Evan was leaning over the edge, staring down at the street as he smoked a cigarette, but I made no move to join him. No, I was comfortable right where I was, surrounded by my little blue heaters, the wall behind me all but holding me up. I let out a sigh; I was exhausted, and it was still only the morning.
Finishing his cigarette, Evan rejoined me, and I could smell the tobacco lingering on his clothes like the world’s most disgusting cologne. I made a show of waving my hand in front of my face to ward of the stench, and Evan laughed.
I stared at him. How could he laugh?
His shoulders slumped. “I know. God, Gabi, I know. I screwed up.”
“You think?” I was glad, despite everything, that my sarcasm was still intact. There was something about Evan that made it rise to the surface faster, sharper, but I didn’t know why. No, wait, I did. Because it was Evan, and he was annoying as hell.
But despite everything he had done to betray not only me, but Rafe, I still wanted to be his friend. Secretly, I was glad he had brought me out here (well, a warmer place would have been nicer) to talk. Maybe, maybe, he was finally going to fix this.
Evan was facing away from me, scanning the buildings as he said, “I’m sorry.”
Whoa, an apology. Okay, it was a start. I folded my arms over my chest and walked closer to him, so I could see his face. “And…?”
He winced, but didn’t say anything.
“Evan.” When he didn’t respond, I picked up some snow and hurled it at him. It landed on his shoulder, but he didn’t even react. “‘I’m sorry’? That’s it? That’s all you can say?” I picked up more snow, angrily smashed it into a ball, and threw it at him, this time hitting him in the face. He sputtered, wiping the snow away from his eyes. “You jerk!” I continued. “You’re the one who told me to stay as far away from Silver Moon as possible, and then you turned around and told them all about me! How could you do that?”
“Because I was desperate,” he said. “Because I’ve spent the last two years missing Alex, even though she’s right there in front of me. Because I saw a way to bring her back, and I had to try. I had to, Gabi. I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I can’t keep doing this, living like this, without her. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same for someone you loved.” His gaze challenged me. “You would.”
I dragged my wet fingers down the sides of my jeans. “Not like this, Evan. You tore me away from my family, from Rafe and look—” My breath hitched and I closed my eyes, telling myself to calm down. No more tears, Gabi. “Look at how they’re treating me. Just like you said, all those months ago when we first met. They’re just as bad as you said—no, they’re worse and… Does this make you happy? Seeing me suffer?”
“Of course it doesn’t!” he snapped, running a hand through his hair. He grabbed a fistful of the blonde locks and tugged at them, hard. “That’s why I had to get you out of there, away from the Chens. I don’t know why Charles brought you there in the first place. It’s bad enough that he told them about you, made them think you could bring Alex back easily, but to bring you into that room, when he knows how unstable they are…” Evan shook his head and laughed bitterly. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. That’s exactly something Charles would do. Make you feel horrible in hopes that it’ll inspire you to work faster.”
“He keeps insisting I’m not trying hard enough,” I said. “He wants to motivate me, so he stabs people and animals and threatens me and gets even angrier when nothing works.” I lifted my hands in front of me, staring at them. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Evan. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. That’s why Rafe wanted to research my powers. He was going to help me figure it out. Slowly and carefully.”
Evan jolted at my words. “Research. Research!” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it, Gabi! We’ll check out the library, see if there’s anything there about healers, and figure this out. Let’s go!”
“What, now?” I was a little taken aback by his enthusiasm.
“Yes, now,” he said, rolling his eyes. “No, tomorrow, after Charles and the Chens have yelled at you again.” He started pushing me toward the doorway. “Hurry up, Gabiiiiii.”
“Hold on a second!” I shoved him off. “Why should I go anywhere with you?” I shot him my best death glare as I waved a finger in his face. “Give me one good reason why I should trust you, Evan!”
He paused, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he considered my question. “Look, I meant it when I said I didn’t plan for things to get this bad. I told Charles about you, but I never expected him to immediately alert the Chens. He got their hopes up, and they rushed their daughter back to HQ, demanding that he bring the healer to Alex so she could be healed. That’s not how it was supposed to be. Yes, you were supposed to heal her, but I never wanted you here, in HQ.”
“Still waiting for you to get to the part where you convince me to trust you,” I said, tapping my foot on the snow-covered ground.
“Things quickly spiraled out of control,” Evan continued, ignoring me, which was weird, since I was the one usually ignoring him. “I’d forgotten what an absolute bastard Charles could be.” He ducked his head, his hair hiding his eyes. “I’m pretty sure Alex would kill me if she knew what I had done to you, to Rafe…” Now he looked up, and I saw a passion burning in his blue eyes. It was a gleam I only rarely saw; it appeared when Evan was serious, and Evan, well, he was never serious. “So I have to make it up to you, to both of you. Will you… Will you make a deal with me?”
I hesitated. A deal with Evan? That didn’t exactly sound like a smart thing to do. Even before he betrayed me, he was always doing stupid things that could land a person into a heaping pile of trouble. I’d have to be stupid to agree to anything with him. “What kind of deal?” I asked, because obviously my mouth had decided it didn’t want to listen to my brain today.
He smiled and I inwardly groaned. Stupid, stupid, stupid! “You help Alex, and I get you out of here. Permanently.”
I opened my mouth, paused, and then closed it. It was a nice fantasy, but that’s all it was. How could Evan possibly get me out of here? Sure, he could help me escape, but what would stop Charles from chasing after me, hurting my family in the process? I wanted out, but not at the risk of Dad and Chloe’s lives. If I had to keep suffering to keep them safe, I would.
“Oh, please,” he said, watching my internal struggle. “You think that less of me? Have you forgotten what my magic can do?”
“What are you talking about?”
He waved a hand, creating another blue fireball with one flick of the wrist, making it disappear with another. “I’m talking about manipulating memories, Gabi.”
“Ooookay,” I said, drawing out the word. “I get that you can make one person, like Chloe, forget being attacked by a demon, but everyone here knows what I can do. You’re going to wipe all of their memories?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. Shrugged! Like doing something like that wasn’t crazy, let alone impossible— “I can do it, no big deal.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can.” Evan grinned. “Should I be insulted that you have that little faith in me and my abilities, Gabi?”
“But we’re talking about Charles, who can, like, wave a hand and zap his son—” I gasped. Philip! How could I stand around talking when he had been hurt? “Evan, before Charles, the ultimate bastard of the universe, brought me to Alex’s room, he attacked Phil with magic! We have to see if he’s okay!”
“But you didn’t agree to my deal—”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine! It’s a deal! I heal Alexandra, you get me out of here and keep my family safe, okay? Is that a good deal, Evan? Can you hold up your end of the bargain?”
“Yep. Don’t you worry, Gabi. When I get done messing with their memories, they’ll have no idea who you are, or what you can do.” He held out his hand and we shook on it.
I hoped he was telling the truth, that he could do such a thing, but some
thing told me it would be foolish to get my hopes up. I mean, this was Evan we were talking about… Not exactly the most reliable person in the world. Should I trust him? I didn’t know. But I would go along with what he said for now, until a better option came my way.
If a better option came my way. With the way things were going, I doubted that would even happen.
“No more hanging out on the roof. Let’s go, go, go!” He opened the door and shooed me into the hallway as his blue fireballs vanished one after the other. “We’ll go help Phil first, then see if the library has any helpful books!”
“Don’t shove me!” I grumbled. “You’re the idiot who wanted to stand outside in the snow, not me. Why did you want to visit the roof, anyway?”
Hitting the button for the elevator, Evan smiled sadly at his reflection in the doors. “Because this is where I first met her.”
Chapter Twenty-one
As the elevator took us to the second floor, I tried to coax the story out of Evan, but he shook his head and turned away from me, a wistful expression on his face. I let it drop. I knew what it was like to hold a painful story inside of you with the fear that if you shared it, you’d only make yourself feel worse. Rafe had been the first person I had told about my mom, Philip the second. It had hurt both times, and I had a feeling it would continue to hurt, no matter how many times I told it. If Evan didn’t want to share how he and Alexandra met, well, I could understand that.
But at least I knew why he had brought me up there.
When we reached the second floor, Evan stuck his head out. “All clear,” he said, indicating I should follow him. We jogged to Charles’s office, and again Evan checked it out before I entered.
Philip was still sprawled on the floor, out cold, and I ran to his side, shaking him. “Phil! Phil!” Over my shoulder, I told Evan, “See if Nina’s guinea pig is still alive!”
“Ugh, that stupid rat is here? Isn’t he called like, Mr. Snuggly or something dumb like that?” He wandered over to the desk and peered into the tank. “Uh, there’s nothing in here, Gabi.”
“What?” Had Nina come and rescued him? And just left Phil? Who would do something like that? Before I could ask Evan, Philip let out a low groan and his eyes fluttered open. “Phil!”
“Gabi?” His brown eyes were bleary as he stared up at me. “What happened?”
“Your stupid asshole of a father hit you with a spell,” I said. “Are you okay?”
He shot up suddenly and groaned, clutching his head. “Gabi!”
“Yeah?” I wondered if he was about to be sick and checked the room for a wastepaper basket for him to throw up in. Hell, he should puke all over Charles’s chair, it would serve him right!
“Are you okay?” Philip demanded, still holding his head.
“Um, I asked you first,” I pointed out.
“But my dad—”
“Threatened me a bunch, but…” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m fine, promise.”
“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch after my head stops hurting,” Philip said, hauling himself into a sitting position and leaning heavily against me. “Shit, I hate magic!”
“Hey!” Evan protested as he peered under the desk.
Philip looked confused. “What is he doing?”
“Apparently Mr. Snuggly is missing,” I said. “Evan, he was hurt really badly; I doubt he’s crawling around under the desk.”
“You don’t know that, Gabi,” Evan said, picking up a paperweight and peering underneath it, like he expected the guinea pig to somehow be under there. “He could be behind you, about to crawl up your shirt and bite you!”
Suddenly, my skin started itching. I jumped to my feet, glaring at Evan. “Shut up!”
He laughed, and I looked for something to throw at him.
Philip struggled to his feet, resting one hand against the desk. “So what happened while I was out?”
As I quickly filled him in, his face darkened with anger. By the time I had finished, he was full out cursing, only stopping to take a pile of papers off his father’s desk and hurl them everywhere. The papers softly floating to the ground obviously didn’t have the effect he wanted, so he picked up some ugly statue and threw it against the wall. It shattered into pieces, and Philip grinned.
“Are we done redecorating the room now?” Evan asked. He hitched a thumb toward the doorway. “Places to go, Gabi. Books to read.”
“What’s going on?” Philip asked me. “We’re trusting him now?”
“We made a deal,” Evan said before I could answer. “She helps me, I help her. And right now, I’m helping her find out how to use her powers. In the library. Want to come?”
Philip groaned again. “As if my head wasn’t hurting enough as it is, now you want me to spend the afternoon reading?”
I shrugged. “It’s better than being threatened or hit with magic, right?”
“Ugh.” But Philip still followed us, even though he didn’t have to.
***
Into the elevator once more. I was beginning to grow sick of the tiny box with the mirrored walls that showed our distorted reflections. Evan looked fine, but Philip’s face was green, and my skin was pale, save for the spot where Mrs. Chen had smacked me. Philip had taken one look at the red mark and frowned, but he didn’t say anything. I had wisely left that part of the story out, afraid he’d go charging to the eighth floor and start throwing more things around for my sake.
On the fourth floor, we got out and followed Evan down the hallway to a room marked “Ballroom” on a plaque outside the doorway. “Um,” I said, pointing to it.
“Ignore that,” Evan said. “It was a ballroom back in the 20s, I think, but once Silver Moon bought the hotel, they converted it into a library.” He threw open the door and held out his hands. “Ta-dah!”
I gasped. The room was huge, easily bigger than the first floor of my house, and it was filled with bookshelf after bookshelf. And each bookshelf was crammed with books, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. I stood there, feeling greatly overwhelmed. We were supposed to check through all of these books?
“God, I hate this room,” Philip complained, heading straight for one of the tables in the center. He pulled out a seat and sat down heavily, resting his head on the wooden surface.
“Why?” I asked, running my hand along the spines of the books. “What did the books ever do to you?”
“It’s not the books so much as the time I spent in here, being tutored by my father,” Philip said. “I’m sure you can imagine how much fun that was.”
Evan and I winced in sympathy. Turning to him, I asked, “Where should we start?”
His eyes scanned the room. “Probably with the books on spells. I know you’re not casting a spell, but healing is magic. Maybe you have a magical ability that was only just awakened?”
I shrugged. He was the magic expert, not me.
“Papa Harkins is an ordinary human, but what about your mom?” he continued, oblivious to the way my heart suddenly clenched painfully. “Did she—”
“What about this one?” I interrupted, grabbing a book.
Evan took it from me and flipped it open. “Anatomy of a demon?” He showed me an incredibly graphic, disgusting illustration of a dissected demon, green blood and all, and I shoved it away. Great, there goes my appetite for the next year. Evan smirked at my reaction. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He shelved the book and moved on. “The magic books are back here.”
We turned a corner and Evan froze. Peering around his shoulder, I saw we weren’t as alone as I had naively assumed. A young man stood in front of the bookshelves, an open book resting in one of his palms as he reached to turn the page with his other hand. He was tall (not Rafe-tall, but taller than Evan), with straight black hair, perfectly styled so that not one strand was out of place. He was very handsome, in a classical, Greek god sort of way. All straight lines and prominent cheekbones, with just the right amount of stubble to give him a rugged look. I knew my sister
would have melted into a pile of goo if she ever saw him. When he looked up at us, I saw that he had unusual blue-green eyes—definitely his most striking feature.
“What are you doing here?” Evan demanded, his voice angry. I looked over at him, shocked at the sudden change in his demeanor. Was this someone I should be wary of, or was Evan overreacting (as usual)?
The handsome guy lifted the book he was holding and flashed a sardonic smile. “Reading. It’s what one does in the library, is it not?” There was something off about the way he talked, like he was taking his time to pronounce each syllable carefully. He didn’t have an accent, but it was almost like…
Almost like he did have one and was going to great pains to disguise it. But why?
“Well, go away. We need these books.” And to my utter surprise, Evan plucked the book handsome boy was holding and shoved it into my hands.
“Evan—”
“I was reading that,” the other guy said. He was still smiling, but his voice had lowered noticeably. Not quite a growl, but he was getting there.
“Don’t care,” Evan said, grabbing more books and handing them to me. I stood there like a fool, watching as the tension built between the two of them, practically causing the air to crackle like static electricity.
“Um,” I began.
“That was very rude of you,” the stranger said, still pleasant.
“Ask me if I care,” Evan replied.
“I would like my book back, please.”
“Here you go,” I said, digging it out from the bottom of the pile and handing it to him.
“No,” he said, still not looking at me. “I would like Underwood to return it to me.”
“Not happening.”
“Uh, you guys,” I said as the tension spiked even further. Standing between the two of them probably wasn’t a good idea, either, so I took a couple of steps backwards, dropping books as I went. Neither of them paid me any attention as they stared one another down.
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