Page 14 of EverGreene
Next to me, Katy and Jem moved to the beat, so completely at ease that I envied them. Half-assed, I joinedthem to avoid standing out like a sore thumb as I studied each of the band members. Short and less muscular from what I could tell from the baggy black t-shirt he was wearing, the lead singer didn’t have the same build as my mystery stalker, nor the same mask. Neither did the bass player, the keyboardist, nor the bass guitar player. And even though I couldn’t exactly see the characteristics of the drummer that well, he didn’t give off the same vibe as the man who’d given me the first orgasm I didn’t have to manually give to myself after first reassuring the man I’d had sex with that I had, in fact, come.
“What do you think?” Katy asked. “Any of them look like the type who would follow a woman around for several months and send oddly specific gifts to her home only to later appear in person on Halloween to give her a real treat?”
I shook my head. “No, I think they’re just mild-mannered band geeks who wear masks to hide their identities from the head of Human Resources at the investment banking firm they probably all work at together.”
“Gee, thanks, Ever.” Katy stopped dancing long enough to glare at me. “Now all I see when I look at them is my dad. That’s enough of a mental image to ruin my sex life for the rest of my life.”
Oops. I’d forgotten about Katy’s father’s job in finance.“So, for two weeks or so, then?”
“I’ll have you know two weeks may as well be fifteen years when you aren’t getting laid.”
The tone of the music coming from the stage shifted from hard rock to a slightly slower set, providing my overstimulated senses a bit of respite. I glanced over at Katy. “I’m going to the bathroom while I can still make it out of this mob.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Although I could see she was concerned for me, I noticed the faintest hint of reliefwhen I told her I was fine and that she could just stay with Jem.
I hated the fact that my friends—the only ones I’ve had for quite a while now—felt the urge to babysit me like I was some delicate flower whose petals would all blow away with the slightest gust of wind. I’d been strong—once. And I had the physical scars to prove it.
For an establishment named after a place where you would expect to find white powder on every available surface or the scattering of roaches with the flip of a light switch, Some Dive Bar was actually pretty clean. So much so that I didn’t feel the need to squat over the toilet seat or have any trepidation with setting my phone down on the counter when I washed my hands.
See. This is fine. You can go out. You can have fun. He doesn’t know you’re here. No one is coming to get you if they don’t know where you are. You even have a hot, tattooed man who has completely awakened a mask kink inside you that you didn’t know you had. Sure, he may be a little overly devoted to you, sending you gifts and literally watching your every move, which isn’t something that should be comforting to you. In fact, you should be more fucking disturbed by it. But here you are. And you’re going to be okay because you’re Ever, and Ever is a survivor.
By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, the band had switched back to the heavy metal portion of their show. Their instrument’s frequencies vibrated through the floorboards. Spotlights shone down on a crowd that seemed to have multiplied exponentially, completely swallowing Katy and Jem somewhere out there in its depths. I squinted as the pale purple light bounced from one end of the crowd to the other, and I tried to find one of the only two faces I would recognize in this room.
But when the light bounced around the crowd again, itpaused, resting on a face that I not only recognized but made my stomach collapse and my knees buckle.
No. It can’t be. If he had been released, someone would have called me.
The light swung back, falling on the same face belonging to the man who’d nearly killed me, illuminating a crooked smile and empty, soulless eyes. My body trembled, except it wasn’t from the vibration of the music.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real.I forced my brain to tell the rest of me, except it’s hard to convince yourself of anything if even you weren’t one hundred percent sure of what you were trying to convince yourself of.
The lavender beam swung back even closer to where I was standing, casting light on the back of a man’s head, who, at the precise moment the light caught him, turned to look over his shoulder. His face was unmistakably the face of Travis, freezing my feet to the floor. I stared in disbelief while trying to convince my eyes they weren’t seeing what they saw.
It's a hallucination. It’s not him. Snap out of it.
The man’s eyes looked up from the face of the person he’d been talking to, meeting mine. His eyebrows knitted together; a scowl stretched across his face. The last time I’d witnessed that same expression was from the witness box while testifying before a court of law at his trial. He’d sat next to his lawyer—one of the best defense attorneys in town and completely funded by his family—staring me down the entire time I was kept on the stand. Roughly two full days of testimony. I’d spent months trying to stop that face from flashing in my head each night before I fell asleep.
He took a step forward, and that must have been all I needed for my fight or flight response to finally wake its ass up from hibernation, as I was now able to move my own two feet again. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I wanted tobe anywhere but in this bar at this very moment, finding the exit and barreling through it into an alleyway. Body wracked with anxiety, I stumbled down the pavement, steadying myself against the rough façade of the brick building. Cold air from the fall night washed over me, and it wasn’t until then that I realized I must have been sweating as beads of moisture cooled along my forehead.
I closed my eyes, letting tears fall down my cheeks while my body came down from an adrenaline high only intense fear could summon. All the work I’d done with my therapist over the last few months, and this is where I was? It was going to take time, I knew, but I’d been doing so well, only to be pulled ten steps back again. Eyes closed, I drew in a deep breath, slowly letting it back out as I opened my eyes again.
“Fucking Christ!” I jumped, startled by the one familiar face I shouldn’t have wanted to see tonight.
Chapter 6
Loche
Ihadn’t intended on going out tonight, but after my phone pinged with a notification that Ever’s friend Katy had posted a new video, and I clicked on said video, seeing not only Katy but also Ever’s panic-stricken face, I figured a change of plans was in order. If only Ever knew how easy her friends made it to track her, she’d never leave her house at all.
“You!” Ever yelled at me.
It would appear it was my turn to be taken off guard for a change.
“The only reason I’m out here right now is because of you.”
I made a production of looking to my left and then to my right before pointing to myself with my gloved hand, shrugging my shoulders in a heavily exaggerated, confused gesture.
“Yeah. You. The only reason we’re here is because we’re trying to figure out who you are, and Masktok directed us to the band playing inside, even though you clearly aren’t in that band, and now I can’t go back in there because every face lookslike the face of my ex. So, yeah. Thanks for a fucking shitty night, you sexy son of a bitch.”
