Chapter 8 Evie #2
Kaia’s voice goes sharp, protective. “I stopped that.”
“You used some veto,” I say. “You made sure everyone knew you were in charge.”
Kaia’s eyes flash. “That’s not why.”
“Then why?” I demand, and my voice cracks on the edge of it.
Kaia opens her mouth.
And closes it.
Her jaw works. She swallows.
“I didn’t want them to erase… this,” she says finally, voice rough. “I—” She stops. Starts again. “I didn’t want you to forget.”
That word hits something in me, sharp and specific.
Forget.
Because that’s what it felt like when she left, like I was something she could set down and walk away from, easy to forget once the world got loud enough.
Like I was small enough to be forgotten the second a bigger stage opened its arms.
My chest tightens until breathing hurts. So I turn and start walking again, because if I stand still, I’m going to say something that will scorch the air.
Kaia follows, a step behind now, like she’s learned the shape of my rage and is trying not to step into it. The fog thickens as we head toward my street. The houses here are older with salt-worn siding, small yards, and fences that lean like they’re tired.
My house sits at the end of a narrow lane, porch light off because my grandmother hates “wasting electricity.”
I fish my keys out and pause at the gate.
Kaia stops at the sidewalk, like she’s waiting for me to tell her to come inside too.
The idea makes my stomach twist.
“You’re not coming in,” I say immediately.
Kaia nods. “Okay.”
No argument. No push. No charm.
It throws me off balance anyway.
I unlock the gate and push it open with my shoulder. The hinges squeal.
Kaia stays put.
The porch steps creak under my shoes. The house smells like damp wood and the faintest hint of menthol rub, like my grandmother’s medicine has seeped into the walls over time.
I get the key into the lock and—
My wrist tingles.
Not a pain. A warning. A cold, tight flicker under my skin, right where the invisible ribbon sits.
The sensation hits the exact second my brain forms the thought: What if they don't restore the diner? I should tell Gus what happened. I should—
My mouth goes dry.
I shove the key in harder than necessary and unlock the door.
Before I go inside, I turn my head slightly and aim a glare at Kaia. She looks closer than where I left her.
“Don’t follow me,” I say.
Kaia holds both hands up in surrender. “I’m not.”
“Don’t… stand there like a sad statue either. You walked me home. Mission accomplished,” I add, because I hate the way my chest tightens at the thought of her alone in the fog.
Kaia’s mouth twitches. “What would you prefer?”
“Go be famous somewhere else,” I snap, and immediately taste how old that line is.
Kaia goes very still. The air between us shifts, turning more raw.
I realize, a beat later, that was pretty much what I said all those years ago in our fight: Fine. Go be special somewhere else.
Kaia’s face does something small and awful, pride and shame tangling.
My stomach flips. I turn away before I can see more.
Inside, I lock the door behind me out of habit. My coat goes on the hook. My keys land on the counter with a soft clink. The kitchen is dim except for the light over the stove. The clock ticks loud. The house feels like it’s holding its breath.
“Gran?” I call softly.
No answer.
I walk down the short hallway toward her room, careful with my footsteps because she startles easily at night. The floorboards creak anyway, traitors.
Her bedroom door is cracked open. A faint nightlight glows inside. She’s curled in bed under a quilt, hair white and thin against the pillow. Her face looks smaller than it used to when I was a teenager, and softer in a way that feels like theft.
I swallow around the ache in my throat and step in.
“Hey,” I whisper, approaching the bed. “Gran. It’s me.”
Her eyelids flutter. She makes a small sound like a question.
I reach for the pill organizer on the bedside table. Of course she didn’t take the ones she was supposed to take earlier… I then reach for the glass of water. My hands move with the practiced choreography of caregiving: open, shake, place, coax.
I touch her shoulder lightly. “Time for your meds.”
Her eyes open halfway, bleary. She stares at me like she’s trying to place me in the dark.
“Evie?” she rasps.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “It’s me.”
She blinks. “It’s… late.”
“I know,” I murmur. “Festival week. Everything’s weird.”
She makes a little disapproving noise. “Too much noise.”
“Yep,” I agree.
I help her sit up enough to swallow the pills. She takes them with the seriousness of someone signing a treaty.
Then she squints at me. Her gaze sharpens strangely, like a flare of old awareness.
“Did the Rhee girl sing?” she asks.
The question hits me like a fist. My chest goes tight, and for a second I’m back in the diner after hours, fries on table, Kaia humming while she scribbles song lists and steals my pencil.
Back on the pier with lanterns swaying, Kaia leaning in like the world was going to hold still for us.
Back in the fight—her voice sharp, mine sharper, both of us saying things we could never take back.
One stupid kiss.
You’re scared to leave.
You’re too good for me.
Back to us, tonight, to the mean things I’d said to her. Years of hurt and resentment and anger bubbling up.
My fingers tighten around the water glass until it squeaks.
“No,” I say, too fast. Too bright. “Didn’t see her.”
Gran hums, sleepy again. “Shame. She has… a pretty voice.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
She sinks back into the pillow, eyelids drooping. “You always liked her.”
My heart stutters.
“I did not,” I lie on reflex.
I stare at her in the dim light, throat tight, and let the lie sit there anyway because the alternative is too messy to explain to a woman whose memory slips like tidewater.
Gran’s mouth twitches, half smile. “You used to say it,” she murmurs, voice drifting. “Said you and that Rhee girl were gonna be friends forever. Like you’d already decided.”
My chest aches.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper.
She does, breathing evening out. The moment of lucidity fades like it never happened.
I adjust her quilt and stand there for a second longer, hand hovering over her shoulder. Then I slip out of the room and close the door quietly.
In the hallway, I press the heel of my hand to my forehead and breathe.
The house is so quiet compared to the diner. Compared to the arena. Compared to the way Kaia’s voice must still be echoing through town in people’s heads…
I walk back into the kitchen and flick on the light. The window over the sink reflects the kitchen behind me—counter clutter, dish rack, my face pale in harsh light.
But for a heartbeat, the reflection looks… off. Like the air behind my shoulder is thicker than it should be. Like there’s a shadow where there shouldn’t be one.
My skin prickles.
I whip around.
Nothing.
Just the kitchen. The hum of the fridge. The ticking clock.
I let out a shaky breath.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself. “We are not doing this. I don’t have time for paranoia.”
Kaia’s voice drifts in from outside, faint through the front door, like she’s speaking to someone on the porch.
“—I’m staying here,” she murmurs. “At least until she’s settled.”
Then quieter, as if the fog might listen, “No. I don’t care what Devin wants.”
There’s a pause.
Then, “Because I already did.”
I don’t know who she’s talking to. Maybe Blaire. Maybe Bane.
My throat tightens, and I press my lips together until the feeling has nowhere to go.
A soft knock sounds at the front door. I walk to it, silent, and open it a crack. Kaia stands on the porch, fog curling around her like a stage effect the world didn’t ask for. Her face is stripped down now—no glow, no power—just Kaia, breathing cold air, eyes careful.
“I’m not coming in,” she says immediately. “I just—wanted to make sure your gran was okay. That she got her meds… and…”
My fingers tighten on the door edge. “Congratulations. You witnessed me being a functional adult.”
Kaia’s mouth twitches, then stills.
We stare at each other through a doorframe like it’s a border treaty. Kaia’s gaze dips—briefly—to my wrist again. As if to check that the NDA is still there.
“I’m still leashed, don’t worry.”
Kaia’s voice is low. “It’s not a leash.”
“It’s literally a magical gag order.”
Kaia flinches. “It’s… for your safety.”
I glare. “Traffic.”
A small, exhausted breath slips out of her that might almost be a laugh if it didn’t sound like it hurt. “Right. Sorry.”
I wait for her to say more. She doesn’t. She just stands there, hands open at her sides, like she’s trying to show me she’s not holding anything. Not a sword. Not a contract. Not a lie.
It doesn’t work.
My heart doesn’t care about my logic. My heart remembers.
So I do what I always do when my heart misbehaves.
I get mean.
“You don’t get to stand on my porch like you belong here,” I say, voice flat.
Kaia’s eyes flicker. “I’m not.”
“You are,” I snap.
Her face tightens, and for a moment I see that old fight in the set of her jaw, pride bracing against shame. Then she nods, once.
“I’ll be nearby,” she says quietly. “Not here. Just… nearby.”
Kaia hesitates, then turns.
She steps off my porch into the fog, disappearing into the blur of streetlights like a ghost who doesn’t know she’s unwelcome.
I close the door.
I lock it again.
Then I stand with my back to it.
Outside, Harbor’s Edge is still humming with leftover music and lantern-light fantasies.
Inside, the kitchen smells like medicine and old wood and the sharp, bitter taste of a past that just walked back into my life with a sword.