Chapter 8 Eva
EVA
“Eva!” Two familiar voices echo.
“Oh my God, is she okay? Do we call someone?” Penny’s shrill panic spikes my ears.
“Just give her a second,” Thea’s small, warm hands, carrying the familiar chamomile scent, cradle my cheeks. “Eva, are you alright?”
My eyes flutter open to my bedroom, swaying, the harsh morning light burning my pupils.
“Um… yeah,” I groan,
I struggle to lift my head. It spins and crashes back down to…
Wait, am I…?
My eyes blink rapidly to clear the haze and look around. Yep, I’m on my bedroom floor, tangled in my duvet as if I were a moth trapped in its cocoon.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice raw.
“You scared us, babe.” Penny pushes past Thea and throws herself at me, choking me in a hug, and nearly knocking me back over.
Jesus Christ! What exactly did they see?
I gawk at Thea, my heart racing, desperate for a hint.
“Think you just had a nightmare,” Thea reassures, gently peeling Penny off me.
“You were screaming,” Penny adds.
Did she say screaming?
They grab one arm each and pull me up. I’m so out of it, I forget I’m wearing my short, strappy nightdress, my arms bare. Swiftly, I grab my white silk dressing gown, crumpled up near the bottom of the bed, and pull the sleeves on.
“I heard some noises last night,” Thea says with knitted brows. “I was going to check on you, but… I wasn’t sure what I would be walking into.”
“What do you mean?” I tie the band of my gown at my waist.
“I don’t know what you’re into?” Thea motions toward my bed.
Only then do I see it.
The carnage.
My small double bed, the nightstand, the duvet, everything is covered in duck feathers from one of my pillows—the remnants of which lie wrinkled by the headboard.
“Did you have a pillow fight by yourself?” Penny reaches for my hair and plucks out another feather. My gaze flashes to my reflection in the mirror. I look like I just walked through a snowfall.
“Seriously? What happened here last night?” Thea folds her arms at her chest.
“I have no idea,” I murmur, taking in the scene before me as Penny helps me de-feather. “Maybe I decided to recreate the scenes of the horror film I fell asleep watching.”
Penny’s face pinches, her fingers pausing in my hair. “We don’t watch films alone in 24D,” she accuses. “And you’re officially not allowed to choose what we watch anymore.”
I giggle, gathering my duvet from the floor, while Thea grabs some bin bags from the kitchen to help me clean up the clouds of down drifting across my room like blown dandelions.
After we tidy up, I wait for them to leave, making an excuse about returning Grandpa’s call. Class can wait. First, I need to make sure whatever happened last night never happens again.
My life already feels one step away from unravelling. I have a ghost for a brother, an ex-cop for a jailor, and a hellion for a stalker. My brain short-circuiting at random is not something I can afford right now.
This ends today.
I brush my teeth aggressively. Failed attempts to wipe the taste that continues to linger in my mouth, days later.
Then I scrub my face and brush my hair, mindlessly working through my morning routine.
Once done, I yank the bathroom cabinet door open to find the almost-empty tube of Savlon for one last squeeze, then pull up my left sleeve.
Phantom crescent-shaped scars—some healed, some new—run down my inner forearm. My finger strokes the dented skin from wrist to elbow, then freezes. No fresh one? Strange.
Since the accident, when my nights took a turn for the worse, I usually wake up with a couple of marks. It’s not intentional. I don’t mean to hurt myself. Just a coping mechanism that I hoped would fade with time.
My eyes snap to the bag of feathers next to my nightstand.
Did I bite open my pillow? Well, that’s new.
Ten minutes later, I settle at my desk with a cup of Earl Grey tea and croissants that Thea set aside for me.
My fingers tap the wood. I really don’t want to do this.
But after whatever Thea and Penny heard last night, I don’t have a choice.
That and my phone is staring at me like it wants to burn me.
“Let’s get it over with,” I mutter to myself and make the call that’s overdue.
“Evangelina, how are you?” Dr. Janet’s face appears on FaceTime. I hate the full name.
“I’m sorry for the abrupt call.” I plaster a smile on my face. “Can you spare a few minutes?”
“Of course,” she says, holding up a finger to someone, then walking into her office and settling on her desk. “I was getting a little concerned when you didn’t schedule your bi-weekly appointment.”
“It’s been busy.” I tuck my hair behind my ear.
“So, how can I help you today?”
“It’s getting worse,” I answer flatly.
Suddenly attentive, she picks up a pen and starts scribbling. “Nightmares or dissociations?”
“Nightmares,” I answer, then bite my lip. I don’t think I have zoned out recently, but sometimes, Thea looks at me like I have grown horns, so who knows? Anyway, one problem at a time.
“Still on your melatonin and propranolol?”
“Yes.”
“Did something trigger the change?”
Trigger. Episodes. Her clinical words feel so tidy for the messy, jagged snippets of the accident that my brain plays on a constant loop. Non-stop. Every night.
“I don’t think so.”
“Hmm…” Her hazel eyes sharpen with that investigative look that makes me recoil. “Have you been thinking about your parents a lot?”
Her question hits me in the chest. Hard.
“Is that a crime?” I spit, unable to control my annoyance. “They are my parents.”
Her lips purse, a pitiful look flicking across her face. She leans forward, sympathetically. “Were, hon,” she murmurs in a low voice.
That cuts deep, but I don’t let it show. I hate it when she says that. Like I’m some idiot who doesn’t understand the concept of death.
To be abundantly clear, I do!
It happened. It hurt. Still does. Always will. But I’ll live.
So, what if I sometimes use the present tense when I talk about them? Has no one heard of a grieving period?
“The nightmares won’t end until you let go, Eva.” Her expression tightens. “You have to come to terms with your parents being gone. And I can help you with that. We can schedule sessions—”
“I have a busy schedule,” I cut in.
“I can be flexible. Evenings, nights?” she offers.
I clear my throat, fighting back the tears stinging in my eyes. “I don’t think therapy is enough. I need a stronger dose. It feels like I’m going back to the… beginning.”
That wipes all the softness from her face. She looks at her notebook for a long minute before her eyes meet mine again. “Okay, I’ll have to get Daniel’s authorization, but—”
“Wait, no,” I squeal. “Do not tell my brother.”
“I have to, Eva,” she starts. “He’s still your legal guardian.”
“That was when I was in ICU.” I breathe out, exasperated. “You know what, just forget I called.”
I hang up before my voice can break.
My fingers tighten around the edge of the desk as my chest throbs under a molten, suffocating weight. And this time, I don’t fight the tears that pour freely.
No audience. No pretense. Just me and my shattered wings.
“Easy on the caffeine.” Gretchen—sweet, bubbly, Gretchen—the only local who is nice to me at the Kingsden café watches me curiously as I lift the mug upside down on my face to drink the last drops of my latte.
“How else am I going to make it through today?” I groan and slam my cup on the counter. “Another one to go, please.”
Gretchen feigns a mock jaw drop but grabs the can of beans.
A message pops up on my phone screen next to the empty cup.
Caden
Miss me?
Nope. Your great advice almost got me killed the other day. So, you can bugger off.
Caden
You’d be lost without me.
At least I’ll be alive.
Caden
Is life without me worth it?
“Who is Caden?” a voice I shouldn’t know whispers near my ear. I freeze when a hot breath scrapes along my neck.
I recognized the hand on the counter. And yet, heat blooms in my chest when my eyes slide up the serpent tattoo, tracing a path across the muscular arm, and find the face towering over me.
Terrifyingly close. Annoyingly attractive. Irritatingly smug.
Mason stands behind me in a Kingsden rugby jersey stretched across his hard muscles.
The color is supposed to be green, but it’s slathered in brown.
So are parts of his face, neck, and arms, along with wounds and bruises.
An earthy scent of wet mud, wood, and smoke wraps around me.
His predatory, commanding, unapologetically alpha presence pulls at me like gravity dipped in sin.
Why is he here?
By my calculations, he shouldn’t be around for another half hour when I’m safely in my class. And don’t they have showers in their changing rooms?
“Boyfriend?” He arches a brow when I don’t answer his question.
“Friend,” I correct and lock my phone as he continues reading my texts, unashamedly.
His eyes slit and zero in on my face, intense and smoldering, like he is offended I dared to protect my privacy.
The corner of his mouth twitches, and he reaches for my face.
I flinch, lips still aflame with the memory, yet his fingers keep coming.
He wipes a little foam from my bottom lip, then licks it off.
One moment. A single second in his magnetic presence and I’m back there, in that room at The Vault.
“What can I get you?” Gretchen comes to my rescue, her voice dipped in two spoons of sugar.
“The usual, love.” He winks at her, making her blush.
Eager to escape the heat emanating off him, I grab my latte from the counter. Gretchen slides the card machine toward me, but before I can scan my phone, Mason pushes it away.
“Put it on my tab,” he orders Gretchen as I stare at him, confused. “No Etheridge money in Fort.”
Seriously? Does he think we have our own currency?
Gretchen shoots me a sorry look when I try to insist, then tiptoes to the brewing machines. Screw it. I’ll pay her later. I decide not to engage and turn around, but he puts his huge body in front of me.
“Did I say you could leave?”
“If you’re here about the other night, I didn’t say anything to Jack.”
“I know you didn’t, little dove. Or I would have paid you a visit sooner.”
Little dove?
“Then how can I help you, Mr. Grant?” I ask with a fake smile.
He chuckles and pulls out a red envelope from his pocket. Seeing both my hands occupied, he reaches for the cross-body bag resting on my hip. I wait patiently as he takes his time tucking the envelope, then working the zip, his fingers grazing the skin above my skirt.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Invitation,” he responds. “To 99, tonight. You are coming.”
My jaw drops. Is he crazy? Voluntarily go to one of his exclusive venues with a strip club name? No, thanks.
“I-I don’t think I can—”
“I wasn’t asking,” he cuts me off.
Power radiates off him in waves, dark and dangerous, as he stares at me, eyes drilling holes in mine.
A man you don’t cross.
A man you don’t deny.
For a moment, he holds me in place with his glare. When Gretchen returns with his latte, he flashes her a warm smile, then throws me a warning look, before he turns around and vanishes.
All eyes are on me, tracing my long path to the back row, as I slip into Political Sociology, fifteen minutes late, thanks to Mason Grant.
My hair is still damp, mist coiled around me, like I’ve brought the wet grounds indoors.
The professor glares at me over his glasses, waiting in silence with his marker poised on the whiteboard as I find the only empty seat.
Head down, I flick open my notebook and grab a pen, ignoring the piercing gazes from all directions.
Taking pity on me, the polite person to my right slides their notes toward me. I mutter a quick “thank you” and start copying while the professor clears his throat and resumes the conversation on International Political Economy.
It’s not until the third line of copying the notes that it hits me.
The familiar handwriting.
My head snaps up to the guy next to me.
Freckled face. Ginger curls. Cocky grin.
“Caden?” I whisper-yell.