Evade (The Ever Trilogy) (18 page)

“D
ammit!” Toby’s fist connected with the steering wheel, snapping me out of my thoughts. I hadn’t even noticed him turn around to face the front of the car.

“What does he want from you?”

“You can’t guess?” he snapped.

“Um, no. What is it?”

“He wants his life back, Ever. I give him his life back, and he leaves you alone.”

“Oh.”

Well, what could the harm be in that? I mean, Frankie got his life back, no problem. Had Ariadne not been such a vindictive bitch, I wouldn’t be in danger and Frankie would just be enjoying his second chance at life. So, if this Seeker got his life back, he’d leave us alone and that would be one less Seeker to worry about. And frankly, he’s the only one who’d found us so far, so maybe there weren’t many after me. Right?

Right. “Well, okay, so what if—?”

“No,” Toby snapped. “It’s out of the question. I’m not discussing this with you, and I don’t make deals with Seekers. Let’s just keep moving.”

“That’s it? You’re just not going to discuss it with me? Are you serious?”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Toby said as he pulled the Mustang back onto the highway. “I can’t do it, Ever. I can’t take the risk, and he’s just one of
many
Seekers. I can’t likely give them all their lives back.”

“But, I don’t understand. He’s the
only
one who’s even managed to track us. Why can’t you at least talk to him about it?”

“Ever! Think about what you’re asking me here! What if he’s a serial killer? Or a rapist? What if he was a pedophile when he was alive? We have no idea who he was or what his story is. I can’t just go around giving random ghosts their lives back. I’m not God!”

“That didn’t stop Ariadne,” I mumbled toward the passing scenery. I didn’t like the way Toby was so freaked out about this, and his reluctance to talk it over was irritating.

“I’m not Ariadne!”

I didn’t say another word, though snarky comments floated through my mind from time to time. We rode in silence, again, for a number of hours. Toby didn’t move much, save for switching his iPod song list around every so often. First, we heard a long mix of The Misfits—which I assumed was his angry music—then he switched it over to a mix of Tom Petty songs, then a few old favorites by The Black Keys—reminding me of when we were together before—then a little of the Alabama Shakes.

I’d been relieved to find a couple books in my luggage, something my mom must have remembered and stuffed away for me. I was grateful for her ability to know what I’d need even when I’d had no idea how to prepare for this trip. Although, she was probably thinking about downtime in hotel rooms when she packed the books, not awkward car rides with my grumpy ex-boyfriend.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

I tilted my head up and looked at Toby. “Okay.”

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, what do you want me to say?”

“That you forgive me.”

“You didn’t ask for forgiveness.”

“Well, then, Ever…will you please forgive me for snapping at you?”

“Will you please not do that again? You were kind of a jerk, you know.”

“I do. And I won’t snap at you again. This is just really…stressful. I know this is stressful for you, so I don’t have to explain, but it is for me, too.”

“I know it is. But why can’t we just talk about it? This is the shit that used to drive me so crazy with you. You had so many secrets and always kept me in the dark. You said you wouldn’t do that anymore, remember?”

“You’re right. I did say that. And I meant it. I guess it’s just easier for me to keep you in the dark, to protect you. Old habits and all that.”

“Stop it. Talk to me. We’re in this together, aren’t we? I have to be able to trust you, and I can’t do that if I think you’re going to shut down every time things get too scary for poor defenseless Ever.”

Toby turned to me, his eyebrows drawn down over his eyes. “Poor defenseless Ever? Is that how you think I treat you?”

I raised one eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Wow, um, that sucks. I’m sorry. I don’t think of you that way.” He glanced at me again, then back to the road before us. “I think you’re strong, one of the strongest girls I’ve ever met.”

Well, that may be a stretch. I brought my attention back to my book and read the same line about fifteen times. Damn. I hate when I can’t focus. I looked out the window as we approached the first sign of humanity in a long while.

“You hungry?” Toby asked. “I have to stop for gas anyway. Want to eat?”

I glanced at the clock as my stomach growled. We’d been in the car for almost four hours. “Sure. I could eat.”
And pee.
I could definitely use a bathroom break.

“Central Weed,’” I read aloud as we exited the freeway. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s the name of the town.”

“What’s the name of the town?”

“Weed.”

“
Weed?
Like, pot?”

“Doubtful,” Toby said with a smirk. “But that would be less unfortunate than being named after a plant group everybody hates, don’t you think?”

“Um. It’s a toss-up,” I answered as I gazed back out the window. At some point during the drive from Sacramento, the scenery had changed. I’d either been too focused on reading or too focused on being mad at Toby to notice that the brown desert of Sacramento—and most of Southern California, who was I kidding?—had slowly given way to pine trees.

“‘Weed Like to Welcome You,’” I read as we entered the small town. “Wow. That’s terrible.”

Toby laughed. “Terribly clever.”

“Oh, look! A souvenir shop! What do you think they sell there? Weed or
weeds
?”

“Ha. She’s got jokes. What do you want to eat?”

We passed a Shell station on our right, then a Laundromat on the left. An old motel painted in southwest pastels. A liquor store. A Chevron.

“I don’t think we have a lot of choice in the matter. I have yet to see even one food option.”

“Well,” Toby said. “I’d be prone to agree with you, had I not been here before.”

“You’ve actually been
here
before? This tiny town in the middle of nowhere? Why?”

“Driving down from Seattle.”

“Oh. Yeah. Because you’re not from Montana.”

He smiled a weak half-smile. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” I said with a deep breath, changing the subject. “Where to then, captain?”

Toby slowed down in front of a Subway, but instead of turning into the parking lot like I thought he’d been about to do, he flipped a U-turn. He drove back to the motel we’d just passed, pulling into a parking space in front of the Hi-Lo Café.

“Um—”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” he said as he stepped out of the Mustang.

Okay. But if I get food poisoning…

Toby made it to my side of the car before I even finished my thought, opening my door for me and reaching out. I looked up at him as I placed my hand in his. His dark gaze held mine, and a shiver of anticipation scurried its way across my skin. How could I still feel so much from just the simple touch of his hand?

We made our way into the Hi-Lo Café, hand in hand. I figured I should let go of his hand, but something blocked the instruction from my brain to my fingers. They remained locked with Toby’s.

A woman named Gracie Lynn led us to a green vinyl booth with a burgundy tabletop, and as I glanced around I realized that neither the restaurant—nor Gracie Lynn—had been updated since the early 80’s. Her hair was a frizzy mess atop her head, held there by a neon scrunchie, and her eye shadow was so perfectly pastel that she could have jumped straight out of a 1976 Cover Girl advertisement.

Our menus were newspapers. The coffee cups on the table were mismatched. I examined mine for old lipstick stains, but didn’t find any, then I scrunched up my nose and looked at Toby.

“Just trust me,” he whispered.

“Fine. What would you suggest I eat?”

“Well, I’ve only been here for breakfast, but judging by the biscuits and gravy here, everything will be amazing.”

“Hmm, and cause a coronary by the look of things,” I said under my breath as I watched a plate of greasy food pass by in Gracie Lynn’s arms. My stomach growled, clearly undeterred by the heart attack I was about to have from eating at the Hi-Lo Café. I reviewed the menu for a few minutes before making my decision. Screw it.
When in Rome.

“You kids ready to order?” Gracie Lynn asked.

Toby waved his hand for me to go ahead.

“I’ll have the patty melt, please.”

Toby choked on his coffee, his eyes wide.

“Fries or mashed potatoes, dear?”

“Mmm…fries, please. And a chocolate malt.”

Toby ordered a hamburger and coleslaw, then looked at me with his head tilted sideways and his eyebrows raised. When our server was out of earshot, he coughed to get my attention.

“What?” I asked.

“About that coronary you mentioned…”

“Shut it. I’m hungry. And you only live once, right?”

Toby shook his head and put his hands up, palms out. “No, no, I’m not knocking it. I love the way you eat.”

“I’m sorry?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“I mean, I love that you just eat what you want. Some girls are just so…”

“I eat salads, too, you know. I just figured, ‘When in Rome,’ right?”

“Right.”

A little while later, Gracie Lynn returned with our massive plates of food. Holy crap. As she set mine down in front of me, my eyes just about bulged out of my head. My patty melt was four inches high, and greasy, just-out-of-the-fryer French fries covered an entire two-thirds of my plate. Toby’s order was no better. His hamburger was mountainous, with a patty at least an inch and a half thick—even the coleslaw was a heaping amount, enough to feed a small family. Our gazes met, then Toby licked his lips and picked up his burger.

“For this, I will gladly suffer a coronary.”

“Speaking of coronaries,” a gravelly voice said behind me. I flipped my head around, staring right into the translucent face of our Seeker. He snapped his fingers. “Such a pity.”

A customer shrieked on the other side of the restaurant. I turned my head in that direction and saw Gracie Lynn lying on the ground in the far corner of the restaurant. Motionless. I watched the people around her rush to her side, then everyone began to slow, moving in relaxed motion and dragging every second out to a painfully sluggish pace. I knew I was imagining it, that my mind wasn’t processing the unfolding scene correctly, but I couldn’t help but want to scream at them to do something!

“Oh my God,” I whimpered. I brought my gaze back to the Seeker. “Did you…?” I couldn’t finish the question. I already knew the answer.

“Don’t be sad, sweet Eleanor, she had it coming. Look at the weight she was carrying around. That’s no good for the old ticker,” he said as he tapped the air around the area where his heart would have been. “Let’s just say I…sped up the process a bit.”

Tears filled my eyes. I looked back toward the commotion in the far corner of the Hi-Lo Café. People surrounded our waitress on the floor; one man hovered over her, counting, while a woman pressed down on her chest, trying to revive her heart. Another man shouted into an old phone attached to the wall. Gracie Lynn was unresponsive, her blue-lined eyes open and gazing toward the door, unseeing. That poor woman…

“I want you to know that I’m serious. I also want you to understand that I am no average Seeker. Consider my offer, for it is far better than any you will receive. I highly doubt my colleagues will be as generous as I am when they find you, especially with what that Soul Brand of yours means for them.”

He disappeared, and I turned back to Toby, who at some point had moved to sit next to me. I jumped, shocked by his sudden closeness. His arms were around me—I hadn’t noticed that either.

“Toby,” I sniveled as I pressed my face into his chest. He tightened his arms around me as I cried. That poor woman was dead, and it was my fault. “How?” I sobbed.

Toby shook his head and shushed me. “We can’t talk about it now. Not here. We have to go, Ev. Come on.” He pulled me out of the booth slowly, guiding me toward the front door.

I pushed him away. “I have to use the bathroom first.”

He scanned the restaurant, his gaze drifting over the people surrounding the dead woman on the floor, then pointed to the far corner. “There,” he said. “Be quick. We really need to get out of here.”

I nodded, then made my way to the bathroom as quickly as possible, but not so quick that it looked like I was running from anything. Once inside, I locked the main door and turned to face the two empty stalls, my back against the cold door. My hunger gone, my stomach churned with nausea and emptiness.

What am I going to do?

I
finished splashing my face with cold water, then inhaled a deep breath as I unlatched and opened the door. Time to run again—

“Hey,” said a guy standing just outside the door of the bathroom.

I jumped, the sound of the boy’s voice startling me as I exited. I rounded on him, my hands defensively in front of me; though, what I would have done with them I have no idea. Really, I probably looked more foolish than threatening.

He cemented that thought as he glanced to my hands, smirked, then brought his green gaze back to mine. “Whoa, kiddo, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, raising his hands, palms out. “I just want to talk to you about what happened in there.” He glanced past me to the main dining room of the Hi-Lo Café.

He took a step toward me, and I chanced taking my eyes off him to glance to the restaurant behind me, quickly searching the room for Toby—who was nowhere to be found.

“Your boyfriend’s out back—Toby, right? I had a flat tire and he had a jack,” the stranger said, taking another step forward, hands still extended in surrender. “Follow me, and I’ll take you to him.”

My pulse accelerated. I searched his eyes, scanned his face—young-ish guy, maybe early twenties, shaggy dark brown hair, green eyes; he wore a hoodie from a sports team I’d never heard of, and the hood was pulled up over his head. He had an earring in one ear, an amber-colored stone, or—

“Oomph—” I tried to shout, but his hand cut off the sound. I’d been so focused on studying his appearance, that I missed his lightning fast movements. With ease, he flipped me around, one hand smothering my mouth, and the other hand around my neck, holding me against his torso. He angled his knee out, buckling my legs one at a time, while still holding onto me. I faced the restaurant now, and though my screams were too muffled for anyone to hear above the chaos of the melee surrounding our former waitress and the quickly approaching sirens outside, I prayed that just one person would look up and see me being dragged out of here.

“Now, now, kiddo, we can do this—”

The easy way or the hard way
, I thought along with his words. How cliché could this guy be, anyway?

“—but I’m not here to hurt you. I didn’t lie about that. How this goes is ultimately up to you; you get that, right?”

I didn’t respond. I’d stopped trying to scream and focused only on my breathing, the air flowing in and out of my nose in fast, heavy breaths.

“You stopped screaming, and you’re not fighting back,” he said as he dragged me through the back exit of the café. “I’m assuming this means you want to come willingly and work with me. Good girl.”

His breathing remained even, as if I weighed no more than a feather. I hoped the cars on the street would see me and stop, or call for help, but this guy had his van parked in such a way that the entire street was blocked from my view.

We approached the van, and I waited for the perfect moment to try to run. The sun was high in the sky, broad daylight, and though the town we were in wasn’t big, it wasn’t abandoned either. By the growing volume of the sirens, the cops were almost here. I just had to get away from this guy and make it to the front of the restaurant.

I could do that. And I was going to at least
try
.

The guy removed his arm from around my neck, holding me with only the hand pressed over my mouth, then rapped twice on the van door.

I didn’t even think—just slammed my elbow into his gut and pulled free of his grip. I started to run in the direction of the street and the front of the restaurant, hoping I’d find Toby, when something slammed into my back, knocking me to the ground.

I crashed into the asphalt, knocking the wind from my lungs, and gravel tearing the skin of my cheek as I slid to a stop. I cried out, but the kidnapper covered my mouth with his hand, so much so that he hindered my breathing. I stilled beneath him, beginning to panic because his hand almost covered my nostrils.

“Come on, Ever, I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me.” His voice was gruff, the words almost a growl, and his mouth much too close to my ear. “Can we try this again?”

I nodded, tears streaming from my eyes as my lungs burned, desperate for air. At least I’d been unconscious the last time someone kidnapped me, so I didn’t have to feel this fear racing through my body. As he stood, pulling me up with him, I realized he’d addressed me by name. He knew who I was. This wasn’t random.

Of course it isn’t random, you idiot
, my subconscious snarled. I was being kidnapped. Again. For the second time in as many weeks…which had to have been a record. My palms began sweating, and my heart thudded rapidly, the sound almost deafening in my ears. Collecting my soul was one thing—death would come easy then, I hoped. But what else could this guy do to me before he turned me in for my Soul Brand?

The options were endless, and the thought of rape and torture caused me to whimper as fresh tears spilled from my eyes.

The van door had been opened while I tried to escape, and two more guys stood by the door, both of them around the same age as my captor. All three were relatively normal, relatively attractive guys, dressed like college kids, and completely innocent looking—which meant absolutely nothing for me because even the nicest looking guys could be serial killers or rapists. The one closest to the door shook his head as he watched my captor drag me back to the van and then push me inside. I hit the hard metal floor with a thump, landing on my side, bruising my hip and probably my elbow as well.

I shouted as pain shot out from the places on my body that crashed into the van’s floor. I quickly turned over, about to scream for help, but my captor and his buddy were crouched right beside me, blocking the door as it slid closed.

“Oh, man, what’d you do to your face?” the other guy asked.

I reached up to touch my cheek, cringing when I ran my fingertips over the road rash that stretched from my eye to my chin, covering the entire right side. I brought my hand back down, finding a layer of blood and dirt coating my fingers.

“You should be more careful,” other guy said, his lips in a cruel smile.

“Enough, J,” my captor said.

“Relax, Q. She’s fine.”

J and Q, huh?
I tried to store that in my memory, though I didn’t know what use the information would be. I had no last names. I hadn’t seen a license plate. I didn’t even know the make or model of the creepy kidnapper van. The driver’s side door slammed shut, bringing my attention to the black-haired kid in the front. His dark eyes met mine briefly in the rearview mirror, then his gaze returned to the road before him.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, sugar tits.”

“Enough,” Q—my captor—snapped.

The other guy—J—threw his hands up, then winked at me before moving to the passenger seat up front.

Q turned to me. “Sorry about that, Ever. J’s kind of an asshole.”

“Why do you hang out with him?”

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side. “I don’t
hang out
with him. We work together. Trust me: I wouldn’t have friends like that guy.”

“I heard that, ass munch,” J called from the front seat. “I wouldn’t be friends with you either.”

Q rolled his eyes, then brought his attention back to me. “Look, I’m sorry about your face. I meant what I said—I wasn’t sent here to hurt you.”

“Just to kidnap me, though, right? Because kidnapping is okay?”

“I’m not in the business of messing up girls’ faces, is all.”

“How noble of you.”

Q shrugged but didn’t say anything else, so I asked again. “Who are you guys?”

“Well, I’m Q, you’ve met J, and that handsome guy driving is Ridley.”

“Ridley?” I asked, a bit shocked by the more than initial I’d just been given, and on top of that, the strangeness of his name. “Is that, like, his last name or something?”

“Yeah,” Q answered. “First. Last. Middle. You name it, cause that’s all there is.”

I glanced back up at the rearview mirror, and those obsidian eyes met mine once more, slightly crinkled at the edges. “Ridley,” I whispered, filing the name away in my mind, then shrugged. Whatever.

“So what’s Q stand for?”

“Uh-uh, that’s not part of the deal. You don’t get to know anything about us. Sorry.”

“Okay,” I said, hoping I could find out more if I kept him talking. “But you know me, obviously, right?”

“Let’s see… I know you’re Ever Van Ruysdael—short for Eleanor”—I cringed—“and your boyfriend back there is Toby James—”

“He’s not my—”

Q raised his hand and shook his head. “No worries. Your relationship—or lack thereof—is not my business. Now, what else? Your best friend died a little over two years ago, in a car accident; your best girlfriend is with Gregor Hayes”—
Hayes?
How had I never known Greg’s last name?—“and Ariadne—”

“Damn, I love that chick,” J said from the front seat, interrupting Q’s brief history report.

Ridley reached across, quickly punching J in the bicep.

“—
Ariadne
has brought your friend back to life, branding your pretty little soul in the process. Now, Toby is trying to get you to safety, which I’m guessing means somewhere in Seattle where this all began, though I’m not one-hundred percent sure about that part. Judging from the fact that you’re still intact, no Seekers have located you yet. How am I doing so far?”

I didn’t respond. He obviously didn’t know about my creepy old Seeker friend, so I wasn’t about to give him any information.

“Cat got your tongue?”

I glared at him.

“Well, unfortunately for Toby, he failed.”

“You mean unfortunately for me.”

“That just depends on how you look at it, now doesn’t it? See, what if the people who hired me are the good guys? Did you ever think of that?”

“Good guys who kidnap girls?”

“Details.”

“Forgive me if I seem less than enthused,” I said, hoping I sounded less afraid than I felt. “This is, after all, the second time I’ve been taken against my will since Ariadne branded me.”

Q’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Oh?”

“Yeah. And supposedly, those were also the good guys, so.” I rubbed my aching elbow.

J turned around in his seat, his hands gripping the headrest, and his light eyes locked on mine. His smile exposed slightly crooked canines. “Don’t worry, sweet tits. We’re definitely not the good guys. Q was just trying to make you feel better.”

“J,” Q warned.

“Shut the hell up, J,” Ridley said, speaking for the first time, his voice a cigarette-stained rasp. “Actually, both of you need to shut your traps.”

With that, J turned around, and Q repositioned against the door of the van, making himself comfortable with his legs stretched out toward me and his arms crossed over his chest, not saying another word. Clearly, someone was running this show, and it wasn’t Q or J.

“We’re not good or bad,” Ridley said, pulling my focus back to the front of the van, to his dark eyes in the rearview mirror. “We’re just the delivery guys. Consider us your own personal U.P.S. service.”

I sighed, then leaned back against the wall of the van, rubbing my elbow some more, and hoping for a chance to escape at the next place we stopped.

The longer I examined Q, his gaze locked on mine, and his posture relaxed, I realized something. Somehow, even though this group of misfit frat boys had kidnapped me, I wasn’t frightened of them. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t feel any terror deep in my gut like I probably should have. And if I played my cards right, I thought I could probably outrun them the next time we stopped.

I hoped.