Page 98 of Beneath the Surface

Her breath was coming in gasps now. Short. Sharp. Not enough air.

“At least at Gran’s house, there are neighbors. Street traffic. People who would notice if something went wrong. People who would hear if I screamed.”

“The cabin is secure—”

“The cabin is a cage.”

The words hung between them.

Dax’s face went carefully blank. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Quinn moved closer, tilting her head back to look up at him. “Tell me, Dax, when was the last time you asked me what I wanted? What I needed? When was the last time we made a decision together instead of you just telling me how it’s going to be?”

She could see his jaw working. See the way his hands clenched at his sides.

“This isn’t about control—”

“It’s entirely about control!” Quinn’s voice rose again, filling the small cabin. “You’re so terrified of losing me that you’ve turned into exactly the man I met that first day in the police station. The cop who thinks he knows best. Who thinks authority and force can solve everything. Who says ‘watch me’ like it’s a threat instead of a partnership!”

Dax flinched. Actually flinched, as if she’d struck him.

“I’m not that person anymore,” he said, but his voice was uncertain.

“Aren’t you?” Quinn felt tears burning in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Refused to let them fall. “Because that’s all I’ve seen for the past week. Orders. Decisions made without me. My life controlled down to when I eat and sleep and speak to another human being.”

Her voice dropped to something quieter but somehow more devastating. “Do you know what I did today, Dax?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at her with those dark eyes that used to make her feel safe but now just made her feel seen in all the wrong ways.

Seen as something to be protected. Managed. Controlled.

Not seen as a person. An equal. A partner.

“I woke up at 6:47 AM,” Quinn said, her voice eerily calm now. “I know the exact time because I’d been lying there awake since 6:45, watching the numbers change on the clock. I got up. Made coffee—one cup because that’s all I had left and I’m rationing it. I ate breakfast. Two scrambled eggs and one piece of toast. The same breakfast I’ve eaten for seven days straight.”

She took a breath. Dax’s face was pale now.

“Then I watched the morning news. Saw the same segment about Wheeler three times because they keep replaying it. Heardthem call me ‘troubled’ and ‘obsessed.’ Heard Wheeler’s lawyer say I’m mentally unstable.”

Another breath. Shorter this time.

“Then I tried to write. Opened my laptop—the laptop you so generously provided—and stared at a blank screen for forty-five minutes because I can’t write without sources. Can’t fact-check without internet. Can’t do interviews without a phone that works.”

Dax opened his mouth, but Quinn held up a hand.

“I’m not done.”

He closed his mouth.

“After I gave up on writing, I made lunch. Another egg. Because that’s what we have. Then I watched the afternoon news. Same Wheeler segment. Then I counted the trees I can see from the living room window. Forty-three. Want to know how I know? Because I counted them three times to make sure I didn’t miss any.”

Her voice was shaking now but she kept going.

“Then I stared at that knot in the wood paneling over there. The one that looks like a screaming face. Stared at it for approximately an hour, maybe more, until I heard your truck pull up and knew—knew with absolute certainty—that I couldn’t do this for one more day.”

Quinn’s chest was heaving. “Let alone six more months.”

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.