The Prologue (17 page)

“Hi. I was wondering if you could tell me what room Evangeline Parker is in?” I ask, giving her my brightest smile and fighting the urge to slide down my shirt sleeves to hide my tattoos.

The woman’s lips purse, and I see that her bright pink lipstick has bled into the wrinkles of her skin above and below her crinkled lips. She taps unenthusiastically at her keyboard, her long claw-like fingernails the same shade as her lips.

“Evangeline Parker?” she repeats, studying her screen and then looking sharply up at me. “She’s not receiving visitors.”

“Great,” I say, for some reason not feeling like giving up. Maybe it’s because this lady is pissing me off, but maybe it’s because I really want to see Evie. I push the second thought away. “Is there any way you could call up to the room and see if her dad is there? And tell him that Zeke Quain is in the lobby and-”

“Dr. Parker is unavailable,” the woman barks, and I realize that some of her hostility must stem from the fact that she apparently knows the Parkers, or at least Dr. Parker, personally.

“Evie, then,” I continue doggedly, not sure where the persistence is coming from. “Trust me, if you just tell them who it is, I just want to make sure-”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” the woman begins in a shrill voice, but she’s interrupted by someone calling my name from across the lobby.

“Zeke! Hey, Zeke!”

I look up and to my right, and feel relief wash over me when I see Dr. Parker walking quickly across the lobby toward me, a smile on his face. He looks better than he did in the banquet hall, but still as if he’s put on a few years in the past week. He walks right up and shakes my hand, and I feel a surge of justice and satisfaction as the old bat stares at us in surprise.

“How are you, Zeke?” Dr. Parker asks, and then turns to the receptionist. “Mary Ellen, this is the boy I was telling you about, the one who saved Evie.”

Her demeanor changes in an instant, and she beams up at me. “How wonderful, Dr. Parker. You must be so pleased.”

I barely manage to contain my eye roll.

“You can’t begin to imagine,” Dr. Parker tells her, and then walks a few steps away, pulling me along with him. “Coming to visit Evie? Did Mary Ellen give you the room number yet?” he asks.

“Um, yeah. I mean, no, she didn’t give me the room number but I was coming to visit Evie,” I say, stumbling over my words. Suddenly I wish I could back out, realize this was a terrible idea, but Dr. Parker is pulling me along down the hallway and I can’t escape.

“Sorry if she was a little suspicious at first, but all the receptionists have orders to check with me before giving out any personal information,” Dr. Parker says apologetically. “I’m sure you understand. If Tony were to walk in here…” He trails off, and something flashes across his face, something dark and menacing that makes even me feel a little nervous. Then he forces a smile back on and pauses outside a hospital room.

“Listen, Zeke.” Dr. Parker puts a hand on my shoulder, looking at me seriously. He just stares at me for a moment, long enough to make me feel slightly uncomfortable, and when he finally speaks, his voice is low and filled with emotion. “There’s no way for me—or Evie—to fully thank you for what you did. But I want you to know if I can help you in any way, if there’s anything you need, anything at all, all you have to do is ask for it.”

I’m unable to meet his eyes, and I look to the left and then the right, shifting uncomfortably. “There’s no need to feel like you owe me anything,” I say, because it’s true. “It’s my fault, really. I should have told you the first time I saw. She wouldn’t be in the hospital if I had.”

“No.” Dr. Parker shakes his head immediately. “Please don’t think that, Zeke.
Evie
should have told me sooner. It was her secret, one that she had no business keeping, and one that you shouldn’t have been burdened with. Apparently Tony… well, apparently he scared her enough to keep her from telling anyone. The fact remains that if you hadn’t found them and gotten her to us, he might have done fatal damage to her. He seemed well on his way there. She’s young and her body will heal, but we’ll never be able to thank you enough for saving her like that. So just remember, if you ever need anything at all, all you have to do is ask.”

I swallow hard and finally am able to meet his eyes, and I’m again reminded of Evie. It’s strange I can think her so beautiful when she looks so much like the six-foot-plus male standing in front of me. I manage to nod, and Dr. Parker smiles at me and gestures toward the door right behind him.

“I have to step out for a little while, but stay as long as you’d like. She was awake when I checked a few minutes ago, but please, don’t hold her appearance against her.” He winks at me and I smile weakly and manage some sort of goodbye, and Dr. Parker is off down the hall.

I’m left facing the door, and I clench my fists, take a deep breath, and push it open. I instantly understand why Dr. Parker made the comment about Evie’s appearance, which at first seemed kind of crass to me. But the small forewarning is suddenly appropriate, because she looks like she was run over with a truck. I’m reminded of the night she came into the dance studio and her hair was a mess and she wore no makeup—she looked like a queen then, compared to now.

Her hair is at least in order, damp looking and braided down over one shoulder, but her face is now a mess. There’s a splint over her nose and she has two monster black eyes. A cut is taped up over her right eyebrow, and even now, nearly a week later, her bottom lip is still fat. She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt, but I can still see the bruising on her forearms, and two long fingerprint lines around the tender curve of her neck.

It gives me a sick feeling in my gut, and I wonder how Dr. Parker can stand to look at her like this, to be as cheery as he was just a moment ago. I imagine it being Cindy there in that bed, someone hurting her, and my hands tremble in rage. Without a doubt, if someone did this to my sister, I’d be in jail and the rumors circulating wouldn’t be the least bit exaggerated.

I hover in the doorway for a few moments, until Evie finally drags her gaze away from the television and to me. To my surprise, a smile lights up her face, though I can tell by the slow, studied way that she waves her hand that she’s just a little bit doped up. Or maybe a lot.

“Zeke,” she says, and it’s not the normal voice I’m used to hearing. She sounds hoarse, quiet. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I say, and have to force myself to fully enter the room and approach the bed. I want to run away, wish she’d been asleep or something so that I could have an excuse to flee. But I’m here now and I just need to pass along the news that her pack of friends have turned into a pack of wolves and then I can get the hell out.

I lower myself into the chair next to her bed, sitting on the very edge of it, a reminder that I’m not staying very long. No matter how vulnerable she looks right now, no matter how my gut is churning at seeing all those handprint bruises up close, no matter how I’m feeling that I just want to scoop her up in my arms and try to hug away that empty, vacant look in her eyes.

We stare at each other for a long moment, and I can’t think of a damn thing to say. It suddenly occurs to me that as the visitor, I should break the ice. My coming here is strange enough, but still, nothing comes to mind.

Finally, Evie clears her throat and says slowly, “Not that I’m in any way complaining about what you did—in fact I’m actually really glad you’re here so I can thank you—but do you think, maybe next time you rescue a girl, you could try and get there in time to save her nose?”

I stare at her incredulously for a moment, and then see a smile at the edges of her mouth, and a laugh escapes me before I can help myself. I stare at her again, and then shake my head before settling back in the chair. “You’re a piece of work,” I tell Evie. “I can’t believe you can joke about this.”

She closes her eyes, still reclined in the bed. “If I’m laughing, I’m not crying, and they hurt equally as much, so my dad and I are trying to go with the laughing.”

“Why did you stay with the asshole, anyway? You know he was basically trying to kill you, right?” I’m not sure where the frankness comes from, but I feel like Evie owes me an answer in exchange for what I did for her, and I want to know what compelled her to stay with Tony, with everything he seemed to be doing to her.

“It’s complicated,” she says, and I snort. She opens her eyes to glare at me, and the small spark of spirit reassures me a little bit. For a moment, I worried that perhaps Tony actually managed to kill her, just not in body. I know from experience that there are many ways to die, even if your heart is still beating.

“Tell me,” I demand, and she huffs, laying her head back down and closing her eyes again.

“There are more reasons than even I fully understand,” she finally says, and her voice is small, scared. “But the biggest, easiest one is that Tony always threatened to kill himself when I tried to break things off with him.”

I snort again. “Seriously? Tony has way too much value placed on his own self-worth to ever legitimately end his life.”

Evie opens her eyes to glare at me, and I know instantly that I shouldn’t have been so callous, that it was the wrong thing to say. “I’m sure you would have found it funny when your girlfriend calls you and makes you listen to her cocking a gun in the phone, crying hysterically that you’re going to make her do it if you ever leave her. I’m sure that would convince you that she’s not in the least bit serious.” Her violet eyes are hard, and so is her voice, coming out through gritted teeth. “What do you want, anyway?”

I stand up sharply from my chair, because I’ve suddenly realized what a mistake it was to come here. She’s gotten back at me just as much as I did to her that day in the dance studio last week, and it’s clear that any conversation between Evie Parker and me is destined to end in disaster.

“I just came to warn you that your so-called friends are backing up Tony, not you. We’ve apparently been having a raging affair and I raped you and beat Tony up, so I was going to warn you to be careful around your old entourage. Now, though, I think I’ll leave you to take your chances.”

I stalk out of the hospital room without even looking at her. Every time I do, I think of what Tony did to her, and I’m filled with a rage that I don’t even fully understand. It’s not Cindy lying there in that bed, and yet the anger I feel is akin to that kind of love. I have the insane urge to stay with Evie, even though I’m pissed off at her, to lie down on the bed next to her and cover her fragile body with my own, to protect her from Tony, from everything in the world that could hurt her.

Feelings.
Feelings for someone other than myself, or Cindy.

Suddenly the emotions are swirling all around me, consuming me, until I can barely think straight. My hands are trembling as I pass the receptionist desk and Mary Ellen calls a goodbye to me. I wave at her without looking, feeling as though my chest is ready to burst. I can feel my heart beating in there, the damn thing producing all these emotions and feelings, joining together with my brain to betray me and everything that I want; distance, plain and simple.

I’m drowning in them, and I know of only one way to get it all out of me.

I pull out my phone and call Cameron. He answers on the first ring.

“Yo, Quain, what’s up?”

“Meet me at the bridge in an hour. Bring the paint.” I close the phone and shove it back into my pocket and leave the hospital, vowing never to think, see, or care about Evangeline Parker ever again.

Evangeline

22

Early in the morning after Zeke’s visit, there is a commotion outside my hospital room. I’m jerked out of sleep by a familiar voice calling, shouting and screaming my name. It’s a voice that I both want to hear, need close to me, but also one that sends a chill of dread down my spine. I open my eyes, confused when I see that it’s barely even light outside.

I look to my left and see my dad slumped over the edge of the bed, sleeping in his usual position with head, arms, and shoulders on the bed, the rest of him sitting in the chair. He’s barely left the hospital the past week, even at my insistence. The truth is, I’m glad he’s stuck around, because I don’t feel safe unless he’s here with me. I nudge him with my fingers, the most movement I can manage without fully moving my arm, and he sits upright at once, instantly wide awake in a way only a doctor can manage.

“What is it, baby?” he asks, looking around.

“Someone’s outside,” I say, even though I know who it is. I don’t want to say his name. “In the hallway.”

My dad listens for a moment, and we can both hear the shouts now, and it’s clear they’re getting closer. He recognizes the shouting voice, and the change that comes over him is immediate and consummate. His face flushes red, his fists clench, and something dark and scary enters his eyes. Before I can say anything, he’s pushed out of his chair and practically run over to the door, leaving it partially open behind him.

“Tony!” My dad’s voice gives me shivers, and I know for certain that if I was Tony, standing out in the hall, I would turn and flee right then. But Tony is crazy, and I know he won’t be so easily discouraged. “Tony, get out of here. You’re not supposed to be here.”