Chapter 16 Evie #2
The words are too close to what I’ve wanted for years. Too close to an apology.
And I can’t… I can’t handle what it would mean if she actually said it properly. If she looked at me and told me she was sorry without excuses. If she gave me something to hold that wasn’t anger.
Because then I’d have to decide what to do with it.
And I don’t trust myself.
So I slam the door shut before she can open it.
“Don’t,” I say, voice sharp. “Don’t do that.”
Kaia freezes. “Do what?”
“Try to fix it,” I snap. “Like this. Because you’re feeling guilty.”
Kaia’s eyes flash with hurt. “It’s not just guilt. I missed you. I’ve been missing you for years, and being back here is making it impossible to pretend otherwise.”
My breath catches. I hate that part of me still knows when Kaia’s telling the truth. My anger slips for half a second, and that’s all it takes for panic to rush in after it.
Before I can spit something cruel enough to push her back where I need her, a voice pops into our space like a grenade tossed with a grin.
“Evie, don’t—” Jules starts, then pivots, pointing at Kaia like she’s presenting evidence. “She literally used her one veto on you. Like, the only one. So maybe don’t bite her head off?”
Kaia’s head snaps to Jules, horrified. “Jules.”
Jules freezes, grin faltering as the words land in the air and she realizes what she just did.
Across the booth, Kaia goes rigid—eyes wide, throat working, like Jules just ripped off the bandage and exposed something raw.
The diner tilts.
My heart stops so hard it feels like it drops out of my chest.
Because I remember it—Kaia stepping between me and Mr. Bane, voice like a blade: No. The way the room went silent when she said veto. The way she looked at me afterward like she’d made a choice she couldn’t take back.
I didn’t know it was one.
My eyes snap to Jules. “Her what?”
Jules’ face drains of color. “Oh.” She swallows. “Oh, shit.”
I look back at Kaia. My voice comes out low, careful, deadly. “One?”
Kaia’s face is tight with a kind of dread I recognize too well.
“You have one,” I say, each word coming out like it’s being pulled through barbed wire. “You get one?”
Kaia swallows. “Evie—”
“Don’t,” I snap, and the wrist-leash flares hot like it disapproves of the word. I ignore it. “So when you stopped them from wiping me, that wasn’t just you being noble. That was… what? A finite resource?!”
“It’s not—” Kaia starts.
“Is that why you didn’t tell me?” My voice rises despite me. “Because you didn’t want to say it out loud? Because you didn’t want me to know there was a real price?”
Kaia’s eyes widen. “I didn’t want you to feel trapped.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Trapped? Kaia, I’m already trapped. I have an invisible sigil on my wrist that burns when I try to talk. I have demons sniffing around my workplace. I’m standing in a diner while your company plans Harbor Lights like a stage set.”
My hands shake. I hate it. I shove them under the table.
“And you did it again,” I say, voice cracking on the edge of it. “You made a huge decision, and I’m the last to know. Again.”
Kaia flinches like I slapped her.
“That’s not fair,” she says, and there’s desperation in it. “You were there when—”
“I didn’t know what it meant!”
Kaia doesn’t look away from me.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want it to become… transactional,” she says, voice rough. “I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me.”
“I always find out last,” I say, voice shaking now. “That’s what you do. You make a choice. You keep it in your pocket. And then I find out from—” I flick my gaze briefly toward Jules. “From someone else.”
Kaia’s mouth opens. No sound comes out. The silence is loud enough to hear the refrigerator hum.
I stand so fast the booth squeaks. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle,” I say. “You don’t get to decide what information I deserve. You don’t get to keep treating me like a side character in your—” my voice breaks, ugly, “—in your mission.”
Kaia rises too, just enough to keep eye level. “Evie, I was trying to protect you.”
“That’s what you always say,” I spit. “And it always means you’re hiding something.”
Kaia’s face goes pale.
There it is—the old fight’s shadow, snapping back into place like it never left. You didn’t tell me. I was the last to know. The same wound, reopened with a new blade. And that's when I realize that Kaia and I will never be okay.
Kaia grips the table hard enough her knuckles pale. “I didn’t have a choice.”
The words hit something ancient and ugly inside me. I go very still.
Then I say, low and clean, “You always had a choice.”
Kaia’s breath catches.
I keep going anyway, because if I stop, I’ll break. “You just didn’t choose me.”
Kaia’s eyes water. My glare holds.
Kaia’s voice drops, ragged. “I couldn’t—I was recruited.”
“And you didn’t tell me,” I snap, and the old fight rises like smoke. “I had to find out from someone else. And it's the same with the veto. So what else is new?”
Kaia’s face pinches like she’s making a decision she’s terrified of. Then she says it. Quiet. Plain. Like ripping off a bandage.
“It was us,” she admits.
I freeze. “What?”
Kaia’s gaze holds mine, steady, miserable. “That night. The pier… The kiss. Someone took that photo… of us.”
My stomach drops so fast I feel sick.
Kaia continues, voice low. “The Council monitors for Sparks. For resonance. Big emotional spikes.” Her throat works. “That kiss lit up something in me. In the air. In the lanterns. In—everything. That cool light effect? That was my Spark… and they saw it.”
The booth feels too small. My skin prickles.
“So you’re telling me,” I say slowly, “that the Council found you because of me?”
Kaia flinches. “They found me because of my Spark. Because I have resonance... But… yes. That moment flagged me.”
My mouth goes dry.
All the old betrayal twists into something even crueler.
Not just you left me and never even called.
But you left because of us.
And you still didn’t tell me…
My voice comes out sharp with pain. “And you didn’t think I deserved to know that either?”
Blaire’s voice again, sharper. “Kaia. Time.”
Kaia doesn’t move. Her eyes stay on mine, wrecked. “Does it matter? I’m here now,” she says, like it’s a promise.
I laugh, bitter. “You’re always here when there’s an audience.”
Kaia flinches like I hit her.
Good.
Bad.
I don’t know.
My wrist warms faintly again, like a reminder: rules, consequences. Or maybe it’s my own fear warning me.
I step back. “Just—go,” I say, and it comes out like a command because if it sounds like a plea I’ll collapse. “Go back to your plan. Go back to your schedule. Go back to being… that.”
Kaia’s throat works. “Evie, listen—Please.”
“I am listening,” I whisper harshly. “And all I hear is the same thing. The big machine. The big stage. And me finding out last.”
Kaia’s breath shakes. “Tomorrow… if something hits the festival…”
I don’t answer.
She continues anyway. “Your grandma. Your regulars. Half the town. They’ll all be there.”
My stomach drops, because she put the fear into words.
I imagine Mr. Alvarez under lantern light. I imagine Tasha screaming with her friends. I imagine Gus pretending not to care while he absolutely does. I imagine Gran insisting she wants to walk to the pier because it’s “pretty when it’s trying.”
And I imagine something wearing a song sliding through them like smoke.
My breath catches.
Kaia’s voice is softer. “That’s why we’re doing this.”
I swallow hard.
When I finally speak, my voice is flat because it’s the only way I can keep it together. “Then do it,” I say. “Protect them.”
Kaia’s voice breaks slightly. “And you.”
I look at her for half a second too long.
She looks… tired. Not idol tired. Not camera tired.
Real tired.
For a moment, my anger shifts into something like grief. Something like missing. I crush it down.
“I have to go,” I say, and this time it’s quieter.
Kaia hesitates like she wants to say more.
Then Blaire appears at the end of the aisle, expression set. “Kaia. Now.”
Kaia nods once—small, defeated—and backs away like she’s leaving a wild animal alone in a trap. Mina hovers, stricken. Jules looks like she wants to say something and, for once, doesn’t. Remy’s eyes linger on me like she’s memorizing the shape of the damage.
The front door bell jingles when they leave. Silence settles too quickly, like the diner is holding its breath again. I stare at my wrist, at the place the invisible sigil lives under my skin.
Tomorrow, the festival happens.
Tomorrow, the town will hum the demon’s tune like it’s tradition.
Tomorrow, my grandma and my regulars will be there.
And no matter how much I want to pretend Kaia is just a poster face, she’s right about one awful thing: If something hits Harbor Lights, I don’t get to opt out.