18. Just Like You Imagined
Shade
Watching her go down the steps and not tackling her to the ground is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She looks back at me with the most psychotic smile I’ve ever seen. Like I just stepped into a trap and she’s a spider drawing me in with silky strings.
She has no idea what she’s caught, though. What will she think when she finds out?
I look at my phone on the table, straightening my pants.
No laughing about my choice in underwear. No whining to make me take control. Just easy acceptance and demands that I give in to the things that I fantasize about.
She’s wiping out every negative thing I’ve ever been told about myself. I don’t know how to handle it. I do know that I’m not letting it go.
I take in the picture again.
She’s right. I look thoroughly fucked and sated. I can’t imagine what I’ll look like when we finally have sex. I’ll probably be unconscious. I’ve never cum so hard I almost passed out before. My calves are still cramping in reaction.
I give her the time I set and head back down the stairs with my duffle bag, my gait loose for the first time in years. She’s blending all of the versions of me together in a mixture that’s going to mean a lot of bad things for the people around me. Not Tera or Andi. Not their significant others. Everyone else can get fucked though.
I have someone to fall back on if shit hits the fan. In the form of a psychopath who thinks I’m the only thing in color in her world. She thinks I’m perfect, and she wants to fucking spoil me.
This has to be what the perfect Christmas feels like.
I lock the door and make my way to the table. Ira and his team have left along with Andi and her boyfriends. Perfect.
“Hey,” I nod at Tera, who looks up at me in surprise.
“I thought you left.”
“I will in a minute. Can I talk to you for a sec?”
She does a double-take as I speak.
“What?” I look down at myself, trying to see what’s shocked her.
“N-nothing,” Tera looks pale.
Max starts laughing hysterically. Asher hides his smile behind a beer. Trevor raises a brow as he smirks at me.
I’m not subtle about getting my rocks off, so what? I’m in a good mood. I can be nice.
I sit across from her as she shifts with discomfort.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I wasn’t thinking about it.”
She blinks in surprise. “That’s ok. I don’t want to think about it.”
“Same, pregnant chick,” I grimace. “It won’t happen again.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Max chokes on his laughter.
I flip him off and stay on point.
“I’m playing a new game.”
“Do I want to know?” Her voice comes out weak enough I barely hear her.
I scowl at her. “Not like that. Like with the phone.”
“Oh,” she sags with relief. “Keep away.”
Max leans forward with interest. “Tera said she’s playing games with you. What’s she keeping away?”
“She’s still hiding her phone from me because she knows I want it,” I give him a smirk.
“You haven’t found it. Don’t be smug,” Asher tries to tear my good mood down and fails.
“What’s she keeping away this time?” Tera asks with a smile.
“Her,” I laugh. “I have to find her.”
“Oh no,” she shakes her head as her smile drops. “I can’t tell you, Shade.”
“I figured,” I shrug easily. “But there are things you guys haven’t thought about putting bans on. Questions you can answer without breaking any rules.”
Her eyes narrow like she’s insulted. “Like what?”
“How many siblings does she have?”
Her smile turns smug, “Nope. Can’t say.”
“She was in juvie with you. Who got released first?”
“Me.”
“Did she get added time for assaulting anyone who harassed you?”
“Yeah,” her shoulders slump.
“Don’t be upset. She did it for herself too.”
She gapes at me in surprise.
“I’m learning,” I tell her with a frown. “Give me a break. Was she there before you?”
“I don’t know,” she winces. “Really. It was like she appeared every time I needed her from out of nowhere. I was convinced she was a ghost until her roommate started complaining about her. Seeing her brush her teeth was surreal.”
“Has she always been so up front?” I don’t know how else to put it. “I mean, not faking things for other people.”
“No,” she shrugs. “She said she used to fake being normal all the time. I made her show me once and it freaked me out.”
“You hadn’t seen it before,” I nod.
“Yeah,” she shudders. “She was all happy and perky. It was weird. I made her stop after a few seconds.”
“You didn’t know her from school.”
“No. We met in juvie. My school was -”
“Girls only, religious,” I finish with her.
There are only two other high schools in that town.
“Was she popular?”
“I don’t know. I never asked about before .”
She says it like there’s a dividing line between her life before and after juvie. It makes my jaw clench.
“No problem,” I shrug, shaking off my unease.
“Is this you being good cop?” She asks with a laugh.
“Nah, I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Keep going. Maybe I can help,” Max insists.
“He’s good at it,” Asher grumbles.
Max rubs his hands together. “Social media. Did she have anything?”
She gives him a surprised look.
“What? All the normal kids do it,” he tells her with a scowl. “If she was blending in she would too.”
“I never asked,” she mutters with a frown. “I can’t imagine it. She doesn’t care about, well, anything.”
“High school portraits,” I offer him with a smile. “If she was popular she’d be named in several photos, not just one.”
“Yeah and if she’s mysteriously not in the yearbook you can search old posts for mentions or pictures too.”
“You need a job?” I laugh at him.
“No way,” Tera shuts it down quickly.
“I’m not big leagues material,” Max shakes his head in agreement with her.
“Big leagues?” I raise a brow.
“We’re as attached to the mafia as we want to be,” Trevor says with a scowl.
I give Tera a flat look.
“People assume things,” she insists with a grimace. “I keep telling them you’re not mafia but they don’t believe me.”
“That figures,” I shake my head. Honestly they’re better off with that image than the reality.
“Come on, man,” Max complains. “Scary big boss that no one talks about. Princess daughter with a bunch of bodyguards. Rich as sin? What else could it be?”
“A soulless accountant,” I smirk.
He scowls at me, “Stop being a dick.”
“Stop accusing me of being in some type of mafia romance novel,” I laugh.
“A romance?” Tera gets a happy smile as she watches me.
“I’m a carbon cutout for a henchman,” I shrug.
“No you aren’t,” she giggles. “You’re special.”
“ Real special,” Trevor smirks and Max laughs.
Asher pops his neck. “It’s getting late, son. Time for bed.”
I check the time and nod. “Yeah. You should be in bed already, old man. Don’t forget to use that mint cream on your knees so you can get out of bed tomorrow.”
“Holy shit, he’s actually funny!” Max crows.
“Later, sis,” I laugh.
“Good luck, Shade!” She calls after me happily.
I make it into the parking lot to find a lot of bystanders hovering around.
“What’s going on?” I ask the first guy I see, wondering if I should wait for things to die down before I leave.
“I watched the whole thing,” the blond guy looks over at me with an oddly wide grin of delight. His aqua eyes are so bright they’re almost glowing. Good contacts.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup! She enjoyed the whole thing. It’s nice to see people have fun at work, isn’t it?”
I smirk, “I guess so. What did the mystery woman do? Beat up someone?”
“No,” he leans closer to me, intently staring into my eyes. His smile never wavers, it keeps getting creepily wider. “Slashed tires. Totally destroyed car. Chef’s kiss, I approve.”
“Oh, shit.” I start chuckling before I can think better of it. The guy leans back with an approving nod.
“It’s good that you’re finally laughing about it. Try to have a good night, Human. You’ll be ok. The book is almost over.”
I turn back to him only to find him gone.
What a fucking weirdo.
“ Shade! ” Andi shrieks at the top of her lungs with rage.
My good mood drops as I race to her. When I see what she’s furious about it comes right back. I laugh so hard I have to brace my hands on my knees.
“Did you do this?” Ira asks in a deadly tone.
“Fuck,” I gasp in a breath.
“She didn’t,” Andi says with a pout. “Tell me she didn’t, Shade.”
“Guess you should have left her alone,” I choke out as I straighten. Chef’s kiss, indeed.
“And that one?” Brody jabs a finger to a car that’s been totaled. I suck in a breath with a wince at the distraught man screaming to his friends about the damage.
“Ouch. What did he do?” I mutter.
“Matthias wants to speak to her. I told him you would set something up,” Ira informs me.
“Over four tires,” I scoff. Can’t he see how fucking ridiculous that is?
“Over her lack of respect, complete disregard for drawing attention, the fact that she’s fucking you for information on us all,” Blaze starts listing off while Melissa glares at me.
“Two of those things are true,” I shake my head. “I’ll ask if she’ll talk to Matthias but I seriously doubt it will help you.”
“If Matthias won’t do something about it, we will,” Felix tells me flatly.
“I was told you were called off,” I point out, my smile dropping away. “Did you get an ok for taking care of it ?”
They all glare.
“I didn’t think so.”
“You have no idea who she is,” Blaze snarls.
“Yeah. It’s called getting to know someone,” I shrug.
“Shade,” Andi glances between us all. “Dad said that she’s the one who took care of Bishop Glasgow.”
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“The guy that was stalking me during-”
“I know the name. I don’t know the connection,” I interrupt Andi with a frown.
She hurries to my side to whisper. “Tera called South in to take care of Glasgow. She called dad and told him that you guys were focused on a bit player when we had bigger fish to fry and she was calling in her backup.”
Wait. What? She was here last year messing with a guy we were actively following and no one knew?
“Did you know?” I ask her quietly.
Andi shakes her head with wide eyes. “The first time I heard of South was when Tera told me she destroyed their stuff. I had no idea she existed. Tera has never mentioned her before.”
“So she calls her in and she beats the man unconscious. Big deal,” I frown at her.
“He died in the hospital,” she hisses.
Yeah. Because I killed him.
“So?”
“She killed him, Shade.” She insists.
I frown, “No, she didn’t.”
“Ok, she beat him up enough that he was shipped to the ER but he died there from his wounds.”
“Andi,” I grind my teeth. “She didn’t kill him.”
She takes in my pointed look and her mouth drops open.
“Tera sent in enough proof that his guilt was a slam dunk. Just because he didn’t have the balls to grab you doesn’t mean he wasn’t planning to. He had everything laid out for your arrival. He stole your clothes and makeup to have for when you got there. His basement was ready for you. You think I was going to let that stand? Let him wake up and go back to normal?”
“Did you have an ok?” She whispers weakly and grabs my bicep as her eyes fill with tears.
“It was a personal project. I don’t need approval for those,” I tell her grimly.
Her lips tremble wildly and she throws her arms around me tightly.
“I love you, Evan.”
“I love you, too.” I mutter back as I hold her.
“Hey,” Damon snaps and pulls her away.
Andi wipes her eyes quickly, clearing her throat. “Ok. So the guys want her head on a pike and dad isn’t going for it because she did a favor for the family with Glasgow.”
“With only Tera’s word as a link to it,” Brody points out.
“Get in the fucking car,” Andi shrieks at him. “No one is doing shit to Tera or South without some heavy repercussions.”
“I’ll ride with Shade,” Blaze mutters and starts to walk towards my car.
“No, you fucking won’t. I have shit to do and hauling your ass around isn’t in the cards.”
“It’s a ride, Shade. Not a big fucking deal,” Blaze says with a scoff.
“Yeah, I’m seeing it now,” I nod to myself. “The total disregard for whatever I’ve got going on. It’s stopping now. I’m done. Fuck off.”
“Bullshit,” Felix laughs at me.
“No bullshit,” I tell him flatly.
“Hey, let’s all calm down,” Melissa holds up her hands in an I surrender posture.
“Let’s not,” I tell her blandly. “I’ve put up with this shit for six years. I’m due some fucking rage.”
Andi gives me a thumbs up as she glares at them all.
“Over pussy,” Felix spits out.
I see red. The duffle slips from my hand as I stalk forward.
“The fuck did you just say?”
“Come on, Shade,” Ira snaps. “We all know you can’t fight for shit.”
The person I’ve shown them may not be able to, but I sure as fuck can.
“Say it again,” I stand a few feet away from Felix, ready to go.
“Your whore is a stupid cu-”
My eyesight goes black. Sounds get blurred out as I shake my head. When I snap back to myself I look down at Felix, writhing on the asphalt.
“What the fuck?” Blaze yells.
Blackout rage. Damn. I wanted to be present for his ass kicking.
Ira is gaping at me while Brody bends down to help him back up. I guess I broke his arm.
“Now,” I say in a deadly calm tone. “There won’t be any retaliation. No more talk of either her or Tera. They don’t exist to any of you. If someone has a problem with it, send them my way.”
I pick my bag up and nod at Andi as I pass. The shit eating grin on her face makes it worth it.
I force myself to go home to dig for info instead of fumbling around on my phone. I barely remember to lock the door on my way to the computer.
Once I sit down, I settle in.
I don’t want anyone from Matthias’ teams to track her so I dig out my personal laptop, shoving aside my keyboard to make room for it.
She’s in the yearbook for the second high school. A junior in this year.
Her hair is blond. The sight is startling. Her happy, innocent grin is nothing like her regular expressions. Tera’s right. It’s weird. She looks like anyone else on the page. A kid with an unknown future ahead.
Evangeline Lane. My Evie.
Looking up her name in an algorithm only gets me info until a year after she was released from juvie. Then she disappears.
Tera’s doing, I’m sure. Why?
I open each tab as they pop up from the algorithm I created.
She was tentatively diagnosed with psychopathy as a kid and heavily medicated at first. She went to another doctor, who frowned on the medication use. According to her records she was slowly weaned off due to her age. She started behaving ‘normally’ so the psychiatrist left it alone.
Evie changed to make sure she didn’t have to take medicine like that again. Reading about some of the side effects of the various meds has me grinding my teeth. They turned her into a zombie. Her mother is recorded as being concerned because she would sit and stare at things all day without speaking.
Both her parents are still living. She has five siblings. Jesus. None of them show any signs of mental health issues. Evie had older and younger siblings to help her with the imitation.
I find a single social media account.
At first it’s fun pictures. She is at a dance recital. Ballet. Another at some kind of dance studio. Not ballet, something different that I don’t recognize. Each picture is a different type of dance class. No wonder she dances so well.
Then it’s photos of her with different boys her age, never the same one twice, but always smiling. It’s odd to see the carefree enthusiastic version of her. It doesn’t feel right.
The more pictures I see, the more the comments build up. People calling her a slut and shameless. She never responds to any of them. She continues posting her pictures without a single word.
Her posts stop suddenly. One day happy, the next day nothing. It didn’t stop people from writing on her feed though. Calling her a lying whore. Saying no one would ever believe her.
My gut starts rolling and I feel sick. Please don’t let this be what I think it is.
I look up the dates the feed stopped. Then I force myself to look at the local newspaper.
Not Evie. Please.
No one up there is listening, as usual.
A week after her posts stopped her name comes up in an article.
High school student Evangeline Lane accuses several others in a sexual assault.
My stomach drops out and I have to take a few deep breaths before I can keep going.
The news article mocks the entire thing. She was drugged at a party and locked in a basement. Beaten, raped, and released the next morning. She walked to the fucking hospital with a broken leg and checked herself in.
She had to have a surgery to fix the break and her vocal chords got damaged from the intubation. All of her allegations were written down instead of spoken.
The article brings up her mental health and suddenly everything gets dropped. They assure the public that the ‘mentally damaged accuser’ will be hospitalized for her own health and safety.
I put my head between my knees and take deep breaths. She is ok. I just saw her. I have a reason to keep going, I just need to get it done.
I want names.
I need them.
I can’t find any further mention of it. I do find the intake for the facility she was held in. Six months’ worth of punishment for telling the truth. No one believed her. She was released for good behavior. The place gets sued and a couple of doctors are fired within a week of her release.
Because she left that place and marched to her high school to confront her attackers.
A new article proclaims a star football player was assaulted on the field after practice hours by another student recently released from the psychiatric ward. Evangeline Lane. He was hospitalized and the prognosis was he would never play the game again. James Enderson.
A juvie intakes list, Evangeline Lane, aggravated assault. She was arrested at home. The cops noted that her parents looked relieved to see her go. She confessed.
Evie owed and she paid.
I pace away from the computer and end up prowling the house in a rage.
I try to find some sense of calm but it’s just out of reach. When I’m done I’m looking the fuckers up. They’re going on a list. Mine .
I’ll know them from the inside out so I know just where to hit to make it hurt. I’m going to take everything from them. Once they’re broken mentally I’m going to physically torture them for as long as I can stand to look at them. Then I’m going to kill them.
A weight drops from my shoulders. That’s done. It’s going to happen. The plan is starting to roll. I can move on.
I drop back in my chair and open a new search for the one name I have.
James Enderson.
A giant front page article of the former star football player accused of sexual assault. There’s a big picture of him and a young girl who looks like the poster child for innocence. It’s an open and shut case. Rape kit. Sympathetic cops. They don’t even mention that this is the second time he’s been accused. Like Evie slipped through the cracks without anyone noticing. Her name is nowhere on this.
I want him to scream while he dies.
Two years. That’s how long he got in jail for rape. One count, not two. Two fucking years. The urge to destroy everything in the room is almost overwhelming.
I take a break to calm down. Shower. Get in pajamas. Make a tea.
Then like a sore tooth I go back to it.
James fucking Enderson marries a rich girl. It improves his image. His past is virtually forgotten.
Two years later he disappears. No trace.
The gossip columns say he ran off with a lover. The wife supports the claim. She has a new boyfriend before a week goes by. She didn’t report him missing, his parents did.
He’s gone.
I lean back in my chair, frustrated.
The second allegation didn’t include any other names.
I stick with the one I’ve got, determined to track the piece of shit down.
No hits on anything after his disappearance. Birth date, social security, bank ID, driver’s license. None of it has been used since the date of his disappearance.
The guy is dead, no two ways about it.
I fiddle with my figurine to release some tension as I debate.
Tera’s voice starts echoing around my head and I close my eyes in realization.
“She’s a super villain, Shade…”
Evie killed him. Without me.
Whatever she did to him wasn't enough. I don’t care if she kept him in a bunker for three years torturing him. It wasn’t enough. She didn’t know I was out here waiting any more than I knew to look for her.
I want to shake her. Ask her why she didn’t wait for me. It doesn’t make any sense and it isn’t fair to her. This anger and helplessness needs to go somewhere.
I open a tab for missing persons and cross reference them with the high school yearbook.
Four other names match up in the algorithm. All four football players. One stayed in town, like Enderson. Two were in Georgia. The last in Maryland. All missing without a trace.
When they separated, Tera came here to build a life. Evie went out to end others.
The only common denominator is her.
And I’m hers.
“I’ll hold your knives for you, baby.”
I need her. I need to see her.
Tera is keeping her hidden. Fuck, just like she hides things about me. She really doesn’t give a shit that I’ve killed people. Because I target the rapists and pedophiles that get away with it. I was a continuation of what Evie already showed her.
How the fuck did Tera get involved? I can’t picture Evie letting her help with any of that. It would put her in danger. A question for another time.
I still haven’t found an address. The number leading to Van Leppard is disconnected. Since Tera has been in touch with her, I know that’s bullshit.
I open up my regular computer and open my log files for Tera’s laptop. Her playlists.
I enter every band name from the eighties that I can find in the laptop algorithm and lean back to wait as it searches.
It takes ten minutes.
The irony.
Duran Queen.
Jesus, Tera.
She lives in a shitty apartment complex on the bad side of town that makes me sweat thinking of her sleeping there. It’s the same one Tera used to live in. She’s not staying there another night that’s for damn sure.
No more computer bullshit, I’m bringing her home whether she likes it or not.