18. Evalee

EVALEE

“ Y ou’re lying.” Shaking my head, I kneel on the bed while eyeballing the door. I want out of here. I want to pretend none of this is true, when deep down … Well, I’ve always known I didn’t fit in with my family . I didn’t fit in with anyone.

This makes too much sense …

“There’s no way my mom and dad aren’t my parents … I mean, they have baby photos!” At least, I think they do. I’ve only actually seen one. “And I have memories of them from when I was, like, four years old.”

“That was around the time you started living with them.” Hunter appears conflicted, opening and flexing his hand while looking back and forth between the door and me. “Baby, please don’t try to run. If you do, then I’m going to have to become more difficult.”

“Why the hell do you keep calling me baby?” I twist toward him, not waiting for him to answer before I add, “And what the hell does that mean—you’re going to become more difficult?”

“It means, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from running out that door.” His tone slightly wavers, but he hastily clears it. “I don’t want to, but I also have to protect you know matter what.”

I shake my head, anger prickling through me. “You say that our relationship hasn’t really been a lie, but you sound nothing like the Hunter I thought I knew.” I sit back down on the bed, toward the bottom, a good distance away from him. “Why is it so necessary for me to stay inside now, when only hours ago—or last night—you and I were running around town, searching for my sister?”

“Because no one realized before now that the severity of the situation has changed.”

“And what situation would that be?”

“The demons are trying new tactics to get to you.” He casts a brief glance toward the window. “I don’t know how, but by some means, they found out you were keeping Ryleigh’s body here and are now trying to lure you underground by using her.”

I slant to the side to make eye contact with him, but he refuses to look at me.

“What do you mean, new tactics? They’ve tried to do this before?”

He nods, his gaze straying back to mine. “Ever since the day a handful of Mystic Bay Society members pulled you out of a demon’s lair, demons have been trying every trick in the book to get you back. That’s part of the reason you have so many members in your life—to protect you.” He stretches his arms toward me again, but after taking one look at my face, he draws back.

Smart wizard.

I press my fingers to the brim of my nose as my brain throbs against my skull. “None of this makes sense. And honestly, I’m not even sure if I believe you.”

“I know. I can tell.”

“How?”

“Because you haven’t tried to run for the door yet. I know you well enough to know that, when you try to run, it’s when you’re finally accepting the truth.”

He’s probably right, and I hate that he is.

He knows me too well, while I know nothing about him.

“There’s just a lot that doesn’t make sense,” I mutter with my head lowered. “I mean, why was I in a lair to begin with? What am I? Why do the demons want me? And if they want me so badly, why don’t they just take me?”

“The last part’s pretty simple to explain,” he says. “You remember how Carter touched you, and then screamed?”

Nodding, I raise my head to look at him. “And then he died for no apparent reason.”

“He died because he tried to drink in your power.”

“Sure it was. Because my power is so awesome.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “You’ve known me forever, dude . You’ve got to come up with something better than that.”

“It’s the truth.” He scoots closer, taking slow, cautious moves. “I know you can’t cast spells very well, and you aren’t that great at charms, either. But that’s not because you’re powerless. It’s because you’re not completely a witch, and your control over your magic is …” He wavers. “Well, you really don’t have any control yet. But that’s not your fault. You just haven’t been taught properly.”

My muscles ravel tightly as his words strike deep nerves. Running for the door seems more like a better idea by the second.

“If I’m not completely a witch, then what am I?”

He sucks in a breath through his nose and releases it slowly out of his mouth. “A hybrid, obviously, but no one’s been able to figure out exactly what your bloodlines are. Do you have some witch’s blood in you?” He nods. “That much we’ve been able to figure out.” He inches even closer, lowering his voice. “You also have some … demon blood in you, along with traces of an unidentifiable creature.”

“An unidentifiable creature?” I feel numb. Dead inside. The desire to run for the door is getting less controllable. “You said the members found me in a demon’s lair … Why was I there?”

“No one knows for sure … And normally, the members don’t just take creatures from lairs …” He lightly skims his knuckles across my knee, eliciting both tingles and goose bumps to sprout across my flesh. “But when they realized you weren’t fully demon, they couldn’t just leave you there.”

“Why not?” I ask, bitterness dripping from my tone. I think about my stupid gift and wonder if it plays a part in any of this. “Is there some sort of rule in the handbook forbidding you guys from doing it?”

He shakes his head. “No, I have no idea why they did it. All I know is that they took you away from there, said there was something about your power that the demons wanted, and that we needed to do everything in our power not to let that happen. I was too young to remember it, but I’ve heard all the stories … about how demons kept showing up to try to get ahold of you. But whenever they tried to drink from you, they died, like Carter did. They must have caught on to this, because their efforts to get ahold of you have gone down over the years … until they got to Ryleigh.

“For whatever reason, they want you to go underground. If I’d realized that to begin with”—his jaw clenches—“I never would have let us go looking for her. I should’ve known something was up, but I was too distracted by other stuff.”

“What other stuff?”

He shrugs, looking worried and distant. “Stuff I’m not supposed to be distracted by.”

Girlfriend stuff? The question pops into my mind out of habit, but I dropkick it far, far away where I can hopefully never reach it again.

How can I still have feelings for him? Am I that messed up? After all, he’s lied to me from day one, and he’s definitely still lying to me about some stuff. At least, according to the trust spell. The damn thing’s going too bonkers right now, and it makes sorting through truths and lies incredibly difficult.

Still, I work to make some sense out of everything, recalling how the demon at Evan’s place told me not to go to The Illuminating Horror House of Truth, the entrance to the underground. Supposedly, anyway. So, if Hunter is telling the truth about demons wanting me, wouldn’t the demon I made the deal with want me to go there?

The trust spell rushes through my veins at an unnerving level, and the crack in my heart deepens.

Run, Eva. Get the hell out of here.

He turns his head toward me and splays his fingers across my knee, as if sensing the direction of my thoughts. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I don’t trust you,” I answer honestly, my knee twitching under his touch for very conflicting reasons. “I know for a fact that you’re not being truthful about everything. And a lot of the stuff you said doesn’t add up. Like, for instance, why did Carter act like you were friends?”

“I’ve been working undercover at The Illuminating Horror House of Truth for the past year or so, trying to get a vibe on what the demons are up to, and why they want you so badly.” He cracks his knuckles against the side of his leg, keeping his other hand positioned on my leg. “That’s why, when Carter showed up, I had to pretend I was on his side. My cover would’ve been blown if I didn’t.”

I can tell he’s being truthful about that, but it doesn’t explain much. Like how, in all of Mystic Willow Bay, did he convince the demons he was friends with them? Or why he didn’t seem worried when he tried to force me into the demon’s arms.

“But what if the demon had hurt me?” I utter quietly. “I mean, you just handed me over to him.”

This is all getting too overwhelming.

My eyes stay glued to him, but my mind drifts toward the door.

Run!

“He couldn’t have hurt you,” Hunter swears, a passionate fire blazing in his eyes as he wraps his fingers around my knee. “When demons try to drink from you, they die, because you’re protected by some sort of shield. That’s why I told him I’d gotten the shield down—I knew he’d try to drink from you and die.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I would never let anyone or anything hurt you.”

“That’s not true.” Tears prick my eyes as the truth squashes my chest.

My parents aren’t my parents. Ryleigh isn’t my sister. I’m not just a witch. Hunter isn’t my best friend. I’m completely alone in this world.

“You’re hurting me now.”

“Eva …” he starts with empathy in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.” I trace the heart patterns on my comforter, a house warming gift from Ryleigh. When I think about her role in all this, my heart pierces with blinding pain.

While I love my parents and everything, I’ve never been super close to them. But Ryleigh and I … I always felt like we had a sisterly connection. I guess I was wrong.

“What about Ryleigh?”

“What about her?” Hesitancy laces his tone.

I peer up at him, but clouds have moved over the moonlight and the room has grown too dark to see him clearly. “Just how big of a role did she play in all this? And what about her death? Was that part of it, also? Do you guys know how she really died and just aren’t telling me?”

He shakes his head with zero indecision. “Ryleigh’s death is an unsolved case. But before she died, she’d been working a few cases.” He scratches the side of his neck, fidgeting. “Including the one I’m working on with the demons. There is suspicion that her death wasn’t an accident.”

“But the police said it was.”

“The police aren’t part of the society, and therefore, don’t have access to the same info and magical technology we do.”

“Which makes them clueless?”

He nods. “More or less.”

My mouth sinks into a frown. “Kind of like me, I guess.”

He puts his other hand on my knee. “I…”

I swat both his hands away and spring to my feet. The second I stand upright, the room whirls around dizzily, the aftereffects of the sleep spell continuing to course through my bloodstream.

And just like that, it all crashes over me like a violent, powerful spell. I think about my parents, who aren’t really my parents. Ryleigh, who I thought was my sister. I’d been so upset when she died, and had been working so hard on that spell to bring her back. And while I still care for her enough that I don’t want her dead, my heart weeps over the fact that, even in her death, she never bothered to tell me the truth.

And then Hunter … My best friend Hunter … His betrayal might just hurt the most.

Hurt and anger current through my body as reality downpours over me. Slowly, I start to accept the truth. That almost everyone I’ve ever cared about has been lying to me.

That’s why I finally turn and run.