Evade (The Ever Trilogy) (4 page)

T
he sun, hanging high in the sky, shone through the window when I opened my eyes, which proved I’d slept right past morning and into the early afternoon. My head didn’t feel like it wanted to crawl away from my neck, but I took the two Advil that someone left on the nightstand anyway.

Strangely enough, I didn’t dream last night. Maybe alcohol was good for something after all. Keeping Toby’s dream-walking to a minimum was definitely not a bad thing. Unless I just wasn’t remembering those dreams…

Oh shit!
I’d also not remembered to call and check in with Mom or Frankie. Fail.

A note from Jessie was underneath the bottle of water on the nightstand. I propped myself up to read it, happily noticing once more that my head didn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d expected.

E–

I don’t know if you remember anything, but Greg is here. In Cabo! WTF, right!? I went to breakfast with him. Trying to figure out what’s going on.

Back soon.

xo

Greg. I had forgotten. What was he doing here? Stalking us? Well, I guess it wouldn’t be us he stalked. He was here for Jessie. My heart swelled a little at the thought of it, and the hopeless romantic in me hoped he’d flown down here to win her back and profess his love.

Wow, what a perfect b-movie love story.

The
cynic
in me thought Greg was still a liar and an asshole like his buddy Toby. But Jessie would make her own decision on that. And the fact of the matter was that Greg
had
carried me all the way back to the hotel last night, on top of finding me in a dark alleyway. Maybe doing so had even saved my life. I mean, we were in a foreign country after all, and I had fallen asleep. Passed out.

Potato, patato.

The door to our suite opened as I was getting up off the bed. Looking down, I noticed I was dressed in a pink nightie of Jessie’s. She must not have been able to find my jammies. Oh well, at least it was covering me in case Greg was with her. Barely, I thought as I glanced at the tiny triangles of fabric scarcely stretched across my boobs. I quickly threw my bikini on, covering it with a gray crochet cover-up. I needed a shower but figured a quick morning swim would be more fun, and we were on vacation after all. That crisp turquoise water called to me.

I walked out to the sitting area, startling Greg and Jessie, who had already stopped to make out against the side of the refrigerator. Well then. That hadn’t taken much time.

“Hey, guys.”

“Ever! You scared me!” She jumped out of Greg’s arms as if I were an angry parent about to scold her. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Seriously, Jess? I’ve seen you guys kiss before.”

“Hey, you. Glad to see you’re alive and functioning this morning.” Greg came toward me and scooped me up into one of his old, familiar bear hugs.

I hugged him back, deciding I was no longer angry with him for his involvement with Toby’s lies. Well, slightly less angry, at least. I’d always liked Greg a lot, and the happiness was obvious on Jessie’s face, so if she was happy, who was I to be unhappy?

Jessie must have read my thoughts in my expression, and her eyes lit up even more. “You’re okay with this?” she asked me, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip.

Greg moved to stand beside her, and I noticed a little uncertainty in him, as well.

“You guys, seriously. Of course I’m okay with this. You know I support you, Jess.”

“Great! Because I told Greg he could stay with us!”

“Oh”—I paused, considering—“whatever. It’s cool.”
One ticket to third wheel town, coming right up!

“Are you sure, Ev?” Jessie wrung her hands.

“Yes, yes, it’s fine. Seriously. And maybe having Greg around will keep the locals from trying to get us wasted.”

“Oh my gosh, Ever, what happened to you last night? One minute you’re headed for the bar, and the next minute I can’t find you anywhere!”

“Yeah, well, I think I had a little bit too much to drink. I was waiting for the bathroom when I started”—seeing things—“spinning. I needed fresh air. I made it to the back door, thinking there was a patio out there or something, and got locked out. No patio.”

“And that’s when you puked?” Jessie’s lips curved up into a smile. Jerk.

“Oh. Yeah. So you noticed?”

“Oh God, how could I not? I’m pretty sure you ruined my Michael Kors.”

“Aw man, I’m so sorry, Jess. I tried to miss them.”

“Please. Don’t let her fool you, Ever. She cleaned them last night. They’re fine. Just a little splattering is all.”

Eeeew.

“Well, thanks guys. For finding me and everything.”

“Sure! But you should thank Greg. When I couldn’t find you, I figured you’d gone out front with our mid-western friends or something, so I went back to dancing. Who knows how long it would have been before it occurred to me to go out the back of the bar? I was trashed, too, it seems.”

“No,” Greg teased.

“Nice. Maybe we should ease up on the drinking a bit, huh, Jess?”

“What? Speak for yourself! I’m on vacation! In Meh-hee-co!”

Greg and I looked at each other, both of us with eyebrows raised, and I knew he and I thought the same thing. But Jessie was Jessie, and there’d be no stopping her. At least Greg was here now to help me keep an eye on her.

“Aren’t you hung over?”

“Nah, the two Bloody Marys I had with breakfast fixed that right up.”

Two?
My stomach rolled over at the mention of cocktails, indicating I may have a touch more of a hangover than I’d thought originally. I couldn’t believe she’d already had a cocktail, let alone two. After all the drinks last night, I wondered if I’d ever have one again. As I considered my own drinking habits, or lack thereof, I realized Jess and Greg had become quiet again. I looked up from my bottle of water to realize they were both staring at the floor. Uh-oh. I cleared my throat.

Jessie looked up at me, then glanced at Greg. Something was definitely going on, and as usual, I was the last to know.

“Okay, guys, spill it.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Right, Jess. I don’t think playing coy is going to work. Like there’s not something you’re both feeling funny about telling me? I can practically see the guilt oozing off you two. So, spill it.”

“It’s not guilt.”

“Okay…?”

“Well,” Greg started hesitantly, “it’s not guilt, Ev, it’s—”

“Greg’s here because he followed Ariadne!” Jess shot the words out as if they were poison and she had to get rid of them as fast as possible. Then she heaved a big sigh of relief, and slammed her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Wait. What did you just say?” The memory of following a black-haired person out the back door of the bar floated through my foggy brain. Ariadne. She was here? Really? I wasn’t crazy?

Greg sighed as if someone had just taken the wind out of his sails, deflating him. “Look, Ev. Ariadne is in big trouble. What she’s done—with you, with Frankie—she’s totally screwed. She’s desperate. We have to get you home.”

“Wait. What?” I felt like a broken record. “What do you mean she’s screwed? Desperate? I’m lost here, you guys.”

Jessie stood, then walked to the coffee pot and I was relieved that she knew what I needed. My brain, still muddled from a slight hangover, needed a boost of caffeine
stat
.

“Okay, well, how much did Toby tell you about us? About what we do?”

At the mention of his name, I felt the usual mixture of conflicting feelings. Some part of my heart still skipped a beat at the thought of him, but mostly I felt trepidation, and I figured my heart’s stupid reaction was only due to the sexy-time dreams I continued having on a regular basis. I’d moved past my feelings for him, but somewhere deep down, I was still intrigued by the thought of him—who he is, what he does, the mystery surrounding him, etc—but I’d had to push that aside to focus on Frankie and moving on. Hearing Greg mention Toby brought feelings to the surface that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

No. That wasn’t entirely true. Seeing Greg here in front of me had brought back those feelings long before he’d said the name of their source aloud.

“Ev?” Jess was standing in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to percolate and watched me now with eyebrows raised. I must have been lost inside my head for a minute there.

“Yeah, sorry. Um…” I thought back to what Toby had told me, though I didn’t have to think hard. His explanation remained fresh in my mind. “Well, I guess he told me what you guys are, and a bit about what you do. But not much more than that. Then everything happened so fast, and you guys were gone. I guess I never learned much more about it.”

“What about Ariadne? Did he tell you anything about what kind of consequences she could face after what she’s done?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Greg’s face tightened. I saw a little bit of that disdain in his eyes—that mutual dislike I’d seen early on between them. The barely-stifled anger they both harbored just beneath the surface whenever they were together. I’d never gotten to the bottom of it, but had assumed it was something to do with the fact that they’d both hooked up with Ariadne.

“Hey, what’s that all about?” I pointed to Greg’s sour expression. “Why do you and Toby hate each other so much? Because of Ariadne?”

Greg chuckled. “No. Definitely not because of Ariadne. And I don’t hate Toby. I love him. Like a brother. But we fight like brothers, too. And most of the time…well, screw it. Yeah, it’s definitely something to do with Ariadne. But that’s water under the bridge.”

Water under the bridge, huh?
Sure didn’t seem that way. I raised my eyebrows and waited for more of an explanation on that issue, but it didn’t come.

“Anyway, like I said. I love the guy, but here I am, cleaning up his mess. I don’t even know if he knows what Ariadne’s up to.”

“Wher—?” I stopped myself before asking where Toby was. I didn’t need to know. He wasn’t my concern or my business anymore. And frankly, I wanted to think of him less during waking hours because of how consumed with him my nights had become. “What’s this mess all about, then, Greg?” I added air quotes to the word mess, confused by his choice of words.

“Okay. Where to start? As you know, we’re soul collectors, or, gatherers. I guess I see myself more as a guide, though. But
soul guides
sounds silly.”

He thought soul guides sounded sillier than soul collectors did? I bit my tongue to prevent any snarky comments from escaping my lips. Jessie handed me my coffee, and I took a long sip.

Ahh.

“Go on,” I said, motioning for Greg to continue.

“Our jobs are to find lost souls, right? Once we find them, we sort of guide them to their destination.”

“Like Heaven or Hell,” Jessie chimed in. With a facial expression bordering bored, I realized she must have already heard all of this. I was always the last to know.

“Yes, like Heaven or Hell.”

“So you’re like an angel?”

“No,” Greg laughed, “definitely not angels. But not demons either,” he quickly added in response to the widening of my eyes. “It’s not like that, Ev. We’re not celestial beings at all. We’re kind of like—”

“They’re like lost souls themselves, Ev. Get it?”

Um, no.
I didn’t get it at all. What did that even mean? Toby and Greg were lost souls?

“Slow down, Jess. Don’t forget Ever hasn’t had as much time to digest this.”

“Oh, please, like I have? I only had the amount of time it takes to drink two Bloodies at breakfast, Greg.” She turned back to me. “Look, Ever, Greg and Toby—they’re not like us. They’re not human. I mean, they are—heartbeats and all that—but they’re not. They’re dead.”

“What?” I shrieked. I focused on Greg, scanning his face for any indication that what Jessie said was true.

“Dude. I’m not dead.”

“But you died,” Jess stated.

“Yes, but then I was given a choice. Stay dead, or come back. With one condition.”

“Become a soul collector,” I whispered.

“Exactly. In order to get my second chance at life, I had to become a soul collector. At the time, it seemed like an obvious choice. But I’ll be honest with you guys…it doesn’t get any easier. Especially with the souls that aren’t lost, but are just reluctant to go.”

“Like Frankie?”

“Yeah,” Greg said with a sigh. “Sending them on is like…killing them all over again. It’s not easy, and it’s not fun.”

“So, do you know how you’ll die now? Or, do you live forever or something? How’s it work?”

“Oh, Ever, they aren’t vampires!”

Funny, coming from Jessie.

“We don’t live forever, and I’m not sure how we die the second time. I think we just kind of check out, if you will. But, depending on who we were in the first life, we have like…a list of things we have to do before we can die. A specific number of collections we have to make, that varies for each collector. If that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t. But wait…would that mean if you didn’t finish the list, then you would live forever?”

“No. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Okay, so can you be killed?”