No hesitation.If she stops to think, she will never go through with it.
Quill’s biggest fear was losing control over her. He lied to her about the world being full of dangerous people. He lied when he told her that onlyhecould write for her. He lied when he called himself her fucking father.
Nelle pours her change into her coat pocket, and takes the red-cloth journal out onto the sidewalk. People zip around like gnats. She has considered New York’s citywide egotism a flaw until now, when anonymity is what she needs. She drops to the concrete and bites into the meat of her hand. Hard, until bitter ink stings her tongue. Spitting, she flattens the journal open on the stained concrete and shakily touches the wound below her thumb. Ink glistens on her fingertip.Herink.
“Is it worth it?” says a voice above her.
Nelle squints up, as if emerging from bathwater, mistaking the newcomer as an angel.
Quill crouches beside her. How uncanny to see him here, in this setting. She has only ever seen him in their house, except through the peephole in DC. Never on a street, in broad daylight, surrounded by people.
“The risk,” he says. “Is it worth it?”
Nelle’s adrenaline melts away. “How’d you find me?”
Another drop of ink hits the page and runs to the journal’s spine.
“I don’t have to search,” Quill says, as if this should reassure her. “I close my eyes, and I know where you are. The farther you go, the clearer you get.”
Nelle looks between him and the journal. She came—literally—from his mind. The way he feels her ... she feels him, too. His presence. Like a cold lizard perched along the back of her brain. She ignores it most of the time, but the farther she gets, the more the bond strengthens. She feels his anger, his sadness, his patience.
“Are you going to follow through with it?” Quill nods to her bleeding hand.
Nelle shrugs. “One way or another, it’ll put me out of my misery.”
Except I’m not miserable.For the first time in her life, she has friends. She has James. They have plans to leave New York, to see more of the world.
Nelle hesitates. Legs whoosh around her. A black droplet grows heavy on her fingertip. Swelling and stretching, until—
The drop hits the page and splatters, black and spiky, like a spore.
I can’t do it.
Quill touches her shoulder, his fingers like a raven’s claw. “It’s okay, Nellie.”
“Move your hand.” Nelle twitches. “Or I’ll bite it off.”
He recoils. “You scorn me again and again, but you’ll understand when you’re older. You’ll realize how grateful you should’ve been for your father.”
“This is the last time I’m going to say this,” Nelle says. “I’ll call the police if I have to, and I’ll tell them thetruth. Stay away from me. I don’t want to see youeveragain. I don’t want to talk to you. I want nothing to do with you. Don’t you realize how fucked up you are?”
Quill blinks at her.
“Youtorturedme. You kept me captive for twenty-one years. I have every right to hate you until the day I die.”
“The question is ...” He stands up to his full height. “Is that going to be today?”
Nelle waits until he’s around the block to hurl the journal in the nearest trash can. She shoots up the street, back to the apartment, hand dripping blood.
She must be visibly rattled when she barges in because Jessie pauses the TV. “Are you okay?”
Nelle checks her hand to make sure the cut has healed over.
“Fine,” she says, heading to the kitchen for a cup of herbal tea. Her fingers tremble as she tears open the purple packaging and unravels the tea bag. The little paper tab hangs over the ceramic lip.
“What’s your fortune?” Jessie says from the couch.
Nelle reads it, and, for the second time this afternoon, feels the prick of tears.
