In all her failed relationships, she’d never felt quite like this when they’d ended. Though, technically, theirs had never even begun. He hadn’t stopped her from walking away.
How would it have played out if he’d reminded her she’d gone Pygmalion on him and fallen for the teacher out of idol worship? What if he’d told her she still had her head in the clouds, dreaming up scenarios that didn’t exist? What if he’d said exactly what she’d said to him? We had sex. Yay! Thanks for a good time. Good luck in all future endeavors.
Quinn let her head fall to her hands. Quite possibly, this was the smartest thing to do—just plow forward.
But what if it isn’t? What if you didn’t give him the chance to say anything because you were so busy dunking in the pool of reality, you forgot to come up for air?
“Alone at last,” a sultry voice whispered into the dim light of her living room.
Quinn’s head whipped upward. She scanned the room, her eyes darting around every corner.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a bitch out when she’s constantly surrounded by a posse like yours? Goddess, they’re an annoying bunch. All that food and hugs and kisses and broccoli. I should torture you before I kill you, just because this has all been such a hassle. I think I actually broke a nail.”
She fought a grating sigh. Okay, disembodied voices were on her checklist of things she’d like to take a pass on, going forward. They were unnerving and just a little unfair on the playing field of who had bigger powers.
“Who are you?”
“Who I am matters little. Who I’ll be when you’re dead is what matters.”
Did the voice belong to Aphrodite? That moment when she’d shown up was still a little hazy. So she couldn’t be sure. But it was worth a shot to ask. “Aphrodite?”
Laughter filled her small apartment. Maniacal and so earsplitting, her eardrums shook. “Uh, no. I would have been Aphrodite if you would’ve just died like you were supposed to. Alas, you’re tougher than you first appeared.”
Okay, not Aphrodite. Shit just got real. Bad guys were real, and in all her new realist state of mind, she was in trouble—for real.
“So it was you who knocked me down that night?” she asked into the room, hoping whomever the voice belonged to couldn’t see her knees quaking.
A wistful sigh whistled in her ear. “Honestly, I’m better than that shot I took at you. I can’t believe my aim was so off. But you really gave it a good effort when you hit the ground. Your tuck and roll was impressive.”
Quinn nodded, looking around the room to find something to defend herself with. “Yeah. I took a gymnastics class for like a hot second when my mom thought I didn’t get out enough. Funny what you retain, isn’t it?”
“Oh, a laugh riot.”
“And that match I made—afterward, when it felt like someone was sticking a hot poker in my colon?”
Another long, drawn-out sigh whizzed around the room, leaving an echo of disappointment. “I poisoned the apple just before you sunk your pretty white teeth into it. But it was the wrong poison. I forgot you’re human. No residual effects. Just gas to show for my efforts. Bummer, right?”
Stall, Quinn. Stall. “You think my teeth are pretty?”
And then she remembered Nina was right outside.
Just as Quinn thought to call out to Nina was the moment an invisible hand grabbed her and threw her up against the far wall, pinning her there.
A woman, surreal, beautiful, perfect in almost every way, appeared in front of her, her wrist attached to the hand wrapped around Quinn’s throat. “Shut—up!” the woman hissed in her face.
She was so caught off-guard, she somehow managed to marvel at this woman’s beauty. From her long, graceful neck, to her almond-shaped sapphire eyes, to hair flowing to her waist in soft, full curls, she was amazing. It almost hurt to look at her.
And okay, it was scary to look at her in all this fury Quinn didn’t understand the reasons behind.
But damn, she had some firm grip.
Quinn grabbed at the woman’s hand, tearing at it, unable to breathe. Now probably wouldn’t be the time to bemoan the fact that she hadn’t been turned into a vampire or a werewolf with super-strength. But it had to be more useful than making matches.
As her feet lifted farther off the ground and her legs dangled, she tried to remember the fights she’d witnessed on the playground as a kid in school from a corner where she always hid from the chaos.
What did the person who lost always accuse the person who beat them of doing?
Fighting like a girl.
Why?
Because the winner had pulled her opponents hair.
As her eyes began to roll back in her head, Quinn forced herself to focus on one thing—yanking the shit out of this woman’s amazing hair.
She couldn’t even grunt her monumental effort when she reached upward with both hands and grabbed two lengths of this madwoman’s hair as close to her scalp as possible and pulled for all she was worth.