Chapter 41
41
EVELYN
F uck Andrew. Fuck him and all his arrogant, entitled bullshit. Especially, more than anything, fuck his bitchy, nasty girlfriend for being such a goddamn pain in my ass. The way he’d come at me while I was lying on my bed reading had been totally uncalled for. Not only had he not knocked —rude-ass motherfucker—but then he’d repeatedly refused to leave when I told him I was done with our conversation.
Lesson learned: always lock my damn door.
“You’re thinking about murdering Drew again, aren’t you?” Lacey asked, nudging me with her elbow. We’d been in town for a few hours, trying on dresses that I could never afford. Lacey needed an outfit for some fancy party her family expected her to attend now that she was back in America and insisted it was just more fun if I tried on dresses too.
She was right; it was fun. Except when I started dwelling on the fight with Andrew.
I was extra pissed off because he’d been so careful not to yell at me the whole time, therefore not drawing the attention of anyone else. In hindsight, I should have just raised my voice back at him and I’d have had Brodie and Ethan there in a flash, but no, silly me, too stunned at his audacity to do anything more than hold back my tears and ask him to leave.
That, in itself, had me more annoyed than the argument itself. I’d been so drained from my fall and shocked at his aggression that I hadn’t stood up for myself. Andrew had a way of getting under my skin that stirred the parts of me that had felt abandoned for most of my life.
He poked at old wounds. It was too much to take.
Sneaking out my window hadn’t been a particularly mature response, but I knew the guys wouldn’t let me go out alone. Not without one of them tailing me—for some unknown reason, because Elijah was no longer a threat—and I badly just needed time away from all the testosterone.
I sighed, then licked up the melting frozen yogurt around my cone. “Yep, sure was. Grizzly death, of course, nothing discrete like poison.”
Lacey snickered. “Aw, that’s a shame. Haze could have helped you with the perfect poisons.”
Wait, what? “Excuse me? Haze could do what?”
“Poisons,” Lacey repeated with a shrug. “He was super into them a few years back and his dad is a big-shot scientist working for the KGB.”
My jaw hit the floor. “What?” I was starting to sound like a broken record, but shock would do that to a girl. I blinked stupidly at her. “I had no clue. That’s…” Kinda hot .
Lacey smirked like she could read my mind. “I know, right?” Her phone beeped in her pocket, and she pulled it out with a groan. “Looks like we’ve been found out.” She showed me the screen, displaying Connor’s photo and contact as the incoming call. It was a hot picture of him, too. Smiling.
I groaned and reached out to hit the “reject call” button for her. “Maybe he’s just calling to talk to you. You guys are dating so…maybe he wants a booty call or something?”
Lacey shook her head and pulled down the notifications tab, showing six missed calls all within the last couple of minutes. “Yeah, no. Connie is never this desperate for my company.”
“Damn it. I thought we would get longer for sure. I left my door locked so they’d think I was asleep.” Suddenly sick with anxiety, I dumped the remains of my frozen yogurt in a trash can and wiped off my sticky fingers with a napkin. “Wait, how the fuck does he know I’m gone? My door is locked .”
My new friend gave me a pitying look and sighed. “Oh, Evie, honey. You’re too innocent for your own damn good sometimes, I swear. I can almost guarantee that someone in that house has a key for your room or a security camera inside. Or both.”
Floored. I was dead-set fucking floored. “No. You’re joking. They wouldn’t do that.” Because all of a sudden, I remembered the number of times I’d used my vibrator in that room. Or walked around naked. “You’re joking. Right? ”
Lacey wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a little bit? But also kinda not. Anyway, irrelevant. I can’t dodge Connie’s calls forever. Do you wanna keep shopping and make them sweat it out or head back?”
It was a valid question. Sure, they knew I wasn’t at Bluebell House in my room fast asleep, but that didn’t mean they knew where we were, just that it was a good chance I’d gone to meet Lacey or Nina, and Nina was out hiking with Sven right now.
“Fuck them,” I decided. “We still haven’t found you the perfect dress and then you obviously need shoes to go with it, and I was thinking I could really go for a mani-pedi, how about you?”
Lacey tossed her head back laughing and put her phone on silent. “I think that sounds like a fantastic plan. There’s a great nail salon over on Lemontree Lane, about twenty minutes walking or like five by car.” Then she gave a pointed look at my various bandages and bruises. “Let’s drive.”
“Excellent choice,” I agreed, because although I had a medical all clear, I was still aching from my dumb-ass fall in the woods. After I’d climbed out my window at Bluebell House, Lacey had picked me up in her Chevy and we’d parked right outside the frozen yogurt shop.
Hopping into her car once more, we cranked the air and the radio. “Ohhh, I love this song!” Lacey crowed as the latest hit single by Bellerose came on, so I turned the volume up more. I also happened to love that song—Lacey had great taste in music.
She grinned at me, pure sunshine, as she pulled out of her parking spot and started down the street. For the duration of the song, we sang together and I could safely say I understood why the guys all loved Lacey so much. I could also say, without a doubt, she deserved better than Connor.
“So…” she said after the song finished. “You’re hooking up with Brodie and Ethan? How’d that all come about?”
I flushed bright red instantly. Of course she’d noticed me and Ethan were together. We really needed to be more careful, or he was likely to lose his job.
“Uh…yeah. I dunno how it happened. It just did and I’m not mad about it,” I admitted sheepishly.
Lacey offered no judgment, though, as she smiled. “I think it’s cute. They’re both so totally infatuated with you. Have you guys…you know…?”
I had a feeling I did know but decided to play dumb in the hope that she’d let it go. “Have we what?”
She rolled her eyes, slowing to a stop at a yellow light. Lacey, I’d noticed, was a very cautious driver. “Have you all fucked? Together? Like a three-way? ”
Oh man. I thought my face was red before, but it was positively lava now.
Lacey gave a squealing laugh. “Oh my god, you have! What was it like? I need details so I can live vicariously though you, please! ”
Panic rendered me speechless for a moment, then I turned the line of questioning back on her. “You’ve been dating Connor since high school, right? Is he the only guy you’ve ever slept with?”
It was Lacey’s turn to blush, and her gaze shifted back to the intersection we were stopped at. “Um, yeah, we’ve been dating since we were fifteen. Technically my mom tried to set me up with Ethan first. Can you believe it? He was like twenty-three then and was totally horrified. Understandably, given I was still a child. But then Connie and I got together and…” She shrugged. “It all worked out in the end.”
There was something sad in her voice, though. Like she wasn’t really as happy with how it all turned out as she pretended.
“Lacey…you and Connor—” I started to ask as our light turned green and Lacey put her foot back on the accelerator. Before I could get the rest of my question out, my gaze shifted past her to where a blacked out F-truck was speeding down the cross street at a million miles an hour.
I gasped, realizing that there was no way he was going to stop at the intersection. “Lacey! Watch out!”
She turned to look, then screamed and slammed her foot down on the gas, but it was too late. The truck smashed into us a split second later, punching us and our car across the intersection and sending us into an out-of-control spin.
Somehow, I managed to grab on to my door handle, gripping it for dear life as the car rotated over and over, then hit something and flipped. I screamed, terrified as we went weightless for a moment, then crashed back to earth like a ton of bricks.
Then, silence.
My seat belt held me suspended upside down, cutting into my shoulder and chest with agony. I fumbled for the buckle to release myself.
“Lacey?” I groaned after collapsing into a heap once the seat belt unclicked. The airbags had all deployed, and all I could make out of her behind the white fabric was blood. Holy shit, was she even still alive? “Lacey!” I cried out, trembling in terror that my new friend was now dead. The truck had hit our tail end. I was pretty sure, that was why we’d spun so hard.
I needed to get out of the wreckage and get help. My window was already smashed entirely, so I awkwardly turtle crawled out through the opening while wincing at the bite of gravel and glass. It didn’t matter, though. Lacey needed help, which meant I needed to get?—
Pain lanced through my head as someone grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled.
I yelped, thrashing and clawing in an attempt to remove the person’s hand, but they didn’t let go. Instead, they started dragging me across the tarmac and away from the wreckage of the car.
“Let me go!” I howled, fighting to free myself. Fuck, if I needed to lose a chunk of my scalp, then so be it.
To my shock, the grip on my hair released and I tumbled back to the pavement. Frantic, I rolled over onto my butt, ready to fight whoever had just dragged me by my hair away from my possibly dying friend…then I nearly died of pure terror.
“Y-you!” I exclaimed, blinking against the bright sunlight. Surely I was imagining things.
“Hello again, Evelyn Cromwell. You’re a hard woman to kill, you know that? This time, I’ll make sure to stick around to make sure the job is complete.” The man from my nightmares smiled a sick grin, then aimed his gun directly at my face. “Be a good girl and die this time.”
Click.
Bang.
Read the epic finale of Eve’s story in…
TRAUMA BONDED
Bluebell House Duet #2