by Alyssa Day
Noel turned a particularly virulent shade of purple, but he tried to bluff his way out of it. "Like she would believe a worthless loser like you."
"I guess you can take your chances. Of course, from what Missy has had to say, there’ve been enough incidents in the past that Mrs. Noel might believe me a lot more than you think." She smiled, showing all of her teeth and enjoying every second of this. Probably she should be more worried that Monkey or the other Dark Angels would come back, but Scott had mentioned time and time again that one of the rules was they could never go back to a place after law enforcement came after them there.
Was she taking a risk to believe that was still true? Would Snake’s desperate obsession with her force Monkey to keep searching and probably come back here tonight? Probably, but what the heck. Maybe it would be better to confront them tonight and get it over with, her suddenly fatalistic mind told her.
She returned her attention to her sorry excuse for a boss, but he was still gaping at her.
Noel opened his mouth, but nothing but strangled noises came out. He finally got himself under control, reached under the bar, grabbed an envelope, and slapped it into her outstretched hand. "Fine. But Missy called in sick, and when she called she told me she was sure you'd be happy to pick up the slack, since she did the same for you when you had the flu."
Eva closed her eyes and mentally groaned. It was true. Missy had picked up the slack, and she’d brought a tureen of homemade chicken noodle soup to Eva's little apartment, too. If Eva walked out now, Noel was likely to fire Missy out of petty spite, and Eva knew Missy needed the job. She and Bryce were saving up to buy a house so they could start a family. Eva wouldn't have her friend get hurt on her account.
"All right," she snapped, clearly surprising Noel. "I'll do it. But this is my last night. You pay me in advance for the hours, and I take all tips home with me. You don't put your slimy hands on any of them."
One of Noel’s nasty habits was to try to make them give him their tips so he could "fairly distribute them." What it really meant, they'd all discovered, was that he was stealing a percentage of their money.
Unfortunately, it was one of those things that she’d had to let slide, because jobs in Early were few and far between, unless you wanted to go work in the copper mine. And, of course, Eva couldn't easily find cash-paying businesses these days.
"Fine." Noel opened the cash register to get some more cash and thrust it at Eva.
"Satisfied? I’m only letting you stay because I have nobody else, and it's a Saturday night," he told her, always determined to get the final word.
She just shrugged. She didn't care about Noel's petty tactics, or his final words, either. She was trying to figure out what her own final words would be.
Probably: "Scott! Please don't shove that ceremonial dagger into my heart!"
The fact that she could still muster up some humor, even dark, dark humor, was oddly reassuring. It meant she must have some hope.
Her thoughts went to Flynn. Yes. She did have hope.
What a dangerous thing.
Eva put her money in her pocket and then set to work. Broken chairs or no broken chairs, the Cantina was going to fill up. It was Saturday night, after all. She spent a relatively peaceful two or three hours pouring drinks and chatting with customers. Anytime she caught Noel looking at her she bared her teeth at him, and he hurriedly looked away. Okay, so it might be a petty kind of revenge, but the important thing was she’d stood up for herself.
She’s faced down a bully, and it had felt fantastic. Almost like she was beginning to remember the real Eva – the Eva she'd been before Scott destroyed her life.
On the other hand, now he was about to destroy her life in an entirely different way.
No. No, she wasn't going to let him. She was going to help rescue those girls, and she’d trust herself and Flynn and his odd group of allies to get themselves and the girls away from anything that an actual demon might have in mind for them.
She shuddered at the thought and then went back to pouring draft beers for Noel's wife's cousin Becky, who’d come in to help.
Becky leaned in. "I hear you let Noel have what's what," she said, grinning.
"Finally," Eva said. "I hope it doesn't cause you any trouble."
"Nah. My cousin only puts up with him because his daddy's really, really rich, and Noel’s the only child. One day he's going to inherit everything, and Tina likes the idea of having some money for a change. But she's not above taking a broom to him once in a while when he gets out of hand."
Eva took a moment to enjoy the visual of some sturdy country woman going after Noel with a broom and she caught herself smiling. "As a matter of fact, there's something I’d like to tell you. This is my last night, so don't worry about me, but if you could maybe make sure that he's good to Missy, I'd appreciate it."
Becky's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean, don't worry about you? Has he been getting handsy with you?"
Eva said nothing, but her face must've given it away, because Becky narrowed her eyes and turned to scan the bar. She saw Noel across the room and started to take a step but then stopped. "Oh, no. That's too easy. I have a better idea. I'm calling Tina."
Eva started laughing. "Is it really wrong of me to say that I really, really hope I'm here to see it?"
About twenty minutes later, Eva was turned around with her back to the bar, rearranging bottles and switching out a full vodka for an empty, when the very air around her changed and grew charged. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck shivered to attention, and she knew.
Flynn had arrived.
She looked into the mirrored panels on the wall and directly into Flynn's beautiful ocean- blue eyes.
Damn, but she was gorgeous. He wasn't sure why he thought so, but he did. She wasn't someone he'd necessarily notice walking down the street, except for that incredible red hair. She wasn’t bold or brash, and she was too thin—too pale. But something about her – the force of her personality – infused her face with a quiet beauty.
Except when she smiled. When she smiled, she was vividly, gloriously radiant.
He’d found himself thinking about her all day long. Wanting to learn more about her. Wanting to feed her Atlantean delicacies until she lost that thin, haunted look. Wanting to show her the wonders of his home.
He even wanted her to meet his brothers and their new wives. Of course, he needed to meet their new wives, too. They could have a great big family dinner and introduce everybody to everybody and--
Family dinner? Was he already thinking of her as his family?
Talk about ridiculously premature.
And yet . . .
She looked up and met his gaze in the mirror, and she smiled. Just for a moment, she smiled at him. A private smile, only for him. A warm smile that held welcome. That said she was glad to see him. But it only lasted for a heartbeat, and then the realization of what they were going to be walking into hit both of them all over again.
Eva whirled around. "Did you –"
Flynn held up a hand to stop her from saying anything in public. "No luck yet."
Her shoulders slumped, and Flynn again found himself wanting to pick her up and carry her out of there. Carry her far away from any danger.
But first, they had to find and rescue those girls. Damn the Dark Angels. Flynn wished they’d all fall into a pit and burn in hell.
Eva put her elbows on the bar and leaned toward Flynn. "I think we should –"
The front door slammed open so hard that the glass in the little window shattered. Flynn spun around and reached behind his head for the hilt of the sword that wasn’t there. It was still in its sheath on his bike.
Damn. He had his knives, but he suddenly, urgently wanted every weapon in his possession within reach so he could protect Eva from… Three women in cotton dresses?
Was one of them carrying a broom? Maybe she was the cleaning stuff?
What was happening?
"Noel!" The biggest o
f the three bellowed. Although, to be fair, they were all three big. At least six feet tall each, they all looked sturdy enough to pick up a cow. Or, at the very least, to deal with Noel the scumbag.
Flynn, Eva, and everybody else in the bar watched as the woman stomped over to Noel and poked him in the chest with the broom handle.
"I hear you're up to it again," she screamed, in a voice that surely could be heard all the way to Atlantis. "I warned you. I warned you what I’d do."
"Now, honey," Noel began ingratiatingly, cringing away from the broom.
"Don't you honey me." Mrs. Noel, for that’s who she must be, looked around the bar and then pointed her broom handle in a sort of sweeping way that encompassed them all.
"Okay, you're done. Bar’s closed. Get out."
There was one or two mumbles of disagreement, but they quickly died out when the angry woman fixed her stare on any dissenters.
"Give me your wallet," she ordered Noel, who hastily complied. Then she stomped across the bar toward Eva.
Flynn moved to stand between the two women, but Eva’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“I’ve got this,” she said, gently but firmly.
When Mrs. Noel reached the bar, she looked Eva up and down. "Are you Eva?"
Eva nodded. "I am, but you don't have to worry. I quit I was just filling in tonight because Missy’s sick."
The woman frowned. "I was worried about you, honey. I want to apologize for that perverted little jackass. He swore he’d stopped bothering the help. If I'd known sooner, I’d have done something about it."
She opened Noel’s wallet, took out all the cash inside, and thrust it at Eva. "It's not much. Maybe a thousand bucks. And if you want to sue him, I totally understand. I'll even testify about the crap he pulled in the past."
Eva hesitated, but then she took the money and nodded at Noel's wife. "I won't be suing. I'm moving on. But maybe, on my behalf, you could make sure he never does this to anybody again."
"Oh, that won't be a problem," Mrs. Noel said grimly. "Noel is out of the bar business now. I'm taking over the Cantina. Noel is gonna be a farmer from here on out."
Flynn looked across the room to see how Noel was taking this news, and he was unsurprised to see the asshole trying to sneak out the door.
Too bad for Noel that it was nearly impossible to sneak out of a door when it was guarded by two more Amazons the size of his wife. They each grabbed one of his arms and held on tight. Noel wasn't going anywhere except back to the farm.
Flynn laughed for the first time in a long, frustrating day.
Noel’s wife glared at him. "What are you laughing about?"
Flynn smiled at her, keeping an eye on the broomstick. There were certain parts of his anatomy he preferred to protect. "I just love it when a good woman happens to a bad man, ma'am. And you seem to be a very good woman."
She sniffed at him but seemed placated, which meant that she didn’t decide to ram her broomstick into his balls, which was good. She nodded to Eva, who nodded back, and then Mrs. Noel stormed across the room, grabbed her wayward husband by the ear, and dragged him out of the bar. They stopped at the doorway, and she looked back.
"I said, bar’s closed. Everybody out. Eva, do me the favor of locking up and just drop the keys back through the mail slot, if you would?"
Flynn thought it said something about the woman's judgment –which had obviously improved in the years since she’d married Noel – that she trusted Eva to close up the bar. But clearly she did, and just as clearly Eva deserved that trust.
"Yes, I will. Thank you," Eva added, glancing at Noel and then back at his wife. "Thank you."
The woman nodded, took a firmer grip on her husband's ear, and the four of them left the bar.
"I’m kind of glad I got here in time to see that," Flynn admitted. "But now that you're off duty, how about we go get some dinner? I've been driving all over this corner of the state, and I'm starving."
"I could eat," she said. Then, with brisk efficiency and a bit of help from Flynn, they got the bar closed up in no time. Just as they were walking out the door, however, Eva saw an older woman walking by on the sidewalk.
"Mrs. Arnold? Will you please do me a favor, ma’am?"
Mrs. Arnold, who looked to be in her sixties, not that Flynn was all that good at judging human ages, was walking a fluffy dog on a pink sparkly leash. She looked over at Eva and smiled.
"Oh, hello, dear. I haven't seen you since I got my Muffin here from the shelter. Are you still volunteering there and helping out?"
"I am," Eva said, but Flynn saw a flash of pain cross her face. "In fact, though, I have to leave town for a while, and I'm just closing up the bar for Noel. Will you please do me a favor and look inside and verify that everything looks the way it should before I lock up? I don't mean to be paranoid, but you know Noel…"
Mrs. Arnold nodded sharply. "I most certainly do." Without another word she walked in the bar and looked around a bit. When she came back out, Eva handed her a zippered bag.
"This is the night deposit, or what there is of it, since we closed early. Will you also verify that there's money in it, and drop it at the bank for me? Just in case, you know."
Mrs. Arnold patted Eva's arm. Then she glanced curiously at Flynn but evidently her manners were too good for her to ask any questions. "Of course I will. You take care, and I hope you come back soon. I know Mrs. M will be lost without you."
Flynn locked the door, and Eva dropped the keys back through the old-fashioned mail slot. As they watch Mrs. Arnold and Muffin head off toward the bank on the corner, Flynn looked a question at Eva.
"She's the mayor. Before that, she was sheriff for ten years. The town certainly would be lot better off with her still as sheriff, rather one of Noel's stupid family members. There’s nobody more reputable in town, just in case Noel’s wife has a change of heart about me later."
"Makes sense. Where to for dinner?" They started walking toward the little parking lot for Eva’s car, but the sound of an approaching motorcycle made her flinch.
Flynn turned to look and immediately moved to block Eva with his body.
"It's the monkey man," he said tersely. “We need to get you to your car, if they don’t already have someone flanking us. Stay close to me. I don't know what he wants, but it can't be anything good."
The gang member, though, stopped his bike at a safe dozen paces away. Apparently he did not have fond memories of Flynn from the previous night.
"Eva, Snake is coming for you," Monkey called out. “You should just come with me now and make it easy on everybody."
"You should leave now, while you still have legs," Flynn said, deadly calm.
Monkey flinched but stood his ground. Clearly he was more afraid of Snake than he was of Flynn. He bent and reached down into a pocket on his pants leg that was too small to hold a gun—Flynn was paying very close attention--and pulled out a telephone. He tossed it at Flynn, who snatched it out of the air.
"That's a burner phone. It only has one number on it, and there's only one number that's gonna call it. Snake’s gonna call you, pretty Eva. He wants to meet up."
With that, he gunned his bike and took off.
“And we’re off,” Eva said lightly, her eyes more haunted than ever. “I guess I found out what else could go wrong.”
8
Eva suddenly wasn't very hungry anymore, but she knew she needed food. She'd eaten almost nothing all day. She needed to keep her strength up, if she were going to have any hope of outwitting Scott – Snake – and his demonic powers.
She glanced over at the Atlantean warrior in the passenger seat of her car. "Are you okay if we just drive through someplace? I don't really feel like being around people right now. I know a place out in the desert, not very far, where we could eat and have some peace and quiet while we figure out what we’re doing."
"Yes, I think that would be great. Do you want…" He sighed and looked out the window, his sentence trailing off.
"Do I want what?"
"Do you want me to get Griffin to join us, so we can talk out the plans?"
"No." After she blurted out the word, she felt like she had to explain. She wasn't sure how to explain, though. She just knew she wanted time alone with Flynn, time to relax and feel safe before whatever was going to happen happened. The mage wasn’t the type of person who was restful to be around.
"I just feel like enjoying some peace and quiet before my human sacrifice," she said, a weak attempt at a joke.
"Not funny," Flynn growled. He reached across the seat, took her hand, squeezed it once, and then let go so she could put it back on the steering wheel.
"I'm not going to let him hurt you," he said, and his words had the ring of a vow. Eva suddenly felt as if something almost sacred had passed between them in the dimly lit, intimate, cave-like space inside the speeding car.
Cave. Cave-like space. What was…
Before she could follow the thought to its end, though, she arrived at the drive-through restaurant and lost her train of thought. She gave their orders of burgers, fries, and milkshakes – hey, the condemned deserved a good last meal, to heck with the calories – and then headed out toward the desert.
She loved it out here. The peace and the open space. She loved the mountains, too, and the ocean. Anywhere in nature, preferably with a dog or five by her side, and she would be happy hiking all day long. She hadn’t had much time for it lately, what with always being on the run and trying to make enough money to stay ahead of the Dark Angels in the next place Snake chased her down.
Maybe, if she survived this, she'd make a point to go hiking at least once a week.
Flynn was quiet on the drive, glancing at her every once in a while but saying nothing. Instead of being tense, the silence between them felt almost peaceful, even though the low hum of constant sexual tension between them never went away, in spite of the danger they were in. She felt as if she could find him in a dark room, even if she were blindfolded, by feeling her way along the electric current that sparkled and snapped between them.
