Page 108 of Beneath the Surface

The sight of it—that small cylinder with its wicked needle catching the faint light from the street—broke Quinn’s paralysis.

She threw her phone at him in a desperate, wild motion.

It flew past his head—missed by inches—and hit the wall behind him with a crack of shattering glass and plastic. The screen sparked once and went dark.

Quinn ran for the window.

Maybe she could get it open. Maybe she could scream loud enough for neighbors to hear. Maybe—

But he was faster.

His hand closed around her arm like a vise, fingers digging into the soft flesh above her elbow hard enough to bruise. He yanked her back, and Quinn’s feet left the ground for a sickening moment before she crashed into his chest.

Quinn fought. Clawed. Kicked. Tried to scream.

But his other hand clamped over her mouth, palm pressed so hard against her face she couldn’t open her jaw, couldn’t breathe through her nose with her head tilted back at this angle.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said.

His voice was flat. Professional. Utterly devoid of emotion, like he was reading instructions from a manual. This was just a job to him. She was just a job.

Quinn bit down on his hand with all the strength she had, her teeth finding flesh through the thin tactical glove. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth—sharp and copper and wrong.

He swore—the first real emotion she’d heard from him—and threw her.

Quinn hit the bed hard, the air driven from her lungs with a whoosh. Stars exploded across her vision. She scrambled to get away, her hands slipping on the quilt, her grandmother’s quilt, but he was on her before she could move.

His weight pinned her down—knee pressing into her spine, one hand fisting in her hair and forcing her face into the mattress. Quinn couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel the pressure and the terror and the knowledge that she was going to die here, in her childhood bedroom, in her grandmother’s house.

The syringe.

She saw it in her peripheral vision—that flash of metal and glass as he brought it around. Quinn tried to twist away, throwing her weight to the side, bucking like a wild animal.

But his grip was iron.

The needle bit into her arm, sliding through skin and muscle with a sharp sting that made Quinn gasp.

Then fire.

Whatever was in that syringe spread through her veins like liquid flame, burning its way from the injection site outward in waves. Her arm. Her shoulder. Her chest.

Quinn’s vision started to blur, the edges going soft and fuzzy like she was looking through frosted glass.

Her limbs went heavy. So heavy. Her fingers that had been clawing at the quilt went slack. Her legs, which had been kicking, went still.

No. No no no no—

She tried to fight but her body wasn’t responding. Wasn’t working. The disconnect between her brain screaming at her to move and her muscles refusing was terrifying in a way Quinn had never experienced.

She was trapped inside her own body, a prisoner in flesh that no longer obeyed her commands.

The man’s face swam above her, the ski mask making him look inhuman—just those cold, dark eyes staring down at her, assessing.

“Wheeler sends his regards,” he said.

His voice echoed strangely, like he was speaking from far away, like Quinn was underwater and he was on the surface.

The room was spinning now. Or maybe Quinn was spinning. She couldn’t tell anymore.