Page 150 of Stolen Fate

Evelyn

Six Years Ago

I climbedout after Katie once she pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript building.

Our eyes met over the top of the car, and I didn’t know what to say to shake away the nerves that had taken residence deep inside my belly since the moment Katie told me about the… job opportunity.

I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but I was doing it, and I couldn’t back out now. Not when I only had a month left to save the house—and my talk with a bank manager a couple of days before didn’t look good. The manager, Kelsey Roberts, had been one of my mom’s closest friends when she had been alive. We lost some contact over the years, which I had a feeling wasn’t Kelsey doing, but my dad’s.

Dad had isolated himself from everyone that even remotely reminded him of the life he had when Mom was still alive. At some point, most of their friends had given up trying to keep in contact with him after so many months of unanswered messages.

Kelsey had always been kind, so I had thought that if anyone could help us out, it would be him. Though he had told me he would do everything he could for me, I could see the look of resignation in his eyes when he said it, and knew I was better off preparing for bad news than trying to get my hopes up.

Katie walked over to me and smiled.

I shot one back to her, though it felt more like a grimace. I couldn’t exactly work up anything more than that because my hands were shaking with nerves, and I was really glad I had decided to skip breakfast this morning considering the way my stomach was feeling.

“You okay?” she asked me.

I nodded. Though I didn’t know her very well, Katie had been my rock these past couple of days. She was even with me when I went to the bank to talk to Kelsey.

I knew a lot of it had to do with the fact that, aside from Ethan, she was the only one who knew what was going on, and I was glad I had someone to talk to about the situation to keep from going insane.

“I’ll be fine.”

She let out a small sigh and together we walked toward the building. I didn’t know what building it was, but it looked like it was mostly empty, and I resisted the urge to turn back around and run away.

The instructions on the back were very clear: We were to take the elevator to the fifth floor, turn left and it would be the third office on our right.

The ding of the elevator startled me out of my thoughts and Katie turned to me. I pretended not to see the look of concern in her eyes, and instead concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, to keep on walking.

I knew why I was so nervous. A huge part of me hoped that they would pick me, while another part didn’t. But they had to pick me, because I didn’t have any other options.

And I was running out of time.

I didn’t want to see my dad’s heartbreak for a second time when he found out we were going to lose our house. He’d had enough of it in his lifetime.

And I didn’t want to lose our house, either. It was the only thing I felt truly connected me to my mom. She may be gone, and nothing I could do would ever bring her back, but we still had the house. As small of a consolation as it was; it was still there.

Katie and I paused when we got to the door. Room 503.

It looked ominous.

“Ready?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”

She offered a small nod, because that was all she could do in a situation like this, and I nodded back, because that was all I was capable of at the moment.

We opened the door and Katie walked in first. As soon as I got through the door, a woman, probably in her early forties, yelled out, “Close the door behind you!”

I did as she asked, a little startled, before turning around and taking in the room fully.

It…

Was not what I was expecting.

It was a pretty sparse room with about fifteen chairs, and thirteen of them were occupied by women who all looked similar to Katie and me. With various shades of dark hair and brown eyes, I wondered if we’re all about to enter a lookalike contest.

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