Chapter 12 Evie #3
I remember her scraped knee from the fair when she tried to climb the stage supports like an idiot, and I made her sit on a milk crate while I cleaned it, glaring the whole time.
I remember her laughing and calling me “mean,” and me muttering “you’re welcome,” and the way she let me fuss because she liked that I cared. She liked that I cared about her.
I miss that so suddenly it feels like I swallow a shard of glass.
I hate that I miss it.
I hate that it’s her face that makes me miss it.
I step closer, lifting the wipe toward her hairline. Kaia holds still, eyes on mine. We’re close enough that her breath fans over my cheek when she exhales.
The diner hums quietly. The neon sign buzzes. The world narrows down to this stupid, small distance between us.
“Hold still,” I say.
Kaia murmurs, “I am.”
I dab the wipe against the cut, careful despite myself. Kaia flinches slightly.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“It’s okay,” she says, voice low. “I’ve honestly had worse.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I figured. You fight demons for a living.”
I keep cleaning, because if I stop, I’ll say something crueler than I mean. Then my mouth betrays me anyway.
“You’re supposed to be on magazine covers,” I blurt, “not bleeding in some shitty diner.”
Kaia goes still.
Her voice is quiet when she answers. “I’d rather bleed here than anywhere else.”
The words hang in the diner like smoke.
My hand pauses at her hairline. Kaia goes strangely still beneath my touch, and I hate how instantly my body notices her skin, her breath, the stupid closeness of her mouth. My chest goes tight. For half a second, the world tilts dangerously toward something soft.
Then we both do the same thing at once—
We look away.
Like eye contact would turn that sentence into a confession neither of us can survive.
“Okay,” I say too briskly, like I’m returning to a shift schedule. “Well, you’re not dying. Congratulations.”
Kaia’s mouth twitches. “Thanks.”
I press gauze gently to the cut. “Hold this.”
Kaia takes it, fingers careful not to touch mine, which somehow feels worse than if she had. Silence stretches, thick with everything we’re pretending isn’t here.
Then the front lock unlatches and the bell jingles.
I jolt so hard I nearly drop the tape.
“Hello?” Tasha’s voice calls from the front, muffled. “Evie? I forgot my vape.”
Oh no.
No no no.
Tasha comes around the corner, still smelling like smoke and cheap vanilla body spray, eyes bright from whatever she was doing outside.
Then she sees Kaia. Her entire body stops. Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out for two full seconds, like her brain is trying to buffer.
Then—
A noise. High-pitched. Unholy.
“OH MY GOD,” she shrieks.
Kaia’s eyes widen. “Hi.”
Tasha claps both hands over her mouth. She’s vibrating like a cartoon character. “Oh my god. Oh my god. You're—You're—”
“Inside voice,” I hiss.
Tasha drops her hands just enough to whisper-shout, “YOU’RE KAIA RHEE!”
Kaia gives a small smile. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
Tasha’s eyes go huge as she sees the gauze. Then the blood. Then the cut.
Her expression flips instantly from fangirl to panic. “Why are you bleeding?!”
Kaia’s posture stiffens. I can feel her preparing to give a lie that sounds official. I beat her to it.
“She hit her head,” I say quickly.
Kaia blinks at me.
Tasha stares. “Here?! How?!”
“On the—” I glance around wildly. “On the freezer door.”
There is no freezer door near her. That doesn’t matter.
Tasha looks ready to cry. “Why were you near the freezer door?!”
Kaia and I exchange a glance. Brief. Communal. The kind we used to share across a crowded diner when Gus yelled at us and we had to decide whether to lie or laugh.
For one second, we’re on the same side.
Kaia slides in smoothly. “I was… touring the diner,” she says, dead serious.
Tasha’s face crumples with joy. “You toured the diner?”
“Yes,” Kaia says with the sincerity of a diplomat. “I didn’t get the opportunity to do so last night. It’s very… historic. I used to come here as a teenager. Evie was kind enough to show me the changes.”
I choke, half laugh, half cough.
Kaia’s eyes flick to mine, warning.
I swallow it down.
Tasha steps closer, hands clasped like she’s praying. “Can I—can I—”
“No,” I say immediately.
Tasha blinks. “What?”
“You can’t ask for an autograph,” I say, pointing at Kaia’s cut like it’s evidence in court. “She’s injured.”
Kaia murmurs to me, “It’s shallow.”
Then, to Tasha, Kaia says, gently, “I’m okay. I’ll sign anything you like.”
Tasha looks at me like she still needs my permission. “Evie. Please. Please. Just a small one. For me. For my soul.”
Kaia gives a helpless little shrug, like she’s resigned to fandom being a natural disaster.
I exhale hard. “Fine. One. Quietly. And then you leave.”
Tasha fumbles in her pocket so violently she drops her lighter. She produces a receipt and a pen like she’s been carrying them at all times, which, she probably has.
Kaia signs with her non-gauze hand, quick and neat.
Tasha stares at it like it’s scripture. “I’m going to frame this.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Go frame it at home.”
Tasha finally looks up at Kaia again, dazed. “So you… came to the diner this late alone? Is that safe?”
My wrist tingles, warning.
Don’t say it.
Don’t explain it.
Don’t—
Kaia answers before I can, voice smooth in a careful way. “I wasn’t alone,” she says. “I was checking on Evie. We… knew each other. Before. We were catching up.”
Tasha’s eyes flick between us, suspicious for the first time tonight. Like she can smell a story. Like she remembers me calling Midnight Halo trashy and overproduced days ago.
Heat climbs up my neck, so I double down like an idiot.
“Yeah,” I cut in too fast, too flat. “I invited her. For—” I gesture vaguely at the air, at the coffee pot, at the entire concept of normalcy. “Coffee.”
Tasha’s stare deepens into full detective mode. “Uh-huh.”
My wrist tingles again, like the binding is laughing at me. I ignore it. I turn back to Kaia, who’s still perched on my counter like she belongs there. She doesn’t. She never will again.
I tape the gauze gently into place and step back.
“You’re done,” I say, brisk.
Kaia’s eyes meet mine, soft again. “Thank you.”
I nod once, because if I speak, my voice will do something stupid.
The TV flickers on by itself.
All three of us freeze. Tasha reacts first.
“Oh my god,” she groans, rolling her eyes. “This TV is such a piece of junk. Gus keeps saying he’s going to replace it and then he buys, like, seventeen new coffee scoops instead.”
She lunges for the remote on the shelf under the counter, muttering about “ancient wiring.”
Kaia and I share a look. Not a soft one. A sharp one. A did you feel that look. The screen glitches—static, then a bright, polished local commercial. Colorful. Cheerful.
HARBOR LIGHTS FESTIVAL — THIS WEEKEND!
Confetti graphics. Smiling families. Lanterns. Fireworks. And at the bottom, in crisp sponsor text:
Presented by Eon Entertainment.
My stomach drops.
Kaia’s gaze snaps to the screen, jaw tightening.
Tasha beams. “Oh my god! Eon is sponsoring!? I didn’t know that! That’s huge!”
Kaia’s voice is low, barely audible. “Yeah.”
On the TV, the old jingle plays, clean and bright, not warped like the demon version. But now that I’ve heard it twisted, I can’t un-hear the hunger hidden inside it.
I look at Kaia.
“Okay,” I say, too loud, too brisk. “Tasha. Go home.”
Tasha blinks. “But—”
“Home,” I repeat, pointing toward the door. “Now.”
She hesitates, then sees my face and nods quickly. “Okay. Okay. I’m going. I’m going.”
She backs away, clutching the autograph like a holy relic even as she grabs her forgotten vape. “Goodnight. Thank you.”
Kaia manages a smile. “Of course, any time!”
The front bell jingles as Tasha leaves. Silence settles again. The TV keeps playing. Lanterns. Smiles. Music.
Eon.
I scramble to turn the TV off, and finally we’re blessed with silence.
And for a second, I miss how things were—when the biggest problem in my world was whether Gus would let us stay after hours, whether Kaia’s set list had too many sad songs, whether we’d ever have the courage to finish that kiss properly.
Before demons.
Before contracts.
Before she left.
Kaia’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She checks it and her expression tightens the tiniest bit, caught between duty and… whatever this is.
“Jules,” she says quietly, like it explains everything. “She’s waiting. Blaire wants us back.”
Kaia slides off the counter and pauses at the back door, looking at me like she wants to say something.
She just says, quietly, “Goodnight, Evie. Be careful on your way home.”
I don’t answer. But I stand there until the back door closes, and the neon sign buzzes, and the Harbor Lights commercial loops again in my head like the town is trying to sell me a dream that already died once.