Page 45 of EverGreene
“Green.”
“Why green?”
It’s kind of my last name, but I can’t tell you that yet.
“Nature. It reminds me of the trips my grandfather used to take me on as a kid. The lake where he liked to fish was surrounded by pine trees, like we were floating in a pool of jade.”
“See? That’s the kind of information I’ve been trying to getout of you. Do you still fish? Were you good at it?”
I never want to see another fucking fish again, actually.
“I was terrible at it. The worms creeped me out, so I made my grandpa bait the hook for me until he refused to do it. Needless to say, we didn’t fish much after that. But we still went camping from time to time.”
“Is that why you have those tattoos?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Some of my best memories are up north in the forests of evergreens. What about you? What was your childhood like?”
Ever grew silent as she stared at the highway ahead of us. I hadn’t heard much about Ever’s childhood from the bits and pieces of the conversations I’d caught between her and Shelby. Based on her demeanor now, it seemed to be a question I should have avoided like the plague.
“We’re talking about you, not me. Tell me more about yourself.”
“I’m really not worth getting to know, Ever.”
And that was the second thing I shouldn’t have said to Ever tonight.
My hand flew up to the oh, shit handle when she braked hard and swerved from the passing lane to the drive lane and over to the shoulder, her journey to there narrated by a smattering of horns. On the shoulder, she threw her vehicle into park and turned her head to glare at me. Maybe I would have been safer with Malachi, after all.
“Am I being grounded?” I asked, doing my best to mask my voice, even though I was kind of scared shitless with the way Ever was looking at me and knowing she probably had some sort of sharp, pointy object in the vehicle with us.
“Don’t be cute, V. I’m not moving this car again until we have a conversation. About you, about tonight. I don’t really care. You don’t even need to show me your face tonight, butdamnit, V, I need something. Anything to level the playing field between us—if that’s even possible.”
I nodded. What if I did reveal myself to her tonight? She and Loche seemed to be getting along better, and by better, I mean she’d stopped scowling every time she saw me, cutting back to every other time she saw me. That was progress, right? She seemed to really enjoy me as V. At least, in the bedroom, anyway. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t freak out when she found out who V really was.
“V or should I say Vengeance?”
I smiled. “How did you find me?”
“Jem should have a career as a professional stalker—or a private investigator. A private investigator is probably more legal.”
“Who’s Jem?”
“Katy’s roommate, and a friend of mine now, too. She found you on TikTok. Someone posted one of your fights.”
“Shit. People aren’t supposed to be recording the fights, let alone posting them on social media. There are supposed to be people there preventing that from happening. Malachi is going to be pissed.”
“Yeah, and don’t even get me started on all the questions I have about Malachi.”
“Please don’t spread it around that there’s a priest in town who’s engaging in an illegal fighting ring. We all keep our identities secret for more than just the obvious felony charge.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything. Have I called the cops on you yet? Aside from that one time.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Because, as absolutely fucked as it sounds, having you around was comforting. It is comforting. Intuition often tells you when something isn’t right, when you should be afraid. My intuition never told me that about you.”
“Maybe that means I’ve finally been forgiven for my past, then. We all have pasts—my teammates and I. Some of us worse than others. Fate brought us together at the gym, of all places. We would take turns with the punching bag and got to talking, becoming friends and eventually forming our team and other pursuits.”
“What kinds of other pursuits?”
