Page 30 of Bargaining with the Devil

“Sure you’re my responsibility whether you like it or not,” he said evenly, “but even weren’t you, doesn’t mean I’ll be letting you do yourself in, whether ’tis intentional on your part or because you’re careless. Not tonight, not any other time. ’Tis the second time now I’ve followed you out into the bay. Then there was this afternoon too when you were the worse for drink and might have fallen into the sea.”

Goddamn him for his assumptions.

And goddamn him for being right.

It knocked the fight from her.

“Who is it, still holds this power over you?” His voice was too gentle for the weather, his face too tender for the cold indifference that would be easier to see. “Compton? He’s dead. He’ll never touch you again, if ’twas him that did this to you. That French baron, had you in his keeping in Paris? Someone else?”

The questions, sharp as any knives in his hands, gutted her. Quinn had no right—no right—to all the pain she’d buried deep. She wouldn’t unearth that, not for him, not for anyone.

His next words were quiet enough the wind nearly took them. “Don’t let them win, a mhuirnín. Those fuckin’ swine in France and whoever else it is, has your soul twisted up so bad that you don’t know how to live with it.”

She sucked in a breath, the impact of his words so strong that she wrapped her arms around her middle trying to ward off the pain.

He wasn’t finished. “To hell with them. May the Devil swallow them sideways, each and every one of them. Don’t let them win, a mhuirnín,” he repeated. “Not after you made it out the first time.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice trembled; she hated that it did. “Not what happened or the choices I had to make.”

“Not all of it, sure.” His voice was still quiet, carefully level now. “But I know enough.”

And he did. That was the thing. Quinn knew some of it already, and oh God, she hated that he did, because she couldn’t hide. Couldn’t pretend that none of it had happened, not with him, not when he’d been there at the end.

“I am not some pet project for you.” Her voice still shook. “I am not some broken creature for you to fix.” There wasn’t as much anger behind those words as she wanted. No anger at all, really. She’d lost the edge of it entirely.

“Nay. You’re nothing broken, a stór. Not forever, even if you feel it now. See, I’m thinking if you fight your way free of the memories, you’ll find you’ve been forged into something stronger. ’Tis the way of it when the iron was strong to begin with.”

She blinked. “You’re comparing me to . . . a knife?”

“Aye.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “You’re already every bit as sharp as a blade. As deadly too, I expect.”

She scoffed at his words but turned them over in her mind as they trudged up the hill, side by side now.

Her destination was a tumbledown hut. She’d waited out a sudden cloudburst in it once last spring. It stood empty most of the time and was loosely maintained by the men of Auchencairn, Balcary, and Rascarrel as a sort of temporary shelter for itinerant guests to Heston Isle: fishermen, mainly, or the shepherds who sometimes brought their flocks over in the summer to graze. Smugglers didn’t use it, such as she knew—it was too well known to be used for clandestine purposes, and besides which, it faced the mainland.

It also offered shelter for the odd person stranded by storm or high tide or nightfall. And now, with all three of those coming on at once, she’d trapped both herself and Quinn. She was feeling the slightest bit guilty about that now. At least the hut would keep the worst of the weather off them. If they were lucky, there might be a blanket or two.

She was still thinking about what Quinn had said. Blades weren’t inviolable. They still bent when mishandled or broke with one wrong blow.

But perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to break. With patience and dedication, broken things could be made anew.

Cold rain started as they climbed the hill, and it was sheeting sideways from the wind by the time they reached the hut. It was as she remembered it from her previous visits, which was good given the rain. The roof leaked in only one corner, and the ramshackle door latched, which would keep out the worst of the wind. There were no chairs or anything that might serve as furniture save a couple of wooden crates of questionable age, but there was something of a straw-stuffed canvas pallet that would serve as a bed.

The hut’s interior was very dim—it was approaching full dark outside, the storm swallowing the last of the light earlier than usual.

“There are a few candles here and some flint,” she told Quinn. “Or there were last time I was here, in a watertight box.”

“Aye, I see them here. We’ll be here for a time yet. That sea won’t be coming down anytime soon, not with the rain and wind.”

And not with the tide just now coming in. “No.”

Quinn got a candle lit and began surveying the hut. “Someone’s left enough fuel here for a fire. A single fire, possibly.” He looked towards her. “Best saving that, I’m thinking.” His eyebrows made a question of the last.

She appreciated that he’d asked her opinion rather than simply taking charge. “Yes. With the storm, we don’t know how long we might be here. If need be, we can roast shellfish tomorrow so long as we have a fire. Perhaps gather some seaweed.”

“Aye. ’Tis sound judgment.”

Unlike the judgment she’d used earlier that landed them here. Although even knowing the difficult night they faced, she didn’t wholly regret it. Tackling the situation together with Quinn was . . . nice, somehow, even if it was her questionable choice that landed them here.