Chapter 8
Everly woke the next morning feeling like she hadn’t slept at all.
She’d tossed and turned all night, her body aching for something she couldn’t give it.
Occasionally, she’d find herself drifting off, only to wake with a start, sweating and feeling feverish.
Other times she was so cold she couldn’t stop shivering, longing for warmth all the blankets in her apartment couldn’t give her.
After hours of lying there in this sort of twilight state, she rolled over and threw off her blankets.
Forcing herself to get up, she got a quick shower, brushed her teeth, found some mismatched underwear, and pulled her wet hair back into a tight twist on the back of her head.
In her makeshift closet, she found a simple blue-striped shirtdress and slid it over her head before going to get her phone where it was plugged in on her nightstand.
Her hearing aids stared at her from the glass dish she’d put them in the night before. With a sigh, she put them in, then stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She pulled out some pieces of hair, enough so her ears were mostly covered. Then she scowled at her reflection. She looked ridiculous. Setting her jaw, she pinned most of it back again, only leaving a few strands so the devices weren’t quite so noticeable.
It’s not like she’d be seeing anyone she wanted to impress today.
A certain dark-haired, infuriating, sexy male entered her consciousness, and she firmly pushed him away again. She would most certainly not be seeing that person today. Or tonight. Or ever.
Throwing together a quick lunch, she slid on her favorite pair of Vans sneakers and a light black jacket before she rushed from her apartment.
She needed to get into the office early so she could throw together the full story from the hostage situation yesterday for Mr. Malone.
When she got to her car, she gripped the door handle and gave it a good tug, then almost fell on her ass when the heavy door opened rather easily.
“What the hell?”
She studied the exterior of her car. The dent was still there, but was it smaller this morning? Shallower, maybe? A blur of orange streaked across her peripheral vision and she looked up to find the old tomcat staring down at her from his superior height on the top of her car.
Everly squinted at the cat. “Did you fix my car?”
The feline sat down with a look that clearly stated he thought himself above doing such menial labor, then turned his regal head to gaze off into the distance with his hunter’s stare.
He peeked back at her once, and when he saw she was still watching him, he turned his head away again with a swish of his tail, then began to wash his front paw.
Everly laughed and scratched him under the chin. “All right, big guy. You need to get down because I have to get to work.” With a pat on his back end, she shooed him off the roof of her car and waited until he was in a safe spot on the stairs before she got in and started the engine.
The entire newsroom was empty when she arrived, so she switched on a few lights and got to work on her piece.
When Mr. Malone arrived, she showed it to him, and he seemed happy with it.
It was going on the front page of that day’s paper.
Everly thanked him and tried to be excited about the fact that her name was going to be on the front page, but her heart just wasn’t in it.
Besides, did anyone really read the paper anymore?
Somehow, it just wasn’t the same seeing your article on the home page of their website.
After the morning meeting, she spent the remainder of her day researching everything she could find about the Parasupe facilities. If Hawke wasn’t going to help her, she would have to find another way to get inside herself.
The day passed swiftly, and before she knew it, Tyson was tapping her on the shoulder. Looking up from the computer, she realized most everyone had gone home for the day. She hadn’t even eaten her lunch.
“Wanna go get a drink with us?” he asked her with a smile, signing the words as he spoke them.
Everly looked around at the empty room and raised one eyebrow.
Tyson laughed. “They’re already at the bar across the street.”
“Thanks,” she told him. “But I need to get home.”
He didn’t believe her, she could tell from the look on his face, but he didn’t press the issue.
For that, Everly was grateful. No matter what he might be thinking, Tyson never argued with her when she claimed to be too busy to hang out after work, even though those days had gotten more and more frequent, and it was more than obvious she was being secretive.
“All right,” he finally told her. “Next time. Be careful.”
She noticed he didn’t add “going home.”
“I will.”
With a casual wave, he sauntered out of the office, looking back once over his shoulder.
Everly smiled and waved, wondering—and not for the first time—if Tyson’s interest in her was more than just as a coworker and a friend.
Unfortunately for him, if it was, it was all one-sided.
He was a good-looking guy, and she thought the world of him, but that thing that made a relationship more than just friends just wasn’t there for her.
When he was gone, she sat back down at her computer and re-opened the page she’d minimized when he’d interrupted her.
For the last few weeks, she’d been studying different types of security systems, and how to disconnect, break, or get past them.
Kind of like Catherine Zeta-Jones in that movie where she was trying to capture Sean Connery.
Everly couldn’t blame her. She’d chase after the handsome Scot, too, given half the chance.
But she wasn’t stupid. This wasn’t a movie.
She knew she was taking her life in her hands just thinking about breaking into a place like Parasupe.
The thing was, though, they were keeping someone there against his will.
Someone she’d only just met, and yet cared about more than anyone else in the world.
And she had no idea why they’d taken him, but she had this horrible feeling she was running out of time.
As someone who’d been in the news business a few years, she’d heard the rumors about that company.
Rumors that said the whole “protecting the environment” thing was just a cover for what they really did.
And those rumors went anywhere from running experiments on illegal immigrants to hunting down the things that went bump in the night.
And like everyone else, Everly had taken those rumors with a grain of salt.
Some of her more sensationalist colleagues had taken that bone and run with it, but as far as she knew nothing had ever been found to disprove the fact that Parasupe was exactly what they said they were, an environmental protection agency.
But then someone had broken into her brother’s home and taken him while they were talking on the phone, and Everly had started to do some of her own digging. What she’d found had confused her more than ever.
A homeless person had seen her brother get forcibly taken from his apartment.
He’d also overheard them talking, things that would sound crazy to anyone else.
But not to someone who would swear on her life she’d once interrupted a vampire’s dinner and saw dragons flying in the sky.
Everly knew if she was going to fight a company who hunted the paranormal, she would need someone of the same caliber on her side.
The Caves had been her first and only lead to someone who had a real chance of helping her.
Or, preferably, multiple someones. Though walking into that place for the first time had secretly scared the hell out of her, meeting Hawke and seeing his reaction to her had given her real hope for the first time in weeks.
His ardent interest was unexpected, but not unwelcome, especially if it gave her a better chance of talking him into taking on a place like Parasupe.
But, attraction or no, it became quite clear last night he wouldn’t be helping her.
Everly stared blankly at the screen. It had been unrealistic of her to think Hawke would do anything differently than what he was doing. He didn’t know her. He had no skin in this game. What did he care about the fate of one human?
She couldn’t go to the police about it. They would laugh her right out of the station.
Why would a company who was all about protecting the environment kidnap someone?
And if by some miracle she could talk them into going there and checking things out, by the time they went through all the red tape, she would bet her life Matthew wouldn’t be there, and there wouldn’t be a trace of his existence anywhere to be found.
She couldn’t involve any of her friends, either.
Not that she had many. She knew her neighbors well enough to say hi and wave, but they had their own lives, and so they rarely ran into each other.
Plus, most people didn’t seem to know how to handle her hearing impairment, and because she’d tried so hard not to make it a big deal, she’d never made the effort to really get involved in the deaf community.
And she knew Tyson from work, but even though they heard crazier stories than this every day, she saw the way he rolled his eyes when he heard them.
So, yeah. No. Sweet as he always was, she wouldn’t be turning to him for any kind of support.