Endlessly

Besides, surely anyone trying to spy on me and get in my good graces wouldn’t leave so many sopping wet towels on the carpet.

No, I trusted Arianna. Arianna, Lend, David, and Raquel. I sighed heavily, then pulled out my phone to check the time. I was still a couple minutes early. I’d missed three calls from Lend and had a new text from Carlee, my one normal friend. I’d kill to go get a pedicure with her today and debate the merits of the boys’ basketball team versus the soccer team. While I personally found shape-shifting artists superior in all ways, I did admire soccer player legs.

Alas. My fingers were too cold to type anyway. Ignoring the text, I hit dial and Lend picked up on the first ring.

“I need you to come pick me up after I talk to Raquel,” I said. “And I need to move out of the diner apartment.”

“Done and done. I was going to make you come to my dad’s place tonight anyway. And I assume you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“As much as I know.” My voice was as glum as I felt. Because, as usual, as much as I knew wasn’t nearly enough. At least Raquel would have some answers for me.

Thirty minutes later my knees were bouncing uncontrollably. Partly from nerves—where was she?—but mostly because I was on vanilla Coke number four. Caffeine and I had always been a bad combination, now made worse by the nervous energy I could feel constantly flowing through me from the part of Uber-vamp’s soul I’d taken when he attacked me on Halloween.

I checked my phone every thirty seconds, but I hadn’t missed any calls and there were no new texts from David. Did I get the café wrong? This was the one we met at last October. But maybe she was thinking of another place? I needed her to tell me everything was fine.

The door chimed, and I looked up into Raquel’s face. “Thank goodness!” I said, almost knocking my glass over as I stood up.

She rushed over to me. “Evie, I’m so sorry. This is the only chance I’ve had to get away, and—” The door chimed again, and Raquel watched as two men in itchy-looking wool coats walked in and stared at the menu. She turned back to me, her face smooth. “Sit down, please.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She sat across from me and put her hands up on the table, crossing and uncrossing her fingers like she couldn’t get them to fit together quite right.

“What’s going on? Who is this Anne-Whatever Whatever woman? Why is IPCA contacting me through someone other than you?”

Raquel took a deep breath. “I’m here to ask you to come back to IPCA in a formal capacity.”

“You’re what?”

“It’s been determined that this experiment”—she closed her eyes briefly at that word, then quickly opened them and moved on—“isn’t effective. You’re being asked to return to your position at the Center. With full employee rights and salary, of course. They will also grant you conditional clemency for rule violations.”

I sat back, stunned. “You’re the one who helped me get out in the first place. You know I can’t—I won’t—go back! Besides, there’s no point. I won’t travel with a faerie, which makes me pretty much worthless. And even if I was willing to work with faeries, there’s no way I’d go back to living in the Center! What are they thinking?”

She bit her lip. It was then that I realized she hadn’t uttered a single sigh. Weird, and very un-Raquel. “Evie, I really think you should consider this offer. Or at least be open to negotiating the terms of your employment.” She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward. “Please tell me you will consider it.”

“What the bleep are you smoking? I—”

Her eyes flashed, her brows knit together, and she leaned even farther forward, shaking her head in an almost imperceptible motion. “Evie! Please. Tell me you will consider this.”

Something was very wrong here. I trusted Raquel, I knew I could. “I—yeah, sure. I’ll consider it.”

She didn’t look relieved; if anything, she looked more agitated than ever. “Thank you. I will give you a couple of days to think things over.” She reached out and took one of my hands in hers, squeezing it way too tight.

“Maybe switch to decaf,” I muttered, scowling. “Now can you tell me what’s going on? And what about the town, are the para—”

“Thank you, yes, I must be going.” She stood up, smoothing out her charcoal-gray skirt. “I’ll speak with you at the end of the week when we’ve finished making the arrangements.”

“I didn’t say— Raquel!” I stood up as she turned on her heel and marched out.

Lend tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, frowning thoughtfully. “So, we know for sure Nona is keeping tabs on you. But she’s told us before she wants you to be safe.”

“Still, creepy. She’s having me followed by her little seal cronies. And what about Reth?”

“Are you sure it was Reth?”

I traced my finger through the condensation on the window, watching the leafless trees fly by. There wasn’t any snow out, which just made everything dead and flat and cold and brown.

I hate brown.

“Pretty sure. We know they’re in contact. But even if it isn’t him specifically, it’s a faerie.”

“Alright. No more Nona. You can stay with my dad more permanently than we had planned. Plus, it’s safer there if IPCA decides to come knocking with their pet faeries.”

“Too bad your dad is my legal guardian. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any way to find me through him.” My stomach dropped. “Oh my gosh, Lend. They can find him if they look, which means they’ll know that he’s not dead, either.” David had faked his own death almost twenty years before when he was an employee of the American Paranormal Containment Agency. Falling in love with a water elemental wasn’t exactly conducive to working for them anymore.

Lend shrugged dismissively, resting his right hand on my knee. “My dad’s been doing this a long time, Ev. He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. I’m just pissed Raquel is still IPCA’s lapdog and didn’t tell you what was really going on.”

I scowled, wiping away the hearts I’d traced along the window. “It wasn’t like that. Something was up—something weird. She’s definitely not acting like herself. I think she’s scared about something, or … I don’t know. It was like she couldn’t tell me anything. Maybe she’s trying to protect me by bringing me back in. Remember I told you I read all their documents about elemental paranormals going missing?”

He nodded grudgingly. “We still haven’t heard from my mom in months. But she usually doesn’t come out in winter anyway because of the ice.”

“It could be connected. Nona’s getting weirder by the day; now she’s having me followed. There could be something going on that Raquel knows about.”

“Why didn’t she tell you what it is, then?”

“I don’t know. But Raquel has my back. Always.”

“I have your back.”

I smiled and wove my hand through his elbow, leaning over to put my head on his shoulder. “I know.”

“Good. That settled, I hereby declare a moratorium on any and all talk of IPCA or paranormals stalking you.”

“Ooh, breaking out the fancy language. Why?”

“Because today is about fun.”

“I like fun days!”

“This is a special one.”

“It is?” Had I forgotten some sort of anniversary?

His face split into a sly grin. “It’s your birthday.”

“No, it’s not,” I answered, confused. “I mean, I guess it could be, but since we didn’t know when it was for sure we always said I was a year older on New Year’s.”

“Ah, but when was the last time you checked your birth certificate?”