Evermore (The Night Watchmen Series Book 5)

by Candace Knoebel

  “If she is successfully brought in, she will be kept in the correctional facility until she is deemed safe and trustworthy,” Mack continues, not looking any of us in the eyes.

  “And how do you deem a person trustworthy?” Meredith poses with a raised eyebrow, a note of distaste prevalent in her tone. “Because if I remember correctly, you once trusted your affinity partner, did you not? And she was the biggest, baddest Darkyn of them all.”

  A ripple of anger spreads down his face, but in a blink, he is composed again. Neatly tucked like he always is. “That information is not something you are cleared to know. Any of you,” he adds, making sure to connect eyes with each of us, stopping on me. “I will, however, keep you updated on her progress. If all goes well, I will set up a time when you will be able to visit her. Under surveillance, of course.”

  Katie snivels and I train myself to keep my eyes forward, because I know if I look over and see the tears I’m sure are streaming from her eyes then I will reach across this table and wrap my hands around Mack’s throat until sensibility registers in his brain.

  But even more so, I can’t look at her because I understand his reasons. I hate that he’s right. Eliza should be watched.

  Not only for the safety of our Coven, but for the safety of Katie’s heart.

  Mack’s watch buzzes. He turns his back on us and presses it. “Go ahead.”

  Static buzzes out, followed by a voice I don’t recognize. “We have her in custody,” a man says.

  I feel Katie’s world freezing in place as her whole body tenses up.

  Mack’s face turns a little in our direction, and then he says, “Good. I will meet you in the correctional facility.” A second later, he spins back around with a small exhale. “I’m sure you understand what this means. I need to go.”

  He’s gathering papers into a folder, issuing orders to the other Elites in the room, as the three of us sit there, stone faced. “That’s it?” I hear myself ask through the blur of anger and confusion. I know he needs to brief her. I know this is in all our best interests. But I can’t stop myself from questioning him. Can’t keep my disgust clean from my tone.

  His head whips around at my question, eyes flared. “Yes, Middleton. That is it.”

  He picks up the folders he filled. Instructs one of the Elite women he keeps close to his side, Aria, I think her name is, to follow him. He leaves us with the sound of rippling pages from the haste of his movements and the whoosh of the sliding doors opening behind us.

  “That motherfu—”

  “Don’t,” I say quickly, cutting Meredith off. I turn in my seat, taking Katie’s other hand, waiting for her to look at me. She’s still staring straight ahead, thoughts blurring in her eyes. Face hot and slick from tears. “Kat?”

  “I’m okay,” she says, but the tremble in her tone says otherwise.

  “I’m sure there’s a way we can get you in so you can see her,” Meredith starts to say, but Katie shakes her head, taking in a deep breath.

  “No,” she says, sounding more sure of herself. “He’s right. We can’t trust her until she proves she can be.” She looks between both of us, strength and clarity returning. “Just the fact that she’s here and she’s trying is enough for me right now. The rest she can earn by doing the right thing… something she hasn’t done in a long time.”

  I open my arms and hold her as she leans her head against my shoulder, hair smelling of cinnamon. Smile when I think about Katie’s strength and how it has been one of the only steadfast things in my life ever since I left my parents’ home and entered this world. Even after being attacked by a werewolf and left blind in one eye, she still picked herself up and continued forward. After Chett’s abuse and losing her father, she’s managed to keep that part of herself I’ve always relied on.

  That I’ve always looked up to.

  Minutes skip by us as the light from the screen in front of us continuously changes as the images of the Underground flicker in and out.

  “If I had done things differently with my life, you’re the daughter I wish I had,” Meredith admits, her usual steel missing from her tone. She lifts her eyes for just a fraction of a second in Katie’s direction, and then drops it back down to the table, almost as if she’s afraid to see how Katie will take the remark.

  Katie sits up and grabs Meredith’s hand, squeezing as she says, “And I think I would have liked that.”

  HOURS LATER, AFTER DROPPING KATIE off with Chett at the gym, Jaxen finds me throwing fluxes with my father.

  “He’s bringing her home,” he says, feet away, standing at the entrance of the practice field. His words are carried on the backs of the flakes of snow sinking from the sky.

  “Go,” my dad says with an encouraging smile, taking the last flux from my hand.

  I hug him fast and tread through the snow as quickly as I can. Wings flutter inside my chest and through my bloodstream. Hope carries our steps in a hurried pace as we walk hand in hand through the sequester toward Evangeline’s new apartment building that towers over all others in the area.

  We pass by a group of kids, all different sizes and ages, playing a game of makeshift hockey using large branches as sticks and a Frisbee as the puck over the frozen, small reservoir between buildings.

  I can tell by the woody scent kicked up by the quaint breeze that they’re some of the new wolves brought in by Evangeline. They have a unique smell to them, different from the original pack of Lost Crows, and I think it’s because they’re purebloods. A couple of them look up when we pass by, eyes appraising, and then turn back to their game.

  An elderly couple sits outside the building on a small bench surrounded by white-covered hedges, sharing a snack wrapped up in a small piece of cloth. The words—Unity For All—has been spray painted in bright white letters across the bricked building on the other side of the street, the letters reflecting in the glass of Evangeline’s building. This promise was how she brought the packs back together to fall in line under her ruling.

  This is how she reclaimed her throne.

  The streets in this part of the sequester have been closed off and turned into areas for training and sitting. There are different rings squared off with wolves matching up against the Elites in the city who don’t find an issue with training with someone outside of their breed. There’s an uninhibited wildness in this small section of the city that you can’t find anywhere else.

  The sense of freedom and new beginnings is electric in the air.

  It doesn’t take long to make it to the top floor of the building where she’s moved us to. Jaxen and I were given our own apartment to share with Gavin and Cassie. The floor is home to all the original Lost Crows. Most of the doors remain opened throughout the day, welcoming anyone at any time.

  Jezi is standing outside my apartment with Weldon. She’s staring into it as if she’s staring at a ghost. And maybe she is, because I can feel Cassie’s presence before I even make it around the corner.

  “Why don’t you guys go in?” I say as soon as they look up at us.

  “I wanted to wait for you,” Jezi says, and I’m surprised she says this directly to me.

  I nod as my heart flutters harder within my chest. Offer a reassuring smile, I cross the threshold, trying to be the strength Jezi needs. The living room is filled with music, songs Cassie used to listen to. The kitchen carries scents of aged cheese and garlic, food she used to love. The shades have all been lifted, curtains drawn, inviting the sunlight in for company. There isn’t a speck of dust or an out-of-place item to be seen, as if someone came in here and swept away the fact that we were a bunch of slobs living together.

  We find Gavin in the kitchen, humming, wearing a light pink apron, the only one we have, while bobbing his head along to the music. He taps the spoon against a boiling pot, and then dips his pinky into the pan, taking a taste of the sauce he’s working on. His movements are fluid, like a dancer on cue as he moves from pot to pot. Oven to sink.

  “Brother,” Jaxen s
ays from the entryway, a smirk in his voice.

  Gavin spins, face lit brighter than any star. “Yo!” he shouts before rushing across the room. He scoops me up into a hug, crushing the air from my lungs. Piecing the hole he left in my heart back together. “I was wondering when you fools were going to get here. Cassie’s getting a shower. She had all those sticky marks left on her from the shit they had her hooked up to.” He sets me down and ruffles the top of my head. “You did it, kickass. You brought her back.”

  Wings of elation lift the corners of my mouth as I gaze up at him. His face is freshly shaved, years sheared off from the warmth of his smile. His eyes are a deep, endless blue with specks of gold sparkling like the sun hitting waves. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this Gavin… the one who rallies us together and brings the inner light out in everyone.

  I nearly forgot he existed.

  “It’s the least I could do,” I admit, the heater inside me switching on.

  He grins his pearly whites before looking past me. “Where the hell are Jezi and Weldon? They should be here by now.”

  “Here,” Jezi says timidly as she rounds the corner with Weldon on her heels.

  Gavin’s grin widens. “Dude, she is going to flip the hell out when she sees you. She’s asked about you nearly every day,” he says, grabbing Jezi by the hand and hauling her into the kitchen. He pulls a chair out from the table and sits her in it with an accomplished smile. “You know how she is with gossip. She had to have every detail about what’s happened since she’s been away.” A gurgling sound calls his attention from the stove. “Shit!” he says as the pasta water boils over.

  Frenzy replaces the fluidity of his movements. Without thinking, I make my way over, pull the strainer from the cabinet, and then set in the sink. He turns and dumps the noodles as I move around him to shut the stove off, and then I pull the bread from the oven just as it’s on the edge of burning. It happens in an instant, without words, but when we both stop and turn, facing each other, I feel the shift in the air. The eraser being taken to the list of pain etched between us for longer than I ever wanted.

  All the names, the hatred, the bitterness… it’s like it never was. Removed by an innate waltz of shared kitchen space.

  “Thanks,” he says, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. He doesn’t look like he’s stopped moving from the moment he stepped foot in this apartment. His hair is a disheveled mess, dampened around the edges from sweat.

  “Don’t you think you should take a breath?” Jaxen says as he grabs a few beers from the fridge. He opens one and hands it to Gavin, insisting with his eyebrows for him to drink. After Gavin takes a good, long swig, Jaxen opens one for me and for himself.

  “You’re right,” Gavin says, exhaling a pent-up breath after he swallows. He places his hand on the edge of the sink and leans against it, chest beginning to rise and fall at a slower pace. He glances around the kitchen and adds, “I just want everything to be perfect for her. It’s the first time she’s back, out of the hospital.”

  Jaxen puts a hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “It is perfect, bro.”

  “It smells amazing,” Jezi adds, licking her lips as she looks to the bread cooling on the counter. After a second of silence, she shifts her gaze to Weldon and raises her eyebrows, waiting for him to say something nice.

  He uncurls himself from his stance in the corner. “Oh, right,” he says quickly. “Yeah... If I cared about human food, I’d say the same thing.” He looks to Jezi, raising his eyes in question. When she smiles at him, he relaxes, and then turns and opens every cabinet, scouring through the contents.

  Nosey as always.

  “Whiskey is on top of the fridge,” Gavin says without a second thought.

  Weldon thanks him with a smirk, and then reaches for the bottle.

  “Pour me one too. I’ve been craving a stiff drink,” Cassie says from the doorway. She’s running her fingers through her still-damp strawberry hair. My heart stops and starts at the sight of her. The grin she’s wearing is the same she always wore. That was always on the edge of a joke or a jab. Her gaze is as keen as ever, moving to everyone in the room quicker than you’d notice. Taking it all in as fast as a light being switched on.

  Jezi is on her feet, but doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. She just stares, lips trembling as her hand moves up to her mouth.

  “Well, don’t just stand there like a deer in headlights, silly,” Cassie says as she makes her way into the kitchen. She pulls Jezi into a hug. “I’m not going to bite.”

  A giggle rushes out of Jezi as she wraps her arms around her, allowing herself to open back up to her. “You’re really back,” she says, nearly jumping on her toes. “You even smell the same.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” Cassie says on a laugh as her eyes land on me. Thank you, she mouths.

  I nod, feeling like the sun could shine from my soul, and grin like a fool as she spins out of Jezi’s arms and lands in Jaxen’s. She makes her way around the room, hugging and joking and laughing, until I’m the only one left, and I think I could float to the moon. I’m pretty sure my feet no longer touch the ground.

  “Hey, starlet,” she says, standing in front of me, and I’m instantly taken back to the day she welcomed me to becoming a witch.

  I don’t say anything; I just throw my arms around her and pull her in as a wave of tears crashes behind my eyes. I’m swept up into the undercurrent of all that I had repressed. The guilt. The pain. The yearning to make things right. To bring her back. A sob chokes out of me before I can stop it, followed by hysterical laughing.

  “Oh, damn. She went and lost her mind,” Weldon says from the rim of his glass as Cassie squeezes me one good time and then lets go.

  She’s wiping her own tears from her eyes, laughing along with me as Weldon hands her the glass of whiskey she asked for. “I thought that was it for me,” she confesses as another tear slips from the corner of her eye. “I was okay with it. Don’t get me wrong. I made my peace, and I found peace in the Dwelling… but I was sure that was it. But then, I sensed a ripple in the seams around me. I felt you there. I think I even saw you, but I wasn’t sure because it happened so fast I could have mistaken it. But then a small, bright light of energy, the energy you sent to me, knocked me off my feet and I knew I had one chance.”

  “I wasn’t sure it would work,” I say, following along with her story as the pieces unfold for everyone in the room.

  She takes a swig and swallows. “But it did. I held onto it, and it guided me straight to you.”

  “I made Sanura take me further,” I tell her.

  “That was dangerous,” Jezi says. “Not that I’m not glad you did, because I am,” she quickly adds. “But you could have called on someone other than Cassie and found yourself in a whole world of problems.”

  “But she didn’t,” Gavin says as he comes up behind Cassie and puts his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. She leans her head to the side so his chin can move in beside her face.

  “I say we make a toast,” Weldon says as he pours Jezi a drink and hands it to her. Everyone grabs their drinks and lifts them in the air, waiting for Weldon. “To us… may the God and Goddess look down on this moment and witness the awesomeness that it our tiny clique. We will never be separated. Never be torn apart. And never ever be subjected to another moment of a mopey-ass Gramm brother.”

  We all raises our glasses and cheer, the tendrils of laughter filling the room.

  Nothing should be able to touch this moment. It’s too real. Too full to ever be penetrated by the rest of the world. But nothing good ever lasts. I shouldn’t think it as I look to everyone I love, logging their smiles and letting my heart fill with more joy than it can contain, but I can’t stop the thought creeping in the back of my mind like a spider spinning its web. Their faces are replaced by Mack’s, and Sanura’s, and Mourdyn…

  It isn’t over yet.

  THE NEXT MORNING, DUTY HAS rolled in on the edges of the storm
clouds lining the sky. Our feet drag to the military ward after Mack calls us in before the sun has even woke up.

  We spent hours recounting memories with Cassie and catching her up on everything she missed. Passed a bottle around our small circle, filling our apartment with more laughter than its four walls could contain. And when sleep came and pulled us under its blanket, I slept more peacefully, more deeply, than I have in a very long time.

  But happiness, it seems, is as fleeting as time.

  Charlie has requested a sit down with his sons.

  “I want you to go with them to the Underground, Faye.” These are words I never thought I’d hear again. A sentence that struggles its way out of Mack’s mouth. “I’ve already assembled a small team to escort you,” he continues, his back to the blank screen with a small, fuzzy gray line of fuzz spread across the center.

  “What happened?” I ask as I move to the side to let one of the Elites carrying a box filled with folders by.

  Mack holds his hand out to the screen. “Well, as you can see, he’s decided to shut me down until I grant his request. I’ve asked him multiple times to allow me to send a team of Elites to the cavern where Mourdyn was kept and into Clara’s office so we can search for any kind of clues that might lead us to Mourdyn’s whereabouts, or at least to what his plans are now that he’s awake, but he refuses to let me in unless I send the lot of you down to do the work for me.”

  I catch a smirk from Weldon out the corner of my eye. He enjoys watching his brother’s carefully crafted world unfold piece by piece, exposing the cracks in the fault of taking on too much too fast without asking for help.

  “We can’t afford to lose this relationship,” Mack continues, a small degree of desperation in his tone hidden quickly by a cough. “I’ll be damned if I let him think he can do otherwise. The Divine will hand me my ass for this, which is why I need you to get down there and get things squared away before word of this reaches outside this room.”

  His hair is standing on end. His movements are jerky and detached, like his thoughts can’t catch up fast enough with what his brain is telling him to do. I can tell he isn’t trying to deny the severity of the situation, but he also isn’t taking it very well.