Chapter 12 Evie #2
But my brain is already trying to invent excuses because that’s what I do when fear shows up—I rename it until it’s manageable.
What if Tasha left her phone again? Or her purse? She always leaves her stuff behind. What if she’s outside and something happened and she needs help?
What if it’s a drunk? Harbor’s Edge collects drunks during festival week like the ocean collects trash. What if someone stumbled into the alley and cracked their head and I’m in here pretending not to hear because it’s easier?
Or…
What if it’s a demon?
Another crash.
Something slams into the dumpster outside hard enough that the metal rattles.
My body moves before my brain finishes arguing.
“Goddamn it,” I hiss, throwing the rag down and grabbing the heavy flashlight from under the counter like it’s a weapon. It isn’t. But it makes me feel slightly less like prey.
I shove through the back door into the foggy alley. Cold hits my face. The smell hits next, salt, garbage, and something sweet-rot underneath, like burnt sugar and old perfume.
The alley is a smear of shadow and mist. And then I see it. A shape skittering near the dumpster, low to the ground, half-formed like it can’t decide what it wants to be. In the fog, it looks like a stray dog made of shadow.
Except it moves wrong.
It jerks toward a sound that isn’t there. A thin, warped melody leaks out of it like a dying radio: a festival jingle, but pitched down and stretched.
Hell no.
My stomach turns.
And there—two steps away, body half-hidden behind the dumpster—Kaia. Not glowing. No sword in sight. Just Kaia in a dark hoodie, breath fogging in short bursts. Her stance is wide, protective, weight on the balls of her feet like she’s ready to launch.
She’s alone.
My pulse spikes with anger so fast it almost feels like relief.
“Are you kidding me?” I snap, voice too loud.
Kaia’s head whips toward me. Her eyes widen like she didn’t expect me to be real.
“Evie—” she starts.
The smaller entity lunges—fast and hungry—aiming for her leg like it’s trying to latch on.
Kaia pivots. Her hand flicks, and light answers. Aurora flashes into existence, blade gleaming pale-gold and prismatic. She moves with that impossible grace that looks like choreography even in the dark, even in an alley behind my diner.
One slash.
The entity screeches and splits into a smear that evaporates against the wet air like it was never fully here.
Silence slams down.
Kaia exhales hard and dismisses the sword. The light folds away, gone.
I stand there with my flashlight raised like a useless torch. My heart hammers.
Kaia turns toward me, shoulders still tense, and that’s when I see the blood.
Not pouring. Not dramatic. Just a shallow cut at her hairline, dark and glossy where it’s started to run down her temple and into her eyebrow.
It’s small. It makes my throat go tight anyway.
Kaia reaches up, touches it, then looks at her fingers like she’s surprised they’re red.
“It’s fine,” she says automatically.
I take one step forward before I realize I’m doing it.
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t say that. You’re bleeding. Outside the diner. Because of—whatever the fuck that thing was!”
“It’s shallow.”
“Still blood,” I say. My voice cracks on the edges. “And you’re alone?”
Kaia’s gaze flicks past me toward the street like she’s listening for another shadow, shoulders still keyed up like she expects the air to lunge.
“Yeah…” she says.
Something in my chest tightens, less anger now, more that sinking, resigned anxiety that’s been living in me since the first time a TV glitched and tried to eat my memories.
“Are you… allowed to be out here by yourself? Is this part of the plan? Or did you just decide to—what—stalk this alley?”
Kaia turns her head slightly, eyes scanning the fog. “Evie—”
“No,” I cut in, because my brain is spiraling and I need answers to grab onto.
“I’m serious. Where are the other girls?
Where’s your manager? Blaire, or whatever?
Aren’t you supposed to be… in a unit? Aren’t there rules?
Because last time you were alone, you crashed through my door glowing and almost got yourself killed in the booths. ”
Kaia’s mouth tightens. “I didn’t almost—”
“You did,” I snap.
Kaia’s gaze finally comes back to me. “We were together. We were sweeping. There was a disturbance near the harbor.”
“So you got separated,” I say, and the way I say it makes it sound like I already know the ending and I hate it.
Kaia shakes her head once. “We split the perimeter.”
I stare at her. “You split.”
“It’s standard,” she says quickly, like she’s repeating training material. “Two and two. Cover more ground. Clear faster.”
“And you ended up here,” I say. My voice goes too tight. “Behind my diner. Alone. Where’s your partner then?”
Kaia’s mouth opens, then closes. Just that half-second hitch, enough to make my stomach sink.
“We… split,” she says, too fast. “It made sense.”
“Mm,” I murmur, unimpressed.
Kaia exhales through her nose, frustration flickering. “It’s standard perimeter coverage. We felt a residual spike earlier and this corridor has been… active. So I swung by to check it.”
“Swung by,” I repeat, deadpan. “Like you’re picking up milk.”
Kaia’s jaw tightens. “Evie.”
“Where. Is. Your. Partner?” I press, each word clipped because my anxiety needs something solid to grab.
She hesitates, then finally gives, voice tight. “Jules is a few streets over.”
My stomach drops anyway. “So you are alone.”
“Temporarily,” Kaia says quickly, like she can patch it with a word. “She’s close. Remy and Mina are on the opposite side. If anything spikes, we converge.”
“And Blaire is fine with you playing night watch behind my diner?” I say, flat.
Kaia’s eyes flick away. “She doesn’t know I’m here specifically.”
Of course.
I stare at her, the anger in me turning into something colder and more exhausted. “Kaia—”
“I know,” she cuts in, and her voice is sharp for a second, defensive. Then it softens immediately, like she regrets the edge. She drags a hand through her hair and winces when it pulls near the cut. “But if something surfaces near here…” Her eyes flick to mine. “…it’s more dangerous for you.”
The words wrap around my ribs and tighten until I can barely breathe. I laugh once, bitter and disbelieving, because what else am I supposed to do with that?
“Oh,” I say. “So you’re doing this whole… guardian angel routine now?”
Kaia flinches. “No, that’s not—”
“It is,” I insist, even as my throat tightens in a way that scares me. “You’re here. Alone. Bleeding. In an alley. Because you’ve decided I’m… what? Your responsibility?”
Kaia’s voice goes rough. “You’re a target.”
“And you think standing near me makes me less of one?” I snap. “That’s not how danger works. That’s not how anything works.”
Kaia holds my gaze, quiet and stubborn. “It’s how it works for me.”
My chest aches, sharp and stupid.
I hate her for making me feel things I don’t want.
I hate myself more for the tiny part of me that hears that sentence and remembers what it used to mean when she said things like that.
I swallow it down hard.
It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t make my chest ache in that familiar way.
But it does.
I hate it.
I step closer again, because my body keeps betraying me.
“Inside,” I say, sharp. “Now.”
Kaia doesn’t move.
“Inside,” I repeat, pointing at the door with the flashlight like I’m directing traffic. “Before you drip blood on yourself. Come on.”
Kaia’s lips twitch like she almost smiles. “Okay.”
I hate that, too.
I grab her hand without thinking and yank her through the back door into the diner. Kaia follows easily, letting me pull her like I’m still allowed.
The fluorescent lights make everything look too real. Her face is pale from adrenaline, hair slightly damp from fog, blood smeared at her hairline in a line that looks like an ugly accent mark.
I let go and nudge her toward the counter. “Sit.”
Kaia hesitates. “I really am fine.”
"Sit,” I repeat, already opening the cabinet under the register. “Or I’ll make you.”
Kaia settles onto the counter with a soft hop, hands braced behind her. She looks absurdly out of place perched there like a wounded angel in a hoodie.
I yank out the first aid kit—red plastic, faded sticker, more used for burns and knife nicks than demon-slaying injuries—and slam it onto the counter like I'm filing a complaint with the universe.
Kaia watches it land, then lets out a soft, breathy sound that’s dangerously close to a laugh.
“What?” I snap, already peeling open the latch.
Kaia’s mouth twitches. “Nothing. It’s just… it’s kind of nostalgic.”
I pause with the kit open. “Nostalgic?”
“Yeah,” she says, and there’s something gentle in her voice that I don’t want to hear. “You always had that thing. The kit. The wipes. The… ‘sit down and let me handle it’ routine.”
I glare up at her. “It’s called basic first aid.”
Kaia tilts her head, eyes warm for one reckless second. “It’s called you mothering me.”
“I did not mother you.”
“You did,” she insists softly. “You don’t look bossy at first glance, but you are. Secretly.”
I scoff, but it comes out weaker than I mean. “I’m not bossy.”
Kaia’s smile turns faintly smug. “You made Mrs. Harlan move my seat in tenth grade because you said the sun glare was ‘sabotaging my future.’”
My throat tightens.
Because she remembered that.
Because for a heartbeat, I can see it too—teenage Kaia in that stupid classroom, squinting into a blade of sunlight every day, and me marching up to Mrs. Harlan’s desk with righteous fury.
"She can’t see the board. She can’t see the notes. She’s going to fail because of glare. This is sabotage."
Mrs. Harlan stares at me like I'm insane.
Kaia stares at me with unbearable fondness.