian asked with a chuckle, pointing to the Quinn girl, wrapped in her mother's coat and dancing freely in front of the fire she had started.
Thomas shook his head as she began to fight with Gary the policeman - their father was currently having an affair with his wife, so it was even more fun for her to piss him off. "She's a fucking idiot," muttered Thomas, resting his chin on his boyfriend's head.
"But you love her," Ian said quietly.
Thomas nodded. He really did love that dumbass he watched go through hell and back with a bright smile every single day. "Yeah." He would always protect his sister.