Chapter 14
Evie
Despite having spent some time in a hospital following my attempted self-deletion, I had never actually seen an emergency room in real life before.
Medical dramas and movies made it seem like a nightmare, and that was exactly what I found myself walking into when I ran into the waiting room, desperate to get to my sister.
There were people coughing and hacking, and a teenager was vomiting into a blue bag.
A guy in dusty work clothes had a dirty cloth wrapped around his entire right hand, quiet and pale as he waited, sweat dotting his brow.
It was the crowd gathered in one corner that drew and held my attention, however.
Mila was standing with Sammy, River, and two other women I didn’t recognize.
One of the women, a smaller blond, stood a little behind River and Sammy, phone in hand, typing something and then putting it to her ear.
Frustrated, she pulled it away and went back to typing.
She was older, close to the same age as the other woman I didn’t know who was speaking in a hushed, but obviously angry tone to Mila that I couldn’t hear.
After stopping to tell me about my sister, River must have come straight to the hospital.
I’d rushed to wash my face and thrown on underwear, pants, and shoes.
Fear had been choking me from the moment I’d heard something was wrong with my twin.
By the time I was dressed, I was openly crying and shaking so hard I didn’t know how I was going to drive.
That basic skill was still fairly new to me.
Evy had taught me right after I was released from the hospital back in June, but it wasn’t like I’d had to master it to get a driver’s license.
Evy pretended to be me and took both the written and assessment tests for me.
Driving down from Seattle, we’d taken all back roads with our Jeeps so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the heavy traffic of the interstate.
Chance put me in his truck before I could even turn toward my Jeep.
I only struggled a little before giving in, knowing it was the quickest and safest way to get to my sister.
That his nearness calmed a little of my growing panic wasn’t something I was ready to acknowledge.
I needed to see for myself that Evy was okay before I even let myself think about all the things going on with Chance and me.
As I rushed over to the group, some of the conversation the other woman was having with Mila registered. “I’m going to press charges.”
“You go ahead and call Ben, Rory. But I’m going to give him full access to the video footage in my shop.”
The other woman scoffed, tossing her strawberry-blond curls out of her face. “I didn’t do anything to that girl but try to talk to her.”
“Bullshit. You walked into my store with the intent to intimidate Everly, thinking she was Evie. Your plan was to warn her to leave Chance alone, to scare her off. The only reason you didn’t accomplish that was because Jos showed up with Sammy and Abi.
” Mila pushed into the other woman’s personal space.
“That didn’t stop you from calling her a whore, though, did it? ”
As I came to a halt a few feet away from them, several things registered at once. One, Rory was the name of Chance’s mom. Two, this woman had gone into my sister’s place of work and called her a whore. And three, she’d done it thinking Evy was me.
And what the heck was that about pressing charges? As in Rory was going to try to get my sister in trouble with the cops?
Fury like I’d never felt in my life flooded through me, colliding with every protective instinct I possessed where my twin was concerned. No one was going to hurt my sister as long as I was still breathing.
“Are you the reason Evy is here?” I demanded, pushing myself between Mila and Rory, getting in the other woman’s face. It didn’t matter that I had zero facts.
Dark green eyes blinked at me in surprise, her face tightening in anger and annoyance as I got nose-to-nose with the woman who had called my sister a whore. Her hands came up, pushing me back, but I locked my legs, refusing to budge.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A strong arm wrapped around my waist, lifting me off my feet and turning me away from the other woman. “What the hell is going on?”
I struggled against Chance. “Put me down. I’m the one asking questions here.”
“Be still, peaches,” he said, adjusting his hold and lifting me higher. “Ma, start talking.”
“That deranged girl attacked me!” Rory cried. “I didn’t do a damn thing to her, and she grabbed my hair. I have the clump of hair she ripped out as proof.”
“Why did she put hands on you?” Chance’s voice had dropped, taking on a menacing edge. I went still in his arms. But when I looked at his face, I saw his eyes focused solely on his mom, banked rage in those blue-on-blue depths.
“I only went to WomanLand because that was where I thought your new friend worked. I wanted to reach out, have a conversation, maybe get to know her a little.” Tears filled her eyes. “But that girl assaulted me.”
“She attacked you just because you wanted to talk to Evie?” He shook his head, disbelief on his face. But I felt it, the stillness in him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe his mom. He was angry enough that I felt him shudder with it. He trusted his mother’s version without hearing the full story.
A small, logical part of my brain said that was what he should do.
That his loyalty to his mom was commendable.
But that was a very small part compared to the full-on rage I felt.
It was disrespectful. To my sister, to me.
I didn’t need to know the details to know that Evy wouldn’t have touched a person with violence unless she was provoked.
And there was only one thing that could induce that kind of reaction in my twin.
Me.
Heart cracking down the middle, I wiggled myself free. When he tried to grab me again, I shoved him back. At least, I tried to. He was built like a freaking tank. That only made me angrier. “Keep your mother away from my sister, or a little hair-pulling will be the least of her worries,” I seethed.
His handsome face darkened. “Peaches.”
It was easier to let my anger mask my pain.
I’d been questioning if he even wanted me since the night before.
I’d woken up two different times, wanting to touch him, but he’d stopped me before I could get his zipper down.
If he really wanted me, he wouldn’t have been able to stop me.
Not when he hadn’t made it out of Hannigans’ parking lot before some other girl had had his cock in her mouth only days earlier.
With how easily he accepted his mom’s version of what happened without asking if my sister was okay, it made it that much clearer that Chance wasn’t the guy for me.
No matter how deeply my heart was already involved, I wasn’t going to waste my time on anyone who could so easily disrespect the most important person in my life.
I’d spent twenty-one years dreaming of being with my sister. Now that I had her, I was going to do everything in my power to protect her and our newfound peace.
“Get her out of here,” I told him in a tight voice, banking my emotions so I didn’t do something stupid. Like attack his mother in a room full of witnesses. Or cry. That would only give Rory what she wanted, for me to break. “Take her home. Now. I don’t want her anywhere near Evy.”
Groaning, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Baby—”
“Do not push me on this. That woman is responsible for my sister being in this place. I don’t care what happened.
Put distance between them. Or I’ll be the one going to jail for assault.
” I’d never gotten into a fight before, but there was a first time for everything.
I’d go to war for my sister if that was what she needed.
A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw. “Give me two minutes to speak to my mom, and then we can figure all of this out.”
“Talk to her all you want, as you’re driving her home.”
He reached for me, but I stepped back. Frustrated, he held out his hands for me. “Evie, come on. Let’s have a damn conversation.”
Turning my back to him, I focused on Mila, Sammy, River, and the blonde still on the phone. “Reid, call me back!” She spoke into the device before dropping her hand to her side. Giving me a small smile, she waved. “Hi, sweet girl. I’m Jos. Reid’s mom.”
“Hi,” I responded, wondering how bad things were if my sister’s boyfriend’s mom was there.
Anxiety churned faster inside me. I fought it down, knowing a panic attack was not going to help my twin.
“Where is my sister?” I asked Mila, expecting her to have the most information since she was one of Evy’s bosses.
“She’s in a private room. Abi and Vaughn are with her.
She was getting restless, and we decided it was better that I come with Rory to the waiting room since she kept running her mouth about calling the sheriff.
” Mila took my hand, giving my fingers a reassuring squeeze. “We’ve all been trying to reach Reid.”
“Elias isn’t responding to texts either. Everything goes straight to voice mail, so they must have their phones off.” Sammy wasn’t looking at anyone but Chance and his mom, who was still standing nearby.
“How is Evy?” She was my only concern now.
“At the moment, she’s sleeping. She’s been given antihistamines and fluids.”
“She had an allergic reaction?” All the texts Abi sent earlier hadn’t explained what was going on. Just that my twin was having a medical emergency and where she was being taken for treatment. “I didn’t even know she was allergic to anything.”
“Neither did she,” Mila murmured, glancing over my head where I knew Chance still stood brooding. “I’ll take you back to see her, and we can talk more there. She wouldn’t want us to discuss this in the open.”
“They don’t even know if it was an allergic reaction,” I heard Rory say as Mila and I started to walk toward a door by the nurses’ station. “It’s probably an STI.”
I froze midstep, every muscle in my body locking, red rimming my vision.
“Whores will be whores.”
“Enough!” Jos snapped right as I turned to confront Rory. “I’m done listening to you run your mouth. None of this has anything to do with you. I’ve spent decades staying quiet for Tanner and Matt, but that stops here. You don’t get to come in here and talk about one of mine like that, Rory.”
Chance moved in front of Jos before she could reach his mother, acting as a wall between them.
His silence added another crack to my heart.
If he’d told Rory to shut up or asked her to apologize for what she’d just said, I might have given this—us—a chance.
But he allowed her to continue to disrespect my sister, and that made him unworthy of my heart.
How I could have thought for even a moment that Chance Reid was the one who could heal the broken parts of my soul was suddenly lost on me. This man couldn’t even see me. He couldn’t heal anything because he was now one of the people responsible for breaking me.