Author's note:

Thank you for the reviews on the previous chapter. I hope you like this one - you finally get some answers!

There's two dates as you can see below, because this is taking place around midnight so it's kind of both.

Sunday 4th October 2020 / Monday 5th October 2020

Eve folded her arms over her thick wool coat, teeth chattering as a gust of cold night air hit her. She'd only realised once getting to the back of the stables that she would be out of sight of the school, meaning nobody would see her through their window and know if she needed help. This fact amplified her fears for tonight and she contemplated just going straight back to her room, telling herself it was a bad idea to come here in the first place.

What person in their right mind would do what she was doing right now? What person would meet an anonymous guy that had been stalking her for years and had done the things she suspected him of doing? She had no idea who he was or what he looked like, and she could only make guesses as to what he wanted her for.

But she couldn't leave. She had to meet him, finally. She wanted answers and she wanted to tell him to leave her alone; this could be the only opportunity she had to speak to him face-to-face and she wouldn't throw that away just because she was scared.

Eve saw movement out of the corner of her eyes, her head quickly whipping around to get a better look. To her right, he was walking towards her. Her breath quickened, the air so cold she could see her own breaths. He was getting closer and closer, and she felt incapable of moving at all – her mind was screaming at her to run away from this dangerous man, but her body just wasn't listening.

He stopped a short distance in front of her. He was taller than she expected, with broad shoulders and a fit physique. From what she could tell, anyway. He was dressed all in black, with a jumper that had a hood pulled low over his head. A thick black scarf was wrapped around the bottom half of his face, meaning that all she could see of him was his light blue eyes. Those eyes stared at her now, the pupils dilated; she could have sworn they looked happy.

"Hello, Eve," he said, his voice muffled by the thickness of the scarf around his mouth so his words sounded a little distorted. She couldn't discern his accent because of it either. "I'm so happy to finally be face-to-face with you in the open like this. I do miss our chats, so I've really been looking forward to this moment."

She gulped, wanting to sob and tell him to leave her alone straight away. But that would have defeated the purpose of why she came, so she took a few long seconds to compose herself and imagined what Raven would say if she was stood here instead of Eve. "Enough with the bullshit, Luke… Or whatever your real name is. After months of silence, why start sending me things again now? Hmm? If you think I appreciate the creepy photos, then you're wrong."

"But they're so beautiful," he crooned, actually sounding sincere. "I've always wanted you to see the beauty of yourself. Did you really come to talk to me about my presents?"

Another second to think of her answer first. "Not just that, no. I still don't understand what you want from me. Why can't you just forget about me and let me live my life?"

"You know why." He spoke gently, as if explaining something obvious to a child. "You and I have always had a connection. I know you better than anyone – you said that once, if you remember. Fate may not have destined us to be together as soulfinders, but that doesn't mean we can't choose to be soulmates. I want us to be happy together, my dear Eve. I will stop at nothing to have that."

She didn't want to comprehend what he was saying so she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind: "is she with you? Has she been with you this whole time?" It was a suspicion she hadn't told anyone and it felt good to finally get the question out.

A heartbeat later he replied, no longer sounded patient with her. "You'll find out soon," he snapped. "When you come with me, you'll know."

"Come with you?!" She took a few steps back from him, body trembling. Her voice shook as she said, "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Sadly, my dear, you don't have a choice in the matter."

He raised a hand, almost as if he wanted a high five, and a second later Eve's eyes drooped closed as a sudden tiredness took over her body. Her mind and limbs were exhausted, all she needed was a little nap… NO! She knew he was messing with her mind somehow, she knew what manipulation felt like. She struggled against it, trying to tense her relaxing body and keep her eyes open.

No matter how hard she fought though, she couldn't win. She was oh so tired, she just needed to rest. So tired…

It had taken far longer than Quinn would have liked to sneak out of the dorms, past security, and make their way over to the stables without being caught. They rushed over there as quickly as they could under the circumstances, however both he and Flash stopped when they caught sight of Eve.

There was someone stood in front of her, someone dressed all in black. It was the man from Quinn's vision, the one that had been talking to Raven in the dark church. It looked like Eve was talking to him, but Quinn couldn't discern what she was saying or what emotion she was feeling from this distance.

"Who is that?" Flash whispered, so close to Quinn that their shoulders were pressed against each other. "The dude looks creepy."

Understatement of the year, Quinn thought, unamused. He watched the two in front of him with narrowed eyes, watching as Eve took a few steps away from the man, as if she were scared of him. A moment later, the guy raised a hand. Eve shook her head, body swaying from side to side before she collapsed to the floor.

Quinn's. Heart. Stopped.

It was the first time since he'd found out he and Eve were soulfinders that he'd truly felt it. Her speaking in his mind had been amazing, but had nothing on the fear of losing her. He felt a roar burst from his lips as his body unfroze and he started running towards her. She was his, and she needed him. He'd felt protective of her before, which was evident in the way he wanted to keep Raven from her, but now he felt like he could kill somebody to protect her.

It was an eye-opening revelation: he couldn't just be her friend. They were soulfinders and that meant something to him now. He hadn't understood it before, had hated not having the choice of who he should be with, but he understood now: his heart had chosen Eve for him before they'd even been born, and it was now down to his head to catch up with that connection and those feelings.

He saw something whizz past him, like a gust of wind. He realised within a second that it was Flash, using his power to get to Eve quicker than Quinn would. It was the first time Quinn had seen Flash use his power and he understood now why people had given him that nickname.

By the time Quinn reached them, Flash was knelt beside Eve and the man dressed in black was disappearing in the distance, having run as soon as he'd realised the boys were here. Probably too worried about someone discovering his identity. Quinn briefly thought that he doubted this was over, that the guy would give up that easily, before he turned his attention to Eve.

As he knelt down, Flash quietly said, "She's breathing. I think maybe she's just asleep? She doesn't look hurt."

Not answering his friend, Quinn pulled Eve onto his lap and cradled her head to his chest. He stroked her hair, only barely registering that his hand was shaking. "Evie," he whispered, pressing a soft kiss against her forehead. "Eve, wake up. Please, darling."

"Quinn, maybe we should get a teacher-"

"No, not yet," he interrupted Flash. "She's fine, she's okay. I don't want her to be in trouble for going out after curfew. She's fine."

"Quinn…"

He could hear the worried tone in Flash's voice, but didn't have the energy to reassure his friend that he wasn't about to have a mental breakdown. He kept his eyes trained on Eve's face, cherishing each breath she took as it let him know that at least she was alive. What had the man done to her? He stroked her hair still, whispering to her in an attempt to wake her.

It felt like years when her eyelids fluttered open, but he knew that logically it was probably more like just a few minutes. Her body jerked in his arms and she gasped, awaking with a start. "Quinn," she croaked, looking up at him. Her eyes widened and she sat up quickly, looking around. "Where is he? You have to go, he'll hurt you-"

"Shh," Quinn stood up after she did, grabbing her arm to try and calm her. "He's gone, Eve. He's gone; you're safe."

She stopped looking around and stared at him, barely paying attention to Flash. "Really?" Quinn nodded. "Wait… What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," his lips quirked up into a smile. He felt better now, knowing that she really was okay and that the man from his visions hadn't hurt her. "Why don't you come back to our room? We'll sneak you in, we know a way around the security guards. I think we both have some explaining to do, don't you?"

Quinn handed a glass of water to Eve and sat down beside her on the edge of his bed, shooting Flash a nervous look. Eve had barely spoken on the way over and now wouldn't even meet their eyes. Quinn was worried about her. Was she in shock? He knew that could happen to people who went through a bad experience. He was about to ask her when she finally spoke up.

"I'm afraid about telling you everything," she admitted before taking a slow sip of her drink.

Quinn reached out and put a hand on her back, gently rubbing it. It was a move that surprised both him and Eve by the looks of it, and had just been instinctive to him. He felt different towards her since she'd collapsed, like there was an energy between them that hadn't been there before. He didn't know if she felt it too, but for him something had definitely changed when it came to their relationship.

He answered her in a soft voice. "I'd say that you don't have to worry about telling us but I'm pretty selfish and I really want to know. I had a vision of him and I could sense that he was dangerous, so when he said that he was going to meet you I knew that I had to go too. Why did you agree to meet him, Eve? It looked like you knew him."

"I do. Sort of. I mean, I used to think that I did but then the truth came out and… I don't know who he is."

Quinn frowned, trying and failing to make sense of this. He didn't understand what she meant and told her so before adding, "Take your time."

Eve took a deep breath, still refusing to look neither Quinn nor Flash in the eyes. When she spoke, she told her story slowly and it sounded like she hadn't talked about this for a long time. "It started almost three years ago or so, when I was fourteen. I wasn't doing so well. My mum hating me was getting to me, I had no friends at school, and even though my siblings loved me I always felt like the odd one out. It was around that time that Raven started going out with boys and having other friends, and she didn't always have the time for me.

"I felt so alone, so I spent most of my time online. I ran a blog writing book reviews and this guy messaged me saying that he liked reading what I wrote and that I made him want to get more into reading. We exchanged emails and continued talking that way. He told me his name was Luke Dougherty, he was the same age as me, and that he lived in Ireland.

"We spoke all the time; I told him everything. I felt like I'd finally found a true friend, someone that I could always rely on – I always looked forward to getting new emails from him. I didn't tell anyone about him, because as silly as it sounds I thought my sisters would steal him away from me. Guys always preferred them over me and I didn't want that to happen with Luke. He was my secret and I liked that.

"Once, he confessed that he was a savant and I was so shocked, I mean, what a coincidence, right?! When I told him that I was too, we exchanged birthdays and they were just a week apart." She looked at Quinn and blushed as she said the next part. "I was convinced he was my soulfinder. I'd never felt that way about anyone before and I felt like no-one understood me like he did. This went on for a year and I'd never been happier. I was so in love with him. Or at least I thought I was."

Quinn moved his hand away from her back and instead took hold of her hand instead. She squeezed his palm with such a sad look on her face that he didn't know what else to say other than, "What went wrong?" Because of course, something had to have gone wrong. She spoke of it in such a lost, melancholy tone that he knew something awful must have happened.

"Raven found out," she whispered, looking down at their joined hands. "Her laptop broke so she borrowed mine to do some homework. I must have left my emails open because she saw everything. There was some… Intimate stuff on there. Not just what Luke and I said to each other but… Well, he convinced me to send him photos, and I'm not talking normal selfies."

Her entire face went bright red and she stubbornly refused to look back up at him and Quinn was glad for it. The thought of naked photos of Eve caused a rush of blood to his own face as well in anger that she had done that, especially for another guy.

Unaware of his thoughts, Eve continued. "Looking back, I know I was stupid for agreeing to send those photos, especially when he never sent me any photos of him. I didn't even know what he looked like. Raven saw everything and said those exact words to me: I was stupid.

"She told me that Luke was probably some old perv, that it happened all the time, and I was so naïve for believing it. I begged her not to tell mum. I cried my eyes out telling her that I loved Luke and when we had the money we were going to meet, and that we'd live happily ever after." Eve sounded bitter. "Raven persisted though. She was being protective of me and although I told I'd hate her forever for taking Luke away from me, I knew that I would have done the same thing for her."

"Did the thought of him not being who he said he was ever cross your mind that year?" Flash asked from where he sat on his own bed, leaning forward on his knees so he could listen to the story better.

Eve shook her head. "I guess it should have, yes. But I felt such a connection between us that no, I never thought he'd lie to me about anything."

"So Raven told your mum," Quinn guessed, prompting her to continue with the story, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Eve nodded. "Mum didn't even care. Remember how I told you she's never liked me and thinks I'm a curse on the family? Well, that didn't change just because I was talking to someone online. She said that I was old enough to make my own decisions and the consequences of those were something I had to deal with myself."

Yet again, Quinn found himself feeling hatred towards this woman that he'd never even met. He should have respected his soulfinder's mother, but instead he felt the opposite towards her.

"Raven didn't give up though," Eve continued. "She told my brother, Ash. He's in the police so he was able to do some research. It turned out that Luke Dougherty didn't exist and instead of being from Ireland, the IP address traced back to a library in Manchester. The same city I'm from.

"I was devastated. I didn't want to believe that the boy I was in love with had lied to me about who he was. Raven thought it was someone at school messing with me but we had no way to prove it and no idea who it would be. Eventually, I wrote Luke one final email: I told him I knew he had lied to me and I didn't want anything to do with him anymore. I blocked him completely and I thought that was the end of it."

"Well, it obviously wasn't," Flash spoke up, sounding angry. "The bastard clearly came back for you if tonight is anything to go by."

"He started sending me messages in the post in March this year. It was creepy, he was mentioning places that he'd seen me – it was obvious he was stalking me and I was terrified that he could get that close to me and I wouldn't know. I didn't know what he was going to do to me. Then-" She cut off and shook her head, as if stopping herself from saying something. It was obvious to Quinn then that there was still a secret she was keeping from him, but he decided not to push her too much. Besides, he was keeping a secret from her too: that Raven was on this Luke's side now. He couldn't bring himself to tell Eve that just yet, so he wouldn't pester her about whatever she was hiding.

"He stopped sending me things in July, but it started again when I came here. He's sent me photos taken of me at school and has sent me a text too, so he knows my number clearly. His packages are hand delivered too, so unless he has access to the school somehow, someone here is working for him. I don't know who though." She met Quinn's eyes, her bottom lip trembling. "He wants me to go somewhere with him, probably meaning he'd never let me go. I'm so scared, Quinn. I don't know what to do."

Quinn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, hugging her tightly. "We'll sort this out." He didn't know how they'd do that, but he was certain that he wouldn't let anyone hurt Eve. Her story was haunting to him and he found himself furious at her for getting herself involved in something like this in the first place, even though he knew that was unfair to her.

He had to sort this out somehow. It was his duty as her soulfinder.

Author's note:

So, Quinn is finally acknowledging that they're soulfinders and that they can't be just friends. I hope you like how I've done this development, let me know.

In the next chapter: Raven breaks into Polly's room, but will she get caught?